Conservapedia, A Kangaroo & Alberto Gonzales
- March 14th, 2007 /
Where do kangaroos come from? According to Wikipedia, they come from the prehistoric kangaroo genera Procoptodon, Sthenurus, Propleopus and Simosthenurus. According to Conservapedia, “the origins theory model used by creation scientists, modern kangaroos, like all modern animals, originated in the Middle East and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah’s Ark prior to the Great Flood.”
I learned of Conservapedia from a story I heard on NPR (full disclosure: I used NPR’s kangaroo example), and I was bothered by the interview Robert Siegel conducted with Conservapedia’s founder, Andy Schlafly. Although I can get pretty fired-up at times, for the most part I consider myself a Moderate, but stories like this tilt me Left. The problem I have with this and every other case of partisanship is that instead of resolving the issue, it’s made it worse.
Wikipedia is a beautiful thing. It’s a natural ecosystem written and edited by its users, and that last bit there is vitally important. Its users control the content, so if a population of conservative users found entries in Wikipedia to contain a liberal bias, why didn’t they just add their own take on the matter? Why? Because that’s not how dinosaurs think. It’s very 1.0 to solve a problem with a problem.
A two party system is supposed to protect us by checking the other, but partisanship is hurting us. Don’t believe me? Just consider what’s happening with the dismissal of federal prosecutors right now. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said in an interview that mistakes were made and that he takes full responsibility for those mistakes, but that he would not resign. But if you don’t lose your job when something like this happens, what are the consequences for taking responsibility? Those are words and mean nothing.
This is a huge issue because federal prosecutors have the power at the state level to decline prosecution on issues raised by investigative committees. If I’m liberal, unreasonable or even far-fetched because I assume that Republicans are putting their own attorneys who will not prosecute matters like, say, campaign finance issues, then call me Liberal.
It’s a smoldering injustice, more like a cancer than a heart attack. Movements like Wikipedia are meant to heal the system, not break it.
- categories: All /
Mar 14, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Dear Mr. Killian: your blog entry is well-written and thoughtful. Sadly, it seems that the only action left to citizens is open revolt because we have had our vote stolen, our elected officials bought, our media converted to a facist-propaganda machine, and our justice system hijacked. International corporations rule the world not governments or the people and the corporations’ goal is to impoverish millions to make a global slave society. This is why conservatives want guns in their homes and want to live in gated communities with private security like the rich do in Brazil to protect themselves from the hordes of hungry people that will crowd the streets.