Conservatives vs. Liberals

I've been thinking recently about what makes "conservatives" so different from "liberals". Yes, there are certainly different beliefs on issues, but often these are not so great as is imagined. I think, however, particularly looking at the partisanship of this election, that there is a fundamental difference.

Conservatives in general are believers, whereas Liberals in general are thinkers. What do I mean by that? Many conservatives, religious or not, truly believe that they have right on their side, and that this justifies virtually anything done in making "their side" victorious - this explains why things that should be considered morally inappropriate can be justified - smear campaigns, voter tampering, manipulating policy for politics - the ends justify the means because they are "right".

On the other hand, thinkers try to see both sides of an issue. They will admit mistakes, applaud appropriate behavior on the other side, etc. Unfortunately, this flexibility is often seen as an exploitable weakness by believers. I think that this is why the right has been so successful in politics in the last few years - they are willing to go places and do things that the left has not been willing to do.

One thing that has happened, however, during this election, is that the left has begun to recognize and respond to the behavior on the right. One way of reacting to it has been to try and shine a light on it - which has been only partially successful. The other way is to begin to emulate it. This is potentially the start of an horrendous catch-22 - It might not be possible to win (and beat back the bad behavior) without responding in kind. However, by winning using those tactics, there is a real danger that they will become enshrined, and the only possible political discourse will be between warring camps unable to compromise.

On the other hand, I don't think that the thinkers can keep that up for long - there has been an unprecedented closing of the ranks on the left to fight an unprecedented attack on our liberties, but it is the nature of thinkers that they will shine a light on their own side and consider everything, even if they have, for a time, been willing to overlook some things.

I can only hope that, by the time that happens, a sound defeat of anything-goes demagoguery will force the "other side" to move more towards the center and away from such techniques.

by Arlen 

How the debate was watched

So, I watched the second presidential debate last night - and while Bush certainly performed better than during the first debate (which is a pretty low bar to begin with), I was fairly unimpressed with what he actually had to say.

I expected the post-debate summary to talk about a better performance by Bush, but still a solid victory for Kerry; but this was not what I heard at all - the pundits put the debate as a tie, and the "official" polls of the undecided gave a very slight edge to Kerry. The online "internets" polls, seemed, on the other hand, to be very heavily in favor of Kerry, but they are pretty unscientific.

This lead me to think about the way in which different people watch debates, and the whole election process. In a very rough way, I think that the audience can be broken down into a number of distinct groups:

1. Spin doctors / campaign people / partisan journalists - These people are not watching to learn anything - they are watching for good tag-lines, mistakes by their opponents, etc. Arguably their opinions on the debate (or anything else) would have no relevance except that they are the loudest people that are the most heard.

2. Journalists - Assuming for the moment that there is such a thing as a non-partisan journalist any more - or at least some who will play one on TV- these people have seen the stump speeches, are barraged by the campaigns and live and breath this stuff. I think that this is why so many journalists don't report on things that seem so egregious to some of us, like deliberate manipulations, etc. - they see it all the time, it is nothing new to them, and so nothing newsworthy. Of course Cheney made statement X - that is what he always says as part of his speeches.

Another bias of journalists is the perpetual goal to remain "impartial". This means clearly showing both sides of an argument, even when one side is clearly weaker than the other. Yes, 9,999 scientists think that drinking water is good for you, but we are going to give equal time to Mad G. McCrackpot who believes that you will live longer if you never drink anything (unfortunately, he died on the way to the studio. . .).

That is not to say that there is never a place for the lone voice with a dissenting opinion (many times science moves forward only when someone argues against the status quo), but pretending that you have to find equal distortions in, say, John Edwards' arguments as you did Cheney's so that you can have headlines like "Both VP candidates distort the truth", means that you have to compare Cheney's claims that he never tried to imply that Iraq was involved in 9/11 with Edwards using one legitimate estimate for the cost of the war vs. another equally legitimate estimate. This might be pointed out in the article, but how many people only read the headline?

3. Politically savvy viewers from both sides - I tend to include myself here - I read a lot of news, watch debates, read legislation, follow a dozen blogs on a daily basis, etc. I think that this group tends to see the debate on a different level because of having so many more facts on hand - you will see instant responses in the blogosphere (blogospheres?) about Kerry should have said this, and pointed that out, Bush should have said this, etc. We know and recognize the lies or manipulations instantly - they have been bandied about, discussed and ripped apart on-line - so we don't understand why everyone else is not screaming about it.

Of course, the vast majority of people don't have that information, and the people in the spotlight are either tainted by their associations (well, of course a Democrat would say the VP was lying)...or have heard enough spin from both sides to not really be sure any more of what is going on...or don't want to risk their impartiality...or don't want to risk being caught in a mistake...or don't want to alienate a potential source.

4. The majority of the American people - I think it was Adlai Stevenson who, when told that he would get the vote of all thinking Americans, said (more-or-less) - "That is not enough, we need a majority".

I don't think that most Americans are stupid or lazy - I think they are busy. They rely on the news headlines and their acquaintances to inform them of what is going on in the world and in the country. Yes, people who are directly touched by something (out of work because of the economy for example) are more involved in that one issue, but in general people are simply not aware of the details.

I recently had a long chat with a friend's father who is a staunch Bush supporter (but is otherwise a very smart guy whom I have known for years), and had the line of talking points:

• Kerry is a flip-flopper
• The 9/11 terrorists were Iraqis
• There were WMDs in Iraq
• Kerry is the most liberal Senator ever
• No US citizen (except terrorists) have ever been hurt because of the Patriot Act
• etc.

I went through and gave him specific examples and explanations and he, being a reasonable person, has I think moderated his position - I won't swear that he is going to run out and vote for Kerry now, but I think he will be more open-minded when he hears the spin going forward.

More intractable are the people who think that they know what is going on, and are more knowledgeable, but who have bought into the mainstream dogma. Recently, while raising a point in a discussion over lunch, I pointed out something, to which one of them made a comment about how didn't I think such-and-so was a distortion of the liberal media. I replied that I didn't think that there was a liberal media.

They looked at each other, half smirking at my comment. It was clear to them from that point forward that I was obviously a left-wing nut-job - otherwise, how could I not believe in the liberal media. From that point, everything I said was heard with the "yeah, but you're a left-wing nut-job" filter.

BTW - I have seen several surveys such as this that indicate that the media tends to lean to the right. I am sure that there are surveys that say the opposite. When I watch TV or read newspapers, I tend to see a right-wing leaning, while a friend to whom I was talking (who is more right-leaning herself) tends to see a left-wing leaning. I actually take this to be a good sign. - a compromise means that nobody is happy. FWIW I saw in interview with an Al Jazeera reporter who, when asked about the anti-west slant of the network said that many Arabs think that they are little better than a mouthpiece for America and Israel!

 

So, where does all this babbling lead me - the campaigns and their mouthpieces of course are biased by their bosses. The media is biased by their desire to appear unbiased, and the majority of Americans are biased by their lack of information (I won't say ignorance). The last group - the semi-informed but opinionated (of which I am a member) - are a growing group. It is already obvious that the blogosphere has had an impact on this election - it will be interesting to see where that goes.

 

by Arlen 

Karval vs. Karvel

Rose (who runs KarvalCon) pointed out to me that I had misspelled it - my apologies to all twelve residents of Karval !

by Arlen