“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

This statement was made by Founding Father John Adams as “Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials” in December 1770. Whatever we may think or what passions we may hold about John Adams defense of British Soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre, this statement instructs us even to this day.

Many times newspaper opinion pages are filled with letters to the editor or opinion pieces claiming certain “facts” or “things easily confirmed to be true” when they are nothing more than one person's spin on current events and history or outright misrepresentations of the facts. You need not accept anything that I or anyone else may present as facts at face value. Organizations like FactCheck.org can be used to sort through the constant drum beat of babel chucked up by biased media, political advertisements, opinion-based blogs and the opinion pages of newspapers.

For example, a recent letter to the Record-Bee stated, among other things, that “This year, for the first time in history, seniors got no COLA increase in Social Security although their health care tax increased. Meanwhile Thompson got himself $3,000 more COLA per month.”

A little research at FactCheck.org can be used to analyze of this combination of fact, misrepresentation and lie.

FactCheck.org: “Since 1975, Social Security's general benefit increases have been based on increases in the cost of living, as measured by the Consumer Price Index. We call such increases Cost-Of-Living Adjustments, or COLAs. Because there has been a decline in the Consumer Price Index, there will be no COLA payable in 2010.”

So based on a three-decades-old law there will be no Social Security benefit increase this year.

FactCheck.org: “Most Medicare premiums haven’t gone up this year at all. For 73 percent of seniors, the basic Medicare Part B premium remains at $96.40 per month. And for all but a few of the rest, the increase will be $14.10 per month.”

The reason some Part B premiums went up has to do with the complicated formulations of law which can be further researched at the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Web site.

FactCheck.org: “The fact is that Congress voted in March to give itself a zero pay raise in 2010. The language is in Public Law 111-8, the Omnibus Appropriation Act for the current fiscal year, which was signed March 11, 2010.”

So it’s just a plain lie to say that Congressman Mike Thompson got himself $3,000 more COLA per month.

Left, right and center, we all have opinions. Expressing those opinions is the cherished right of all Americans. Disrespecting your audience with falsehoods is a choice.

Evan Willig lives in Cobb.