Over the weekend I had a dust-up on Facebook with someone who is part of the tin foil hat parade that comprises the Glenn Beck audience.
Since original thought is not the forte of the ‘tin foil hat brigade’ drawn to the fear-mongering aspects of the Fox News channel, I should not have been surprised to find that the detailed critique of the Obama administration he offered was lifted directly from a conservative blog.
Yes, that’s called plagiarism. But, somehow this effort by the dipstick on Facebook was actually worse.
When I was a senior in high school I skipped a sufficient amount of chorus classes to actually fail it. Although I had far more credits than were required for graduation, the failure of this one class would bring me below the semester minimum of credits and, conceivably, prevent me from graduation.
I pleaded for a passing grade from the chorus teacher and he thought perhaps a full report on the life and music of Johann Sebastian Bach was in order. Like any wiseass worth his salt, I went to the library and summarily copied the text about this 18th century composer from whatever encyclopedia was handy and presented my report a day or so later.
Unfortunately, the chorus teacher anticipated I would do precisely what I did and returned the paper to me with the citation of my source noted on the white space above my heading. Fortunately, the chorus teacher was probably just hassling me for missing so much of his class and gave me a passing grade for it.
Anyway, this is an example of plagiarism that you’d probably expect to occur in high school. It’s what 17 year-old dopes are prone to do.
The plagiarism from the automaton channeling the miasma of the far-right was worse. The plagiarist in this case a retired teacher with a Masters in Teaching.
Worse than this ethical lapse, the plagiarist never responded to my repudiation of his completely erroneous facts. He did what the tin foil hat brigade always does – ignore the true facts and continue to trot out the milieu of bullshit that oozes out of Glenn Beck’s thin, pursed lips.
We should all be prepared to have our facts challenged. Likewise, we should be sure they are facts in the first place. Although Glenn Beck doesn’t seem to invest much time in fact-checking – he is, after all, an entertainer – we should.
It’s been said that 80% of life is just showing up, but I think being a decent citizen involves more than just “being here”. You actually have to have a clue.
If you are watching Glenn Beck to see a grown man use a chalkboard or cry, fine. If you are watching him to obtain salient facts about history or politics, you may want to wear a helmet instead of that tin foil hat.
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