thegreekdog wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:AndyDufresne wrote:thegreekdog wrote:Yes, that's exactly my point! Most people, including media members and other politicians, concentrated on the Marco Rubio quote as evidence of why conservatives and Republicans are horrible people who hate science. When President Obama said basically the same thing, there was no such rigamarole. I think the two quotes should be treated the same way: either ridiculed or supported, depending on one's point of view. Actually, there is a third option: ignore the quotes. I did the third thing until the Marco Rubio quote got so much attention.
I think looking at two quotes in a vacuum tend to lead to these sorts of conclusions. I think Rubio has before said he isn't a believer in "man-made global warming", and that there isn't scientific evidence for it.
--Andy
Nevertheless, TGD's point still stands. The problem is selective perception, a cognitive bias which distorts the "identity-politics" of Americans. Many Americans inadvertently trample the statements of the despised politicians yet turn a blind or forgiving eye to similar statements made by their favored politicians.
This naive approach has diminished the democratic process of self-government, and unfortunately it has significantly contributed to the growth of authority in the National Government, thus complementing its capacity to collude with select business interests. Crony capitalism is the problem, yet its subtle consequences are hardly realized and often misinterpreted by uninformed voters with their unreal expectations of politicians and bureaucrats.
Interestingly, when I was listening to conservative talk radio (that night when I was sick of the Chip Kelly news), while the conservative callers went on and on about the horrible constitution-trampling Obama administration, a liberal caller asked the great question about confirmation bias (although he put it in terms of conservatives only listening to conservative talk radio and watching Fox News). The talk show host (apparently a former Congressman) agreed with the liberal caller and then asked him what news organizations he frequented. The liberal caller replied "why does that matter," to which the talk show host laughed and said, "you cannot accuse one side of listening to reinforcing news organizations without also acknowledging that you likely listen to your own news organizations." The caller then hung up.
Moral of the story is what BBS said. If conservatives get their news from Fox and Drudge and conservative talk radio and ignore everything else, they are subject to confirmation bias. If liberals get their news from MSNBC and Drudge Retort and liberal talk radio, they are also subject to confirmation bias. It has made for a contentious population and a contentious Congress and it's definitely not helping. That being said, it's not like we didn't have contentiousness in prior periods of our history so I'm not sure how much more contentious we are now than in, say, the early to mid 19th century.
The unintended conflict serves more as a convenient distraction from the underlying problems, e.g. crony capitalism.
Most consumers within media markets prefer producers who transmit the news they want to hear, so many voters are stuck in this positive feedback loop. In other words, their vision of government is largely shaped by the visions they demand. The problem is that in order to break this cycle, the consumers need to invest their resources (incl. time) into other markets of more rigorous material (books, academic articles, lectures, etc.); however, since this is more costly, most consumers will seek substitutes (Fox News, MSNBC, Drudge Report, Drudge Retort, etc.).
Maybe this doesn't matter in the long-run. Perhaps, only the production and dissemination of ideas is what mainly drives public opinion. As Keynes puts it:
“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”
If the citizens of democracies better understood the market process, spontaneous order, and public choice theory, then the voters would have a clearer understanding of the limited capabilities of government.
