What's often difficult to observe, is that most misinformed people are good, caring, and wanting the best for the country and all people. We all act on what we know. Missing is the deeper understanding that EVERYTHING we know, we learned. What companys learned many years ago is that marketing works. Everyone of us has 100's of brand names, marketing slogans, likes and dislikes that we've accumulated through a lifetime of learninng. Why do you like a particular car, household product, type of clothing?, etc etc etc.
The people who really run the country, long ago invested in news media. newspapers, then TV, now the internet, and what they market is ideas. They hire the best talent to market whatever they think is good for them. Koch Brothers for example started Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity. Who doesn't like the idea of prosperity for americans? Like the good marketers they are, they make great slogans and create logical reasons for doing things that they want done. Part of marketing is that your product is better than the other product and informing you of all the problems and difficulties you have with competing products (ideas). Once we make a decision that Ford is better than Nissan we'll argue to the end and hit the Nissan owner with all the KNOWledge we learned from our fellow Ford owners, Ford commercial and Ford news stories we follow. Notice you won't want to look at Nissan stories and won't believe them if you did.
So discussing our differences is going to take some new approach, and I don't know who has the ability to do it. Even with the congress members that are on your "team", when was the last time you sat down for an hour or two with each of them to discuss your viewpoint? Yeah right! BUT the lobbyists DO get to do that. Along with huge campaign donations, they do have the opportunity to present THEIR ideas.
For me the answer would be education about what "Knowing" is. If only we all really understood what the importance of "EVERYTHING we know we learned" is. Where did you learn it, who was the teacher, what is the expertise, motivation of the teacher, and perhaps more important is to understand that anything I know could be wrong. Oh well this is already way too long. I could go on for a couple 100 more pages but... Don't get too frustrated with the people who have been led away from good thinking skills, they mean well even though they may be causing the downfall of what they are trying to protect.
