Are we really this stupid?

[backbreaker]

While this talks about politics in some way this is not a political post.

I love history but I'm not that big into politics. It is just so freaking pointless here in America. There are some things I feel strongly about and I vote on those issues but I don't go around visiting political forums and i'm not a political junkie or anything like that.


But I do talk to people and you run into that type of person and people in general and I am just freaking floored by how gullible, or ignorant, or both the avg person is when it comes to politics.



Has anyone actaully just watched fox news? Do you actually listen to the **** they say on TV? seriously listen to it? That's not news that's political entertainment with women with nice legs.

I am very convinced that people do not read anymore, they just watch 1 hour snippets of TV coverage and get their talking points and then go to battle.

hell and this is sad becuase I'm black, I remember when obama was running for the democratic nomination and I was talking to my own mom on the phone and she said she would not vote for him becuase he was Muslim. And she damn well meant it.

I have better things to do with my life, more constructive things to do than to argue with someone over what some idiots on msnbc or foxnews stated about such and such but some people take this **** really seriously and both are pretty wrong more times than not.

Grown ass college educated men, 40-50 year old men going around copying and pasting links to extremist websites like they don't have better **** to do with their time. Both sides are just as bad but you talk to someone who considers themselve "in the know" and all they do is regurgitate what they saw on TV and are unable to form their own opinions.

 

[L B]

Sadly, most of us are both stupid and lazy...

 

[CuriousGirl]

This stuff really irritates me too, like you I'm not that into present day politics (perhaps because of the ignorance or distrust that surrounds it) but I really do love history so I still have an interest in it. Some of the media coverage we have over here in england, it really ****s me off, it's so full of crap and scare tactics and homing in on irrelevant things, urgh it frustrates me! Like a certain paper, The Daily Mail, it's SO full of ****. But it's possibly the most popular paper in the uk? What annoys me is that a lot of people just read it sucking it all up, not really realising it's such a biased paper. It ****s me off how much power that paper has and how it abuses it, it causes a storm over the most irrelevant things, it has a bloody worryingly strong influence over so many people. My grandad included, which really annoys me. My grandad is awesome until it comes to the paper he reads.

 

[Jules Verne]

Almost every goddamn country, man.

Always a stupid ass biased paper or ten.

 

[Bible_Belt]

I don't know anyone who votes. My friends who have registered to vote over the years always seem to get called in to serve jury duty. Plus, I owe money to the government; I don't want to go out of my way to let them know where I live. If you add up all the people who don't want to participate in the political system for reasons like this, the ones who are left are the geriatrics who watch Fox news. Those are the 18% of people who supported D!ck Cheney...because Fox news told them to.

We should know by now that it really does not matter who is president. GW and Barack could not be any different, but life is exactly the same under both presidents. It doesn't matter who wins; the system is a joke.

Having said all of that, a former law professor of mine that I know pretty well is running for Lt. Governor of my state. I might actually register to vote and help her with her campaign...not because I believe in the system; I just think it would be cool to know the Lieutenant Governor.

 

[Julian]

I agree people who speculate and talk about politics, civilians...its just stupid 99% of the time. Only the select few know whats really going down in politics namely politicians.

 

[Julius_Seizeher]

It's frustrating because for any evil you may find in the Republican camp, there is a mirror image of it happening in the Dems, vice versa and always.

That's one of the reasons I'm a Libertarian.

FAIRTAX NOW!!!

 

[Ease]

becuase he was Muslim.

?

Obama isn't a muslim.

Exact same thing happens in UK. We have a newspaper called 'The Sun'. Bought and read by people in bottom socio economic class that have righteous views on life and politics. Construction workers talking about how foreigners are the cause of all problems.

 

[Jules Verne]

^ That was backbreaker's point. If you haven't read one of his threads about his background, his mother is a religious fanatic. No offense to backbreaker. I understand the pain.

And ****, The Sun is bad? I didn't know that. I use that to quickly go through what happens across the pond. What do you suggest as alternatives, Ease? Good publications and newspapers I mean.

 

[CaptainJ]

^ That was backbreaker's point. If you haven't read one of his threads about his background, his mother is a religious fanatic. No offense to backbreaker. I understand the pain.

And ****, The Sun is bad? I didn't know that. I use that to quickly go through what happens across the pond. What do you suggest as alternatives, Ease? Good publications and newspapers I mean.

The Times, that's a well respected newspaper, even left wingers admire it.

 

[CTApprentice]

I couldn't have said it better myself Backbreaker.

Even at my young age i'm really starting to notice this, especially with some my friends.

 

[horaholic]

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
Thomas Jefferson

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

Thomas Jefferson

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
Thomas Jefferson

just so everyone knows this is nothing new. I went to film school, and my first day there I was told that 80% of the news is fabricated or greatly exaggerated.

 

[synergy1]

I couldn't have said it better myself Backbreaker.

Even at my young age i'm really starting to notice this, especially with some my friends.

yup, people blow up stories just to make themselves sound more sensational and get attention. Another thing I notice is that some people just outright lie...who is going to call them out? That is why I find "experts" love talking to uneducated audiences.

 

[Rollo Tomassi]

To be educated takes a constant effort. Most people in modern society simply do not have the time, inclination or motivation to be in any way knowledgeable about more than a peripheral understanding of the world around them. The ridiculously ironic part is that we live in an era when communication of information has never been more easily accessible to us.

Now add to this that we're expected to be at least somewhat well informed due to this access. Our ego-investments with regards to politics, religion, social dynamics, gender relations etc. all depend up a belief that we're actually well informed enough know what we're talking about and draw our own conclusions. We would have to be, right? It's expected of us as intelligent human beings.

The truth of the matter is that unless we are immediately benefitted by educating ourselves about a particular subject (i.e. as short term a profit as easily manageable), for the vast majority of modern society, education is a hobby at best. We live in a fast-food, fast-information society. We can't be bothered to, or in some cases really afford to, develop critical thinking skills - particularly when they might challenge our own ego-investments. This is why the Matrix exists, it's easier not to think about things that are counter to our social conditioning.

But we want to be right, and to be right we have to believe that we have these critical thinking skills. In fact our personalities and well being depend upon being correct in our beliefs. The is an age of ego-investment. Ego investments are beliefs we associate with, and internalize, so strongly that they literally become elements of our personalities. So to challenge that belief is to literally attack the personality of the person with that ego-investment. It would make no difference how empirical your evidence to the contrary of that belief might be; you attack the belief and you attack the person. Religion, racism, political affiliation, gender dynamics, social dynamics, world view, all find their roots in individual ego-investments in those beliefs.

Needless to say this has an extremely polarizing effect upon lazy people who'd rather not put forth any effort to objectively educate themselves in ways that would ever challenge their core ego-investments. So we see a factionalizing of people into camps where those ego-investments are reinforced in spite of any controverting evidence. Thus a team mentality evolves; our red team is better than your blue team irrespective of any factor that might be contrary. So long as my team wins and your team loses my ego-investments remain validated. It becomes a clash of who's ego-investments get validated and any value the "other's" might have had are never acknowledged.

 

[Quiksilver]

From what I've seen, most people are bombarded by information that eventually they get desensitized to important issues and eventually stop caring at all.

At some point down the road, the western world is going to pay for this apathy, because democracy and liberty cannot stand long without an educated and involved populace.

 

[SrDedosRapidos]

I really hope no one thinks CNN, MSNBC or any other network news channel is any more objective. People like that make me want strangle them.

"MAN THAT FAWKS NOOZE IS SO BIASED HURRRR"
"Oh really? What channel do you watch?"
"MSNBC DURRRRR"

Fvcking all of my rage. Just because the news channel uses the right kind of bias does not make it any better or any worse than that evil fawks. When I meet these people they are automatically scum.

If you want news, watch your local channel at 11. If you want politcally biased network bashing, watch cable news.

Politics are an impotent way to try and handle the issues plauging the world. The dominant philosophies of today are eating it from the inside out, but the focus on teaching and understanding philosophy have pretty much disintegarated. Man has to choose to think or not to think. My generation has chosen to evade thought at all cost and the repricussions are mounting.

I have tried analyzing the information given in cable news and it is just not possible. They construct their programs in such a way that 99% of what you hear is an opinion and the remaining 1% are the distorted facts. There is no value at all in cable news or politics. It is absolutely uselss. The only thing I can do when I hear my dad watching his mind-numbing poison of choice is rage. I rage hard. And then I go do deadlifts. So maybe there is value.

Sometimes at the YMCA I'll turn on fawks on the treadmill with the volume off for some Megean Kelly. She's prettier when she's quiet.

 

[Quiksilver]

Haha, CNN and MSNBC are some of the most biased and "bought" news corps in the world. CNN fired it's only objective man, Lou Dobbs.

There are few credible news sources left that haven't completely been bought, so you have to cross check the same story over multiple sources to get a reasonably clear picture on what happens in politics now.

Here's a couple good news corps. They still engage in propaganda, but at least you hear about stories from them that you'd never hear about on MSNBC.

Associated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg

 

[DanelMadr]

News are just news. You have to dig deeper for more facts to paint your own image. And you need to dig in places where they specialize on that exact issue. Thanks for the internet that's much easier now. With some experience, common sense and intelligence you can have the whole picture.

If you look for quality journalism you should go for investigative journalism not for News where they have to come up with something new and interesting for everyone every hour.

I don't mind media being stupid. I mind if media are biased. Or when a journalist plays the expert although he/she knows fvck all.
I have to say there is too much liberal bias world wide.
It is natural because most of the journalists are leftish intellectuals.
War in Iraq = WRONG...that is just a fact in Europe. Although you don't hear about it now when Bush is gone.

I don't like Obama. I think he wouldn't win if he wasn't black. I can understand the motives, so be it. But I don't like him because he was made on the leftish (too left even for USA) wave. Remember Kerry? He rode the wave too but he forgot that because Internet is full of commie BS does not mean the silent people do agree with it....and he overshot.
I don't like Obama because he is the symbol for "Free ride tickets" as opposed to "Work hard and we help you". He didn't promised Free ride tickets but it was in the air.

The more people get lazy in US the more they will vote for left. And once US left is any close to European left...we are all in serious trouble.

 

[mpimpin]

Let's try and keep this on the news and not political opinions. I watch a bit of all news networks, read multiple sources. It's just a matter of following different sources and forming your own opinions.

 

[Drum&Bass]

I just find it funny that people think Obama is "black"