I'm All Out of Eyeballs!

That's right. You read that title correctly. God gave me two and apparently I need a few more.

I was recently reading a posting by Michael Shermer, Founding Publisher of Skeptic Magazine, on his blog (here is the exact post) and something jumped out at me. Read the following paragraph:

"Several of you said that I am a victim of one of my own central tenets of baloney detection: the confirmation bias, where we look for and find confirmatory evidence for what we already believe and ignore the disconfirmatory evidence. Yes, I will admit, I do this. Everyone does, and we must guard against it, especially when it comes to religion, politics, and economics. To combat this problem, I read the conservative Wall Street Journal and the liberal Los Angeles Times. I listen to such conservative talk radio hosts as Hugh Hewitt and Dennis Praeger as well as the very liberal Bill Maher. I have read Karl Marx’s books as deeply and carefully as I have read Adam Smith’s books. I have read a host of books from liberal and conservative and libertarian authors on the current economic meltdown."

Ok, the confirmation bias thing I can buy easily. I do it. You do it. It's pretty much unavoidable. However, what struck me was the second part where he talks about following as many angles of the political spectrum as possible. In today's society, with the internet and 49 different news channels on TV and 35 different news radio stations, we have a staggering amount of information that each and every one of us has at our fingertips. Now this isn't news by any means, but when I actually think about it in terms of finding the appropriate, accurate information I need in which to base logical conclusions from, my brain begins to spin so rapidly that I fear it will suddenly become a helicopter and propel itself upward, violently bursting through the top of my skull. There's too much information!

So here's where my eyeballs come in. We all know there are two sides to the old "political spectrum" and we all pretty much fall somewhere in between. I always have one eye on the right and one eye on the left. Ok. I'm good there. Where I'm not good is keeping an eye on the left, the right, the up, the down, and the diagonal all at the same time (oh, and don't forget there are many degrees of diagonal!). That's at least five eyes right there! For instance, here's a little hypothetical situation that accurately represents my aforementioned "brain to helicopter" problem:

I have a friend who watches the Daily Show and he says there was a Democratic politician who told Jon Stewart that the Republicans were rallying against a bill that gives money to widows of soldiers who were killed in action. Hmm. That's not good. Money should definitely go their way. I look up the bill online and indeed, there it is. It's called the Give More Money to Widows of Soldiers KIA Bill. Wow! What's wrong with these Republicans?! So I ask my conservative friend who points me to a Wall Street Journal article detailing how the Democrats have snuck in a little portion that allows for puppies and kittens to be systematically slaughtered on the tax payers' dollar. Whoa! No wonder the Republicans are rallying against that one! But wait, I then manage to catch a CNN clip that tells how these particular puppies and kittens outlined in the bill have some disease that forces them to eat the limbs off of any baby human under the age of 2. Ok...and now we're back to square one. But wait once again. I then happen to be listening to Glenn Beck's radio program and he says that these disease-ridden animals actually came from experiments (government-funded experiments) backed by the Democrats and opposed by the Republicans. Hmm, I need to look this one up myself. Ok, so now I find a New York Times article showing how these experiments were indeed inspired by ideas from two leading Democratic senators, but were actually backed by both sides of the aisle.

And once again, the brain helicopter begins.

I really do think that the amount of information we have at our fingertips is a good thing overall. It does help us make better-informed decisions on pretty much every aspect of life (how many of you haven't, at some point, Googled a restaurant before shelling out $30?). I feel my opinions are strengthened by my ability to research the data using a multitude of sources. However, we have officially gotten to the point where it is utterly impossible to cover every angle. I constantly hear people from both sides of the spectrum telling me I need to be "more informed" if I don't agree with them. So does that make the person on the other side who just showed me information that contradicted yours "better informed" than you? Maybe it just means his (or her) information is simply from a different source and therefore has a different angle. Does the information from both of your sources combine in any way that might seem helpful? Who knows. All I know is that I only have so much time to be reading articles, watching news shows, listening to the radio, and all the while trying to live my own life (you know, the part where I work, clean dishes, spend time with my wife and friends, etc.). So I guess I have come to grips with the fact that there will always be someone "better informed" than myself. Now if you don't mind, I have to go fetch my brain on the other side of the room.

An Arm and a Leg for My Right to Complain

One thing that's great about this country is the fact that we have a strong military, constantly on guard to protect me and my fellow citizens. The other thing that's great is how I don't have to be a part of that military. I am weak. I frighten easily at loud noises. I am horrible at thinking on my feet in stressful situations. Trust me, Amercia, you don't want me defending your freedom.

Now there are a whole lot of people who are much better equipped, both physically and mentally, to handle the pressures of conflict/combat. Those people are willing to give their lives to protect our country and I would like to think that pretty much all of us are grateful for what they have done, what they are doing, and what they will continue to do. The majority of us would probably agree that anyone who decides to step in front of bullets and rockets and grenades in the hopes of preserving the freedom of wimps like us deserves pretty much anything we can give them. Unfortunately, there's a problem...

I was listening to the radio not all that long ago and I heard an interesting interview with a former senator. Unfortunately I didn't catch the senator's name nor did I catch what program I was listening to (my wilting groceries in the back seat of the car were a more pressing issue at the time). However, I did catch a snippet of their conversation involving how budgetary issues are taken care of in the senate.

This former senator was talking about how each item addressed in budgetary meetings amounts to little more than a number. This makes sense considering the vast amount of complicated items the government would have to deal with on a daily basis. They look at each number and see which ones they could reduce or just all out cut in order to better balance the overall budget. Now this all sounded so "par for the course," and therefore boring, that I was just about to flip to another station when all of the sudden the former senator said something that struck a chord in me. He said, "For instance, we all saw this outrageously large number next to something about benefits for certain people and we all immediately knew that one had to be trimmed. Of course only a few of us realized that those 'certain people' were veterans of the first Gulf War." I'm no crazed, gun-toting, war-is-the-answer lunatic, but even I knew something was wrong there.

Sorry to bring up that pesky document again, but when you read our country's Constitution, one thing seems to come up over and over again: our government's main job is the defense of our country. As a matter of fact, if you read Article II (mostly Section 2-4, considering Section 1 is all about how to conduct an election of a president), the President's powers pretty much boil down to the fact that he's in charge of the military. Commander in Chief anyone? And heck, if you read the Federalist Papers, a whole slew of letters penned by such founding fathers as Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, the main argument for instituting a centralized government was to more efficiently protect the rights and land of all Americans.

So with all of that said, my question is this: how on earth are benefits/healthcare for these people even considered when cutting a budget? These people who have lived for 2+ years in a desert, not knowing when the next unseen mine was going to leave him limbless for life, or these people who stepped on the shores of Normandy only to see dozens of fellow soldiers around them immediately chewed up by bullets, or these people who simply had to wait for years and years, never going to battle, but being constantly plagued by the fact that they could go at any second now. Shouldn't these people be at the top of the pecking order as far as money is concerned? I mean I'm sure there are plenty of important budgetary items that need to be debated carefully, but I really don't think the healthcare of those who were shot at trying to defend my right to blog about all the negative things in this country is one that needs to be discussed. As one who entrusts my money to the government, I would hope they leave that "number" alone.