Some Popular Assumptions

It seems to me that people base their beliefs about many things on simple popular assumptions, or myths. Here are some examples (in no particular order):

--If the U.S. withdraws from Iraq at a publicly announced time, then all the enemy there has to do is wait us out until after we leave (cut and run).

--The U.S. has to publicly announce a future date for its withdrawal from Iraq in order to force the present regime there to assume its needed responsiblity for taking care of itself.

--When our enemies do something to us it's terrorism and we want to mobilize and fight them: when we do something to them it's "shock and awe" and that's supposed to make them want to capitulate.

--Our court system is infested with liberal judges who legislate from the bench.

--Our court system is infested with judges who are beholden to a corporate and Christian fundamentalist agenda and want to overturn civil rights laws.

--The 1969-1973 moon landings were a hoax.

--Paul McCartney died in a car accident in November 1966.

--If the U.S. talks with opponent nations then that will encourage terrorism.

--The way to fight drugs is to criminalize and imprison users and sellers at home while pressuring foreign governments to engage in military combat with drug growers, processors, and exporters in their countries.

--Bill O'Reilly is not a conservative but is really a traditionalist.

--Conservative radio talk shows do better since the Fairness Doctrine was repealed because conservatives beat liberals on the issues.

--You can take any disputed issue, organize a structured public debate event with time limits, and expect to attain a resolution.

--Colleges are infiltrated with professors who are waiting to pounce on and ruin our good, moral, conservative children with their ultra-leftist secular humanistic indoctrination.

--To critically assess anything about U.S. foreign policy means that you hate America.

--Any criticism of U.S. policy during a war means you don't support the troops.

--Expressing hate or derision toward the President means you care and are a discerning, sensitive person.

--Bush stole the 2000 and 2004 elections.

--Gore almost stole the 2000 election.

--Kerry would have won the 2004 election if he hadn't been swiftboated.

--Something fishy was happening on the grassy knoll in Dallas when Kennedy was assassinated.

--China keeps getting stronger while the U.S. keeps getting weaker.

--The overall quality of television is better now that we have so many channels to choose from.

--Poker is a sport which people want to invest hours watching on TV.

--You can determine the standard of living of a segment of the population by looking at numbers.

--The old days were the good old days because everything was cheaper.

--Our collective survival on Earth is constantly under dire threat from asteroids, comets, gamma bursts, doomsday germs, global warming/cooling, supervolcanoes and solar flares.

--Because an ancient Mayan calendar ends a cycle in 2012, that means something cataclysmic is going to happen then.

--If I go to a bookstore and pick up a new book about dragons, elves, dwarves, wizards, and a messiah-like boy, then this is good original literature (especially if it contains a map of an imaginary place), and even more so if it's part of a trilogy.

--Paid television and radio sports analysts have a better handle on which are the better teams and athletes than the average Joe sports fan does.

--Having a handful of large corporations dominating markets and determining prices and wages with a minimum of regulation is free-market, free-competition capitalism.

--Religions that were founded in the ancient past carry precise prophecies for today encoded within their scriptures.

--We are at the crossroads of history.

--If your health has become worse, that means you must have been doing some wrong things.

--You're a victim, and it's because of those bad ____ (fill in the blank) guys out there.

--Bill Clinton attacked the terrorists in 1998 to deflect attention from his Lewinsky scandal.

--Bill Clinton didn't fight the terrorists enough when he was president.

--Bill Clinton was bad because he got involved with nation-building in Bosnia.

--George W. Bush is good because he is committed to nation-building in Iraq.

--You can't do anything but either stay-the-course or escalate during a prolonged military conflict, because if you do anything else that means the soldiers died in vain.

--Politicians who work with others to build concensus and achieve compromise on important issues are unprincipled and have betrayed their party.

--The space program won't work because it's boring to watch and doesn't hold a candle to the special effects in today's science fiction movies.

--If some of these old rock and roll groups that broke up got back together again and recorded new stuff, then they'd be like they were decades earlier.

I think there is, of course, more truth in some of these than in others, but what really matters is that they seem to have lives of their own, and the people who adhere to some of these assumptions, (as well as many unmentioned) will resist contradictory input that could, at the most, overturn the assumptions and, at least, reveal some complexity imbedded within the issues underlying them.