Scalia and the MSM – A Case of Mismatch
10th December 2015
Scalia made the very reasonable suggestion that perhaps it isn’t doing black students any favors by admitting them to a school on the basis of their skin color rather than their qualifications, and the Usual Suspects in the Drive-By Media had the expected meltdown.
This commentary demonstrates mismatch of a kind — the mismatch between a serious Supreme Justice and a press corps too lazy, too ideologically left-wing, and/or too politically correct to engage an argument that, though controversial, is well-rooted in research and legal scholarship.
More broadly, we see an example of a dangerous tendency. Too often nowadays, arguments and assertions of fact are judged by whether they are “offensive,” not by whether they are valid or true. A joke can be judged by its offensiveness (in addition to its humor). However, arguments should be judged only by whether they are valid and assertions of fact only by whether they are true.