When There's More to the Story

I have a friend who sometimes sends inflammatory emails and links to websites where this outrage is happening, or that injustice has occurred.  I typically hit delete when I get them because I really don't want to get involved in my friend's agenda.   
Recently, however, I called this person on one of the letters, saying that the article that was sent was slanted;  the facts were written to pitch the author's opinion, and not all the facts were presented as shown.   My friend responded by saying that since it was in the newspaper, it had to be true.  Yes it was true... those particular facts, but there was another side to the story that was left out entirely.  I could only groan inwardly because some people just choose to believe what they want to believe, even if the forest is cleared of the trees.

Last week, I wrote about Stacey Kelley and her battle with her home owners association.  Turns out there is  more to this story!  I left out the fact that I am a member of a home owner's association. I think they have their place in certain neighborhoods, especially if they're not run by psychos.  And that's a rare thing, indeed.
This past week I  found out that Ms. Kelley might not be the homeowner at all!  I was told that the house is owned by her mother. I can't verify this at the moment, and these are facts which I didn't know about at the time I posted.  If it was already in the news media at the time I posted, I'm sorry, but I wasn't aware of it at the time.

The issue changes the story somewhat.  Does she still have the right to challenge the home owners association since she is not an owner?   I don't think so.  It's not her place.  Put a sign on your car or window instead.  She's a military wife... would she expect her hub to challenge army rules as well?

Alternatively, would she have the right to challenge the home owners association if she did own the house?  What say you?   In my own neighborhood, there are no rules for this sort of sign.  If such a rule was in place, given the type of person I am, I would have let the sign issue slide.   I don't think it would have made a person support or not support the troops any differently, but it does promote awareness of the issue and it's simply a gentle reminder that there's a family living there with a soldier in Iraq.

This is war time, whether we like it or not, whether Bush is right or not. As I type this, there are men and women overseas right now in conditions that I, typing at the table in my comfortable, air conditioned dining room, could not imagine. When I get up from my chair, I'm going to Home Depot to shop for supplies. I won't have to worry about a bomb going off on the roadside underneath my car, obviously.  Thinking about the greater of two evils, I'm not going to bicker over a two foot sign that says God Bless the USA, Support Our Troops.   

I think the board needs to back off, and I think it's quite telling that most of their home owners are veterans who spoke out in support of Stacey.   But it surprises me to find out that four of the seven members of the board are veterans. It further surprised me to find out that board President Daryl Manning is an army reservist who served in Iraq.  He's sympathetic to her situation, but has said the rules stay.

(Personally, I still think their home owner's association mailbox flag issue is absolutely ridiculous. But, it's their lifestyle. Scary as it is.)

Where does it end? What's to keep another person from erecting a humongous sign promoting another cause?  Well, for once in our lives, can't we be realistic? Do we really need to live in a society where everything must be spelled out for us, right down to the color of our mailbox flags?  Are we that stupid? 

So now the facts have changed and now you know the whole story. Or most of the story.   I wish I could get across to my friend that the emails that are sent contain facts may have been either left out on purpose or changed all together.  Simply because the email comes from an organization that has an office, a staff and promotes itself as being for the people does not make every word they say plausible.

I could change the style of my writing right now in order to make this post sound extremely antagonistic... that is, I could word it such that it comes out strongly against Stacey Kelley, or at odds with the association itself.

I could use the opportunity to make a series of jabs at Bush and his war time policy or I could turn it all around and write from the home owner's association view point and try to make their case sound very convincing indeed.

What you read instead, was my voice, and my personal opinion alone.  Voice is the tone that will carry the written word through any email, newspaper article or blog.  This is why smart people unwittingly forward on urban legends every day.   
Where the voice is strongly emotional, it can affect the person's ability to react intelligently to what they have read.  And in cases like that, it's easy to forget that the facts are not always what they seem to be.

Comments

[Kayn]

THANK YOU!!

[Mike]

I have heard other stories about over zealous home owners associations and all I can say is I will never buy a house governed by one.

Michele sent me

[Nils]

It's a thorny issue, isn't it - because while we can all roll our eyes at the "slippery slope" argument ("If we allow this, what's to stop the next person with a cause from erecting their sign, and then what have you got?"), we live in a world where people have been taught by their lawyers that whatever little whim they have, society owes them the right to fulfill it.

I tend to be sympathetic towards the home owners association, if only for this reason (and it may take me a moment to get there, so be patient): often when people make reasonable, well-considered arguments against the war in Iraq (and especially if those people are Democrats), the Administration immediately accuses them of "not supporting the troops". It's a vile charge, because in every case it's demonstrably untrue and a slander against the person being vilified. A charge like that, though begs a response, and when that exchange goes on, it skilfully deflects attention from the real issue, which was the reasoned questions being asked. This kind of tactic has created an atmosphere where people dare not question ANY policy because they'll have this allegation levelled at them.

I don't know, of course, but I'd be willing to bet that the chair of the homeowner's association - being a veteran of the War in Iraq - finds the issue personally painful. And I'd bet he especially resents the implication that in refusing to allow the sign, he somehow doesn't support the troops.

It's not the content of the sign that is at issue, of course. The Association isn't picking on this woman's personal views, nor denying her the opportunity to express those views. But because of the sign's relatively benign content, the media can MAKE it an issue, especially playing on the irony of several members of the Association being veterans.

You are completely right. There are any number of ways to distort a news story. One is to offer up facts selectively. Another is to offer up facts in such a way that you impart greater weight to one argument over another. And one is to simply omit or alter inconvenient facts, or position them in a way that alters the big picture.

Here's an example, taken from what little I know about this story, but with some additional information that is also demonstrably true:

Stacy Kelley has been told to take down a sign urging support for our troops. The Homeowners association asked her to take it down. The Chair of the Association is a veteran of the War in Iraq. Some veterans of the War in Iraq have come back disgusted with what's going on over there. Some people think a sign like Kelley's shows wholehearted support for government policies.

Every single statement is a FACT. Yet the injection of two essentially irrelevant facts - what some vets think about the war and what some people think about those signs - changes the big picture of the story, and creates meanings that aren't there. All of a sudden, what was a story about keeping neighbourhoods relatively free of the rot of unsightly signs, this becomes an issue of patriotism.

Kudos to you for making sure all the facts are there, and laid out dispassionately, and making your own feelings clear. Don't we all wish some major news organizations (Hi, Fox News!) would do that?

[kenju]

And a very well written opinion it is, Laura. We have to take most of what we read with a grain of salt until we are sure we know "the rest of the story". Too bad your friend is naive enough not to realize that. Critical thinking requires us not to simply accept everything we see in print unless we can verify it ourselves.

[Florida Cracker]

This post is just proof of your honesty. You could have moved on, but instead chose to share the facts you did not know at the time of the first post.

I thought "your voice" was right on in this post. Very well done.

[Sue]

Thanks for visiting my site and glad that I could help the "septic" issue :) -- as far as this goes, it is one of the reasons I would NEVER move to a home that had such an association. I don't EVER want anyone to tell what I can and can't do to my own property. If I want to put up a sign supporting (or not supporting as the case may be), it should be MY decision not some assocation of 7 people. Such rules tend to run to the ridiculous. However, once there and once governed by such an association, I think you unfortunately have to deal with it -- you go in with both eyes open and unfortuntately the consequences are such that each person needs to follow the rules in order to keep things under control -- I don't agree with it but....

[Karen]

Good post, Laura. Sometimes common sense has to win out.

[Seamus]

There are usually more than "one side" to a story. I think we should look at anything we read critically - just cause it's in print doesn't mean it isn't slanted!

btw - we're back (with pics and all!)