There is a lot of misinformation out there, not least of which concerns how legislation and public policy are developed.  Much of the misinformation on a given topic is purposeful in nature and partisan in origin, but the way it seems to reproduce itself and move virally throughout society's subconscious should be concerning.  Psychiatrists, Psychologists, and especially marketers are already aware of how to manipulate a message to achieve whatever goal has been set out and is especially prominent in political discourse.

We've all been there.  We've heard something on the radio or overheard someone talking about something and extrapolated what we thought we heard, without further research, then proceeded tell someone else only to find out later everything we thought we knew was complete garbage.  It happens.  It's OK though because that's normal and everyone makes mistakes and errors in judgment.  The difference between people becomes apparent when one type of person recognizes their error and corrects it, while if you're the other type of person who is blissful in their ignorance and has never thought about what they were saying or have said in the past, or even bothered to correct themselves, it means your genes are polluting the overall gene pool.

When it comes to political discourse it's always been messy, but it has never stooped to the level it currently sits at.  I'm not talking about rhetoric, I'm talking about one thing happening and then being denied ever having happened for political gain.  As an example, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, has used the words terrorism and war dozens of times in speeches ranging from his Nobel Peace Prize speech to his speech at West Point.  That being said, the partisan news machine has consistently criticized President Obama for not using that particular vocabulary.  Obviously this isn't true, however here's the rub, it doesn't actually matter if it's true because it has permeated the national discourse in large part because repetition works and a lot of people are intellectually lazy.  You could also make an argument that certain businesses and "news" organizations make more money if they help develop controversy, but we'll talk about that another time.

You may indeed ask yourself WTF?  Why do items that are clearly false continue to make the rounds from the water cooler to the news cycle?  I guess you have to ask yourself, do I believe things that aren't true?