I too tend to read, rather than listen to the news, and I try never to watch it. I read from all sorts of perspectives, and have an open tab so I can check what the writer is saying.
And I for one lament the decline of the old conservative media that was thoughtful, sane and sentient. People like William F. Buckley who could debate in a public format without becoming a clown car like Beck, Rush et. all. They took policy seriously, and as a result were pretty much disowned by the current crop of entertainers who found the easiest audience to cater and pander to - and proceeded to do just that.
That there are higher ratings for some conservative sites and news programs tends to obscure the fact that there are far fewer of them. Where 'liberal' news has a lot of choices, 'conservative' news has but one. In a one to one head on fight the conservatives would post much lower percentage numbers.
And you do not need to believe to read correctly. What seems simple, is often given that invisible asterisk so that people can feed their own values into it. So it ought to read to most people "Thou shalt not kill, except..."
And I use King James because its the most widespread and familiar text, the standard source, however had I used some more obscure translation, I'm sure that would have been wrong too.
The bible supports slavery too. Also the use of concubines. And giving your young daughters away to angry mobs to ravage. Not exactly a book of virtues.
But the real issue is how much of America is truly crazy, and its a rather high number, I'd put it at about 20% of the people who 'understand wrong' or who just don't see the forest for the trees.
