Hi Clo,
I think they have a scepticism of expertise which may be healthy to some extent, but taken to the extremes they are taking it, it is absurd.
If you simply ignore any kind of commentary that disputes your premise, then your thinking becomes increasingly like faith and increasingly unlike reason.
Now consider whether the Republican economic argument is based on articles of faith:
1. Lower taxes will always generate more revenues.
2. Government is always inefficient and must be pushed aside and reduced in all circumstances.
3. Welfare only incentivizes inaction.
4. Private welfare is always more efficient and selective than public welfare.
5. Markets are always efficient and all regulation is bad.
6. Supply side economics always yields virtuous results and demand side economics is nonsense.
7. Deficits are a useful tool in support of Republican goals and they are always harmful in support of Democratic goals.
8. There's a strong wealth trickle down effect from the rich to the poor in a capitalist economy.
None of these statements actually is supportable in a fact-based framework. Yet we hear them over and over again from the Republican party. Anyone that challenges them is "an expert" and therefore is incapable of understanding common sense.
It's a clever kind of circular logic that renders all sorts of otherwise sensible people captive. The interesting thing is many of the believers think they have some special insight that others are incapable of understanding.
Whereas it takes little research or thought to discover the whole lot of it is a species of baloney. Unfortunately, the bubble of unknowing is entirely impermeable.
| 