Secrets and Lies

I was listening to an interview on CSPAN radio with Richard Shenkman, author of Just How Stupid Are We? (the title is longer, but I'll just leave it at that). This is about the average voter and how uneducated they are with respect to politics. Even basic facts such as the three parts of government and how they work (legislative, executive, and judicial) are beyond many in the electorate.

The consequences are that the kinds of argument politicians trot out appeal to the basest instincts. Despite the easy access to information from the Web, many are uncomfortable finding information and are unable to distinguish good information from bad. Indeed, many suffer from the worst case of confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is a bias where you believe things that support your viewpoint, and ignore anything that doesn't. Thus, many are predisposed to believe that, say, the New York Times is biased because it likes Barack Obama and won't say enough negative things about him (or enough positive things about John McCain).

One of the consequences of the willful lack of knowledge is that some voters base their decision on who it affects. If Barack Obama "pals around with terrorists", well then he must be. If John McCain does the same thing, well, that guy isn't really a terrorist, so it doesn't count. Obama is inexperienced, but Palin is experienced?

It says something very poorly about the electorate when the something said about one party is awful, and the same thing said about the other party is irrelevant. In the end, the goal of politics is reduced to name-calling, insinuation of wrong, and sometimes flat-out lying. And why do such despicable acts happen? Because people are unwilling or unable to look up the facts.

Furthermore, they don't know how to question the "facts" presented to them. Many people take what's told to them at face value without even raising a question as to its accuracy. If Obama was a "terrorist", what act did he commit? How did he manage to get to the Senate? It boggles the mind that this charge could stick, and yet people believe it because they were told by people they "trust".

Perhaps a more potent example is the involvement of Iraq and Saddam Hussein in 9/11. After facts were revealed, it was found there was no connection between Hussein and 9/11. Even after Bush himself admitted there was no connection, there are still plenty of people who believe there is a connection. Why? Because looking this information is a pain. Because they are woefully ignorant about the Middle East. Everyone in the Middle East is the same to the average ignorant American. Most people don't even distinguish the two major divisions of Shiite and Sunni. Thus, all Muslims are the same and are, in their eyes, terrorists.

Interesting how only Colin Powell has been the only one to defend Muslims. Even Barack Obama, the uniter that he tries to portray himself, doesn't want to deal with that topic because it would be too much of a powder keg. Powell, with nothing to lose, can talk about that openly.

The desperation of tactics is perhaps no more acute than in North Carolina where Elizabeth Dole, desperate to keep her job, has accused rival Democrat, Kay Hagan, of being an atheist. Dole feigns ignorance saying that she only questions who Hagan is "pal-ing around with" rather than question her beliefs, but her ad was clearly meant to put doubt about her faith to a conservative electorate in North Carolina.

What you find out is how much people will tar their opponents with anything that will stick, even if it amounts to lying.

And that should disturb parents who like to teach their kids to tell the truth. Indeed, politicians seem fond of lying and then sticking to their lie and never admitting errors and then insulting any dissenters. Is that the kind of leaders we want?

But if the populace isn't better educated, better informed, willing to ignore slander and lies, then the temptation to use these tactics will always be there because they work, because a person unwilling to find out information for themselves will always leave themselves susceptible to insinuation and lies.

And that's a sad state of affairs