I look at things from an admittedly Conservative bias—I apply all new facts and stories thru that prism. But I also attempt to see things from the ‘other’ (Liberal) side. But some of the current disparate views of the same information have me completely baffled. Let’s dig.
First, a definition of ‘confirmation bias’: “the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories.” Basically, none of us likes to be wrong. We seek out sources of information that agree with our views. We severely question sources that disagree with our views. Lately, we can tell who thinks what just by determining which news sources they watch. Liberals prefer CNN and MSNBC, Conservatives prefer FOX News (I know, HUGE generalization there). But how do the two sides view different topics? Here are a few examples:
Inflation
We all see the net results of our loss in currency value. Anything we buy: gas, groceries, electricity, you name it, the price from year to year is notably considerably higher. But where we vary is the cause of the price increases. Per the Liberals, it is just a sign of a returning, robust economy. COVID shutdowns are now over, so Demand is out-pacing Supply for most goods and services. They have no answers for why we had no such price increases pre-2020, when the economy was at its greatest level in decades. Conservatives view the inflation numbers as an inevitable result of two years of Trillion-dollar spending bills, along with nonstop printing of our currency—awarding it to idle workers in the form of ‘stimulus’. In this case, both Liberal and Conservative views are correct. Gasoline prices are the most visible view of Supply and Demand. As the COVID shutdowns were at their height, gas prices plummeted, with miles driven cumulatively nationwide at fractions of normal behavior. Some stations were priced as low as $1.50 per gallon. When the shutdowns ended, people started driving again, so Demand increased. Prices recovered to their pre-2020 levels, around $2.35 per gallon. But another factor played into our current pricing: in his first month in office, President Joe Biden issued Executive Orders to end the Keystone Pipeline project, stop drilling in ANWAR, and stop fracking on Federal lands. All of these steps signaled a decrease in US oil supply, and the international markets took notice. Now, it is rare to find gas at less than $2.90 per gallon—much higher in many States that have large taxes added per gallon. Oddly enough, the Consumer Price Index does not reflect food or energy price fluctuations. If you’ve been grocery shopping recently, you KNOW that impact. On the plus side, it gets easier than ever to carry $100 worth of groceries to your car—now, it’s just a bag or two.
Vaccine Mandates
I see this as a purely freedom issue: what more intrinsic right do we have than the right to choose to allow an untested, unreliable, possibly dangerous, substance into our bodies or not? With zero liability to the manufacturers, should anything go wrong? With first-time usage of mRNA technology? Under what scenario does the government have the right to mandate any such treatment? Offer? Sure. Demand? Completely different result, from my point of view. And this topic spans the Conservative/Liberal camps—I have as many Conservative folks pushing the vaccines as I do Liberal friends. Yet the longer I remain unvaxed, the more I am convinced I did the correct thing by foregoing such treatment. The link between vax and heart issues needs quite a bit more study before I will feel comfortable with it. Why does the vax not do what it was intended? MANY vaxed folks have been hospitalized, died, or spread the virus—wholly controlled populations aboard cruise ships have reported COVID outbreaks, which can only be attributed to vaxed customers spreading it. Why the boosters? If the first jab didn’t inoculate, why one or two (at this point) extra doses needed? Why are we vaxing children, who have the lowest incidence of risk of any population? Why are we vaxing those that have already had the virus and survived—those folks should have the highest natural immunity possible? Until all of these questions are positively answered, I’ll take my chances with a 99%+ survivability rate. But the media and government push bothers me greatly, as does the medical community silencing any dissenting views.
Energy production
Here we go again. The Green New Deal lives, regardless of its unviability. Liberals see transitioning from ‘fossil fuels’ to renewable energy methods as a thing we must do right now! Except there is no ‘TO’ method invented to replace coal, natural gas, and gasoline. It simply doesn’t exist. Wind and solar methods do produce energy. But not consistently enough or at high enough levels to power our country. Certainly, they aren’t portable enough to be useful in the automotive or trucking worlds. Yes, electric-powered cars exist, and some trucks. But the existing power grid simply will not handle large loads of such vehicles. And the rare minerals needed for current technology batteries at a multiple of current usage simply do not exist. But real world problems don’t seem to impact our Liberal legislators: they want to spend BILLIONS to transition to non-feasible energy generation methods. Conservatives see the need for continued investment in researching renewables and alternative energy methods, but prefer to wait until such research creates a real, workable solution, before transitioning to…something. One wonders if the whole goal of Liberals is to decrease our standard of living such that wind and solar power would be adequate.
Election methods
To Liberals, the most important feature of all elections is the ability for EVERY vote to be counted. Not one voter should be ‘disenfranchised’. And voting should be as easy as pie: send everyone a ballot, voter integrity is not important. Conservatives, on the other hand, see such practices as an open invitation to fraud. Conservatives would rather limit voting to legal, live citizens, one vote per. Liberals decry those poor, minority voters, that somehow live in this world without a valid ID. Apparently, these folks do not utilize banks, buy alcohol, travel via bus, train, or plane, or anything else that requires such an ID to prove whom they are. Liberals, citing the COVID thing, are quite on board with mail-in balloting—in spite of the innate inability to ensure the identity of the voter. Gee, what could go wrong?
Protests vs riots
Peaceful protests are actually covered in the US Constitution, in the 1st Amendment. The “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” is as specific as such language gets. Liberals think that the protests of the Summer of 2020 are covered in this text. Conservatives think the protest of January 6, 2021 is in there. Conservatives think arson, looting, and rioting are quite outside the boundaries of ‘peaceably to assemble’. Liberals think the January 6th event was ‘insurrection’, intending to overthrow the government. Neither side agrees with the other, in any way.
Some of these views are mutually exclusive: if one is correct, the other is simply wrong. I have my views and biases, as I’ve noted. But the inability to even define what the problems are makes solving them virtually impossible. We shall see how we handle such confusion, as a country, over the next few years. I’m not terribly optimistic.
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