Hi dubla
Out of it for a week thus no reply?
I?m glad you understand that this is the equivalent of a game of squash for me ? and I?m sure it?s roughly analogus to you. Part fun, part contest, taking pleasure from it and admiring or deriding one?s ?opponents ? ?game? as seems apt.
I do think that we tend to get into these situations where one ? normally quite rightly ? points out an error or over-statement or some sloppiness of phrasing. Game then ensues, and with each successive post any further hyperboles or sloppiness gets added as grist to the mill.
And no, I don?t think you are a fascist conservative. Right-wingers with libertarian leanings can have misconceptions or hyperbolic conceptions of the left too.
Obviously stats don?t prove anything; you?re right there. I mean, statistically, more people voted for Gore than Bush, but it doesn?t seem to have proved anything about democracy. Rather it appears to prove the faults with two-party, first-past-the-post systems that I am extremely aware of, as the UK has them too. I cannot conceive why two of the most powerful countries in the world persist with a 18th/19th Century mechanism for providing democracy when there are now far better mechanisms that give better representation of the spread of a populace?s opinions and avoid the oppositional and cyclic nature that the USA and UK voting systems give. Yes this is off topic. Yes it is making fun. But I also think it's a good point.
Likewise, I can?t guarantee the methodology of the survey, but you can?t fault it, you can just dispute it in a generic fashion; there?s a difference, as one can dispute the spherically of the Earth if one wishes; it doesn?t change the shape of the Earth one jot.
You have an.. interesting argument. You seem to suggest that Conservative viewers select a channel that is Conservative. Okay, fine. But why would this increase the chance that they believe misinformation? The statistics I quoted were not about Saddam?s ?trustworthiness?. They were about misconceptions over areas of factual determination where FOX viewers were disproportionately likely to be.. what was the word?... oh... WRONG.
Now you say maybe they had these misconceptions before viewing FOX. Or maybe I suppose had them and chose FOX as their channel as it it agreed with them?
That still doesn?t answer why, seemingly without any influence, conservatives who later decided to view FOX were more likely to be misinformed than non-FOX viewers. One of the options I gave above was that the misconceptions were perhaps due to the stupidity of average FOX viewers in comparison to other channel?s viewers. That was a joke. You seem to be suggesting that the misconceptions were due to pre-existing conditions on the part of the viewers, and thus are actually agreeing with me to some extent (not that you?d agree you were agreeing with me?).
I also love how you?re trying to suggest that by responding to your straw man ?brainwashing argument? I was validating it. I should have been clearer in rejecting your argument as not being mine, but was concentrating on how your assertion ran contrary to the evidence I?d presented, rather than how it differed from my stance.
its still my opinion that fox hasnt shaped anything for saddam, he shaped it himself long ago.
And it?s my opinion you select your facts to believe this. Old habits die hard, eh?
I said;
So, if someone has a bad reputation, then we need not be concerned if a news channel distorts facts and gives people misconceptions which might make them support actions they otherwise would not support? Seriously?
You?ve not answered this, other than rather unsuccessfully doing a ?there is no spoon? routine
You are proposing what a person of your intelligence must realise are statistical unlikelihood?s, that FOX viewers are misinformed regarding current affairs (in a similar fashion to the misinformation spread by Bush?s administration at various points) but not as a result of the news they watch, and were misinformed prior to their choice of channel, selecting the channel as it?s misconceptions matched their own. You don?t answer WHERE they got their pre-misconceptions from. An awful lot of your counter argument rests on maybes and coincidence.
Effectively it?s like you were arguing that although two-thirds of car accidents involve someone who is intoxicated, they don?t crash because they were intoxicated, there?s some other factor.
abaddon, seriously, can we quit with the strawman stuff?
We probably BOTH need to do that!
im not trying to side-step the issue of saddams "good guy/bad guy" switch, and ill be happy to discuss it with you if youd like.....and youd probably be surprised to find out that i actually agree with some of your above points on it. the thing is, this issue has nothing to do with our specific discussion of fox news, which wasnt in existance until 1996......wouldnt you agree?
I agree people thought Saddam was bad because of Gulf War I. How could I not? However, he WAS 'bad' BEFORE then... but because of foreign policy, was regarded as a 'friendly power', and was certainly not attacked by government officials in the USA for the human-rights breaches he was committing then.
However MY specific points regarding FOX have zip to do with overall opinion but are to do with the greater likelihood of FOX viewers having misconceptions that have also been fostered at various points by the Bush administration.
And do you really believe (as I outlined I believe) that the Bush Admin were cogniscent of the difficulty of getting public support behind an extra-territorial war if the public believed the target of that war was of no real danger to them? And that they were selective at times in their presentation of information so as to foster beliefs in a direct threat to the USA from Iraq?
Don?t underestimate the effect of viewing habits dubla. If you lets kids watch violent programs they play violently afterwards (in comparison to a control). It is not a coincidence. If a news channel is reporting non-facts, to argue until you?re blue in the face that the viewers believing these non-facts is nothing to do with their viewing habits requires an awful lot of trust in coincidence.
Regards
Gyles
