In the information age, misinformation is too often traded as a counterfeit currency in our marketplace of ideas.
The recent Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh non-scandelettes have proven this in spades. But disingenuous attacks on individual public figures are hardly the only kind of falsehood you'll find in the partisan press. Today's merchants of disinformation also trade frequently in false stereotypes of large groups of Americans, especially those who even slightly oppose abortion.
Those of you who are pro-life may not know this but despite whatever you may think, all of you are actually overweight, hyper-religious, uneducated, spouse-beating, rural, white males. Or at least that's what you are in the minds of the fanatically pro-choice left.
That false stereotype died a terrible death in at least one person's mind recently when pro-choice activist Eleanor Bader "infiltrated" the National Right to Life Committee's annual convention. Much to her surprise, the media's reportage on the pro-life movement was simply incorrect. Luckily for the public discourse, pro-life writer Samantha Singson managed to attend and report Bader's shocked findings:
A petite, animated, engaging, articulate woman in her late 40s, Bader's opening salvo to the crowd was, "People! This is not a marginal group of crazies!"
Describing her "infiltration" of the NRLC meetings, Bader sounded like a mischievous school girl relishing her latest uncaught misdeed. Bader spoke of how she had registered for the convention under a false name to observe the proceedings, almost as if the NRLC convention was a National Geographic episode and the pro-life participants in attendance were some new and exotic species whose habits and interactions had to be studied and picked apart. [...]
Believing in the stereotype of a movement dominated by old white men and subscribed to by marginalized, zealous, religiously motivated, uneducated "church ladies," Bader couldn't quite keep the surprise out of her voice when she reported that those at the NRLC Convention were "smart, educated, beautiful and articulate."
In Bader's own words, "This just isn't what you always heard the 'anti-choicers' were like."
Bader also expressed amazement at the level of organization and professionalism exhibited by the NRLC convention hosts, its speakers and its participants. Passing around the 100-page convention program for the audience to look at, Bader pointed out the number of sponsors, as well as the quality and the variety of topics that were being addressed.
Do read the rest. It's nice seeing once again that liberals are hardly exempt from the Oliver Wendell Holmes quote they love applying to conservatives: Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.
