10/9/2012—I have a friend who is a Republican who asked me last week if I would vote for Romney if I thought he would do something about the deficit. I replied that I did not think he would but that I would probably not vote for him anyway. I am a pretty strong partisan Democrat. He then said that my views about deficits were rationalizations.
I have to think about this. I have been amazed that so many Republicans, whom I think of as hard-headed realists, deny that the world climate is warming and/or that human activity is causing it. I find this amazing when the ice cap around the arctic is recognizably thinning and so much other evidence abounds—obviously rising temperatures over time in Pittsburgh, for example.
Then there was the suggestion that the employment figures last week were tampered with. Those figures were not that great to begin with. But apparently politicians cannot tamper with them.
And then there is evolution and geology. But at least those are based on religion in the face of science.
But back to the question put to me. I have been assuming that the people I disagree with are more prone to do this, to deny bad news, than I am. What if this is not the case? Then I would have to begin to rethink those matters that I have been rejecting or ignoring—such as the role of government housing policy in the housing bubble. The left says it was all Wall Street. Was it?
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Hi Bruce,
ReplyDeleteIt is good to ask oneself questions of this sort, to look inside oneself and explore the TRUTH underlying one's personal "truths". But there is a difference between denying bad news that is supported by science and denying bad news that has no such basis. Perhaps you might think that Romney will do something about the deficit, but that is only speculation, and in any case, what he says he will do and what he actually will do if elected are two entirely different things.
I wouldn't vote for him anyway, but not because he will or will not do one thing or another. I won't vote for him because I could never trust that he cares about people who may need help. And I'm not saying this because of his 47% remark, I'm saying this because of what one can sense about the kind of person he is from watching him and listening, and that 47% remark serves only as confirmation of something that was pretty clear in the first place. It may not be the most practical way to make such decisions, but it's the only way I think I could ever do it.