An example of political vandalism on Wikipedia
There’s a so-called “government shutdown” and the United States of America, and some people seem desperate to rewrite history when it comes to the paid — although the pay is somewhat delayed — vacation of federal government employees. This concerns Wikipedia too, and an article has been semi-protected because of an edit war.
It may seem innocent at first, but the words have been subtly changed from this revision to today’s:
“a political tactic used in the United States by government agencies when faced with budget cuts”
has been changed to:
“a term used to accuse government agencies in the United States of cutting the most visible or appreciated service provided by the government when faced with budget cuts”
And the third sentence has been distorted too:
“This is done to gain support for tax increases that the public would otherwise be against.”
has been changed to:
“Allegedly, this is done to gain support for the restoration of budgets that lawmakers would normally be against.”
Emphasis mine.
This is a worrying example of what some may see as the Stockholm syndrome: facts become accusations, and a direct consequence: “tax increases” becomes “restoration of budgets”, the bureaucratic side of the story. Newspeak must have some new rule that forbids liberals to mention the word “tax”.
Sadly, since “reality has a liberal bias” and the Obama administration is so good at propaganda, I have no hope for the objectivity of Wikipedia when it comes to (US) politics. It may or may not change in the future, and I don’t want to become involved in the Wikimedia bureaucracy to fight the apparent bias as I don’t have the same kind of time and energy as these people.
This post is based on discussion on the subreddit /r/Anarcho_Capitalism: here.