To my conservative friends and foes, first let me say, congratulations on your win. Unlike the Democrats, you managed to fill your heads with steam and ire and get out the vote. You also got a great deal of financial support from those good folks on Wall Street who really want to continue doing things the way they have been, but that’s a whole ‘nother issue than what I want to address now.
No, what I want to address now is your tendency to create your own reality, which just doesn’t jibe with anything actually like, you know, reality. You’re the most masterful wielders of confirmation bias I think anyone can see outside a psycho ward. In fact, over the past decade, your entire political and social SOP is what some, in the first half of the last century, termed the “Big Lie.”
(Which I’ve blogged on before, for the interested.)
Now, I realize I’m likely annoying you with my somewhat insulting, patronizing tone, but I humbly ask your forbearance. In my eyes, what happened Tuesday was almost uniformly a travesty for my beloved country and its people, and the bile hasn’t settled. Just think about how long it took yours to settle after Obama won. Oh right. It hasn’t yet.
I am, sincerely, interested in your thoughts on this stuff, though. Below is a clip from The Rachel Maddow show. Wait, wait, I know you’re programmed to stick your fingers in your ears and screech like an owl with its wing stuck in a car door when that hateful liberal dyke opens her trap, but for once, please, hear her out. I challenge you to actually watch this segment and respond to it with reason.
To me, she makes her case. And though I’m on the other side of the political divide from you, I’m not prone to simple acceptance of arguments which back up my side. As Rachel usually does, she provides actual evidence for her claims. And if she’s right, you’re living in a closed circuit echo chamber that creates its own “facts” and refuses to allow evidence into the loop that would disprove those “facts.”
Your reaction to this video could well prove her point further. I’m interested in that possibility. I’m also interested in knowing if, when faced with the possibility that the awe-inspiring righteous reportage of Fox News is actually misleading you all the time, you’re able to take a step back and see that perhaps they’re not so “fair and balanced” at all.
And don’t throw MSNBC’s partisanship at me, or rail about the liberal media, as deflections. Today we’re talking about this right wing echo chamber, and whether you can step outside it long enough to even see that it exists.
If it does exist, how can you continue to let it be your primary source of “fact?”
If it doesn’t, how do you explain Rachel’s individual points of evidence?
I hope you’ll watch the video and share your thoughts in the comments below.
Under An Outlaw Moon 
Dear Tim,
It would take a while to respond fully to your blog rant about the conservative win on Tuesday. I don’t have that kind of time at hand, nor do I wish to indulge. And, it wouldn’t matter anyway since you seem to be presupposed to see things one way only. I will offer a comment or two, then head over to the unsubscribe page. (duly offended).
I hold conservative views because after decades of study, and analysis, and measure, that is the view which appeals to me. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Fox news, and was firmly in place even before Rush Limbaugh was ever on the air. The issues, and beliefs, of conservatism are best, IMO, and though they are not perfect, they are closer to ‘reality’ and how things must work.
You liberals live in a dream world. And don’t think I am influenced by Fox or anyone else, but only by my own ability to discern how things work, and to interpret history and economics. I think it’s funny (and telling) that you believe, because you have been told this, that conservatives are mice following the pied piper of Fox news. (or whomever)
To me, that makes YOU GUYS the ones who thoughtlessly accept what is handed to you; this paranoia about Fox news. The only thing Fox news has done is give a voice to a demographic which felt hitherto ignored. I do admit Fox leans more right, but you, sir, have placed the cart before the horse; it’s FOX who is following THEIR VIEWERS, not the other way around.
So, that must beg the question, how could the conservative Americans out there settle down on the side of conservatism? As I described for myself above, they came to it in their own ways, likely, since to many of us facts and reason and common sense and authentic nuts and bolts of economics ring true to them.
Disclaimer: notice that I said conservative, and not Republican. These two are NOT the same thing. All that was to say, you can’t criticize conservatism today by citing examples of Republicans’ efforts, since the Republicans of the last decade are all over the map and rudderless. Now, if you want to criticize Reagan, then we can meet at the waffle house and roll up our sleeves. LOL
Yes, your blog pissed me off. Take an economics class or something. Maybe that will help.
Cecil,
Thanks for taking the time to reply, even if I offended you.
In my post “Livin’ the Lie,” which I linked to in this post, I began with a disclaimer:
Based on your response above, I’d guess that in this case, I’m not really talking about you. I am, indeed, talking about those rudderless Republicans/Tea Baggers who largely were the winners on Tuesday, and predominately carry the flag of “conservatism” now. But I recognize the difference between a William F. Buckley and a Glenn Beck, the difference between a Richard Nixon and a George W. Bush (other than the difference that one was actually punished for his criminal acts), the difference between a younger John McCain and the one crotcheting around now.
Reagan, we definitely would disagree on, I reckon, as I think his policies ran our economy into the ground and started the huge wave of “moralistic” conservatism that’s swamping us right now. But Reagan’s dead, and the damage is done and done again, so I’m more concerned with the (admittedly far worse) idiots who’ve followed than I am him.
Heck, even G.H.W. Bush, who I thought was terrible, seems almost presidential these days, after watching his misbegotten spawn for most of a decade. It’s all relative, and I guess things can always get worse, but can’t always get better.
If I offended you because I was negative about the echo chamber formed by Fox and other “conservative” entities these days, and of their spreading, with full intent, straight out lies and propaganda in the guise of news, then I can live with that, because I think any entity, on whatever side, that operates that way is a cancer to our country. And if I offended you because I spoke ill of the many “conservatives” who plainly do buy into all that shit whole-heartedly and without question, I can also live with that.
But you actually sound reasonable and intelligent, which honestly is refreshing at this point, coming from someone calling themselves conservative. You are definitely in the minority among the conservatives I encounter generally both on and off-line.
yes, i will concede that many armchair conservatives today do blithely follow bill oreilly and other fox commentators without thinking for themselves…. and there’s no excuse for that; though, on balance, the liberal program (fiscally speaking anyway) doesn’t stand up. then again a purely free market one results in corruption, so at this point i am not very optimistic. yes the rePROMISEcans took back the house, but probably wont do a damn thing with it since they are woosies to begin with. i keep asking my buddies, ‘ya’ll keep on about republican this and that, but remember THEY HAD IT FOR A WHILE AND SAT ON THEIR HANDS.’ and moreover, that jerkweed fratboy dubya (whom i voted for twice) has done more damage to education in the last 8 years than we can fix in a 30 year turnaround, which is scary. (for everyone, but especially those seeing it firsthand, like myself).
i asked my friend yesterday at waffle house, ‘what do you remember (notable things for history) about the G W bush presidency?’ he just sat there in pause, and i answered my own question. “two things. 1-yelling thru that megaphone at ground zero (what a joke) and 2-rolling back daylight savings time.’
big freaken whoop that was.
(and of course, NCLB… which is a boil on the armpit of our educational history)
my brother, i will concede that there is a mindlessness to some of the rallying going on now.
but…..
but…..
that is not to say that the liberal plan for america is the right one. honestly, we would all be in troble if you guys got your way. (no offense)
and (again, no offense) i think liberals mainly need to be saved from themselves, cause if they got what they asked for, unassumingly, they would be way disappointed after the fact. (kinda like the people who supported lenin in the teens)
what confuses me is, why cant we all just agree on freedom, for everyone, and capitalism as a foundation? (with some slight modifications). this is rush limbaugh’s position exactly but i bet you didnt know that. besides, the term freedom itself INTRINSICALLY implies capitalism, along with a great deal of lassaiz faire (sp?) policies….. so hence my mention of ‘modified capitalism’…..
let me tell you… my best friends are from cuba, and trust me, friend, you do not want to live under a leftist government. (and dont give me any speeches about sweden or wherever, cause they are light years away from us demographically and on many other fronts… and, moreover, no mecca of freedom anyway, so…)
(yet, are a mecca of prozac, vodka and suicide, or so i’ve heard)
my buddies tell me every day a new story about their travails under fidel
anyway, i think we are more similar than i first thought, yet maybe not on the fiscal front. but so be it.
okay, i will go resubscribe now. then i’m gonna put in my new luc besson dvd and kick back. (yes it has killing in it. GASP!) lol …lmao, you liVerals!…
(just kidding) :)
—cecil
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