Inoculation against blind belief

[drscott]

In their eagerness to get rid of Bush, some people are taking on faith what they might otherwise recognize as propaganda or unlikely stories with no reliable sources.

Thoughtful Democrats are worried that the onslaught of propagandists like MoveOn.org and Michael Moore will tar Democrats by association with thoughtless demagoguery (much as respectable Republicans dissociate themselves from Anne Coulter.)

Here's some commentary about F911 from 1) a respected NPR commentator, and 2) the BBC's take on Polish views.

Reasons not to be cheerful about Kerry if you care about civil liberties.

I always get put in the contrarian position.... and I despise organized religion and its secular offspring, movement politics. Both are enemies of independent thought.

Comments

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

From my point of view, both parties kowtow to groups who advocate dangerous intrusions of government into what should be the private sphere. I haven't been able to vote cheerfully for a major party presidential candidate since 1976, when I voted for Carter (and I was mistaken to do so.)

And in strategic foreign policy, it's impossible for us to know whether any White House is doing a good or bad job for years, since it's necessarily not conducted in public. The civil service bureaucrats actually determine much of it; and if you're optimistic, you hope that there was some master plan which involved taking on Iraq to ultimately weaken Saudi influence. In hindsight Carter's way of doing things was disastrous and led to some of the problems we have with Iran right now.

So, to quote Paul Simon, "laugh about it, shout about it, when you've got to choose... any way you look at it, you lose."