PDQ's link seems not to work.

I don't expect it to illuminate much, in that the real point about the Reagan anecdote is that Reagan used a sarcastic coinage (whether his or another's) and a single story to imply untruth. What he implied was that the story of the "Welfare Queen" in some way typified welfare claimants.

In a similar-ish way Wannabee Pharoah uses selected statistics (whether accurate or not) to imply a wider thought - that wider thought being that homosexuals are unworthy, or lesser beings, and deserve to be discriminated against. Keith also uses selected facts (or alleged facts) to imply a wider societal view - principally that historic British militarism and colonialism was in some way "right" and that religions other than Xtianity (in his preferred form) and people other than white anglo-saxon protestants are somehow inferior.

Pete from Beyond the Stars takes a general defect amongst the religious (NB, I said "general" rather than "universal") of believing that faith is more important than fact and chooses for faith-based reasons to deny the applicability of the scientific method.


In all of these, and many other cases, it is the purpose for which facts are selected and used that is more important than the facts themselves (although of course the facts should be accurately stated) and betray bigotry and assumption.

I assert that it is proper to vilify bigots and the irrational.