White House will not veto Defense Act

[rhoenix]

Then when did it start?

Don't know. Maybe since the end of WWII, maybe even earlier than that.

Bush the Elder didn't do a half bad job (unlike his son he actually had a damn good reason to go to war with Iraq and did a much better job of it ) and Clinton's only fault was lying about getting a blowjob in the Oval Office. Apparently, getting thousands of people killed for no sane reason is less important to the US populace than their president cheating on his wife.

Here's a question. When all news media in a country is owned by one of four large for-profit corporations, is it in those corporations' best interests to allow unfettered and unbiased information? Or would they worry more about ratings and viewership than journalistic integrity or accuracy?

What about over, say, 20-30 years?

Get a populace to believe they're informed while keeping their understanding of the world as superficial and trite as possible, get a populace to believe that they have all the answers so that they don't ask as many questions, and a democracy can be altered to suit the needs of those in power while making the masses believe it's mostly working for them.

[The Minx]

Remember that FDR had American citizens and residents of Japanese descent placed in prison camps for no other reason that they were of Japanese descent. The Supreme Court never ruled that unconstitutional as far as I'm aware (though I may be wrong).

This is not good, but it's not new either, and usually things have gotten less bad as people recover from whatever hysteria prompted these things in the first place.

[General Havoc]

I think the NDAA is an abomination, much as all the rest of you do. But I volunteer money and time at the ACLU weekly, and more money with other organizations, and so I've been working on or around the NDAA, SOPA, and other such bills a lot over the past bit. Fundraising, lobbying staffers, basic stuff like that, but something.

I unsurprisingly can't speak for anybody but myself, but for me, while it certainly isn't the end of the world, it does look like it's about to be the end of the US as should be. You know, the land of the free, the home of the proud and all that. Because so far, US citizenry seem to be perfectly happy to let their government get away with it. Yes, you can technically still turn it around, but you're not doing it. The US of A have been turned into the World's Richest Banana Republic ever since Dubya the Stupider took over and the public played along.

Batman? Fuck you.

[Batman]

No thanks Havoc. You're not my type. For starters, you're male.

Here's a question. When all news media in a country is owned by one of four large for-profit corporations, is it in those corporations' best interests to allow unfettered and unbiased information? Or would they worry more about ratings and viewership than journalistic integrity or accuracy?
What about over, say, 20-30 years?
Get a populace to believe they're informed while keeping their understanding of the world as superficial and trite as possible, get a populace to believe that they have all the answers so that they don't ask as many questions, and a democracy can be altered to suit the needs of those in power while making the masses believe it's mostly working for them.

Has it really gotten that bad? Maybe I'm prejudiced because the only americans I interact with are you lot, but the US populace has access to the same internet I do, doesn't it? I'm not saying the rest of the world is inherently smarter than the average US citizen (speaking for Germany, we reelected Helmut Kohl. Three times. The only reason the guy didn't make the mess Dubya the Stupider did was Germany not having the global presence to do so. I shudder to think what would have happened with that guy as POTUS) but is the average american really that ill informed and/or apathetic?

[rhoenix]

Has it really gotten that bad? Maybe I'm prejudiced because the only americans I interact with are you lot, but the US populace has access to the same internet I do, doesn't it? I'm not saying the rest of the world is inherently smarter than the average US citizen (speaking for Germany, we reelected Helmut Kohl. Three times. The only reason the guy didn't make the mess Dubya the Stupider did was Germany not having the global presence to do so. I shudder to think what would have happened with that guy as POTUS) but is the average american really that ill informed and/or apathetic?

It operates on the "I want to think I'm smart" principle, basically. If you think you already understand something because it was explained on TV, why bother asking too many questions? The vast majority won't, especially if they're emotionally triggered by what they saw on TV.

This is precisely why how debates are framed matters so much, and why Luntz and such are so successful at what they do - on both sides.

[General Havoc]

Has it really gotten that bad? Maybe I'm prejudiced because the only americans I interact with are you lot, but the US populace has access to the same internet I do, doesn't it? I'm not saying the rest of the world is inherently smarter than the average US citizen (speaking for Germany, we reelected Helmut Kohl. Three times. The only reason the guy didn't make the mess Dubya the Stupider did was Germany not having the global presence to do so. I shudder to think what would have happened with that guy as POTUS) but is the average american really that ill informed and/or apathetic?

Batman, I'm not sure I'd take your position that disagreement with your political positions constitutes stupidity or even the semblance of stupidity, despite your comparison with Helmut Kohl. I'm not sure I'd do this because the reason I asked you to fuck yourself, was your blatant assumption from before that Americans are all sheeplike and do not act to stop what you perceive as injustice and evil. Your initial premise is not merely wrong but farcical, stupid, and evidence of a profound ignorance towards what goes on within the United States.

Tens of millions of people voted for George W. Bush. Tens of millions more voted against him. I'm supposed to take from this that one segment of that population was comprised entirely of the brain-dead because you can't think up reasons for them? You who can look at a sentence wherein someone tells you that they work weekly against the very issues you claim to dislike, and then state that Americans as a class do not act? You who evaluates the issue of NDAA as transforming a nation you know nothing about into a Banana Republic inhabitted by sheep? I have conversed with middle schoolers who can hold forth at greater intellectual length than this.

Your entire initial premise is a corrupt debasement of an entire nation you haven't the wit to understand. It is as though I were to ask you why you, like every other German, does nothing to stop the neo-nazi killings that have been making headlines from your neck of the woods, and conclude, from my assumption that none of you do, that it is because all of you harbor racist tendencies waiting to be made manifest again.

Now if you've got nothing to contribute besides hyperbole and stupidity, kindly piss off.

[Charon]

There are a lot of people in many countries throughout the world where politics isn't a big thing for them. Some even try to avoid it. They have things to do that are more directly tied to their lives, why worry about if Iran is building a pipeline through Azerbaijan? Hell, if you live in Maine, what do you care if someone builds a pipeline across the midwest? Most people aren't worried about the big picture, they're worried about their little slice of the world and that's it.

Does that make them stupid? No. When you've got three kids, a job, a failing marriage, and mortgage payments, things like "What about the polar bears?!" sort of takes a backseat for good reason. But that's what representative government is for, you hire someone else to worry about the big stuff for you, and as long as they are making certain that your life is hunky dory, you don't really pay attention to all the other stuff they're doing. That's just how humanity works.

As for Rhoenix's stuff on the media. I don't think that they actually plan that shit. It's simply the nature of the beast of 24/7 news. You can't spend all your time on big events because big events don't have enough about them to keep the news going 24/7. Hell, most hour long news shows back in the day had filler because there wasn't enough big news for the day. So you've gotta put a bunch of filler in to fill in the rest of the time, which is a lot of time. And then because even that doesn't fill up 24 hours you've gotta get some pundits in there to get you ratings and fill up more hours. 24 hour news probably spends as much, if not more, time on big news stories than the old news used to, there's just so much damn filler that big news gets kind of drowned out.

[General Havoc]

To echo the point as well, no matter how erudite and insightful the commentary, it is physically impossible to remain interested in a single topic perpetually. Overload of information dulls the sense of proportion, and tends to catastrophize the actual goings on in the world. For this reason, people are not going to be "socially conscious" or whathaveyou 24 hours a day.

But to assume that simply because people make decisions politically that are not your own requires an explanation as to their stupidity, ignorance, or apathy, is gross arrogance. I would venture that quite a lot of people voted for George W. Bush not because they were ignorant, not because they were stupid, not because they couldn't be bothered to care, but because they wished for George W. Bush to be the president. I can't speak with absolute authority as to why, because I am not one of those people, but I retain enough of a sense of reality to accept that there exist such people, who act for reasons that seem best to them, and not simply because they are all dumb. I presume the same for those who voted for Helmut Kohl.

You really do not want to place me in a position wherein I have to choose between the notion that either tens of millions of people you don't know are all stupid, or that you yourself are so arrogant you've conflated your own opinion with perfect knowledge. I guarantee that choice won't come out in your favor. The world is more complicated than febrile handwaving over how stupid the "sheep" who vote Republican are. If you can't perceive any theoretical reason why someone would vote in ways other than your own, then the problem is not with everyone else.

[Cynical Cat]

It's really quite simple. When people make decisions they act more often on emotion than reason. This is why they come off as being so god damned stupid. Let's go back to the Kerry versus Bush election. Kerry was a god damn war hero and Bush was a draft dodger. People who voted for Bush tended to say that Bush was a better leader for wartime despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. Why was that? Because they felt better about Bush. His fake good old boy act was fucking painful to watch (I had difficulty watching Bush for more than thirty seconds) but a lot of people liked it and bought into it. So they voted for him and the reasons they gave were as stupid as Bush's policies, but they weren't the real reasons. We're a bunch upright walking apes and he strutted around like an alpha and they bought into it. That's it.

Now I'm not trying to say I'm immune to it, because there are a number of subjects that I have a visceral reaction to. I'm smart enough, well educated enough (critical thinking courses are, in my opinion, really undervalued), and cold blooded enough that I'm not totally a slave to my emotions on these subjects but I'm not immune. Chances are when someone is behaving like a political retard it is because their reasons ("Harper is good for the economy" is the most recent bit of stupidity I heard) aren't the real reasons and they're really reacting emotionally.

The other, equally important factor is that lots of people find politics complicated, dull, irrelevant to their daily lives, and something they are essentially powerless over. This means they aren't well informed on political issues and when said issues do come up, they rely too much on the information they are fed by people like anchormen or pundits and their gut. Or, in other words, they rely on emotion.

Lastly, people really are fucking stupid. I know this because I'm smarter than most people and I do stupid shit. If even bright people are doing stupid shit that they shouldn't be doing, ordinary people; including that half the of the population which is below average intelligence, is doing a lot of stupid shit. Especially with regards to issues about which they're poorly informed and feel alienated from. Which leads us right back to emotions.

[Comrade Tortoise]

Lastly, people really are fucking stupid. I know this because I'm smarter than most people and I do stupid shit. If even bright people are doing stupid shit that they shouldn't be doing, ordinary people; including that half the of the population which is below average intelligence, is doing a lot of stupid shit. Especially with regards to issues about which they're poorly informed and feel alienated from. Which leads us right back to emotions.

I will continue where Cyncat left off here. I am smarter than not just most people, but the vast majority of people, and I still do stupid shit (less now than when I was younger, but when I fuck up, it is catastrophic given the context. Especially socially). Ask Cyncat, Hotfoot, and Frigid. They have stories. I also have certain issues I get worked up about and sometimes suspend aspects of critical thinking.

But there is other shit to. Natural cognitive biases that affect people's decision making. Like plain old repetition. If something gets repeated to you often enough, you often buy into it. So there are people I know who are normally very sharp clever people who i hold in high regard, who buy into some of the BS about US healthcare reform (I hate it, but I hate it for the right reasons), or who buy into republican bullshit about taxes and job creation. Why? Because they hear it so often that their brain concludes it must be true. No one is immune to this. I repeat, no one is immune to this.

There is the alpha male thing that Cyncat mentioned. But also, people are more likely to support those who look and act like them. We are apes. That person who looks and acts like us is a member of out tribe, and we dont trust that person from the other tribe. So Bush did really really well in elections, because he could fake being a member of the Blue Collar Red-Neck tribe really well, despite never actually working a day in his life.

There are a few more, like people not actually having a very good grasp of statistics. They are more likely to fixate on one case, than what happens statistically. This is why many americans fixate on medical horror stories in single payer systems, but ignore superior overall performance. It takes actual training to reliably avoid this one.

There is also cherry picking of information to agree with pre-existing biases and preferences. This is called confirmation bias.

Also, Batman: I am in a similar position to Havoc. I dont have a lot of time to donate, but I donate money, I write letters, and I do everything I can do within professional ethics and politeness to convince people to vote certain ways. That includes trying to prevent the erosion of our civil liberties. So, if you could try to not paint Americans with too broad a brush, that would be awesome.