I like Bing because of the photos, and I think they are marginally better on privacy than Google. I use DuckDuckGo most of the time. Yet i have been annoyed at the bias of the Bing newsfeed, those clickable stories along the bottom of the page. At the moment it is a refutation of the video claiming that Biden misidentified the state he was talking to. I’m on conservative media pretty regularly, and I hadn’t seen that one. I’ve seen links to lots of other videos with Biden gaffes but not that. You see the effect? By telling you the one that is discredited, without reference to how commonly viewed it is, it casts doubts on all those other, accurate Biden videos.
Next is that Lady Gaga “hits back” at Trump, with headlines that the Trump campaign has “chosen a celebrity target,” as if the poor girl was hunted down and selected out of nowhere to be criticised by the Trump campaign. She chose herself. Maybe it’s terrible optics for Trump to even acknowledge it, but now a whole slew of folks claim Trump is drowning who have thrown themselves into the deep end quite on their own.
And the GOP “can’t stop count” in Nevada county, as if the Republicans didn’t want votes from that county from being counted, rather than an objection to the way this is proceeding.
Multiply this by a thousand days and ten thousand stories, creating an impression based on selective reporting. I think I read something somewhere recently about the indoctrinated believing they have come up with their opinions entirely on their own. That is not only ironic, it is part of getting them to believe their misapprehensions forever. They consider arguments carefully. They weigh pros and cons. They check on alternate opinions (or more usually, what their usual sources tell them are the opinions of those stupid people over there). And then, with furrowed brow and a quiet nod of the head, they conclude that their tribe is the most intelligent, the arguments of the people who control their social destiny are superior, and none of their authorities need Air Wick.
Three of my kids are lefties. Two of them are lawyers, so it is not a huge surprise. The third is in the art world although she now has an 18 month old daughter, which may have changed her a bit. I don’t talk politics with those three. One, a daughter was visiting last year and watching the Sunday talk shows (I gave up long ago) and, as I walked by, she she said “Trump is such an incompetent !” I asked if 3.8 % unemployed and a stock market at 28,000 was evidence of incompetence?
“YES !” she said. I kept walking past.
What always jumps out at me is the sheer jaw-dropping ignorance of so many of these people.
For example, when Trump mentioned coyotes bringing children across the border. The smart set thought he was talking about the canid species and not human traffickers. Or the time the democrat congresswoman was outed on stage as having never heard of Benghazi, which resulted in her quickly getting taken backstage. Or the time another one confused Thailand with Taiwan, etc, etc.
And of course the chart-topping, jaw-droppingest problem of all, of how so many of them think communism just hasn’t been tried, and could work.
Cake, taken.
On reflection, I don’t think the ‘coyotes carrying kids’ memes were an example of ignorance but an attempt at replicating the reaction to Romney’s ‘binders full of women’ phrase in 2012. In both cases those people knew darn well what the words meant in the context of the conversation but deliberately ignored the context and applied a literal meaning. I think the big difference is that everyone knows Trump speaks colloquially and off the cuff most of the time, and Romney was such an earnest stuffed-shirt (look at me being a good little male feminist Republican) that the memes mostly bounced off Trump but impacted Romney badly, even among Republicans.
Politics has become a secular religion for many on the left. Their convictions are often based on faith, not reason. Tough to argue against faith.
“{Yet i have been annoyed at the bias of the Bing newsfeed, those clickable stories along the bottom of the page.”
Unless they are completely incompetent, the feed you get should reflect your previous choices. I am interested as to why you are annoyed though. Is it because the stories do not reflect your view of reality? If so, you should really be grateful. ;)
After you took 10 minutes to gather up enough courage to look at an URL that google books put up, I kept track of what I looked at for a little while:
Kimberly Strassel at Hillsdale Collage. and her talk on The Resurgence of Socialism. You would love this place, but I was laughing at her, for several reasons.
Lawrence Krauss, an astrophysicist interviewing Brian May, the lead guitar for Queen and a serious astrophysicist himself. Quite a wonderful interview.
A Buddhist nun reading Buddhist poetry, who was so good I gave her $10 from my paypal account, my version of the collection plate.
Leonard Susskind, one of my favourites, giving a Stanford lecture about General Relitivity, nothing new for me, but he is just so good.
A couple of cat vids and some ‘Have I Got News For You’, from Britain. In spite of trashing Boris when he was on the show, and him gutting the BBC and threatening HIGNFY directly, they have somehow got another season in progress.
The only reason I might be at all careful, is that Google is not incompetent and will feed me what I look at, and that can be a bit of a problem for me. I like new stuff, and that may not fit the algorithm well.
On reflection, I don’t think the ‘coyotes carrying kids’ memes were an example of ignorance but an attempt at replicating the reaction to Romney’s ‘binders full of women’ phrase in 2012.
Perhaps- and it is equally plausible that the demonrat congresswoman of my recollection knew all about the Benghazi scandal as well.
But if they want to falsely claim to be ignorant morons I say we should take them at their word- and then mock them at every opportunity for their lies.
They shouldn’t get to have it both ways. Either they’re the smart set because they heart science and know things, meaning they’re faking their ignorance to deceive the public for their political benefit, or they really are pig-ignorant.
In neither case do I have reason to take heed of their opinions.
Xennady -“They shouldn’t get to have it both ways.” But they do, which is why it continues.
Keep pointing it out, though. Sometimes all we can do is say our lines.
Sometimes all we can do is say our lines.
True statements. But my take is that they get away with it so much because of so many people who fail to understand that saying their lines is very often a vitally important task.
I’ve had the thought that if Nixon had challenged the vote fraud in Illinois- which he apparently knew all about- we could have had potentially many good things happen. For example, no Vietnam War, for Americans at least. Or more topically, perhaps a secure voting system that would prevent the endless fraud obvious today. Alas, he kept his mouth shut because reasons and nothing was done. For want of a nail, etc.
Now quite obviously I can’t seriously blame Nixon for our present troubles for many, many reasons. One is the 2000 debacle. Nothing was done, reasons you know.
Hence, today, we have what looks to be blowing up as a major crisis for the present regime, not only because Trump doesn’t appear to be going away quietly but also because the fraud is so obvious and blatant. I will presume anyone likely to read this- except PenGun- knows as much or more as I do. Or maybe I’m writing in the moment and I will feel foolish soon as everything settles back into happy normality.
But I doubt it.
Time will tell. AVI, thank you for giving me an excuse to ramble and thank you for posting your writings here.