Monday, November 19, 2012

Life in a Bubble


We all, left or right, have a tendency toward being blind to facts that disagree with our opinions, the best way to avoid this is to obtain our information from a variety of competing sources. Those living in a pure partisan bubble are doomed to succumb to a distorted view of reality derived from one-sided sources of information. We all do this to a degree but the right wing has raised this to an art form. As proof, look at how almost all right wing pundits were absolutely certain of a Romney landslide. The math clearly indicated an Obama win yet these people with few exceptions said the polls were wrong because they were done by liberals and didn't match up with their “facts”. Turns out, the average of the polls were almost exactly correct, clearly those right wing “facts” were not in line with reality.
Have you noticed how someone on the right makes up an assertion against Obama and then many others take up that idea and use each other as “sources” in a kind of circular self-reinforcing storm? The original assertion may be completely untrue yet many come to believe it; A few examples: Obama wasn't born in Kenya, Obama isn't a socialist, Obama has never taken anyone's guns, Obama isn't a Muslim, the Bureau of Labor Statistics didn't make up the job numbers last month, rape does result in many pregnancies, FEMA is not building concentration camps to house right wingers after they take away their guns, evolution is real, instituting moderate re-regulation on Wall Street is not communism, there were no death panels and climate change is not a hoax.
Our country's strength is the competing marketplace of ideas, and if we can't even agree on basic facts, that marketplace ceases to function; that is what we have witnessed for the last four years. In the election, reality has just smacked the Republicans upside the head and because they swim in a soup of self created “facts”, they were the only ones who didn't see it coming. We watched them on election night on Fox News as they stumbled around completely shell-shocked. Romney was so certain, he hadn't even prepared a concession speech! Obama had a concession speech because he knew the math said he had about a 10% chance of losing. So which of those two is grounded in reality? Maybe this election will serve as a wake up call for Republicans to rejoin the real world of real facts and stop getting their “facts” only from biased sources like Fox News, talk radio and right wing blogs. America would be much better off if we can have an honest debate in a free marketplace of ideas using facts arising from reality.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Thank you, American Voters


Congratulations America, you chose....wisely.
Some on the left are disappointed in Obama because he is just a moderate but look on the bright side, we are not going to get rid of Medicare, we are not going to put more Scalias on the Supreme court, we are not going to give a 20% tax cut to millionaires and pay for it on the backs of the poor, we are not going to reinstate “Don't Ask, Don't Tell”, we are not going to enshrine discrimination in the Constitution to keep gays from marrying, we are not going to force women to get permission from their boss if they want to get birth control through their health insurance, we are not going to redefine rape, we are not going to spend an extra $2 trillion on the military that even the military says is not needed, we are not going to cut back on aid for education, we are not getting rid of universal healthcare, we are not going to get rid of the Dream Act, we are not going to self deport, we are not going to start a trade war with China, we are not going to have John Bolton as our Secretary of State, we are not going to have Dick Cheney back as foreign policy adviser, we are not going to reassemble almost the entire Bush team of neocons and financial geniuses that left this country in shambles and from which we are just now recovering.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, American voters.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Heckava Job Romney


Wow, Bush's former FEMA director, Michael (heckava job Brownie) Brown is criticizing Obama for acting too quickly in his Hurricane Sandy response. I guess he thinks Obama should sit on his hands for 3 days before responding like he did in the aftermath of Katrina. This calls to mind the consequences of putting people, who hate government and don't want it to work effectively, in charge of government. Isn't it a self fulfilling prophesy to put people in control of the government who proclaim that government is the problem? Isn't that like hiring a manager to run your business who doesn't believe in your business? Who would ever do that?
So Romney thinks we should get rid of FEMA and put it in the hands of a private for profit business. Really!? So after a disaster, with people hungry, thirsty and homeless, instead of giving those people food, water and temporary shelter so they can get back on their feet, we would have private businesses come in and exploit them for profit which would just compound their problems. The whole idea of profiting off desperate people is completely wrongheaded. George Bush taught us the painful lessons of putting someone in charge of our government who has a contempt for government and his FEMA director, Michael Brown, was a perfect example.