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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy are right wingers so often intellectually dishonest?
I am in a Facebook argument with a HS classmate who defended our use of torture because Muslims are worse. I said that's a poor justification and btw Timothy mcveigh was a Christian terrorist. She asked me where I got my misinformation, and that torture was justified to prevent another 9-11. I went to ask and found an article that said, while mcveigh no longer was a practicing catholic he still held "core beliefs" so unless you're a fundamentalist who believes Catholics aren't Christians he's a Christian. And that studies have shown torture tends to produce misinformation, as opposed to humane interrogation. I refused to do the research on that for her though. We've had a slew of similar arguments, and I've probably cited five times the sources that she has to back my claims up. This is not a stupid woman. We went to probably the most difficult public HS in NYC to get into. But she got her degree from a bible college, and swallows RW propaganda hook line and sinker. Our group of close to 100 classmates considers ourselves sisters, so she remains my friend. It just gets tiresome dealing with the stubbornness.
unrepentant progress
(611 posts)You're doing it yourself right now if you think the phenomenon is confined to the right.
AndreaCG
(2,331 posts)Certainly it is true to say that some left wingers do it (as would be true of any group) but I disagree with the implication that we are anywhere close to even proportions with right wingers.
Seeking Serenity
(2,840 posts)Confirmation bias wouldn't allow for any other way.
AndreaCG
(2,331 posts)Do tell me your Facebook and Twitter names so I can do nothing but try to absorb your neverending pearls of wisdom.
You may be seeking serenity but you're a galaxy away from attaining it.
Seeking Serenity
(2,840 posts)Or the idea on political boards that "my" side is pure as the driven snow and the "other" side is just the epitome of evil.
Yes, both sides do it (ours as well as theirs), and no, it's not a false equivalency, and no, we're not somehow justified or can be given a pass when we do it because our ends are noble and just (they say the same thing).
Self-reflection is always a good thing. And yes, I am seeking serenity, and I acknowledge that I may never attain it.
ETA: Read my sig line, from George Orwell's "On Nationalism"
AndreaCG
(2,331 posts)They don't do nuance well either anymore. My mind immediately recalls Ralph Nader in 2000 saying there is no difference between Bush and Gore. So ok, say all the Florida votes were indeed counted and Gore becomes the president. Would 9-11 have happened? Well, maybe, but the briefing paper Bin Laden determined to strike in the US probably wouldn't have been ignored, because it was the Clinton/Gore administration which ordered the study. And if the bombing happened despite taking steps to ensure it wouldn't, the Saudi royal family members whose citizens largely were the terrorists wouldn't have been escorted out of the US before the embargo on air travel was lifted and not properly questioned, because Gore was not personal friends of the Saudis due to shared family businessinterests in oil. And there would have probably been no Iraq war, because Richard Clarke stated the Bush administration planned how to start a war with Saddam Hussein even prior to 9-11, obviously not because he caused 9-11 but because Bush wanted to avenge his father's failure to reign him in, and even more because Cheney's Halliburton could make umpteen billions in such a war. President Gore would have had no such motivation to lie about the weapons of mass destruction and Saddam causing 9-11 not the Saudis.
That's just two discrete examples of how a Gore administration would have likely differed from the Bush one. Not even touching domestic policies and the environment. If you can't differentiate the substance and subtleties between two different people, parties or other groups you're going to fall back in the "well they all do it so a pox on both houses" canard. I don't know what else to say. I have a feeling this post will not budge you from your previous opinions. C'est la vie.
Seeking Serenity
(2,840 posts)I did not say both parties are exactly the same or anything like it. Clearly, their policy positions are different to a large extent. My point was on the the way partisans think and act and how they try to "otherize" their opposition and don't engage in the self-reflection necessary to see how they're doing to their opponents what they decry when done to them.
You asked (rhetorically, intending to make a broad statement, not actually seeking an answer to a question) about how "so many right wingers" are. Not very nuanced, in my opinion. "Those people over there? Ew. Why are they like that?" Guess what, they say the same things about us. The policies are very different in many ways (and in other ways not so much), but the tactics and rhetoric of the partisans are quite often very much the same.
ProfessorGAC
(64,995 posts)Mostly due to your unctuous replies. All sweet and pseudo-intellectual, but really just a bitter pill.
You grabbed on to your own intellectual tidbit with the tenacity of a pit bull, and then lecture someone else on cofirmation bias?
Classic.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)you didn't intend to?
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)in the world of facts and science, most of them also lack the 'empathy gene' which makes that cohort either borderline or outright sociopaths. So stop spewing your tu quoque line of malarkey. You have nothing with which to back it up. No data, no studies, nothing other than your own opinion.
NoJusticeNoPeace
(5,018 posts)have in common that they both do.
Both sides support their ideology, one sides ideology is fairness and decency and helping others, the other side is entirely based in greed and hate.
Both sides my ass
onecaliberal
(32,821 posts)Go together. They willfully ignore the reality that is right in front of their eyes. They are dangerous and destroying democracy and actual lives in the process.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)Katrina has swept through New Orleans, leaving mass devastation and suffering in its wake for those unfortunate enough not to have been able to evacuate, I had a boss sidle up to me and go, "Why didn't they get on buses when the Mayor told them to leave?" She was of course referring to the batallion of empty yellow schoolbuses whose image the media continued to show. No matter that the drivers of those buses had already left New Orleans in private motor vehicles ahead of the storm, no matter that there was no attempt to organize mass evacuations for those without the means to privately evacuate. No, in this boss' mind, the visual of that group of school buses and the Mayor's order to evacuate meant that those who stayed behind somehow deserved their fate because they were too stupid to heed the warnings. That's how 'right wing intellectuals' operate these days.
I walked out on that job a couple days later in mid-shift for entirely unrelated reasons. But really the reasons were related, as this boss and the owner were in tight cahoots and shared the same ideology.
Thanks for calling out the oxymoronic quality of most contemporary conservative intellectual noise. Real conservative intellectuals like Edmund Burke and Thomas Hobbes would have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this gang of charlatans and demagogues.
onecaliberal
(32,821 posts)Spot on!
spanone
(135,818 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)They'd have no choice.
Bronx Science or Stuyvesant? Or.... ?
AndreaCG
(2,331 posts)Two years before boys were admitted. It's now twice as hard to get in. No more than 300 are admitted, once, in 7th grade. It could be even fewer than that.
Elena Kagan was a classmate.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)When I was a NYC boy, NYC boys weren't allowed in so I'd forgotten about it.
AndreaCG
(2,331 posts)Because we are under the board of higher education we are sometimes forgotten compared to Science, Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech. To show you just how hard it is to get in these days, the 6th grade test is no longer enough. There is now a 5th grade test to weed out applicants. I'm sure Elena would still get in, but as for me maybe not so much.
It was a unique experience in many ways. I probably would do college differently if I had a do over but HS was wonderful
YarnAddict
(1,850 posts)McVeigh was an anti-government nutjob, but he did not perpetrate his crime in the name of his religion.
OTOH, when someone screams "Allah Akhbar!" before perpetrating a crime, it's a pretty good bet that his/her religion has something to do with it.
Comparison fail.
True Blue Door
(2,969 posts)Being honest and honorable means nothing to them - all they want is to win, to subjugate others.
They're compulsive, pathological people incapable of reflection or self-restraint. That's why I call them cancervatives.
treestar
(82,383 posts)There is a level on which they know they are wrong. This is why they resort to ad hominem at the first sign of an argument they can't defend or support their position over.
ananda
(28,858 posts)Intellectually and rightwinger are mutually exclusive terms, imho.
There is very little thinking and a lot of emotionalism, hate and greed
behind their dishonesty.
m-lekktor
(3,675 posts)people always assume he was a christian but he was not.
Orsino
(37,428 posts)...so "Christian terrorist" is a misnomer. That he was a white-winger does not equate.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Prior to getting caught he was associated with the Christian Identity movement (a highly racist form of Christianity) which is a central theme of the Turner Diaries, a book in which McVeigh was highly influenced and dedicated.
As late as 2001, McVeigh professed belief in a god in a Time Magazine interview, but would not elaborate because he didn't want to give people more reason to hate him, which strongly suggests he still was an adherent to Christian Identity.
AndreaCG
(2,331 posts)In the article I linked to my friend it quoted him as saying that while he didn't really attend the Catholic Church anymore he still held "core beliefs". So I don't think that's really the definition of an agnostic. Perhaps an unaffiliated Christian.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)He also received a sacrament by a Catholic priest before his execution.
AndreaCG
(2,331 posts)kentuck
(111,078 posts)Whatever they do, everybody does it also.
.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)Intellectual dishonesty is not restricted to the right wing. It appears in all groups and subgroups.
For example, we often hear that exact same argument right here at DU, and in the greater Democratic Party: we should vote for whatever abhorrent corporate mainstream nominee because "would you rather have (insert any Republican)???" That IS a poor justification, but it's deeply embedded in party politics.
Seeking Serenity
(2,840 posts)Because either a) they honestly don't know any better, or b) it suits their purposes to be so.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)And, again, intellectual dishonesty exists in any group. It's not a right wing construct.
AndreaCG
(2,331 posts)Like the ones involved in the St. Louis debacle. But for the most part, even the more corporate democrats still have views on civil rights, women's rights, the minimum wage and a host of other topics that are better than the average republican. So I'm sorry but I think your argument is largely unfounded.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)than an observation.
Simply that I can find intellectual dishonesty in any group, and that I've found it regularly here at DU for 12 years now. I just offered up one example, which can be found here at DU ad nauseum every campaign season.
And that example has nothing to do with politicians, but with the arguments their supporters offer...which mimics closely the example you gave in your OP. Which is why I chose that from many other examples, of course.
The point? Intellectual dishonesty is not restricted to the right wing.
AndreaCG
(2,331 posts)I'm already skipping most of the Hillary/ Warren threads. It's just I truly think though we do it more than we should it's not as prevalent as with the RWingers
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,173 posts)...spoke out about the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, but never spoke out about the shooting of the two NYPD officers.
This despite this story and literally thousands of others:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30567740
So yeah, I'm wondering the exact same thing.
NoJusticeNoPeace
(5,018 posts)house.
Literally
Nothing they say, NOTHING is true or is out of context.
dawg
(10,624 posts)The defining principle of the right-wing in America is to promote policies that enhance the wealth and power of those who are already wealthy and powerful. That isn't a popular thing with most people, so they must obfuscate and dissemble.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)A person I otherwise know to be rational, caring, and non-violent opined to me recently, without pretext or provocation, that the killing of an Israeli child by (presumably) Palestinians justified the mass execution of Palestinian citizens. The killing of a Palestinian child by Israelis a short time later did not, of course, justify mass execution of Israelis. She identified with one group, and feared the other.
It's tribal thinking, fear-driven and straight from the amygdala (which interestingly is overdeveloped in conservatives). You see it on the playground as a child. Any rationalization is okay, as long as arrives at destroying the out group. Any attempt to introduce even-handedness or empathy is met with a full intellectual vapor-lock, followed by rage.
Conservatives in America are fond of saying liberal thinking is too emotional, but just the opposite is true. Every tent peg in American conservative thought is based on instinctual fear and an unreasoning drive to destroy perceived threats to the (perceived) group.
Conservatives are the club-wielding unga-bungas standing at the gates. They will defend "the tribe" at any cost, but they spend no time thinking about who actually is in the tribe, or what defending it actually means. They collectively stand on chairs and scream that there are bugs everywhere, and won't someone please stomp on them.
muntrv
(14,505 posts)LiberalAndProud
(12,799 posts)We humans tend to understand our environment through the lens that distorts our perception just enough to bolster our misconceptions.
: Peace on earth, goodwill to men. /sarcasm
on point
(2,506 posts)Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)Intelligence is one thing, what she "learned" in "bible college" taught her to disregard her native intelligence and accept ignorance in its stead.
AndreaCG
(2,331 posts)I don't think I'll share it with her though. She's still my "sister" and supportive in many ways excluding politics
0rganism
(23,940 posts)and that is the crux of the whole problem, the notion that it is defensible in any way. The rationale doesn't really matter, especially anything about the victims of torture and their presumed guilt or complicity in other crimes. Their circumstances are completely irrelevant. Even if it were an effective means of extracting accurate information (which it isn't), there is a larger ethical issue that transcends all arguments of utility.
"Our use of torture" is fundamentally about us and who we want to be as a society. How do we want to be known around the world, how do we want to be remembered by history, how do we want to represent ourselves to our children and grandchildren, who do we want to be?
Whether or not "Muslims are worse" or "McVeigh was a Christian" is completely orthogonal to the real issue. As long as one is arguing over sufficient justifications, one accepts implicitly the premise that torture is ever justifiable. It is not.
Cosmic Kitten
(3,498 posts)experienced by an individual who holds two or more
contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time,
or is confronted by new information that conflicts with
existing beliefs, ideas, or values.
Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance focuses
on how humans strive for internal consistency.
When inconsistency (dissonance) is experienced,
individuals tend to become psychologically uncomfortable
and they are motivated to attempt to reduce this dissonance,
as well as actively avoiding situations and information
which are likely to increase it.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)Am I a Liberal? (1925)
applegrove
(118,613 posts)Last edited Mon Dec 22, 2014, 08:58 PM - Edit history (1)
create myths and plant them in peoples minds. People vote on those myths. Myths are how humans have learned to live in large numbers...like in cities. But the truth keeps showing up and undoing their myths...like the banking crisis, Katrina, how trickle down economics does not work, etc. Because their myths are not about making the world a better place for most people.
SomethingFishy
(4,876 posts)It states right in the SIC torture report that no credible intelligence was gained through torture. But we already knew that since the SASC already reported that the reason we tortured to to extract false confessions tying Iraq to 9/11 to justify the coming invasion.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)In a nutshell, RWers are scared shitless of anything that is different from them, and will lie, cheat, steal, and kill in order to make anything that is different from them make sense to their little box of a worldview, or make whatever is different from them go away and stop making them fearful and uncomfortable.
Don't forget, you can't fix stupid, and you can't debate effectively with an insane person.
Researchers help define what makes a political conservative
http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_politics.shtml
Tsiyu
(18,186 posts)you always learn a lot by who shows up first to tell you "we're all the same kumbaya and all that rot."
It cracks me up.
I call it "troll damage control."
workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)You can't reason with a madman. Just look at the freakshow that is the republican/tea party!
All of them are lyin idiots!
Fox and friends....need I say more?
DFW
(54,341 posts)Change your beliefs to conform with facts, or change your facts to conform with your beliefs.
Beliefs, by their very nature, are pliable. Facts are not. So they make their beliefs into their own facts, and voilà! Problem solved.
To them, anyway. They ridicule anyone who believes in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but when their own beliefs are held up to the light and found at least as dubious, they react with anger and hostility. At bible colleges, they don't seem to teach a lot of Christ's supposed charity or tolerance. They do, on the other hand, seem to give out many advanced degrees in in anger, hostility and intolerance.
YoungDemCA
(5,714 posts)Based in large part on that clip of Obama saying to "Joe the Plumber" that he wanted to "spread around the wealth."
He also believed that the head of the AFL-CIO was a Communist, that most of Obama's administration were Communists, and that "Corporations have done so much good for the world, it sickens me to hear liberals say all this negative garbage about them."
And no, my grandfather was not rich, in case you were wondering.
lunasun
(21,646 posts)misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)Talking points & kkkoolaid
SummerSnow
(12,608 posts)unblock
(52,195 posts)to us it means "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".
to them it means "he who has the gold, makes the rules".
so when you say "intellectually dishonest", that means something different to them.
i think it means something like, logic and facts are just fine and dandy, provided they don't contradict core premises, such as everything capitalist is good, everything socialist is bad, everything big business is good, everything worker is bad, etc.