More than a decade ago, I did an interview with Mark Bauerlein about his book, The Dumbest Generation. Last week we focused our attention on his new book, The Dumbest Generation Grows Up. The ignorance and faulty logic of young people in college has now made its way into the young adult culture.

He reminds us that social commentators predicted that the millennial generation would make a significant impact on society because they were coming of age in the Digital Age. Back then, professor Bauerlein was warning that smart phones and computers were having a negative impact on his students and young adults.

He explains the millennials “grew up in a world of their own” and “it didn’t provide them with the tools to handle the ordinary pains of life once they had to leave that world. Most of them had no religion to give shape and direction to their mortal careers, no doctrine to explain suffering when it came.” On one side you had the “nones” who rejected religion. On the other side you had Christians who adopted the Christian Smith description of “moralistic therapeutic deism.”

We also talked about the cancel culture. They may have protested Charles Murray and Heather MacDonald, but they may never have a read a word written by them. They just knew they were supposed to protest these people when they showed up on campus.

A majority (51%) in one survey said they were justified in shouting down a speaker if the speaker utters “offensive and hurtful statements.” And the university faculty and administrators also failed them because many of them could not even explain why certain college courses were necessary.

The dumbest generation has grown up, but it doesn’t appear that too many of them have grown up emotionally or intellectually.

Today is Memorial Day. For many Americans, it is merely a day off. For others it marks the start of summer. But hopefully for many of you, it is a day to honor those who fought for our freedom and especially for those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.

Sure we can enjoy our picnics and go for a walk or go for a swim. But we should take some time to put up a flag, make a banner, and perhaps participate in a parade honoring our military.

Certainly those in the military feel more loved than the vets who returned from the Vietnam War. But it wouldn’t hurt to thank those who have served our country and to make them feel appreciated. We will never be able to repay them enough for their service.

What else can we do? If you visit a few websites, you will find all sorts of suggestions. Here are a few to consider. Participate in a “National Moment of Remembrance” at 3 PM today. Pause, listen to taps, and reflect. I was in London’s Heathrow airport on Veterans’ Day. When time came to stop and reflect, the airport was absolutely quiet for a minute or so. I was impressed. We can learn something from the British and their reverence for their war dead.

You might encourage your friends, neighbors and family to visit cemeteries and perhaps even place flags on the graves. I have been to military cemeteries in Hawaii and the Philippines and have seen what is done there. We need to do the same back home.

Those of you who live near the nation’s capitol might visit one of the memorials for the Vietnam Veterans, the World War II veterans, or the Korean War Veterans.

I will let you consider what you might do to make this day special. The point is to make this day special. Too often we come to think about it as nothing more than a Monday holiday or the kick off for summer. It should mean so much more for us.

This week I spent some time talking about misinformation and disinformation. Therefore, it is worth mentioning a commentary by John Lott with the appropriate title “When Misinformation Drives Bad Policy.”

He is the author of books and scholarly research on many topics but is probably best known for his research and writing on guns, crime, and gun policy. He has been on my radio program many times, and I trust his careful research. You can imagine my surprise when I read a statistic that seemed totally inaccurate.

He has found that the average American assumes that guns are involved in nearly half (48%) of all violent crimes. The true figure is less than 8 percent. That just didn’t seem right. Does that mean that over 92 percent of violent crimes in America do not involved firearms? Yes, that is exactly what he means. You can check his link to the US Department of Justice and its National Crime Victimization Survey for 2020.

In his commentary, he cites a survey of 1,000 likely voters that shows how misinformed Americans are about guns and violent crime. The survey found large differences across groups. Democrats are much more likely to assume that a majority of (56.9%) violent crimes involve guns. By contrast, a much lower percentage (37%) of Republicans believe that.

These perceptions also influence the policies Americans propose. Respondents who were close to the actual percentage of guns involved in violent crimes believe the best way to fight crime was to arrest violent criminals. Those who thought more the 80 percent of violent crimes involved guns support more gun control laws along with stricter enforcement of current gun laws.

All of this makes sense. If you think most violent crimes involve guns, you are going to propose more gun control laws. If you know the actual percentage, you are going to propose other law enforcement policies.

Earlier this month, Netflix posted a memo to its employees that suggests that some companies are pushing back against progressive culture warriors within their organization. The memo explained that: “If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.”

Charles Cooke responded with the comment: “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Of course, it shouldn’t be that hard. As he observes, “If you don’t like soft drinks, it should be perfectly obvious that a job at Coca-Cola is not ideal. If you don’t like cattle, it should be clear that ranch life isn’t for you. And if you don’t like people saying things with which you disagree, then you shouldn’t work at one of the world’s largest streaming services.”

Karol Markowitz says that this Netflix memo and other reactions within the corporate world illustrate that “Americans have had enough of woke speech policing.” She explains that the Netflix memo “made news because it’s now seen as bold to stand up for free speech and open discourse. It seems so novel, letting viewers, and not 23-year-old gender-studies majors in their first job, pick what to watch.”

The temptation to censor comes easily for the digital generation. If they saw a comment from one of their Facebook friends they didn’t like, they could merely “unfriend” that person. If they received a text message they thought was offensive from someone, they could block that person.

This digital generation grew up being protected from speech they didn’t like. And they exercised great control over what information came to them through their smart phones and computers. Therefore, it’s not surprising that Netflix employees protested Dave Chappelle’s stand-up comedy special last year.

That is why this Netflix memo was long overdue.

Two weeks ago, the Washington Post ran an op-ed by a student at George Washington University calling for the administration to change the name of the university. He also wants to change the motto, the mascot, and even the names on some of the buildings on campus. The reason as you might have guessed is racism.

A few commentators have pointed to the irony of the fact that the student’s op-ed that wanted to change the university’s name of Washington appeared in the Washington Post. Of course, it has that name because the name of the city is Washington.

But I might say to the student who is a senior (and I assume will graduate soon) that he should act on his convictions and drop out of this university. He knows that the name won’t be changed, and so he will have the name of a founder he believes is a racist on his diploma. Does he not understand that George Washington University will be on every resume he ever submits to an employer? Does he not understand that if someone asks him where he went to school, he will have to say the name George Washington? Don’t just virtue signal, act on your convictions. Drop out of the university you contend has not addressed “the main issues of systemic racism and inequality still present on campus.”

But first things first. If we should change the name of a university named for a founder who did have slaves and released them at his death, shouldn’t we first change the name of a university that carries the name of a man who was responsible for overseeing its slave trade in America? That would be Yale University. Elihu Yale may not have owned slaves, but he did oversee the slave trade.

Of course, Yale won’t change its name because that brand is recognized worldwide. But it would make as much sense to change the name of Yale University as to change the name George Washington University.

Yesterday, I talked about “misinformation” and “disinformation.” Today I want to quote from Barton Swaim who explains “How Disagreement Became Disinformation.”

In the early part of the 20th century, progressives placed their “faith in the perfectibility of man” and “held that social ills could be corrected by means of education.” People do bad things, according to this view, because they don’t know any better and have bad information. Even secular people can see the folly of such a belief since “many monstrous acts are perpetrated by highly educated and well-informed criminals and tyrants.” As Christians, we know that people do bad things because of their sin nature.

The promoters of this view include John Kenneth Galbraith (The Affluent Society) and Daniel Bell (The End of Ideology). These writers (and others) wanted the experts to run the government and prevent the spread of misinformation.

A speech Barack Obama gave to Google employees in 2007 illustrates this view. He began by claiming that the “American people at their core are a decent people.” But they are “just misinformed, or they are too busy, they’re trying to get their kids to school, they’re working, they just don’t have enough information.” Therefore, Google and other enlightened influencers need to provide good information and protect people from disinformation.

Barton Swaim reminds us that during the Obama years, “fact checking” took a firm hold on American journalism. They weren’t just looking for typos but began labeling arguments they disagreed with as “false” or “mostly false” or “lacking context” even while conceding the statements were true.

That is why today you find so many examples of true statements that nevertheless receive the labels “misinformation” and “disinformation.”

The terms “misinformation” and “disinformation” are frequently tossed around. That is why it is good to define the terms and explain why they are often misused.

Getting a good definition shouldn’t be difficult. Historically, dictionaries have defined misinformation as false or mistaken information. But if you type the word misinformation into some Internet websites, you will get a definition that implies that it includes information intended to deceive others. That should be the definition for disinformation which intends to deliberately deceive people.

Another problem arises from the tendency of pundits and politicians to blur facts and opinions. They assume their opinions and subjective interpretations are the same as objective facts. Raw data requires interpretation, but too many in politics and social media naively assume their interpretations and talking points are facts.

One example can be found in a speech at Stanford University by former president Barack Obama on how he believes disinformation is weakening democracy. In particular, he talked about how Big Tech must prevent voter suppression that “has targeted black and brown communities.” But there is no evidence that supports that claim.

Black and brown voter participation reached record levels in the 2020 election. But even if he was talking about the 2022 elections, there is no support for such a claim. Perhaps he was talking about Georgia. So far, Georgia voters have turned out in record numbers across the state and may set a record for voter participation. One political commentator said that if these voter integrity laws were attempts at voter suppression and Jim Crow 2.0, they were doing a terrible job.

Let’s not confuse these two terms, and let’s not confuse opinions and interpretations with facts and raw data.