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A Little Parable About False Witnessing and Malice from the Slacktavist...
The Slacktavist has a little parable about bearing false witness on his blog today that is really a must-read.
It's also pretty clear just who he's talking about in his parable as he tries to explain the fearful, malicious mindset we're seeing coming from the "Obama is reely a sekrit Muslim!" crowd and Palin's vicious acceptance speech, which seemed to be 50% lies. (Oooops! She lied again again! And again!)
And what really confuses the hell out of me is that even after Palin's been caught in several lies over and over again over the past week, she keeps repeating the same damn lies. It's almost like she thinks people are stupid.
The Slacktivist — reporter, progressive, and evangelical Christian — attempts to explain this mindset to us reality-based peoples in today's blog entry. (It's Part 1 of a two-part series.)
Although I am loathe to support his anti-Heinlein theory that one should never attribute to stupidity what can be attributed to malice, since he's more familiar with the kind of mindset that he's targeting I'll take his word for it that the population of people who fall into this category is a whole lot bigger than I'd like to believe.
In the meantime, I still believe that there are some low-information voters out there who just need a few facts.
So, mon amis, I have a list of sites you should bookmark and read on a regular basis so that when you meet a low-information voter who just might believe that Obama's a supah sekrit Muslim bent on killin' whitey (presumably after he raises whitey's taxes), you'll be properly prepared to set them a-right.
[Oh, and for you GOPers out there, you might want to take advantage of these sites, too. No matter what they tell you, the facts do not have a liberal bias. I swear. Cross my heart and hope to die.]
Sites you need to bookmark until at least November 5:
P.S. — Can someone tell me where the summer went? All I know is that one minute it was June 30, and now it's September 8.
Do you realize that I still owe something like 5 people phone calls from the first week in July that I said I'd call? [Tries not to look at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
szandara and kurukami and a handful of other LJ-type people who might not want the general public to know they live near me.]
I swear I meant to call. I did.
But, see, I was kidnapped by this army of ducks while kayaking...
This meeting of the Glorious Duck Revolution shall now come to order. Top of the agenda: How do we get stupid humans to feed us more bread?
[Photo taken while kayaking the Charles River on Sunday, July 27, 2008. (Photo by Lizbeth Marcs)]
It's also pretty clear just who he's talking about in his parable as he tries to explain the fearful, malicious mindset we're seeing coming from the "Obama is reely a sekrit Muslim!" crowd and Palin's vicious acceptance speech, which seemed to be 50% lies. (Oooops! She lied again again! And again!)
And what really confuses the hell out of me is that even after Palin's been caught in several lies over and over again over the past week, she keeps repeating the same damn lies. It's almost like she thinks people are stupid.
The Slacktivist — reporter, progressive, and evangelical Christian — attempts to explain this mindset to us reality-based peoples in today's blog entry. (It's Part 1 of a two-part series.)
Although I am loathe to support his anti-Heinlein theory that one should never attribute to stupidity what can be attributed to malice, since he's more familiar with the kind of mindset that he's targeting I'll take his word for it that the population of people who fall into this category is a whole lot bigger than I'd like to believe.
In the meantime, I still believe that there are some low-information voters out there who just need a few facts.
So, mon amis, I have a list of sites you should bookmark and read on a regular basis so that when you meet a low-information voter who just might believe that Obama's a supah sekrit Muslim bent on killin' whitey (presumably after he raises whitey's taxes), you'll be properly prepared to set them a-right.
[Oh, and for you GOPers out there, you might want to take advantage of these sites, too. No matter what they tell you, the facts do not have a liberal bias. I swear. Cross my heart and hope to die.]
Sites you need to bookmark until at least November 5:
- PolitiFact, a graphics-heavy, interesting little site from the St. Petersberg Times. Be sure to read the commentary that comes with each of the ratings, because you'll quickly find that something may be technically true (and thus rated as true) while still being a lie.
- FactCheck.org from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Not flashy, but definitely my fave. So painfully politically neutral that its earnestness rolls off the page.
- OntheIssues.org, non-partisan guide to the candidates and the issues. Feels a little like it's being held together by chewing gum, spit, and a whole lot of volunteers, but definitely a good way to get a quick snapshot on where all the candidates stand.
- OpenSecrets.org is where you go when you wanna follow the money in the politics.
- I'm not a fan of RealClearPolitics because it's got too much opinion and not enough analysis. That said, I'm throwing it out there because it's got a lot of fans.
- FiveThirtyEight (leans left), Electoral-Vote (leans center-left), Pollster.com (neutral), and Election Projection (leans right) are all excellent sites that help the common voter make sense of polling, the Electoral College, surveys, and how news (and the lack of news) affect polling results from one day to the next. Highly educational whatever your political stripe.
P.S. — Can someone tell me where the summer went? All I know is that one minute it was June 30, and now it's September 8.
Do you realize that I still owe something like 5 people phone calls from the first week in July that I said I'd call? [Tries not to look at
szandara and kurukami and a handful of other LJ-type people who might not want the general public to know they live near me.]I swear I meant to call. I did.
But, see, I was kidnapped by this army of ducks while kayaking...
This meeting of the Glorious Duck Revolution shall now come to order. Top of the agenda: How do we get stupid humans to feed us more bread?
[Photo taken while kayaking the Charles River on Sunday, July 27, 2008. (Photo by Lizbeth Marcs)]
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Well, duh. But when one examines the seriousness and effect of errors... Y'know something? Bill Clinton lying about sex ... well, just about everyone does. Dumb mistake. Didn't affect his bringing down the deficit. Falsifying information to get America into an illegal war? That's treason.
Oh, and Harding screwed his teenage mistress in the Oval Office, and got her pregnant, and Republicans in Ohio still put up a memorial to the lying, cheating bugger. Apply your standards evenly or stop pretending to be fair and rational, eh?
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The point isn't that the other side lies, the point is that not every negative thing you hear about a candidate is true. In the spirit of the False Witness article linked by Ms. Marcs, each of us has a responsibility to confirm rumors, about *either* candidate, before spreading them.
I wish there was some way to demonstrate on the internet that I hated both candidates, as well as their running mates. Alas, it is impossible. But please, read what I wrote without assuming that simply because I criticize you that I'm a GOP sympathizer. Republican v. Democrat is a very false dichotomy.
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And I'm definitely *not* an Objectivist, if that thought occurred to you.
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It's a particularly pernicious memetic contagion that tends to infect young white men in college, usually when they realize that they don't automatically have all the money and nubile concubines they think they should, because they're so awesome.
Hopefully that last bit doesn't describe you, so you might be salvaged...
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I'm not sure I understand your assertion that it "occurs" because "they realize that they don't automatically have all the money and nubile concubines they think they should." What attracted me in the first place is the idea that you aren't owed *anything*, you don't automatically deserve one *bit*. Rather, everything has to be earned.
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Of course, I'm sure you earned everything you have, all by yourself, with no help from others, and certainly no help from the icky-poo government.
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I earned a series of private grant scholarships (e.g. Edgar Krahn mathematics scholarship,) and took a programming job in college to pay for my other expenses. If you're referring to my *parents*, and the fact that they supported me until I went to school (well, my father died a year before, but that's not really relevant,) I can't deny it. If you're going to hold that against me, there's not much I can do about that.
That paragraph may sound like bragging, but I only brought it up because of your implication.
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Let's see, from the top: because of your birth, you are privileged in society. Your race makes you privileged, because you are assumed to have earned your position, and are shown favorable treatment in scholarships and hiring. Your sex makes you privileged for similar reasons. The fact that you could afford an education of any sort shows that you are privileged, because you came from a family with the means to send you to school. These things are not your fault, and they do not make you a bad person; they just are.
Now of course, we all know that life can't be perfectly fair. This is a given. But how on Earth do you go from "perfect fairness can't be achieved" to "we should not even try"? More to the point, how do you justify ignoring blatant unfairness perpetuated both consciously and unconsciously by the people in power? You can't simply handwave that and pretend that everyone has an equal chance to succeed; it's simply not true.
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My point, which is admittedly not clear, is that I don't think it's the government's place to make judgments on fairness, as long as individual rights are not compromised. I don't think such judgments can be even remotely objective. I see government legislating fairness as the most slippery of slopes. If someone thinks that the poor should be helped, they should help them, as many very wealthy people have done. What they should not do is tell others that *they* must help them.
I really need to sleep for work tomorrow. I will get to any further response you make, and your other points, tomorrow.
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Let me try this: government in a democratic republic represents collective action by the people, to do what the people individually don't have the resources to accomplish. It's useful where a market solution would be sub-optimal or even harmful (yes, Virginia, there is a problem markets can't fix). So, in a representative democracy, at least in theory, what the government decides on as far as services goes, is what a majority of the people want. More to the point, for many problems, government-funded services are more effective and more efficient than a market-based approach, and more able to solve the problem than a voluntary charity.
The "objectivity" thing is a red herring, and absurd on its face, so I won't address that.
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If your father or mother had a job with insurance that provided for pre-natal care, you experienced privilege. If you had a parent who was able to stay home and care for you, you experienced privilege. If you went to a public school in a middle class or upper class neighborhood, you experienced privilege. I could go on and on.
It sounds like you are smart and have put in a lot of effort, which is to be applauded, but there were layers of support you had others don't - in large part to previous generation's racist and classicist policies.
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Yet you continue to declare that Repubs and Dems 'both' tell lies. And you yourself brought up the Dem v. Repub contrast, claiming 'both' tell lies. You've only defended Repubs, however.
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* Became a reformer only when expedient
* Utilizes family for political machinations
* Favored windfall profits taxes
* Opposes abortion
* Opposes gay marriage
* Is a Creationist
* *Might* have been involved in gubernatorial abuse of power.
* No foreign policy experience
I'm sure I could think of more, if you find that insufficient.
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