America What Is Wrong With You?

I think the us versus them dynamic is at the heart of American politics, heart of our whole zeitgeist really. We like to separate ourselves into camps and then worry, conjecture, and talk bad about the "others". Understanding that is the first step in understanding who we are as a people.

It even influences how we perceive things. So yes, I'd opine that a good deal of Americans watching a neutral clip of George Bush or Michael Moore will project onto it a whatever supports their own world view .
 
I've always felt that when you get to the point that you no longer think the "other side" has any validity to their opinions and are just inherently wrong on everything that you should step back and reevaluate your own views. Unfortunately I think I'm in the minority these days. I recall someone doing an experiment back in 2004 when they read quotes of Bush to Kerry supporters but told them they were spoken by Kerry. Unsurprisingly they tended to praise the quotes as "correct." The inverse was done to Bush supporters with the same result.
 
gumboot said:
By the way, no I'm not just talking about comments on YouTube here. I'm talking about things like how presenters and live audiences react to what's being said on the shows. When O'Reilly makes a valid and reasoned point on Lettermanto which Letterman essentially responds by calling him stupid, and the audience break into loud applause and cheering, is that reflective of Americans?
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Americans? As opposed to "people" ?
 
gumboot, I listen to question time in both Australia and New Zealand, and it is a crazy circus filled with people cheering and jeering, even when their side has made an obviously stupid point. So I don't really think this kind of behavior is exclusive to America.
 
I'm not so certain that this is a unique phenomenon to American politics, as I'm admittedly not well informed about foreign politics, but I can say, Gumboot, that your observation is pretty consistent with mine.

I think it mostly boils down to where folks get their information/news from. There's a growing tendency here to stay glued to talk radio and political commentary shows which aren't really news outlets, rather personal opinion about the news. We thus end up with a bunch of Rush Limbaughs and Keith Obermanns arguing with each other in our bars and parks. Personally, this is why I prefer getting my news in a strategic manner:

1. Read headline from some news source.
2. Plug headline into Google and do some personal investigation.
3. Search for the headline here @ JREF since I trust personal bias to be quickly revealed by one or more members :)
 
tomwaits said:
gumboot, I listen to question time in both Australia and New Zealand, and it is a crazy circus filled with people cheering and jeering, even when their side has made an obviously stupid point. So I don't really think this kind of behavior is exclusive to America.
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Yeah but that's politicians, not actual people. ;)
 
Texas said:
You will find very lirrle support for O'rieilly among conservatives.
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You will also find tons of O'Reilly owns soandso videos on YouTube, too.

It's tough to decide if someone is truly pwned when all that's really happened is someone's regurgitated political narrative line items you love to disasterbate to.
 
tomwaits said:
gumboot, I listen to question time in both Australia and New Zealand, and it is a crazy circus filled with people cheering and jeering, even when their side has made an obviously stupid point. So I don't really think this kind of behavior is exclusive to America.
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I love it. It's the worlds greatest unintentional comedy.:D
 
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