Nobody is throwing away their freedom of thought, and consulting independent experts is what journalists do. That&#x27;s how we work (source: I am one).<p><i>&gt; we looked up to the U.S. for their people&#x27;s ability to think critically and to have their own informed political opinions.</i><p>Don&#x27;t confuse opinions with facts. Opinions are personal and facts are (as far as possible) universal.<p>However, I&#x27;m unlikely to have a good opinion of someone who says too many things that are factually untrue, which is the case with Trump and Cruz.<p><i>&gt; When I was growing up in the Eastern Bloc</i><p>Correct me if I&#x27;m wrong, but the Eastern Bloc had rulers who could say things that weren&#x27;t true and not have those things exposed as lies by the MSM. That&#x27;s why we fact-check both Trump and Clinton. That&#x27;s what democracy is based on.<p><i>&gt; &quot;the ruling went against him&quot;. That&#x27;s totalitarian language, describing a totalitarian concept.</i><p>No it isn&#x27;t. There&#x27;s absolutely nothing totalitarian about it. It&#x27;s exactly the reverse.<p>On the evidence presented by Politifact, what Trump said wasn&#x27;t true. If you want to dispute that, you have to disprove the existing information or find more information that contradicts it.<p>Merely having an <i>opinion</i> about it adds nothing: it&#x27;s not worth a damn.