Misinformation Super Highway

"The rest of you go get the goods on Stan. His mom grounded him once for setting something on fire. Let's find out what that something was and then lie and say it was a puppy."

This quote from Eric Cartman of South Park has a lot of relevance to the debate currently going on in Wisconsin. I hear so many people attacking Scott Walker, calling him a dictator, accusing him of being the end of democracy, and resorting to plain, old, name calling, such as "douche" and other variations of that word. As much as many of these people probably do hope that Scott Walker ends democracy in Wisconsin, just so they can say, "I told you so" and have a legitimate reason for demonizing the governor, he is not a dictator, he is not working outside the bounds of a democratic society, and he is doing what he feels is best for the state of Wisconsin, which, although not the same as everyone's view, does not make him a douche. I don't care which side of the argument you are on, name calling and making lucrative accusations will not give you any credibility.

While on the topic of credibility, I have seen all kinds of statistics and outrageous claims spreading like wildfire across the Internet. There is an old saying, "If it's on TV, it must be true." This seems to be the case with the Internet now. People read something on Facebook, and rather than do a little research into the information before passing it on, they take it for gospel and repost it for the next sucker to believe and repost. I realize that it is tempting to post information that may benefit your side of a debate, but wouldn't you rather convince people to join your side because you have valid points, and not because they were hoodwinked into thinking your side was right? All I ask is that you spend a few minutes to check your facts before spreading false or half-true information all over the Worldwide Web.

I have one more point to make on this topic. Saying that a person or group of people is for or against something is not a valid argument. I have heard about firefighters and police supporting the protesters, as well as Green Bay Packers. As much as I love the Green Bay Packers, firefighters, and police, their support of something is not enough to convince me. That is no better than the argument during the 2008 election that people shouldn't vote for Obama because the Palestinian terrorist organization Hezbollah put their support behind him. People need to make up their own minds, not take a side because they are blindly following someone else who supports that argument.

Think about what you are saying, and even though you obviously agree with your side, please realize that the other side does, in fact, also have legitimate arguments, and be respectful of them. Mutual respect will accomplish more than name calling and spreading false information and half truths throughout the Misinformation Super Highway.

Introduction

My name is The Warnastud (nickname from the Marines), and I felt the need to create somewhere where I could rant, and others can learn from my genius.

I'll give you a little background information about me, so you can understand what qualifies me to give opinions on every subject. You can get most of this information from the "About Me" tab, but here goes anyway:

I was born in 1983 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I was raised just outside Green Bay. After high school, I joined the Marine Corps Reserve and became an infantryman. I was deployed from September 2004-March 2005 in Iraq (my rank was then lance corporal). I went to Niger to train some Nigerien soldiers in March of 2006 (my rank was then corporal). Meanwhile, I got a Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminology and Law Studies from Marquette University and worked as a bouncer at Brothers Bar & Grill in Milwaukee. I then transferred to a truck company in Erie, PA in August 2007 (then a sergeant), where I attended Mercyhurst College. While at Mercyhurst, I was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps, I gave a presentation on the structure and function of the Iraqi intelligence community under Saddam Hussein at the 2008 annual conference of the International Intelligence History Association (IIHA) in Reinbek, Germany, did a competitive and market intelligence internship with Dräger Safety AG & Co. KGaA in Lübeck, Germany, and am currently doing a marketing internship with Draeger Safety Inc. Although Draeger Safety Inc. is located in Pittsburgh, I work from home in Wisconsin. I am a thesis defense away from a Master of Science in Applied Intelligence from Mercyhurst College. My thesis compares and contrasts how intelligence agencies cooperate and compete with one another under democracies and dictatorships.

All of this qualifies me as an expert on nothing. Well, I guess the IIHA thought I qualified as an expert on the Iraqi intelligence community. Enough to fly me to Germany and put me up in a hotel, just so I could give a 45 minute speech and answer 15 minutes of questions at their conference anyway. But anyway, besides the fact that I may not be an expert on every subject, I, and pretty much every standardized test I have ever taken, consider myself to be smarter than about 97% of the population, and more reasonable than 99% of the population. Therefore, most things I write in this blog will probably be correct.