To be more specific, this is Blarguments VS TV viewers and VS LaTimes.com…
On May 12, 2008, the LaTimes Blog section featured an article by Andrew Malcolm entitled Ron Paul’s forces quietly plot GOP convention revolt against McCain. In this article he discusses Ron Paul supporters & a few of their past, present, and future plans.
I am most disgusted by his claim that “Paul’s presidential candidacy has been correctly dismissed all along in terms of winning the nomination.” If I remember correctly, Ron Paul has won many online polls. Here is one example - Digg’s “Digg the Candidates.” (In case it is gone, here is a screenshot). Here is another by CNBC, (and an article about it). And another on FOX. (And another about CNBC pulling one where Paul was winning…)
I kept asking myself why? Why are they so against Ron Paul? How can they consistently & repeatedly deny the numbers? Answer: I don’t know. I am not involved in the complex world of political conquest.
But in my own opinion, the internet provides a free flow of information. Just as in economics, the invisible hand works better as information increases (closer to perfect information), societal value increases (surplus) and waste decreases (dead weight loss). As the ease of communication increases and people gain knowledge (about anything), people inevitably get smarter and are able to make better decisions. Just in this case they aren’t shopping for products, you’re shopping for a president.
An extremely large portion of the population gets all their information from TV. Instead of presenting a situation and letting a viewer draw their own conclusion (like NEWS is supposed to be), television contains few if any relevant facts, and feeds the numb viewer its own conclusions. This is inevitably easier for people because they aren’t forced to do any thinking — this being the boon to our society.
Its ok to watch TV, but make sure you get all the information. At least watch different channels, even better to do research online. Still, with all that, we’ll probably get only 10% of information; but its two times as good as 5%.
In this case, and every other decision we’ll ever make, good information is REQUIRED for a good decision.
If my economics or anything else is incorrect, please correct me.
Thats my blargument…..
2 responses so far ↓
1 ptc // May 13, 2008 at 12:30 pm
I completely agree with you. Perceiving information actively is important; mediums like news papers, radio, television have been so far good as broadcast medium — one shouts, other listen. In fact, internet’s (or should I say web 2.0’s) vantage point is that it enables users to provide content; that implicitly asks to think i.e. writing to the medium that mere passive reading. And that’s why it’s more effective!
2 castocreations // May 15, 2008 at 7:32 am
Personally, some of RP’s ideas make sense. But others are just too dangerous for our country. Some of his ideas are pretty wacky, not to mention his documented association (and refusal to disassociate himself) with neo Nazis and anti-Semites. I DO believe in smaller government and wish we didn’t send so much money out to other countries. I do not agree with him on the war. His super isolationist ideas are not healthy for our country which is why I’d never vote for him.
I hope the RP nuts do not do something stupid at the convention. It really would damage the party, not to mention make them look (more) ridiculous.
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