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August 25, 2009 - Goanet's 15th Anniversary
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Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:25:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: Gilbert Lawrence <[email protected]>
Goanet sees some endless discussion about some event in history or belief. Here
is an article by a medical writer in Newsweek that may provide answers /
explanation why some people believe in lies. A short relevant paragraph is
posted below. Readers are encouraged to read the entire article, the link to
which is provided.
Regards, GL
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http://www.newsweek.com/id/213625?from=rss
Excerpt:
Some people form and cling to false beliefs about health-care reform (or
Obama's citizenship) despite overwhelming evidence thanks to a mental
phenomenon called motivated reasoning, says sociologist Steven Hoffman,
visiting assistant professor at the University at Buffalo. "Rather than search
rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular
belief," he says, "people actually seek out information that confirms what they
already believe." And God knows, in the Internet age there is no dearth of
sources to confirm even the most ludicrous claims (my favorite being that the
moon landings were faked). "For the most part," says Hoffman, "people
completely ignore contrary information" and are able to "develop elaborate
rationalizations based on faulty information."
[end of excerpt]
Mario observes:
The "relevant paragraph" is hardly a promising insight to the rest of the
article. Nor is the peculiar suggestion by Gilbert that "some people believe
in lies". Does anyone consciously "believe in lies"? Or is what some people
believe construed by people like Gilbert as "lies"?
My response simply picks key attitudinal clues from Gilbert's post. If I find
other aspects in the article worthy of comment I will do so separately.
Writing an article in NEWSWEEK - which openly supports President Hussein and
his government-run health care system in its editorials - citing "Some people
form and cling to false beliefs about health-care reform (or Obama's
citizenship) despite overwhelming evidence..." is a false premise and a
reflection of an elitist attitude by the author of the article who implies that
HE knows the "overwhelming evidence" and others do not.
Poppycock. Here's why.
1. The vast majority of Americans do not cling to false insinuations about
Obama's citizenship. Obama has contributed to those who do by keeping his
official birth certificate sealed.
2. The vast majority of Americans do not believe the moon landings or the sneak
attack on 9/11 were faked.
3. The "false beliefs about health care reform" were directly caused by a
barrage of bald faced falsehoods by President Hussein about the legislation,
which he was DEMANDING in mid-July be passed in TWO WEEKS before anyone had
even had a chance to read the legislation. Then, after people read the bill,
we found that the details in the drafts of the bill were not what he had been
telling us.
This is why his popularity is plummeting as people lose trust in his words and
realize to their horror that he did not have a single legislative or executive
achievement to his name before he ran for President.
4. The belief in "Death Panels", even though no legislation will call it that,
was derived from reports from other countries with socialized medicine and how
they ration care and from the actual Death Panel in the State of Oregon's
socialized system which refused to pay for a not-so-old woman's chemotherapy
but offered to pay for her euthanasia.
So, which is the lie, the fact that there is no "Death Panel" mentioned in the
drafts, or the fact that socialized systems have panels of bureaucrats that can
sentence hapless patients to death?
http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2009/08/18/its-all-a-death-panel-the-truth-about-obamacare/
5. The belief that Catholic hospitals and physicians will be forced to provide
abortion and contraceptive services comes from the fact that there is no
mention of these services in the bill and no exemption for conscientious
objectors written into the current drafts. Courts have previously ruled that
such exemptions must be specifically written into a health care plan.
So, some will truthfully say that abortion is not mentioned in the drafts,
while others will just as truthfully point to previous legal precedents.
4. The belief that a government run health care system will be an unmitigated
disaster is based on the overwhelming evidence of every other government run
system in the country, from the Post Office to Amtrak to the Ponzi scheme
called Social Security to Medicare to Medicaid to the VA, none of which are
self sustaining without increasing amounts of taxpayer funding. Contributing
evidence comes to us from the horror stories from Canada and Britain several
of which have been published on Goanet.
Americans will not put up with being told they cannot see a primary care
physician [Canada], pain killing medications if their physician prescribes it
[Britain], or that they have to wait for weeks or months for a test or some
serious medical procedure [Both Canada and Britain]
Furthermore, sociologist Steven Hoffman is wrong, not to mention elitist. Most
rational people do, in fact, "search rationally for information that either
confirms or disconfirms a particular belief...." They may place different
weights on different pieces of information based on their own personal
experiences and point of view. Some, for example, oppose more government
intervention, others believe that the government is the answer to their
problems.
When Sarah Palin with her hunter's instinct flushed from cover the concept of
bureaucrats making judgments about people's health, and targeted this as Death
Panels, people looked more closely into this feature and the US Senate dropped
from consideration the concern she had raised. If it was a lie, why would it
be dropped?
Every system has pros and cons. Right here on Goanet, we have seen two
Canadian Goans, one British Goan strenuously defend their health care systems
based on the pros, with no mention of the cons. We saw a Swedish Goan cite the
Cuban health care system as the best in the world. Then we saw numerous
reports that showed the cons of these same systems, which the proponents had
made no mention of. If no one had searched for information, we would not know
both sides.
These Goans are not "lying", but looking at the evidence from their point of
view and placing greater weight on certain factors like access by everyone to
their systems, whereas others cite other factors like the rationing of care and
interference by government bureaucrats in health care decisions and costs
spiraling out of control without any improvement in care.
The bottom line is that the three systems in America, Britain and Canada all
need reform. In my opinion that American system would be the easiest to fix
and make a showpiece for the rest of the world, but this is unlikely under the
current administration. Cuba is a lost cause for now.
