Comments on: How Do You Reason or Argue with a Mob?

By: jeffrutherford

jeffrutherford — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 01:25:36 +0000

@StephanieSAM
Even after writing this post, I haven't come up with a good answer. And it's
something I've been thinking about a lot. I currently live in a small town
in New England, and it's a town that's governed by an annual Town Meeting. I
think Town Meeting is a great example of the purest form of democracy. The
entire town (or the people who show up) vote on the budget, etc.

However, the Town Meeting is governed by civility. Sure there are a lot of
disagreements and strong opinions, and people voice their viewpoint.

Yet, in these town meetings that are getting news coverage, there is a lack
of civility and a group of people determined to drown out any discussion
whatsoever. What do you do in that situation? If you have them dragged out
of the meeting, then you end up with horrible video footage on the news.
And, if you let them yell and scream and you try to talk over that
disruption, you again have disingenuous news footage of a faux rebellion.

I rarely, rarely criticize the media, but I think in this situation the
media should take a more proactive stance in reporting on people yelling
about "death panels" and other wild distortions. In my opinion, every news
report that quotes someone talking about a "death panel", the following 2-3
sentences should point out, to be factual, that there is no basis in fact
for what the person just said.

Unfortunately, the media doesn't do that - probably in fear that they'll be
too politicized in their coverage.

Jeff

By: SAMRPath

SAMRPath — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:02:14 +0000

Good post, Jeff. A really hard question. I think that the best strategy is always to embrace the opposition and difuse the impact. If the other side is trying to distract the conversation, stop that one, and start the right one. It could be that local forums could work really well if the Obama camp got more supporters in the room and kept the conversation on point. The other side won't stop stamping and yelling just b/c we stop. We have to keep the balance of noise in check.

Stephanie
@StephanieSAM

By: jeffrutherford

jeffrutherford — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:25:36 +0000

By: SAMRPath

SAMRPath — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:02:14 +0000

Stephanie
@StephanieSAM

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:03:33 +0000

We first heard from the birthers, with their fake “birth certificate” in hand and with their fake outrage. These are the same under tones that you saw from Republicans during the confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor, “you are not like us” or “you are too different”, “you are not main stream”. And then they act surprised when people do not vote with them, they are lost, no core beliefs, too bad.

In my opinion the Republican Party has been taken over the most extreme religious right (people who love to push their beliefs on others while at the same time trying to take away their rights) and that’s who they need to focus on if they real want to win. Good Luck, because as they said in WACO, “We Ain’t Coming Out”.

It’s funny we hear Republicans say that they do not want “faceless bureaucrats” making medical decisions but they have no problem with “private sector” “faceless bureaucrats” daily declining medical coverage and financially ruining good hard working people. And who says that the “private sector” is always right, do we forget failures like Long-Term Capital, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Enron, Tyco, AIG and Lehman Brothers. Of course the federal government will destroy heathcare by getting involved, Oh but wait our military men and women and the Senate and Congress get the best heathcare in the world, and oh, that’s right, its run by our federal government. I can understand why some may think that the federal government will fail, if you look at the past eight years as a current history, with failures like Katrina and the Walter Reed Scandal, but the facts is they can and if we support them they will succeed.