RE: [POLITICS] Why People Are Irrational about Politics

From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Fri May 23 2003 - 10:15:42 MDT

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    I would like to see more emphasis on the psychological, especially the
    notion of 'props', things which hold us up psychologically. For
    instance, I'm overweight and plain looking, but also (modestly speaking)
    supposedly possessed of genius-level IQ, so my pride in my own
    intelligence is (to me), a 'prop' which lets me believe I'm superior to
    most people. (It wasn't till I started working with computers that I had
    people around me who I didn't think were friggin' idiots).

    Picture Joe Sixpack though, working in some factory somewhere, and he
    has to call his boss 'sir'. On TV he sees reporters asking the president
    questions, and the reporters are far from deferential. Sometimes (though
    not much of late) they seem downright hostile.

    For example, a reporter might say 'Isn't this tax cut a blatant gift to
    the wealthiest Americans?' instead of something like 'Oh! Dear
    President, we of limited insight and intelligence fail to grasp the
    extraordinary genius of your tax cut plan. If you could, might you
    explain the job-creation aspects again in terms comprehensible to our
    shallow, limited minds?'.

    Joe Sixpack sees this and thinks the reporters are some sort of weird
    offshoot of humanity. Sure 'nuff, they're _liberals_. Well, by God, this
    president is one guy I can stand behind, and if he says Osama bin
    Hussein of Iraq has WMD ready to launch any minute now against the US
    then it must be true.

            -Mike

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