[extropy-chat] how partisanship skews perception

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:

> At 07:41 PM 10/23/2004 -0700, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> 
> >If extropians are
> >such big supporters of futures markets being the best predictors of
> >facts and future events, and futures markets behave according to
> price
> >signals created by mass consensus, and mass consensus is that Iraq
> was
> >involved in al Qaeda, isn't that more true than the flawed
> intelligence
> >agencies conclusions that totally missed the events leading up to
> 911?
> 
> Aside from the fact that this is a grotesque misapplication of the
> Delphi principle (perhaps intended as a joke at the expense of
> democrats), it completely misses the point that what was
> investigated by the study I cited was (1) the *absence* of mass
> consensus in the currently polarized atmosphere, and (2) the
> striking degree in which the two major subsets of the population
> yielded contrary consensus, not just in their own opinions 
> but in their (meta)opinion of what Bush thought to be the case and
> why.

True, but most Democrats have almost never been right about anything,
so their opinions don't really matter. Whether they have been wrong in
their public statements intentionally for propaganda, dating back to
the Roosevelt administration: denying Alger Hiss' guilt, Harry Dexter
White's treason, the accuracy of the Venona intercepts, the treason of
Kim Philby, the denial of communist international agression, denials
that mid-west grain subsidies and 'aid' to Iran cause the revolution
there, claims that gun control, welfare, medicare, medicaid, housing
projects, etc. would reduce crime, illiteracy, unemployment, or
poverty, claims that 'engagement' would make China less agressive
toward Taiwan or more disposed to political liberalization, claims that
the Palestinian Authority is interested at all in mutual coexistence
with Israel, claims that the ANWAR holds only one day's worth of oil,
the assertion that terrorism can be treated like any other crime, the
refusal to recognise bin Laden's declaration of war against the US
several years before 9/11.... do I have to go on? Perhaps that EVERY
American convicted of spying against the US has been a registered
Democrat or other flavor of socialist? Perhaps that Tereza Heins Kerry
is a prime financier of the Ruckus Society's boot camp for luddite
left-anarchist insurgents and saboteurs?

The extreme reactionary and IMHO unconstitutional policies being
enacted by the Bush administration on the domestic front are a natural
reaction to the decades of subversion and insurgency by the Treason
Party. As much as I hate what the Bush administration is doing with the
Patriot Acts and the 9/11 Commission recommendations, I despise the
actions and policies of the Democratic Party which have created the
problems the Bush admin is dealing with so poorly.

You don't have to choose between the Treason Party and the Fascist Party.

=====
Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism


		
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