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Both Parties Ignore the Facts
An anonymous reader writes "Any democrat will tell you the republicans ignore the facts. Any republican will tell you the democrats ignore the facts. Turns out they're right. A new study monitored brain activity of partisans; they shun logic and use emotional processing centers to justify their candidate's contradictory statements. 'With their minds made up, brain activity ceased in the areas that deal with negative emotions such as disgust. But activity spiked in the circuits involved in reward, a response similar to what addicts experience when they get a fix.'"
Uphold it, stop worrying about the rest of the country or the rest of the world or even the rest of your state.
If you can, more power to you. The problem is, the rest of the country/world/state won't stop worrying about you.
Take the Jihad on Smoking, for example.
With their minds made up, brain activity ceased in the areas that deal with negative emotions such as disgust. But activity spiked in the circuits involved in reward, a response similar to what addicts experience when they get a fix.
This is what happens in the brain of religious people when praying. They go into a semi-trancelike state when they get their "god-fix". Rambling incoherently in 'tongues' while writhing on the floor is not a sign of omnipotent intelligence.
It'd be interesting to know how many politicians are smokers, or how likely they are to be extremely addicted to smoking or other drugs, since those adictions also require a lapse of logic to take them up and continue them while they kill the addict.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
this sort of "turning off" of logic happens to all people, not just politicians. Start a conversation about religion, and you'll see what I mean. I don't just mean fundamentalist Christians, either; atheists, agnostics, muslims (mac users?) are just as likely to get defensive if you start criticizing something they hold to be true. The key here is to place more value on the person that you're talking to than on yourself. If the other person knows/feels that, your conversation has the potential to be the civil, enlightening discourse that we really want.
This is certainly worth keeping in mind the next time we have to endure another "Linux versus Microsoft" argument here on Slashdot, too. Why should our own dogma be any different? Personally, I knew this years ago. The only way a person could seriously advocate MySQL would be if their brain was turned off. It's perfectly obvious!
One of the newest members of congress and the youngest man in congress recently said that congress is like Junior High. What would you do if you were picked by the people to have a high paying job with a bunch of authority? (talk about ego) Then, on top of that, now that you are picked by a bunch of people for this you have all of these lobbying parties trying to buy you off by offering you all the stuff your heart desires. How would any of us react? I am not a good enough man to say I could fight that off. Then, because of the system, even the most well intended person doesn't get anywhere. But, they want to keep the power, popularity and especially all the perks. So, they, like a drug addict, will do what ever it takes to keep their fix. I don't think I would be any better. George Washington said a 2 party system would be bad. Could he have been right? Could it not be that one party is worse than the other but this is just a product of 2 parties? Could a 3rd powerful party help remedy this situation?
Evolution or ID?
You often witnesses a party acting more like their "opponent" because a very effective tactic of late has been to steal your opponent's position. There are dozens of very recent examples, but two glaring ones are Clinton's welfare reform and Bush's Medicare prescription drug coverage. This really helps swing voters to think that you're not an idealogue for one side or the other. Of course, it does nothing to sway radicals but then nothing would sway them.
The sorry fact though is that this has gone on long enough that there aren't very many differences between the two parties today.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Does this come as a surprise?
Personally I'm embarrassed at how ineffective our government has become. Sure they all tout that they act in a bi-partisan manner, but that is nothing more than the politically correct verbiage buzz word that they pretty much have to use.
Truth is that if you check just about any vote that has occurred over the last several years, you'll see that the votes are broken straight down the party lines -- except for a few that probably hit the wrong key during the vote.
Perfect example is the vote that happened yesterday for the new proposed Supreme Court Justice Alito. The vote was divided 100% down the party lines.
These people should be ashamed. We elected them to represent the beliefs of the state in which they represent, but it seems to always turn out that they cannot think for themselves. Rather they just follow their party's guidance.
Pathetic...
That's probably the worst thing about USA politics. There's this fantasy that there are only two parties to choose from. Since they agree on so many things, the voters who believe this fantasy get absolutely no say whatsoever on many topics. Because the people who realise the truth are vastly outnumbered by the people in fantasy land, they don't get any say in many topics.
So basically, the voting public have no control over anything the Democrats and the Republicans agree on. That's not how democracies are supposed to work. Stop voting for Kodos!
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Both parties appeal to their voters based on emotion, not logic. Take the Republicans for example, they have yet to make any serious attempts to:
1) Restore the RTKB to its 2nd amendment definition
2) Overturn Roe v. Wade by appointing justices to the SCOTUS that care more about the US Constitution than precedent
3) Provide viable reforms to the tax code
4) Tangibly reduce the regulation on business, especially small business, at the federal level which often strangles business in its infancy
5) Defend our country. Sorry country club boys, but it ain't just Mexicans coming across the border so either you hire legal grounds keepers and nannies, or you deal with a Muslim terrorist carrying a backpack nuke into your cushy suburb thanks to our lax border security. It's impossible to call them tough on national defense given the state of our immigration policy which shows no signs of being influenced by national security issues
Yet they still get voters based on:
1) A fear that gays will get married if they're not in control of the body politic
2) A fear that the hippies will take over ""
3) A fear that our kids will be corrupted by drugs || sex || alcohol ""
4) A few more terrorists will blow up a building or two "" (ironic in light of #5)
5) The democrats will win and make us Super Duper MegaBolshevik Uber-Communist (Bush's domestic spending is rather socialist when compared to a real conservative platform)
The democrats:
1) Appeal to their female base on fear: your right to abortion WILL go away and you'll be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen for life if we aren't totally in control of the body politic.
2) Appeal to their minority base on racism fears
3) Appeal to their homosexual base on anti-homosexual fears
4) Appeal to their white middle class base on white guilt issues
So in short, if the politics of fear don't appeal to you, vote 3rd party. Any one of them will do.
Of course, but liberals can be guilty of the behavior the article discusses. The Neocons, for example, are not Nazis, they're fascists. Nazis were members of a 20th century German political party. Fascism is a government structure. One label is namecalling. The other can be rationally discussed. Confusing the two blunts liberal response.
It's nothing new ... my grandfather has written a few books on the human thought processes, and I typically cite his 'The Eight Common Errors in the Thinking Process' (pdf).
The quick summary (from the intro)
All this new research has done is support #2-4.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Con men always work with this, they tell you what you want to hear so that you will end up trusting them and then they can scam you.
Linux fans, don't trust claims by say IBM on linux performance blindly, Mac fans doubt every single thing Steve Jobs tells you and MS fans.... well there is no helping some people.
That people like to have their ideas reinforced is pretty clear with the current world events involving armed conflicts between various factions. Why do I not say "war" or something like that? Because even that means taking sides. Call it war on terror and it becomes clear that america is the one fighting terrorists. I am pretty sure the other side claims however that it is america who is the one dealing in terror.
Some americans who are against their goverments actions happily claim that european media, the BBC especially is so much more un-biased then their own networks. Is it? Or does the BBC simply say what they want to hear? Same of course the other way around. Is all the european press simply anti-american or are they only guilty of saying something you don't want to hear?
Not to long ago I had an argument with an american about the race riots in france and the american claimed that in the US such things could not happen because immigrants were integrated into society better. Any recent immigrants in america want to reply on this? Apparently the riots in LA were not related to race.
It is intresting to see this article take on it. I hadn't suspected it ran so deeply. Then again it may be related to how we defend any decision we made wich later turns out to be bad. Wether we find out that the car we bought is considered bad by everyone else or the partner we choose turns out to be abusive. People like to stick with their decisions because we hate to admit we were wrong.
Linux zealots, mac slaves and MS apologists, all firmly believe their own myths and deny the enemies truths. Doesn't help at all when 99% of the time your in fact right. It makes it all the easier to think that 1 truth is a lie as well.
In dutch politics we had a few years a go a new person on the political scene who really upset the current balance as he was neither left nor right wing. The left claimed he was extreme right and the right claimed he was to left. He was for instance against continued immigration (far right) but also wanted to stop buying american fighter aircraft (far left). He was killed and dutch politics went back to the total crap it has always been but perhaps that is the only way forward. A party that is neither left nor right but simply does what is best for the country without being hunted by dogmatic views from some political ideologie.
A sort of enlighten socialism. Oh and before I get all the americans over me, remember that america is a socialist country as well. A true capatalist nation would have NO social security whatsoever. As long as tax money from the rich goes to those who are poor you are socialist. Take that you bunch of pinkos.
If you agree with what I said, BE AWARE! Am I only saying what you wanna hear? If you disagree, are you just in denial ignoring the facts?
In a way, all the responses to this article should be unmodded. Modding is after all only a way to reward those who say what you wanta hear and punish those who do not. If you don't believe me spend some real time meta-moderating.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
the facts don't lie. Since 1970, wages for the bottom half have significantly declined. Both dems and GOP have been in control in those years.
What we need is to apply to our government the same darwinistic principles that theoretically underlie capitalism. For example, we need to apply "creative destruction" to our government. Trash it all and start again. Within the confines of the legal system of course.
But Madison, Hamilton and the other founding fathers designed the government and constitution so as to prevent innovation in government, the better to preserve the status quo, thereby "protecting" the "opulent minority" from the "majority" (Madison' words).
The LEAST able of American citizens to help us change our govt are the so-called "political activists" and "poltically aware" Americans. These people, ardent voters, most of them, and supposedly aware of the issues, are actually sort of brainwashed with elite propaganda. If you hear someone talking about GOP or Dem political "talking points" and "issues,: you should recognize that this person is a domesticated creature owned by those at the top.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
This issue of both parties ignoring the facts .. I think that is why even "christians" who supposedly follow the same book ..can have diametrically opposing views.
... the "Social conservatives" don't follow the bible.
.. when the Bible is extremely clear on this topic. They also want to build a wall on the southern border (bible says "if you build a high gate, you invite destruction") .. all of histories' walls are tourist attractions today (Great Wall, Hadrian's wall etc.)
l e-as-handbook.html
.. yet the bible is clear on this question as well .. http://www.carm.org/questions/interracial_marriage .htm http://www.christiananswers.net/q-sum/sum-g003.htm l and http://www.tbm.org/whatinterrac.htm
..Jesus used objective logic against it. Maybe that's what people need to use .. objective logic versus blind "adherence" to scripture.
Social conservatives think they are "moral" and that especially they like to think they are christian and follow the bible. Yet most of them actually do exactly the opposite of what the bible says.
Yet, on any given issue
For one thing, social conservatives oppose immigration/immigrants
http://www.churchworldservice.org/Immigration/bib
Yet most social conservatives would call for a halt to immigration (or at least non european immigration).
At one time a majority of them would have opposed interracial marriage
Very strangely the Numbers 12:1 reference used to be quoted (out of context) as a reason not to have interracial marriages.
So, when Jesus was tempted by the devil who was quoting scriptures
How did this study decide who was partisan? The article didn't say. Did they pick people out of rallies or fundraisers, or just people off the street who self-identified with a party?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
It's important to note that, from what the article said, this study did not employ a control group of political moderates or apathetics. The partisans were asked to listen to Tom Hanks (as a sort-of control), but mixing treatment with non-treatment does not seem like the best execution of the scientific method.
We don't know how people who are not members of political parties would have reacted. Perhaps they use even more emotions that political stalwarts. Or perhaps they just tune everything out. This study doesn't tell us.
Anyone who'se ever done engineering in a group becomes rapidly familiar with the lack of a line between the social and objective dimensions of problem solving.
Someone makes a mistake, and they feel they need to defend it even though mistakes are an inevitable part of the process and everyone makes them, no matter how ingenious. Someone thinks of a plan, or their friend does, and they feel they need to defend it and advocate it even if they see a better plan, just because we are not only solving a problem, but constantly acting out our instinctive human drama in everything we do.
Political parties and movements and religions especially leverage this trait of human behavior extensively.
Orwell made his career writing about the phenomenon. Doublethink is a popular phrase these days, but many people are still surprised to learn the central concept underpinning it: that people can fervently believe something they know not to be true. They can actually do the work of cleaning up the broken glass while demanding you apologize for suggesting the window is broken... and they can earnestly believe it.
This leads to another great Orwell quote - a prediction of the future: "Imagine a boot stepping on a human face, forever."
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I think putting some restrictive limits on the campaign spend would also be in the nations interest as it would allow self financed candidates to enter and campaign and get a chance to their policies out to the voters without breaking the bank.
I agree there needs to be campaign finance reform. Absolutely. This is a complex issue.
As there is a direct correlation between a successful election and the amount of money spent on a campaign, a self-financed election would allow the rich to get elected, while leaving the middle-class and poor out in the cold (figuratively and literaly). There needs to be a system that allows anyone with popular support to get elected.
Personally, I think the "party" system is broken. If we didn't label someone a "democrat" or "republican," they'd have to run on their ideas and ideals, and not on a built-in group of dupes, suckers, and sheep.
The only problem with that is, it would require the general public to think critically, and (as this article pointed out) that seems about impossible.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Please cite an example of racism in the Republican party.
Stromm Thurmond, an UNREPENTANT racist. Robert Byrd left the KKK long ago and has since stopped being a racist.
A) How is staunch defense of a woman's bodily sovereignty and therefore abortion "exploitation of the black vote"
B) How is supporting EQUAL RIGHTS for homosexuals "exploitation of the black vote"
C) Democrats are not against "religious expression", they're against mingling government and religion, which is expressly forbidden by the First Ammendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Now watch out - you may learn that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc have been lying to you:
I, and no othe democrat who is taken seriously by other democrats, think you shouldn't be allowed to go worship whatever deit(y/ies) you want to on your own time and your own dollar. However it is expressly forbidden for government to promot religion A over religion B, religion over non-religion, non-religion over religion, etc. Government must remain neutral.
That means a teacher cannot lead students in prayer "no school prayer", however if a student wishes to spontaneously pray on their own they can do so in school if they are not disruptive (ie loud) - and we democrats will defend their right to do so agaisnt certain principles who go to far into being the PC-police.
That means you cannot have the Ten Commandments posted on government property (a myriad of postings from different religions in one spot doesn't help this - how do you represent non-religious people who therefore have no document)
That means laws cannot be passed just for religious reasons.
That means the government cannot give money to religious groups (it is impossible to do so equally even if the humans involved in allocating the funds weren't inherently biased individuals)
That mans "Intelligent Design" doesn't belong in science class since it isn't science - it belongs in study of world religions, and that "study of world religions" class cannot be a sham that is only teaching ID (like that one school in california tried to pull)
As for the success of reagan's economic policies i need only present the following
http://www.democrats08.com/media/us_deficit0.gif
I happen to think that the government should have absolutely nothing to do with marriage, which is a religious institution, and should instead offer "social partnership" licenses to basically any pair of cohabiting adults for tax and social purposes.
couldn't agree more
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
I notice this quite a bit when watching sporting events on TV with friends and family.
What I mean by that is that any call that goes against the team that they are rooting for is almost universally in dispute by them or even completely refuted. Many times I can see where the referees have made the right call and it looks obvious to me. However, those around me still proclaim that it is a "bad" call, etc. even in the face of slow-mo replay with HDTV clarity.
I think the difference is that I just don't give a damn about sports in most cases, even if it is my home team. If you couple that with an over developed sense of fairness and respect for rules it makes for some interesting post game analysis when talking to devoted home team fans.
This is just sports though. I am sure that there are numerous other areas of life where I am susceptible to the same type of discriminatory viewpoint.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
I think one of the biggest problems facing our society is not being willing to acknowledge when the other group is correct or when we are wrong.
Before the 2004 elections, I asked people who supported Bush to name five issues on which they thought Bush was wrong, and people who supported Kerry to name five issues on which Kerry was wrong. To prime the pump, and demonstrate my own good will, and be bipartisan, I named five issues on which I believed both men were lost.
I posted the request for "where is your guy wrong?" to several Usenet groups, sent it to some newspaper columnists who had made endorsements, and sent it out to a few mailing lists. I was really hoping for some intelligent replies.
I got exactly one reply, by e-mail, from a Republican columnist. Nobody in any newsgroup, nobody on any mailing list, not even the people I'd mailed it to directly asking for their opinions, said a word. When I tried to follow up after the election, the replies made it clear: 99% of people didn't want to think about the idea that they were supporting a candidate who might be wrong on some issue.
Walter Lippman was right: "Where all think alike, none think very much."
I'm currently reading "Moral Politics," an interesting if repetitive book. It has been sufficiently repetitive that I've take a break and am reading the New Testament to square it against the author's points. I'm currently only mid-Luke, so my picture isn't re-complete. But I can state a few preliminary conclusions: (things in quotes are paraphrased extractions from memory)
Christ spoke out against immorality a few times, and most of those were within the context of marriage and divorce.
Christ was quite clearly against moral accounting by Man. "Vengence is mine, sayeth the Lord", "Forgive seventy times seven"
Christ was against making rule for others' behavior. "point out the speck in his eye, ignoring the log in your own"
But it seems to me that most of Christ's criticism was reserved for the Pharisees and Sadducees, in other words, "the establishment," the wealthy self-righteous who looked down on "those sinners."
One can take this however you want. I wish merely to point out the irony that those who wrap themselves in the flag and set themselves upon the Bible as a pedestal are acting as the Pharisees and Sadducees did. This is IMHO a clearly inconsistent position.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Firearms are illegal in the District of Columbia. And yet, somehow, criminals seem to have no problem with obtaining them and shooting each other.
;)
I've always found it interesting that shootings in DC don't make the news nearly as often as shootings in locations where guns aren't already illegal. Almost as if the news organizations don't want to admit that an outright ban doesn't work
Did he?:
Gun laws only make it more difficult for a criminal to get a gun if they don't have time to plan. So instead of getting a gun to kill a guy, they beat him with a baseball bat, stab him with a knife, or heck, shoot him with a crossbow.
There is no difference to me between a thief, a rapist, a murderer or an arsonist.
It is this kind of thinking that led to the death penalty for thieves back in medieval times (or maybe Dark Ages, not sure of the exact time frame). That led to greatly increased murder rates--after all, if you were going to be killed anyway if you got caught, you might as well kill the people trying to catch you. They can't kill you deader than they were already going to...
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
One reason why there are so many polarized ideals is due to the eradication of The Fairness Doctrine. There will never be a moderate position that is truly moderate in the United States; there will never be equitible debate on a grand scale in the media, until the Fairness Doctrine is reinstated.
In 1987 Reagan destroyed this precious aspect of democracy, which performed two very important things: it acknowledged that holders of valuable broadcast licenses had a duty to report news of interest to their constitutients, and it also gave citizens a right to peititon to have their side of a story heard in the media. When Reagan shot down this law, he paved the way for the new breed of media we see now, where editorial is intermixed with journalism, and we have 24-hour propaganda networks and extremist talk radio. This is why we now have a highly politically polarized populace who is incapable of recognizing 'facts.'
Nothing will change. Nothing. Until the Fairness Doctrine is reinstated. Every other attempt to alter the current course of corporate-dominated political policy will fail until there is a means by which more than one side gets a chance to air their issues in a fair manner.
People really need to understand this. It's THAT simple. It's all about the Fairness Doctrine. You can't organize an opposition party when the media has an interest in discrediting you. You can't even talk about important issues when the media won't report them. You can't create your own extremist broadcast network to counter another extremist broadcast network -- that doesn't work. The mainstream media must be forced to revert back to responsible journalism and giving equal time to opposing points of view. Without the Fairness Doctrine, nothing will change, and nothing else matters.
We have a perfect analogy already available to answer this question. Look at death of the elderly. A person is medically dead when brain function ceases, and thus, it is reasonable to conclude that a person becomes a medically alive person when brain function begins.
And this is where you lose the whole core of the abortion issue: the people who believe that "the start of life," meaning, "the gaining of a soul," happens at the moment of conception, and who will never believe anything different, because that's what their priest tells them to believe. (Or what their priest told their mother, who tells them, but you get the point.)
I happen to agree with you: I cannot see any reasonable argument that an embryo/fetus can be considered to be separately alive before it at least has differentiated brain cells, which doesn't happen for a while. Beyond that, I'm not medically qualified to judge.
But you and I are able to put aside emotion, and religion, for reason. Some people are not, and never will be.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
This retreat-to-the-castle-and-raise-the-drawbridge mentality that seems to pervade Congress is the reason that elections are so hotly contested
Which makes an excellent argument for going back to the way Senators were originally chosen: by state legislatures. If they didn't have to pander to their most vocal supporters then you wouldn't see a lot of the public mudslinging that Senators engage in these days. House of Reps works great as directly elected but each individual Senator has too much power to pander to the loudest (lowest?) common denominator. If their elections were removed by a layer then they could afford to be more understanding in public of the other side.