Steve, I agree with you on SO many levels. First, with regards to it not being about reps vs. dems. As you pointed out, each party seems to demonize the other so much that we as voters don't even think to look into the facts of the "other" party. You Dems that won't vote for a Rep and Reps that won't vote for a Dem, just based on the percieved and usually artificially constructed treachery of the other party. If people are just willing to listen to what one person says, why can't they start listening to what both people say? Why do things have to be "us vs. them"? This turns into saying that everyone and everything that isn't saying what "we" determine as correct is biased. So if everyone is wrong except us and those who agree with us, who do we listen to.... the people who pay us or can give us favors and advance our political careers.
This becomes a huge problem when we are talking about economic decisions based on science. We have our house science chair saying that a climate report "is biased", without even reading the entire report. Our former science chair cited the big guy upstairs as a reason for climate change not being possible. If you believe that I'm all for it, but that's not relevant to the evidence provided in scientific reports. Why can't we just start to actually believe the people who are experts in this science? Both of these guys are from Texas.... maybe their influenced by some oil companies? Both are entirely unqualified to evaluate scientific literature, yet they are still in these positions of power. We have the humane society claiming that thousands of wolves are being killed. Hunters are being portrayed as whimsically running through the snow in the U.P. shooting all of these helpless wolves. The actual % success of wolf hunts was about 2.0 (23 out of 1200). You have people supporting this based on their party lines, and not the facts. If we wanted to vote against it because there were some potentially unqualified people on the board that would be determining hunting seasons, that's another story, but it's not what the main advertisements were.
Whether it's about taxes, natural resources, education, or climate change, we need to evaluate everything and everyone individually and approach ALL of them with a healthy skepticism that we'd have if we were to be buying a used car. We need to kick the tires and look under the hood. Even if we trust the person we're buying it from, we need to check it out for ourselves regardless of our feelings towards the salesman. If it doesn't work, then we need to stop going to that dealership, and hold that person responsible. If it does work, we can keep going back there until it stops working. Just trusting in a party is a plan for failure, as we can see today. Politicians are there for themselves and those that are paying them in political favors or in money. As Steve said, it's not a Dem vs. Rep thing. I've stopped listening to any and all news that has anchors explicitly favoring a certain party, rather than hearing facts. I don't want to hear anchors give their opinions on issues and express them as being fact, I want someone to tell me both sides of the story, in an uninvolved 3rd party manner, and allow me to make my own decisions. I know that we'll never be 100% free from special interests and beliefs, but there is a big difference between Foxnews/MSNBC and CBS, or even NPR (although NPR is seen as "liberal" because the majority of its listeners are liberal, I've never found any blatant bias in their programs).
Well, there's my rant.
This becomes a huge problem when we are talking about economic decisions based on science. We have our house science chair saying that a climate report "is biased", without even reading the entire report. Our former science chair cited the big guy upstairs as a reason for climate change not being possible. If you believe that I'm all for it, but that's not relevant to the evidence provided in scientific reports. Why can't we just start to actually believe the people who are experts in this science? Both of these guys are from Texas.... maybe their influenced by some oil companies? Both are entirely unqualified to evaluate scientific literature, yet they are still in these positions of power. We have the humane society claiming that thousands of wolves are being killed. Hunters are being portrayed as whimsically running through the snow in the U.P. shooting all of these helpless wolves. The actual % success of wolf hunts was about 2.0 (23 out of 1200). You have people supporting this based on their party lines, and not the facts. If we wanted to vote against it because there were some potentially unqualified people on the board that would be determining hunting seasons, that's another story, but it's not what the main advertisements were.
Whether it's about taxes, natural resources, education, or climate change, we need to evaluate everything and everyone individually and approach ALL of them with a healthy skepticism that we'd have if we were to be buying a used car. We need to kick the tires and look under the hood. Even if we trust the person we're buying it from, we need to check it out for ourselves regardless of our feelings towards the salesman. If it doesn't work, then we need to stop going to that dealership, and hold that person responsible. If it does work, we can keep going back there until it stops working. Just trusting in a party is a plan for failure, as we can see today. Politicians are there for themselves and those that are paying them in political favors or in money. As Steve said, it's not a Dem vs. Rep thing. I've stopped listening to any and all news that has anchors explicitly favoring a certain party, rather than hearing facts. I don't want to hear anchors give their opinions on issues and express them as being fact, I want someone to tell me both sides of the story, in an uninvolved 3rd party manner, and allow me to make my own decisions. I know that we'll never be 100% free from special interests and beliefs, but there is a big difference between Foxnews/MSNBC and CBS, or even NPR (although NPR is seen as "liberal" because the majority of its listeners are liberal, I've never found any blatant bias in their programs).
Well, there's my rant.
