Refudiation

On Sundays, as we wait for Reds pregame to start, my dad, grandmother and I often watch Fareed Zakariah and GPS on CNN. It's one of the few things we can watch on cable that doesn't seem to propagandize or make us less intelligent. He has on interesting guests with divergent points of view, and he asks very insightful questions. This past Sunday, he started his show by talking about the debate over the proposed Muslim cultural center.

"I can't believe they want to build a Mosque at Ground Zero," Nana said.

I replied that during the commercial break, I'd refute her.

"What did she say? Did she say that she'd refute me?"

(I certainly didn't say I'd refudiate her.)

But GPS, instead of going straight to commercial, went to its first two guests: former secretaries of the treasury Robert Rubin and Paul O'Neill. They discussed how difficult and complex economic recovery is, and while they disagreed what the correct course of action should be, there seemed to be some common ground. By the time the show went to commercial break, my dad said, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Nana was asleep in her chair. Even if she'd been awake, I would have let it go.

I see fear and ignorance and emotion as the biggest enemies to progress. Because when we leave those things out of the discussion, the right answer seems clearer. I may be biased, but I believe truth has a liberal slant.