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Monday, August 31, 2009

Urban Legends: Snopes is a Reliable Source - NOT!

Many people use Snopes.com to check on stories that sound fishy, believing the website to be authoritative. It ain't! as the story below shows. It's run by a liberal couple who often don't check their sources. Now one can be liberal and honest, but if you have an agenda and don't investigate a story, that's just plain sloppy. Who can you trust? Hard to say. Just use these so-called urban legend sites with caution. They may know less about the matter than you do.

And in case you're curious about the site name, the Snopes dynasty was the creation of William Faulner who wrote three novels centering around the pernicious white, southern laboring family who had "little regard for southern tradition, heritage, or lineage. The Snopes, often regarded as Faulkner’s metaphor for the rising 'redneck' middle class in the South, more interested in avaricious commercial gain than honor or pride." Read more about Faulkner here if you're interested.

Snopes Uncovered

8 comments:

  1. Is "liberal" a curse word or a slant against one?

    What have conservatives done to make history? Did they make great steps towards civil rights?

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  2. I'm not sure what you mean by a "slant against one." Did you mean to say "slur?"

    When I use the term liberal or liberalism I define it as Russell Kirk and Malcolm Muggeridge did. It is the ideology that man by his own power can create a utopia on earth through continuous change and "progress." In discussing Muggeridge's theory of liberalism, Kirk states, "The fundamental error of liberalism is its false gospel of automatic and ineluctable progress.... This fallacy grew out of infatuation with Darwin's theory of natural selection." Many liberals are secular humanists and practical atheists although they may profess religion.

    Muggeridge himself says, "The enthronement of the gospel of progress necessarily required the final discrediting of the gospel of Christ, and the destruction of the whole edifice of ethics, law, culture, human relationships and human behaviour constructed upon it." And that, Anonymous, is modern liberalism embraced by abortionists, pornographers,gay activists, many of the Hollywood new age elite, etc.

    Liberals preach change and hope while they throw out the natural law, the wisdom of the ancients, etc. Novelty is their mantra even when it involves discarding proven ancient truths in favor of social experiments. And so they embrace same-sex "marriage," suicide, euthanasia, etc. Even the pagans, Hippocrates and Aristotle would have condemned modern liberalism.

    Conservatives respect the wisdom of the past and recognize that man is flawed and easily tempted to hubris. They are reluctant to support change for its own sake, but would rather tread lightly and move cautiously. In general they believe in God and the natural law.

    Decide for yourself whether "liberal" is a curse word.

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  3. I was wondering about Snopes. Like who are these people and why should I believe everything they say is true or not. Thanks for the information.

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  4. Do you have any suggestions for finding fact from fiction? It's always best to have references when disputing facts.

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  5. There are a number of urban legend sites. I've visited several: scambusters, truth or fiction, urban legends, etc. Most don't give you any background on who's running the site which I think makes it difficult to assess how accurate they are.

    My number one rule is my personal radar. If it sounds funny or it can't be backed up and checked out then I won't pass it on. The recent email about the town hall in Montana, for example, sounds plausible, but the person who ostensibly wrote it signed only a first name. That immediately makes it uncheckable. I won't pass those kinds of things on even if I think there's a good chance they're true.

    If you value your credibility and you can't check an item's validity, be suspect.

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  6. Actually the really big steps in civil rights were all made by conservatives. It is an illusion that somehow the 1964 Civil Rights Act was the big step forward. That's the propaganda of the left -- the reality is the hard work starting with Lincoln and the work of Eisenhower and the Republicans which pioneered all the civil rights when the Democrats were still wearing pointing hats and burning crosses. Give me a break!

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  7. I think Snopes has done a fine job exposing outrageous lies spun by the Far Right in it's 10 month-long hissy fit attempting to discredit a duly elected president.

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  8. What have conservatives done for civil rights? How about freeing the slaves..

    I also love the concept of someone who believes this article and immediately turns against snopes. Perhaps you should evaluate this article with the same scrutiny that you would snopes. Truthorfiction praises snopes, and they don't differ very much on the issues they report on..

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