Necromancer

As a U.S. citizen and human being, you have the ability to think independently. How many of you reading this have ever voted? And out of you how many have taken the time it takes to learn what effects socialized health care would have on our economy? What about gun rights?

Without doing independent research, your thoughts will be inherently influenced by whatever propaganda you happen to run into. If someone were to come up to you before you voted and asked you, "Why are you voting for {insert name here}?" Would you be able to answer them?

I'm not assuming that you the reader have never done this, but can you see where I'm coming from? I've met and talked to so many people who are so adamant about their political ideals that no amount of arguing will ever shake their thoughts. It is these type of people that need to be not "dealt with" just ignored.

Freebase Dali

You do make a good point with the fact that people who don't go out and actually try to verify information they receive from the media or any other source are very likely to end up supporting positions based on a bias.
More difficult still is the ability to allow oneself to actually expend the effort to research something that does not coincide with their perceptions. Most people simply seek affirmation, rather than validation. And it works the same on both ends of the spectrum.
Personally, I think that if someone is consistently supporting a broad ideal that can be packaged into a general concept, they are controlled by that and will never let it go.
However, those that are willing to challenge that which lies within such a boundary, regardless of the outcome of such scrutiny, will inevitably be better off as a people who can make decisions, rather than simply adhere to the status quo because it makes sense to their preconceptions.

Really, I think everyone should treat absolutely everything like a scientist treats the results of an experiment. The results should be what matters, not the hypothesis.

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Necromancer

I personally think that politics are becoming more of a promotional stunt than it is a reasonable way to solve our problems. Democrats and Republicans spend billions of dollars to try and influence your vote. This money should be spent educating voters on all issues through a non-bias third-party.

I have come to learn that anybody that deals in absolutes (meaning they can't see more than their own perspective) is not worth listening to at all.

Trollheart

Are you saying that if you're NOT a US citizen you don't have the right to think independently? In any case, I choose to believe what I was programmed to believe.



Over here it's just as bad. We have three main parties --- Fine Gael (feena gale) Fianna Fail (feena foil) and Labour, and though the middle one was just kicked out of power a few years ago and seriously spanked in the polls, we of course find that the new govt --- a coalition of the other two; they've never either of them been powerful/popular enough to be in office on their own --- are pretty much the same. Now everyone who voted for them is bitching. What did they expect? We're already hobbled by having handed our sovereignty over to Brussels, and now all we can do is bend over, drop 'em and take it and try not to make much noise.

People thought getting FF out and FG/Labour in would solve everyone's problems at a stroke, now, like Obama after the Bush administration's rape of America, they have a mess to clean up and it's going to take time. Nobody seems to have thought of that...

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Unknown Soldier

Is the Irish press as right wing and fictitious in its reporting as the British press is?

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Metal Wars

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PoorOldPo

More or less, well probably less so, but still just as bad.

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Trollheart

Like every country, there are papers that are right wing, left wing and no wing. I don't read the papers so couldn't say but I know a lot of them are owned by a conglomerate which is I think basically right-leaning. The news is relatively unbiased: if the govt ****s up, they report it. If the opposition **** up they report it. In fairness, even if they (RTE, the broadcasting authority) **** up they make a story out of it.

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Necromancer

Where did that^ obtuse statement come from?I honestly can't tell the difference between trolling and idiocy anymore. Guess it's best to treat them as the same thing.

It's a big mess and cannot be fixed by one man. It requires a strong and cooperative Congress with members on both sides of the aisle working together.

Burning Down

I'm very much a social democrat. Social democracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm not sure if the US has something similar... can't be as cut and dry as Democrat, Republican, Independent.

Necromancer

I found it interesting concerning Neoliberalism, contemporary era, 1979 to present.

The economic crisis in the Western world during the mid to late 1970s resulted in the rise of neoliberalism and politicians elected on neoliberal platforms such as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and US President Ronald Reagan. The rise in support for neoliberalism raised questions over the political viability of social democracy, such as sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf predicting the "end of the social democratic century".