It seems every self-styled pundit is opinionating about the events in the world, I might as well toss my two cents into the pot.
I must warn you in advance that I do not think of myself as a "pundit". The amount of research and erudition for such a title is way beyond my intellectual energy.
Plus, my aptitude for evangelism is nonexistent.
Most of the people I know who write blogs seem to think that they are possessed with a keener insight than the average citizen. In fact, they often refer to those who might disagree with them as "low information voters"*.
In addition, they feel a spiritual "calling" to try to bring the less-informed among us up-to-speed. In case you have not been paying attention, the world is rapidly turning to shit. And the single individual who is most responsible for the erosion of American values and the American Way of Life and the American Dream is none other than Barack Hussein Obama. (Note that they like to remind you that his middle name is Hussein, in case you forgot that he is secretly a Muslim and a fascist).
After perusing many of these blogs, I find it difficult to believe that one person could be so flawed:
He takes too much vacation, doesn't pay attention at security briefings, is considered a joke by other world leaders and much of the voting public, squandered the treasury surplus that he inherited from his predecessor, wasted trillions of dollars and thousands of lives on unnecessary military adventure... --oops forgive me, I was reading the Bush rap sheet by mistake.
Sorry, I should have been sticking to the point. Now where was I ,
....Fakes his birth certificate, hangs around with terrorists, hates white people, plays too much golf, can't speak without a teleprompter, was an affirmative action student, never published a piece in the Harvard law review, voted "present" as a Senator from Illinois, has no experience as an administration or manager, bows to foreign royalty, lies to congress and the American people every day, is on the wrong side of any issue that you can think of (Climate change, pipeline construction, minimum wage, immigration, border control, taxation and income inequality, health care, and especially foreign policy.)
The aforementioned pundits seem to feel that cherry picking articles from fringe media is sufficient research. They have no problem articulating the things that should have been done.
You are probably thinking, "Monday morning quarterbacking is no substitute for intelligent, balanced research." But it's not as simple as that. The psychological condition of many pundits is known as "confirmation bias. **"
None of us is immune to confirmation bias. It is natural for us to be attracted to people and ideas that agree with our strongly-held beliefs. We literally tune-in to the programs and voices that preach the gospel we want to hear. We tend to tune-out information that casts doubt on our sacred beliefs.
It is nearly impossible for a lay person to decide which group of scientists is telling the truth when they talk about global warming. The "evidence " is buried deep in the arcane source materials which ordinary people cannot understand - much less evaluate. The Scientific majority say "Human activity is tied to Global Warming." A small group of dissidents claim that the earth's temp has not risen in ten years.
Even a casual student of history recognizes that over the eons scientific consensus has been wrong more that it has been right, so we tend to equate "consensus" with "opinion."
Evangelists promote their beliefs as facts. But we have to keep in mind that "fact" is just a word. A fact is often just an opinion in disguise.
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*(Anyone who voted for Obama)
**confirmation bias refers to the tendency to selectively search for and consider information that confirms one's beliefs.
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