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Originally Posted by ubertuber
Could you say more about WHY you think it is important to take a stand? I'm curious as to what order your thought process happens in. Given the importance you place on having a defined opinion or judgment, do you have to do preliminary information gathering before developing said "stand"? And after you've got some ideas and framed them in your values, what is the threshold for changing your stand?
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To be brief: Usually I have some background information and enough knowledge of the environment (political or otherwise) surrounding an event that I don't have to do preliminary information gathering first. If a newsworthy event moves me to, sure I'll follow up on it, but most events don't cause me to take a stand on way or the other, its only the ones I have strong feelings about prior. There is no "threshold" for changing my stand, it is only the facts as I see them, not necessarily how they are reported to me. I place more weight on some sources than I do others and I'm sceptical of main stream press reporting.
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An example (not a threadjack) would be your opinion of President Bush. I've gathered that your stand is that he's better than the alternative, if not wonderful. Given that, can you tell me a little about how you process the news (such as the State of the Union address or current NSA wiretapping story)? I'm typing this gingerly, because obviously this thread shouldn't devolve into yet another argument over the politics of the current administration. I'm trying to get an insight into how you evaluate information.
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I suppose I could. First I'd have to admit that I didn't watch the state of the union address. I looked over the transcript when I had a chance, and it was about what I expected. These wasn't too much to process for me when it comes to the state of the union address - bush gave a speech, some people agreed with what he had to say and some people disagreed. Mostly along party lines. When it comes to the NSA wiretapping story, I see it as nothing more than another jab from the left at our president and his administration. Some 5,000 american's have had their calls listened in on. That scares alot of people, and it scares me too. But it scares me because I see it as there are potentially 5,000 people in this country talking with Al-Qaeda -- not because 5,000 innocent americans are being spied on. I don't believe bush broke any laws. People want him to get a warrent and claim the process is fast, only takes a few hours to 24, or 48 hours...something like that. Well, telephone calls last just a few minutes. By the time you have a warrent the call is over. People complain that he should have applied for warrents after the fact. The problem is, we don't want to let the terrorists know they are being spied on. Warrents would put on paper for all to see -who, what, where, when, and why- Do you really want to let al-qaida operatives know this?
I think calling for bush's impeachment for this and calling the leakers heros is rediculous. The people that leaked this information to the media didn't do it out of "whistle blowing" - there are other channels to blow the whistle on classified info - and they care not for the national security of this country.
Sorry to threadjack, but maybe that gives you a bit of insight on how I see that particular issue. So I see just about any scandle that comes out against the bush admin as nothing more than the same old attempts to bring him down. Its like the boy who cried wolf. Sooner or later people stop listening to you.