I'm really rattled by something I heard this morning.

[wildflower]

This is something I think we need to pay attention to.

Have any of you ever heard the morning show "Doug Stephan's Good Day"? It is apparently on a lot of stations and has a lot of listeners.

It's your basic morning show with several personalities, mostly light fare occasionally touching on politics. The main host (Doug) is anti-Bush but has libertarian/conservative leanings. One of the co-hosts seems somewhat liberal, the others not so much.

Today I heard him go off on a rant about the necessity of drilling here for oil. He ended up by saying that those who oppose drilling are responsible for terrorism, all the trouble in the Middle East, and even the failing economy. (He and one of his co-hosts noted the "irony" that these same people are the ones who are anti-war.) He even asked the other co-hosts, "Am I missing something here?" Not one of them spoke up. The somewhat liberal one even said he was right, though she volunteered weakly that drilling was only a short-term solution.

My mouth dropped open; I couldn't believe what I was hearing. And yet from his ranting, I now understood why it was that people believe this.

The fact that I am hearing things like this on "mainstream" shows, and that they make it sound so convincing, without any counter-argument, is a real problem. We need to be aware it is going on. I think we need to understand what their point of view is, how they are coming to that point of view, and how to make them see that they don't have all the facts. Because the majority of the country is beginning to believe it.

I have been thinking a lot about how to approach people with these views. I think the best way is to first point out the parts of what the person said that I agree with, and then gently point out facts he doesn't know or hasn't considered. Show I'm listening, then he will listen. Nothing else I've tried in the past seems to work.

In the past, I listened only to liberal talk and turned everything else off. As a result, I believed "Kerry in a landslide" and had no idea what the other side was thinking or why. I passionately declared my views to others. It put a strain on some of my relationships. I certainly didn't persuade anyone to my line of thinking.

So ultimately, I think living in this bubble was a bad idea.

I guess I'd just like to say, please be aware of not only what the other side is saying, but what they are thinking, and why. Try to talk to those people when you can, being as friendly and persuasive as possible. Otherwise I fear we're going to get blindsided again.

And one more thing I'd like to add. I think it's that very thing that Barack Obama stands for: openness. Open government, open discussion, openness to all points of view. If each one of us could work on achieving that, no matter where we are on the politcal spectrum, it could defuse the dangerous polarization in this country.

Anyway, thanks for listening!

wildflower

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. I think you have a good point, however I really do believe that the election was stolen so to that

end it didn't matter what the other side was thinking because there were no votes to be won. :(

[wildflower]

4. I believe it was stolen too, and you have a point.

If nothing else, I'd like to see more openness of discussion and less polarization. More democracy, really, when you get down to it.

[sui generis]

2. hey fellow terrorists

tell him terrifying people by claiming they are terrorists isn't terrorism. It's disingenuous, but in case he doesn't know what that word means, say, "hey stupid, what about this?"

http://www.google.com/search?q=vertical+algae+reactor

See, we can have these in place as part of a long term plan that could start getting us off oil immediately, not in 5 years, and for only six months of product.

Ask him, after we're done drilling in his backyard and the oil taps out, "what next? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you, dumb guy, dumb guy".

All these people want to drill for oil instead of looking at what's possible right this instant.

I think he was being paid to have that opinion.

[wildflower]

3. He was implying that terrorism is our fault because...

we won't allow drilling here, so people have to go overseas and drill there and cause trouble in the Middle East.
He singled out Nancy Pelosi. I don't think he was calling anyone a terrorist.

That's a good point, to carry the argument into the future and say, okay, where will this be in X years? Thanks.

As for his being paid for this, I don't think he is, though I could be wrong. But he seems to be very independent-minded and proud of that fact, and is very, very often anti-corporation. I'm never sure what he's going to think or say about something. But this shocked me.

[Ranec]

5. I have had the same reaction.

At first I want to scream at the radio/TV, but then I try to listen to what they say. It is so frustrating when I hear things I disagree with but there is no voice there to rebut it.

[tannybogus]

6. We are running out of oil

We can drill hither, thither, and yon. However, we will only find enough to be stopgap measures. Even the countries that produce a lot of oil don't have an endless supply. If we had listened to Carter, we would be well on our way to a goal of not relying on buying oil from other coutries. But noooooooooooooooo!
Everybody mocked him and elected Reagan because nobody wanted to face facts and start to change their habits. Reagan and company certainly didn't urge them to.
So tell that shitwit to stick it because if the country had listened to a Democrat, we wouldn't be in the middle of the Mideast.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

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[GeorgeGist]

8. They believe that ignorance is bliss ...

and they get pissed when it isn't.

[RollWithIt]

9. I personally don't mind drilling as long as its built into a longterm plan...

Sadly, Paris Hilton summed up my position perfectly. lol