Photo Credit: NBC News

In my article The Art of Linking, I linked to a study which discovered that as many as half of all URLs cited in some online articles were no longer accessible years after publication. To help my readers cope with "404 Not Found Page" problems, I decided not to merely link to an article, but supply my readers enough of an excerpt or footnote that if the site one day returns a 404 error, my readers will still be able to read enough from the pointed-to link to understand the reason for my citing it.

The trouble with quoting text from an article rather than simply linking to it is that some readers might assume that I agree 100% with the content of the text if it appears in my article. This is hardly ever the case.

Sometimes I Disagree with Some Items in the Cited Source

Just because I cite text from an article does not mean I agree with everything in that article. For example, in my post Black Lives Matter is an Insult, I published the following text from an opinion piece in the Tampa Bay Times: "blacks might be more likely to have a violent encounter with police because they are convicted of felonies at a higher rate than whites," to explain why so many blacks are killed in encounters with police. I agree with this assertion.

However, if one goes to the link and reads the rest of the article, one will find another opinion to explain black killings:

Tampa Bay Times, Talk show host: Police kill more whites than blacks

Brian Forst, a professor in the Department of Justice, Law and Criminology at American University, said this difference is predictable.

"More whites are killed by the police than blacks primarily because whites outnumber blacks in the general population by more than five to one," Forst said. The country is about 63 percent white and 12 percent black.

I do not agree at all with this assertion. I suppose I could have included the professor's opinion in my post (about black lives matter) for balance, however his view is so idiotic and irrelevant that it wasn't worthy of consideration. In happens that in most instances of police encounters where deadly force is used, it is not with the general population that the police interact, it is with felons, so a statistic regarding the general population is inapplicable and most likely just silly, partisan, race-baiting nonsense.

The professor's thinking is the same as quoting that lung cancer is not that dangerous because the chance that someone will develop lung cancer is about 1 in 15 in the general population. But lung cancer is not a general population problem - it is a smoker problem - heavy smokers have lung cancer mortality rates 12 to 25 times higher than that of nonsmokers [source: National Women's Health Resource Center].

The truth is that the great majority (more than 80%) of deadly lung cancers involve smoking. Likewise, the great majority of deadly police encounters involve felons. In both cases, quoting statistics about the general population is hardly helpful in accurately understanding the dynamics of either.

Sometimes I Disagree with Everything in the Cited Source

In my article Iran Holocaust Cartoon Contest, I display antisemitic images from the website irancartoon.ir precisely because I want to show my readers how bigoted Muslims are, not because I find any of the cartoons worthy of my admiration.

In most cases, when I cite a Muslim source, it is because I disagree with that source.

Sometimes I Agree with only a portion of Directly Quoted text

In my article Poverty Is Worse Today than in 1965, I made the assertion that "From 1961 to 1969, the United States entered into the most vigorous economic expansion in her history." To back up that claim I cited an article from National Review which stated that "... the path-breaking supply-side tax cuts of John F. Kennedy generated one of the greatest booms in economic history." While I agree that the Kennedy tax cuts helped to generate one of the greatest booms in economic history, the article I quoted also implied that it was due to the tax cuts and only the tax cuts. I believe tax cuts have to be in concert with other pro-business policies to be effective.

To give a modern example - I have no doubt that even if Obama reduced the tax rate to zero we would still be in an economic malaise because of his anti-business policies, especially Obamacare, the effects of which will kick in disastrously in the coming years, acting like a 2 ton anchor holding back a row boat.

Sometimes I Quote/Link for Copyright Reasons

Many times I may use the words of others and so good Internet etiquette requires me to link back for proper attribution. I do not want or need to pass off others' ideas as my own.

Very few sources express every single one of my positions exactly 100%, so if I need supporting quotes, I take my sources as close to my own opinion as I can.