Ramblings: The Full Story

We’ve all done it: read a news headline or maybe even the first paragraph, and immediately assumed it tells the entire story. We got angry, seethed inwardly then raged publicly. Maybe we shared the story on Facebook or Twitter and made clear our feelings. Within an hour you’ve got a hundred comments about the appalling actions or words of some group or individual.

Then we discover the entire story behind that snippet we read. Sometimes the full story is just as bad, but more often than not it has been blown hopelessly out of proportion, or even turned completely on its head. Unfortunately its too late now to fix things, and the mob you created by sharing the headline cannot be dispersed.

And so it will continue to be spread; the mob growing in both size and power. That exaggerated or falsified story presented by the misleading headline will be used as ammunition for days, weeks, even months.

I saw the headlines recently telling us all how the UK government had voted against animal rights and suggesting they are unable to experience pain or emotion. I didn’t read the full story and so commented on several other stories about how utterly disgusting that decision was.

And then of course I saw the truth behind it. The UK government voted against incorporating the EU bill of animal rights into UK law after Brexit, because pretty much everything laid out in that bill is already written into our own animal rights laws. So all the government had actually voted against was having two practically identical pieces of legislation that serve the same purpose.

Obviously this doesn’t mean that our Tory government isn’t just a bunch of selfish, ignorant, depraved, elitist, murderous scumbags that make the Daleks from Doctor Who look like fucking saints. I just prefer to despise them for genuine reasons, not made-up left-wing propaganda.

There is a brilliant video here, which sums it up superbly.

Just remember; before giving your opinions or views on a story, make sure you read the fucking story.

Know your shit; stop talking shit.

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