Ever get asked that question? My answer or late has trended to "Actually, no. I don't."

I've noticed a particularly disingenuous trend of late in both the larger social culture of American life (read: the last election) as well as in my personal experience; people preambling a statement with "I believe..." or "I think..." or the WORST "I feel..."

Oy! I'm really beginning to dislike this in the extreme.

Something has been knawing at me for sometime now and I was finally put my finger while reflecting on a conversation that I had last weekend.

While I honestly do respect him, I had a conversation with a guy that I know doesn't like to read. He avoids it like the plague; Scripture, news, leisure, etc. There are simple one-syllable words that are unknown to him. And yet he proudly boasted to me that he's "opinionated".

What?!?!

How can ANYONE be opinionated about anything if they're ignorant? What on earth do you base your opinions on?!?! Audio-visual media? Are you serious? Do you have ANY clue how deeply flawed the current AV media is?! How deeply it skews a single subjective opinion?

As I've reflected on this I've begun thinking about how many conversations I've been involved in, even recently, where the person prefaced any statement they made with "I feel...", "I think..." or "I believe..."

They add the disclaimer, make their statement AND THEN NEVER OFFER PROOF OR SUPPORTING EVIDENCE!"

Wow! Think about that.

Think about what they're really saying. It's VERY personal: "If you disagree, then you must be against me because my word is clearly the authority here." "What? I'm the bad guy? You don't like me?"

A fundamental lesson in writing, at the elementary school level, is that all statements need to be backed up with supporting evidence. You HAVE to backup any statement that you make with either a convincing argument or supporting facts. Anything short of that is suspect in the extreme. Absolutely useless and uttered only be a fool.

There is no substitute for reading. None. Zero. Nada. Zilch.