Having A Political Bias Is Smart & Normal
4 Tips to Decipher The News You Hear
If you have not noticed — conservatives in America and abroad are treated stunningly unfair. They are targets for boycott, bullying, ridicule, virtue shaming, censorship, prosecution, violence, and if opponents knew they could get away with it — possibly, even murder.
In light of all the virtue signaling and talk about “bias” around the release of today’s Inspector General report on the FBI and DOJ’s handling of the Hillary/Trump/Russia investigations, I felt it was fitting to share what I wrote a few weeks ago about bias to help us formulate sound opinions.
Now, before I share my tips and opinion, (if it were not already obvious from my opening statement), I must first clearly disclose that I am conservative in most of my lifestyle and political views. It is my hope that you will appreciate this upfront disclosure as you continue reading.
The Marketplace of Ideas
The cure for a bad idea is a better idea. But, how can idea connoisseurs detect bad ideas — particularly in the current political marketplace — when there are few opposing ideas to compare them?
A society that really values freedom of thought and speech, demand that ideas show up in the marketplace ready to compete.
Meaning, ideas must manifest their sustainable value so idea consumers can appraise them to determine which idea(s) they find most worthy of their acceptance. Meaning, determine which idea(s) demonstrate ability to improve lives and well-being. For, that is what good ideas do. They improve people’s lives and well-being.
The business marketplace around the world understands this. It lives or dies by this principle everyday.
Before a business even thinks about stepping into the marketplace, it must be prepared to tell consumers exactly who they are, everything about their product or service, and why their offer is better compared to other available offers.
The Political Marketplace
In the political marketplace of ideas, voters are not so demanding or vigilant. All that seems to be required for political manipulators to win the support of certain American voters is to look the part and say the things they want to hear.
We spend little to no time, independently, verifying what we are being told about the political ideas (and opinions) we consume.
In other words, ideas become policies, policies become laws, and laws end up affecting every aspect of our lives and money. You insult your own intelligence by participating in politics without seeking to objectively consider all the ideas competing for your approval.
Beware of Political Manipulators & Their Tactics
Today, it’s evident that people, who hold bad or weak political ideas, dominate the conversations in the cultural and political marketplace. They dominate by nefariously keeping opposing ideas marginalized with the ultimate goal of ejecting them from the marketplace — entirely.
The tactics these political manipulators, surreptitiously, use are vast. They employ fallacious arguments, mischaracterization, demonizing, lying, fact omission, intimidation (social bullying), and when they become desperate — they incite protest, violence, and likely— murder.
Manipulative, untrustworthy, and exploitative people promote bad ideas disguised as morally good.
And, usually they attach their bad ideas to some support for whomever they define as, poor, oppressed, or a minority of any society.
Political manipulators are akin to the Biblical description of Satan masquerading, undetectable, like an angel of light. Or, like the adage about one being a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
It takes an acquired taste for truth and a trained eye of discernment to spot a fraud and detect the scent of hustlers of bad ideas.
The Elephant in The Political Manipulators Room
Political manipulators must move so stealth because they know if the voting public were ever given an opportunity to lift the hood and kick the tires around their ideas, those ideas would be rejected as bad for one’s well-being. Those bad ideas would be easily recognized and defeated by better ideas. And, the advocates of those bad ideas would be rejected as incompetent at best or frauds at worst.
For, the elephant in the room is that even they (i.e., political manipulators) know their ideas are bad and cannot compete in the marketplace— pound for pound.
That is why they hold the ball so tightly and guard the court so viciously to prevent better teams from entering the game to challenge them.
Consider this verifiable fact. Honest people who are confident in their ideas, usually, have facts on their side and respect the intelligence of their audience. Usually, they do not resort to deception, omission, or other unscrupulous tactics to win people’s trust in their ideas, product, or service.
Instead of being confident enough to debate all the pros and cons of their ideas and answer reasonable objections, political manipulators resort to suspicious tactics that prove unethical at best and nefarious at worse to win over public opinion.
They specialize in manipulating — even staging events — so as to show their ideological opponents in the worst possible light.
Their objective?
Money. Power. Respect.
In order to amass respect and power, political manipulators must win over hyper-suggestible, low-information voters who prove unaware of how they are being socio-psychologically manipulated into manifesting a premeditated political outcome.
There is an adage in the sales world that illustrates this kind psychological manipulation. It states, a good but sleazy salesperson can make an unsuspecting buyer buy things they didn’t even need or want — believing buying the item or service was, actually, their idea. When the gag is buyers were just finessed out of their money. Psychology experts call it the power of suggestion.
Political manipulators call it Black Lives Matter, COVID-19, Climate Change, Critical Race Theory, Insurrection, Donald Trump is…, Republicans are…, #StopAsianHate, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, and so on.
Black Americans (and any individual or group conditioned to think of themselves as oppressed) are very hyper-suggestible. The past 50 years, culture has been indoctrinating Blacks and new minorities to be easily offended (triggered). This lack of emotional maturity makes these people easy prey for political and other social manipulators.
Unfortunately, when the power of suggestion fails to work, (e.g., voters prove smarter than their calculations anticipated), relentless political manipulators deploy aggressive tactics to distract their prey and eliminate their ideological opponents. Tactics such as irrational protests, media hit pieces, random violence, or worst — murder.
Although, they prefer nonviolence. In the same way the mafia and drug dealers prefer it. For, constantly being in the vicinity of violence is not politically smart. It will, eventually, invite hard questions and attention to details that would expose them as the culprit and true enemy of the people.
Therefore, they aim to wage a more effective and lucrative war. The culture war. Meaning, they conspire to evict threatening ideas, entirely, out of the marketplace by poisoning the well of public opinion — by demonizing their opponents — while strongly suggesting the public dismiss opposing ideas and never consider them.
Political manipulators successfully accomplish this each election cycle using all the force of their manipulation apparatus (i.e., academia, media, social media, sports, and Hollywood) to poison the well of public opinion against their better opponent. As the saying goes, whoever control the narrative, controls the culture. Leftist in America control all the information distribution centers that influence public opinion.
Political Bias is Smart & Normal Examine It Often
So how do we navigate these cultural landmines now that we understand the typical modus operandi of political manipulators who make, we, voters their prey? How do we get down to what is actually true when we are watching certain political news reports? How do we discern truth from error or hyperbole?
How do we discern the political agenda of a sitcom, a movie, sporting event, or an award show (we expected to benignly enjoy) when they interrupt our entertainment with their unsolicited political opinion. When they bow the knee to the god of social vanity to express their neurotic preoccupation with scoring political points for their ideological team on our dime and time.
On the flip side, how should you and I respond when our personal biases are challenged by what proves true verses what we (or our race, political, or social groups) prefer to be true?
The answer to all the above is, it starts with understanding the nature of bias and being unashamed of having one.
Assuming no ill intent, bias is, often, a good thing. It is actually smart and healthy to be biased. That is it is normal to discriminate provided you are able to recognize some nuance and distinctive between people and their ideas.
You are using higher cognitive abilities and demonstrating self-love as well as love for others when you do so. Being biased is so natural, we practice it everyday.
For example, parents comparing schools are discriminating (biased) in choosing the best daycare, baby sitter, or tutor for their kids. Individuals in the dating market, discriminate when choosing a spouse. Generally, people discriminate when selecting colleges, jobs, friendships, business partners, restaurants, etc. In other words, we discriminate for the sake of our peace and well-being. Meaning, we draw reasonable conclusions based on facts at our disposal and what we most desire.
Consider and remember this about bias when consuming political information. The problem isn’t that anyone is biased in life, news, or politics.
Everyone one is biased.
It is intellectually dishonest to claim we are not. We are consuming someone’s bias every day for our benefit or to our detriment.
The million dollar questions to help us decide who and what information is trustworthy are…
What are our biases and the ones we consume based upon?
- Are they based on what’s demonstrably true or what we prefer to be true?
- And, do our sources demonstrate the integrity that discloses or suspends their personal biases when necessary?
4 Tips to Help Us Decipher Truth in The News
Tip #1: Start with yourself. Examine your own political bias. Practice asking what are your biases (and the ones you consume) based upon. Are they based upon things proven true or what we prefer to be true?
Tip #2: Determine if you are a group thinker or not. Ask if your opinions (i.e., biases) are a result of participating in the social vanity of political correctness? Are you emotionally group thinking with your race, your religion, your political party, your social peers, or uninformed family traditions?
Note biases based upon righteous principles like truth and kindness are always good. They never hurt anyone. They actually stand to benefit everyone. For example, a person that consistently demonstrates a bias toward Godly living, telling the truth, saving money, eating healthy, working out, starting successful businesses, and treating others well would be someone I would want to influence me, my family, and society.
Tip # 3: Recognize trustworthy news sources and how being biased becomes a problem. Bias becomes a problem when:
- influential people form and spread bias based upon an ignorant or deceptive interpretation or omission of facts
- influential people form and spread bias based upon limited information due to their existing in some social echo chamber that lacks ideological diversity
- influential people share information without disclosing their bias to you
For, all of the above are characteristics of propaganda.
TIP #4: Cultivate a love for truth. In order to become intellectually honest people and voters — able to recognize and champion people promoting good ideas (whether we like them or their style, personally, or not) — we must become lovers of truth. Love for truth trumps personal bias. If our personal biases happen to align with what already proves true, then our opinions are vindicated and vice versa for any ideological opponent.
People who are trustworthy usually disclose their biases. They tell you exactly what they believe, why they believe it, and why it makes sense for you to adopt their ideas. Then they move out of the way to let you make up your own mind.
They don’t pretend to be neutral while their rhetoric and action expose the strong bias they actually possess.
Lastly, they don’t try to guilt, manipulate your emotions, facts, or events to get you to believe their interpretation of certain people or events.
Conclusion
Political manipulators know the power of social media, news media, entertainment, and academia as cultural influencers. This is why you see the most vicious of political manipulators dominating these arenas.
Due to decades of cultural dominance over public political opinion, they prove masters of the power of suggestion. Master marketers of bad ideas.
They are counting on you and me to be too busy, too tired, or too unsuspecting to notice nefarious political strategies.
That’s why I’m writing this to you.
My only objective and hope in doing so is to give you an aha moment whereby you, instinctively, reject efforts (by any political party) to manipulate your emotions, traumas, or preferences to achieve a predetermined political outcome.
If you are Black, I hope these thoughts cause you to say something like:
Ummmm. I think this conservative lady is on to something. I don’t detect deception in any point she made. Conservatives may not be all what I’ve been conditioned to believe them to be. Let me examine the root of my biases.”
If that is your impression and action item after reading this, then I’ve been successful and these many words have not been in vain.
