I have been discussing a number of issues with a friend of mine. We agree on quite a few things, but he is much too extreme for me on a lot of issues. Whenever his opinion is extreme, whenever I think it is, I tell him about it. He will get a little huffy, but nothing serious. We get along because he makes me think, and I would like to think that I make him think.

So, he was talking about a radio show called Democracy Now, sort of urging me to listen to it. I really would like to... well, would like to have the time to, but I tell him I won't because they are too extreme for me. He doesn't think they are. It's not as plain as that. I say they are biased, which throws him into a tizzy, because he shoots back that I would rather watch Rush or Fox News. I think they are biased because they restrict their content. They will not report anything that would counter their views on any issue. He says they report only the truth, but in my opinion they will only report those truths that support their agenda.

This got me thinking, and I had to look up On Liberty again. There are some passages that are clearly relevant.

There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right.

He says that there is a difference between;

1. Someone asserting the truth of a statement for the purpose of barring any argument to the contrary.

2. Someone asserting the truth of a statement because it has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and still holds true.

Nobody can attest to being right about a statement or opinion unless they allow argument. People disregard such notions all the time, simply because it is too hard to argue. I am always using religion as an example, because attesting to a higher power without any tangible proof whatsoever is a glaring example, and because people use it all the time to support other notions that have nothing at all to do with religion.

I like to think that eventually we will be rid of the necessity of a higher authority, but it will take a long time, because there is no way to disprove a nonexistent entity. Also, by the time we know enough to realize the existence of super sensory things, they will seem commonplace based on the knowledge of the time. For instance, 300 years ago some of the technology we use today would have seemed ludicrous. There were people that believed a person would explode if they were propelled at speeds much slower than we reach in our cars today. We look back and think how ridiculous people were to appeal to Zeus and other gods of the times, yet those very people still hold to a monotheistic order as if it were the most natural thing in the world.