Confirmation Bias Still Alive & Well

I had a few words with my oldest daughter this morning about confirmation bias. She is almost 17 and in just over a year she will be eligible to vote. She should start making efforts to understand the world around her so she can make informed decisions and forge a realistic worldview. I don't know how much she understood what I was talking about, but it never hurts to plant the seeds that may be watered by someone else (friend, teacher, significant other, etc) in the future. 

I've sort of been shocked by what has been happening in the media and with people's reaction to it since the election. I guess old habits are hard to break. The same people that didn't have a clue that Hillary Clinton was not a shoe in for president are now telling everyone that Roe v Wade is done, gays and lesbians have to go back in the closet, and anyone with skin that isn't white are going to be booted out of the country. Nonsense. At no point will I say that people shouldn't be concerned about what a Trump presidency may bring, but in my opinion, not a whole lot more than they should have been worried about Obama or Bush before him. We have a system in place and we don't elect kings.

Remember those guys, Bush and Obama? You know, Bush was going to over turn Roe v Wade too, along with calling for martial law so he could remain president past his eight years. Remember when Obama was going to take all of the guns away and call for martial law so he could remain president past his eight years? I 'member.

This post isn't about Trump or the presidential race though, it's about searching for information and news. With "team politics" so prevalent in our culture, we have created a sense that it's a reality TV show or a ball game. That the winners and losers being heralded or vilified means more than the actual results. It's entertainment and when people look at news as entertainment (and entertainment as news) that opens the door for profiteers and for information manipulation. We saw it all through the presidential campaigns with Bernie v Hillary and then Trump v Hillary. It was almost as if (or they actually are) each website or news organization was a propaganda site for one candidate or another. 

I used to be a FOX News guy. Why? Because they talked about what I wanted to hear in the way I wanted it talked about. I eventually popped that bubble, but most people don't and never will. Most people are going to seek out news and information that fits in with their worldview. Honesty and truth become secondary to their bias. They stay safe from critical analysis in the bubble. That leads people into a fog in which they are walking through life with a false sense of reality and if they are only surrounded by folks that are doing the same thing, there is no possibility of a different point of view sneaking in to challenge them. If we only talk to conservatives, only watch conservative news or visit conservative websites, how can you possibly get a sense of what is happening on the liberal side or in the real world that occupies the middle? Works vice versa too. Just as an example to think about....do you think people in North Korea or Iran know who we are as a people? Do you think they have an honest grasp on what our nation is about and more importantly, what the people of this nation are about? You know they don't. Why? Because they are spoon fed one version of information and events and that's going to shape their worldview. The world they are shown isn't presented in a way that allows them to make a fair determination on how they should feel or think.

I kind of figured that people would be a little  more willing to "let the cake bake" after the election results, but no, we have rioting, anger, and a proliferation of misinformation flying around. How can this happen so fast? Wikileaks showed the folly of the Democrats nomination process and exposed the media's complicity in defeating Bernie Sanders. Bernie was saying the same thing Trump was about Clinton but the reporting and following up on that was nearly non-existent. The media fixated on Trump's personality and not nearly enough on the substance (or lack thereof) of his rhetoric. They dropped the ball on investigating both of these candidates enough at the policy level and focused on the entertainment value instead. Was it any wonder that all the polls from establishment media showed Hillary waltzing to victory and the few that tried to maintain balance in their sampling were proven to be more accurate? Remember the Duke lacrosse team rape case and how the media convicted those young men in the court of public opinion on a rape that didn't happen?  If you want something to be true, you will find a way to make it so. Social media is ripe with disinformation and outright lies and again, if you want something to be true, you will only be confirming your bias by not getting an opposing view. I do confirmation bias with a couple of things.....musicians I enjoy and sports teams I love. In real life, I'm not about to let the left or right wings get their hooks in me ever again. I cull information from a lot of sources. On TV, I look to CNN and FOX and then go to YouTube to hear what Reason TV and Al Jazeera are reporting on. I use the internet extensively. I'm as apt to check out Breitbart as much as I am Daily Kos and I frequent CNN and FOX on the net as well. Real Clear Politics offers a lot of editorial information from a host of news services and I also rely on the Wall St Journal and the New York Times. There are other great places to grab information with sites like IFL Science and Investors Business Daily. 

Then, there is gut check time and that can be difficult. I have to try to sort through the information and make sense of it, all while trying to check my bias on a topic. It'd be easy to just click FOX or CNN and allow my mind to be made up in easy and short fashion, but that's not who I want to be. I want more raw info and less manipulated info. I'm finding the truth in evaluation is difficult so all I can do is weight the information I receive against the past, about what I already know, and with more than a healthy dose of skepticism. If I had been a bit more skeptical of the propaganda we were being fed post 9/11/2001, perhaps I wouldn't have been so gung ho about supporting an invasion of Iraq that was built on media manipulation and outright fallacy. I still lament not seeing through that.

I would love to be more optimistic and trusting, but I have to have good reason to be. As a born pessimist it's hard for me to be optimistic in general, but I really am trying and part of that trying is the want to see results before I condemn or celebrate. I did that with the new Star Wars and Planet of the Apes, so surely I can be patient enough to see what the new government will bring. I also want to be able to trust the news, but we are not living in that reality.  

In the end, I suppose my point is that we just don't seem to be learning fast enough. It does seem that more people than ever are waking up to how the news media must be seen with a skeptical eye, but it's not happening fast enough for me as I see friends, co-workers, etc sliding right back to buying every media narrative floated since the election. According to Gallup an all-time low number of people trust mainstream news to portray information accurately. That number is 32%. Unreal, yet we still see people who say they are skeptical going "all in" with every headline. Another important part of all this is that as of 2012, six corporations own 90% of the media. In 1983, it was 50 companies. An incredible centralizing of information distribution. That's quite a bit of power in the hands of the few and it's ripe for manipulation and exploitation.  

I'd ask anyone interested in trying to strip away their confirmation to do it a little at a time. When I stopped believing in organized religion, I took the advice of Julia Sweeney and just took off my "god glasses" for a little while every day. I tried to see the world through a prism that didn't include a personal god that cared about the things that religion says that god cares about. For every couple of Breitbart articles or Mother Jones articles you read, why not visit the other site and read on the same topic? Why not go to CNN and FOX and listen to their take and then find a commentary on You Tube to get a differing opinion. Do so without your ideological glasses on. Be intellectually honest with yourself and try to determine where the facts are and what that means to you and your worldview. You may come right back to the same conclusions you already hold, but at the least, you will have challenged yourself to be open to different ideas, and maybe more importantly, to understand the view point of others. Understanding each other as people and not as opponents is a big deal for me and the more people that can be brought out of their confirmation bias, the better in my opinion. 

Until next time.....

Gary Johnson for President in 2012!

I haven't written anything for this blog in about two months. That's an incredibly long stretch for me, and since I have my work week done, I've decided to get in some writing. 

I've pretty much been a Republican my entire adult life. I voted for Bush 1 over Clinton. I voted for Bob Dole. Hell, I voted for W.....twice! But enough was enough. I started checking myself and thought about my beliefs back in 2007. When I dissected how I thought and felt about the issues in a real and personal way, I started to find out that I didn't really buy into what the GOP was selling, especially on a social level. I still couldn't bring myself to vote for Obama, so I didn't vote at all. John McCain had gone from a middle of the road Republican to a right winger, just to get the nomination over Mitt Romney. This time, Romney has done the same thing and swung even more to the right. I still don't identify with the Democrats, and after seeing how Obama pretty much continued the Bush Administrations policies in many areas, I knew I was losing my political identity. 

But, in the last four or five weeks I have started seeing some articles about Gary Johnson. I took a couple of those "What are you?" political tests and saw that I fall in line, largely, with a libertarian point of view. I have decided to embrace that, while maintaining my preference to not strictly align myself with any party. It's a bit liberating to not have to defend the indefensible, which is the monopolized system we are currently in. 

Learn More About Gary Johnson!

You see, Gary Johnson gives me someone to vote FOR and not against. I don't see voting for the "lesser of two evils" as some sort of triumph in American politics. I see it as a disaster in the making, where politicians can pay lip service to the mainstream American as they gain power and wealth by setting our system up to cater to the wealthy and multi-national corporations. Why would a politician really address your concerns? You don't make large contributions. You don't throw fund raisers. You just vote. And if you only have one other choice, you just have to cling to the party you ALWAYS support as if this is one big sports rivalry like the Yankees and Red Sox. A two party system is agreeable to the Dems and GOP, because even if they lose an election, they are only one cycle from regaining power. They only have to fight the "other side" and they don't have to contend with other ideas. We have become a country of liberals and conservatives instead of a country of Americans. We have sold out the idea of America to belong to a club that we refuse to disagree with because we have invested in it on a prideful and psychological level. It's sad. 

With that, I am proud to say that I am going to vote for Gary Johnson. Johnson has more governing experience than either of the two major candidates and he has actually started a business from the ground up. When Johnson was in college at the University of New Mexico, he earned money by being a handyman. He went door to door searching out work opportunities. Over the years, he was able to grow from a one man show into a business that was worth $10 million! He didn't get that money from his daddy,and yeah, he built that! 

Johnson got into politics in 1994 for the first time and ran for governor in New Mexico. That's a really high place to begin for a guy just starting out in politics. Against conventional advice, he started his campaign using some of his own money and ran as a Republican. Mind you, New Mexico is a largely Democratic state, so not very many people gave him a chance to even get the party nomination, let alone to actually win the governorship. As these sorts of stories can go, he defied the odds and won the nomination and then the general election! Why did he win? Because he spoke to the ordinary citizen. He was (and is) a proponent of small, less intrusive government. He is a leader in the fight for personal freedom and he is a man of his word. True to showing that he wasn't bought and sold by any party, Johnson used his veto power to shoot down any piece of legislation that wasn't necessary to the state or the government. Wasteful spending was eliminated. 

When he ran for re-election, he simply campaigned on the success and fulfillment of his word from his first term. It was expected that he would have a tough time winning a second term, as he was running against a Hispanic opponent. The pundits proved how out of touch they can be by simplifying people down to being robots who are only capable of voting for "their own kind". Johnson won easily and continued to govern as he had before. He made the availability of school vouchers and the elimination of war on drugs central pieces of his agenda and he also opposed the building of private prisons. An industry that should give EVERY American pause about how we create and enforce laws. 

Meet Gary Johnson!

Gary Johnson is the real deal. He has a record that is one of success, met expectations, and kept promises. He tried to run for the Republican nomination, but was largely ignored by the GOP and the press. The party abandoned him, so he went about his business and embraced the Libertarian Party, much the way Ron Paul has in the past. Johnson and the Libertarian Party have worked hard and he is now on the ballot in 47 states. The Republicans have tried to block him from getting on the ballot in three other states, but Johnson is fighting those efforts. It's not likely that you will see him in the presidential debates, even though he meets all the criteria but one. He isn't at 15% in the polling. He may have never reached that point anyhow, but it's impossible to know because he isn't listed on polls and the pollsters only focus on Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, or "other". It's a bit of a scam. It is specifically designed to keep anyone except Republicans and Democrats out of the conversation about our nation.  

Is Mitt Romney Scared Of Gary Johnson?

I've been told I'm wasting my vote and I beg to differ in a big way! How is my vote wasted if I am voting for the person I believe in and who most reflects my values? Wouldn't I truly be wasting the right to vote if I simply cast my ballot for the "lesser of two evils"? Wouldn't I have to consider myself intellectually dishonest if I only voted for a person because of some sort of misguided allegiance to a party that doesn't have the countries best interest at heart? 

Gary Johnson is the only candidate willing to be an adult. To be open and honest about the state of the country and what needs to be done to start us going in the right direction again. Here is a rundown of a few of Johnson's beliefs and proposals for restoring America;

1) simplify the tax system, abolish the IRS

2) a strong defense that isn't into nation building and forcing our political will on others

3) he opposes censorship

4) he opposes the War On Drugs as it is currently

5) he wants to cut the federal budget by 43%, and allow states to get involved with Medicare to suit their citizens better

6)  he advocates state's rights

7) he is for balancing the budget immediately

8) he believes the Federal Reserve is devaluing our currency and wants to eliminate it

9) he supports the rights of individuals over the state

10) he believes corporate welfare should be shut down

11) he is against lobbying

These things are not out of step with most Americans. Gary Johnson is for all the things that most Americans say they are for and what the two major parties SAY they are striving for. But the results have not shown it. The Democrats and Republicans work their agenda the way they want to, not how the American people want it done. Those parties work for the wealthy and corporations. Sure, they will throw out some sound bites that make people believe they are in tune with people who have lost their jobs, their homes, and are struggling to pay their bills. These parties are directly responsible for the destruction of our manufacturing base which has crippled the middle class, but they will NOT do anything to solve those problems. 

The choice is simple for our country. Continue down the path we are on or start making changes. Gary Johnson may not win this election, but the tide has to turn somewhere. Why not now? Why not here at this point in history? Why can't we look back at 2012 as a point in time where we decided that things had to change? If Johnson got just 10 or 15% of the vote, it would be a huge wake up call for our mainstream politicians and this country. A voice will have been heard. I think our nation is worth it.