{"id":518,"date":"2007-11-30T09:47:17","date_gmt":"2007-11-30T13:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=518"},"modified":"2007-11-30T09:47:17","modified_gmt":"2007-11-30T13:47:17","slug":"fact-value","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=518","title":{"rendered":"Fact value"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t know who comes up with titles for op-ed pieces. I hear sometimes it isn’t the author. I won’t therefore begrudge the author of “the case for facing facts”<\/a> for having picked such a silly title. Imagine someone writing the case for ignoring facts. I can imagine that, actually. And that’s a sad thing. <\/p>\n

Anyway, he makes what one might call the “there are bad arguments on both sides” or the “David Broder” argument:<\/p>\n

>The problem is one that I have seen cripple our political life again and again and that seems to grow steadily worse. Liberals and conservatives are equally guilty<\/strong>. Neither side wants to face facts<\/strong> that don’t fit its case. <\/p>\n

>Consider abortion. Too many pro-lifers and pro-choicers seem determined to ignore the other fellows’ points <\/strong>as they cling to their own rigid positions. And abortion is just one example. <\/p>\n

The silly thing about this silly piece (which, by the way, cites no facts that need to be “faced”, but that’s another matter), is that the abortion case isn’t about facts at all–it’s about the value of facts. No one disagrees, for instance, that women can get pregnant, and for one reason or another, don’t want to carry the baby to term. The question is what to do about it. It’s an “ought” question, not an “is” one. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t know who comes up with titles for op-ed pieces. I hear sometimes it isn’t the author. I won’t therefore begrudge the author of “the case for facing facts” for having picked such a silly title. Imagine someone writing the case for ignoring facts. I can imagine that, actually. And that’s a sad thing. … Continue reading Fact value<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-category-mistake","category-general","category-op-ed-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}