The opposition is unable to let go of the racism charge.

Racism, like anti-Semitism is a strong serious charge.  But those who level it so constantly at the Tea Party and other political opponents are intellectually lazy and cowardly.  They are so bereft of any argument for their idea that they quickly resort to juvenile name calling.

This is an insult to those who truly are victims of racism, and it only empower and strengthens the Tea Party when they see how little their opposition knows about them.

A characteristic of cerebrally challenged conspiracy theorists is when their conspiracy cannot be disproven.  When Bill Maher claims Republicans support Herman Cain just to prove they are not racists he proves himself as intellectually deficient as the most moronic conspiracy theorists.

Republicans oppose Obama because he is black.  Their support for Cain proves they are prejudiced because they did it to prove they are not.  Or Cain is just an Uncle Tom like Clarence Thomas.  Any Black that sides with Republicans is thus ‘not really black’.  Who is prejudiced here?  The answer is white liberals who feel qualified to determine who is ‘truly’ black.

It is an aggressive media tactic to control the narrative by brandishing words like racist and nazi, to avoid addressing the real contents of ideas.  This tactic of personal destruction will go to any length, including outright lying.

In August 2009, MSNBC took a photo of a man carrying a gun at a rally, but cut off his head and hands in the photo, as Contessa Brewer intoned, “There are questions about whether this has racial overtones… white people showing up with guns.” Dylan Ratigan and Toure agreed with her.  There was only one problem: the guy carrying the gun was black.  MSNBC had deliberately cropped the picture to try to avoid the inconvenient fact that it contradicted their (false) narrative.  They were making it up, using Photoshop to propagate a lie.  Where was Media Matters now?

From Righteous Indignation by Andrew Breitbart

This is the result when the ends justify the means.  Lies and distortion become acceptable.  Such media tactics are shameless.  Those who prefer to discredit people rather address ideas are the small minds that still infect much of our media.

One of the joys of the internet is that you are no longer limited to the tastes and bias of a media elite.  One can focus on the stories, issues and perspectives that interest you and not what a selected few decides YOU should know or be exposed to.

As bloggers post and read other bloggers we create an exchange or a market of stories often neglected by any mainstream source.  Sometimes these stories get so much traction that the MSM can no longer neglect them and they become widely disseminated.

But our postings certainly reflect our own (my own) biases.  I am biased against unions- I think they are largely lying thugs concerned with their own power and self interest.  They increasingly unable to sell their value in the private market, and thus they resort to political power to force the public to support their  bloated benefits. Their violent protests to restricting their political  power is the  last gasp of a dying institution.

I am also biased against crony capitalism- businesses and industry that rely more on political favoritism than market effectiveness and creative energy.

I believe that government solutions tend to create additional problems that end up dwarfing the problem they tried to solve. The relationship we often call public private partnerships is similar to the relationship between a pimp and a prostitute although it depends on the situation to determine which party is the pimp.

I find that most thinkers do not fit neatly into a simplistic binary political labeling system.  Partisan hacks defy thinking because they place greater emphasis on who said what than the content itself.

I am a main street capitalist and a global realist.  There is evil that must be confronted.  In politics and particularly in foreign affairs, the perfect is the enemy of the good. We reject good solutions because of their short comings and end up with problems perpetuated by inactions and short term pragmatism.

Yes I have my biases. I believe my biases are justified by extensive reading, thought, perspective and personal experience. I am sure others who disagree with me believe their biases are justified in the same way.

I just think they are wrong.

In James Taranto’s Best of the Web in Today’s Wall Street Journal online  (7/22/11)

Consider the two most controversial legislative initiatives of George W. Bush’s first half-term: the 2001 tax cut and the 2002 authorization to use military force against Iraq. Both had substantial bipartisan support: The former passed with “yes” votes from 28 House Democrats and 12 Senate Democrats; the latter had the backing of 81 House Democrats and 29 Senate Democrats.

By contrast, Obama’s two biggest legislative initiatives, the so-called stimulus and ObamaCare, had the support of a grand total of three Republicans in both houses combined (all senators who voted in favor of the stimulus).

Now, Obama backers might argue that these were just “practical, long-term reforms,” which theRepublicans were partisan for opposing. One’s own side, after all, is always principled where the other side is partisan. But the majority of voters did not seem to see it this way. The most modest interpretation of the 2010 election results is that Americans thought Obama had gone way too far and wished to restrain him from going further.

Which brings us to the current impasse involving the debt limit. The so-called mainstream media is engaged in a bizarre propaganda effort, aimed not so much at persuading voters to agree with Obama but at convincing politicians that voters agree with Obama. Green provides a particularly good example of this, selectively citing survey numbers to paint a picture of wide public support of the president, when in fact the polls are more ambiguous.

“A majority of Americans now say Congress should raise the [debt] ceiling,” Green writes. Perhaps so, in some surveys and subject to certain conditions. But in a Fox News poll released Wednesday, “voters were asked to imagine being a lawmaker in Congress who had to cast an up-or-down vote on raising the debt ceiling. The poll found 35 percent would vote in favor of increasing the limit, while 60 percent would vote against it.”

“Two-thirds agree with Obama that any deal should balance spending cuts with tax increases,” Green writes. “Only 21 percent favor the Republicans’ plan of cuts alone.” But according to aCNN poll, 66% favor a proposal in which “Congress would raise the debt ceiling only if a balanced budget amendment were passed by both houses of Congress and substantial spending cuts and caps on future spending were approved.” That’s the GOP “Cut, Cap and Balance” plan, which the Senate tabled this morning by a 51-46 party-line vote.

HKO Comments:

Taranto touches on the use of polls to influence rather than understand. The media is either too ignorant to understand or too biased to care.  We seem to prefer a media who proselytizes with polls rather than informs us with thoughtful analysis

Take this brief 11 question test at Pew Research on your knowledge of the news:  Pew Research Interactive

I got 10 out of 11 correct. I missed the one about our greatest Federal Expense.

A few observations:

1. I read no newspapers, watch very little news on TV, rarely listen to the news on the radio.  These media sources have become irrelevant to being informed.

2. The fact that 18-29 year olds are the poorest informed is not really shocking,  but it does raise the question of what drives their vote.

3.  Jon Stewart claimed that Fox Viewers were the worst informed but that was based on a very biased poll.  I would be interested to see how Fox Viewers would rate in this poll.

tips to Blond Sagacity.

It takes a deliberate effort to be informed in a world of nonstop media.  Fear and drama sells much better than a considered deliberation of facts and options.

Books in the 1970’s touting an inevitable inflationary spiral had middle class consumers buying gold and Swiss Francs.  Little is inevitable. Few expected the country to subdue inflation and enter an era where the dollar reigned supreme, economic growth accelerated, interest rates fell, unemployment dropped and working Americans became rich as they accumulated equities in their 401k’s.

Popular names like Harry Brown, Howard Ruff and many others who made nice livings selling doom and gloom faded into the overstocked book sections.  By the time the common consumers are receiving investment advice on popular television shows and retail bookstores, it is too late to make money on their advice.  Do you really think that the truly wealthy take advice from these clowns?

In fact I would advise that if you are considering investment advice that is receiving any prominent shelf space at your local Borders or Barnes and Nobles, you should ignore it.

Popular advisors seem to sell impending disaster much better than rational analysis.  And they become much more lethal if they have been recently correct.

During extremes in market movements it pays to be a contrarian.  A contrarian view today may consider that the dollar in undervalued, gold is overvalued, and that American equities may be a good place to be.

The problems we face are real and serious, but not so terribly unique.  Economic progress is up despite a century of destructive wars, depressions, oil shocks, terrorist attacks, genocides, inflations and other serious problems.  We seem to be at our best when facing the worst.

Ignore most of the media and populist disaster peddlers.  They have been wrong too often.