, can you cease the "yessa massa"-speak? I was reading some of this but when I get to your post and it's written like that, I can't force myself to get through it. A, it's not a natural read, and B, it's kinda creepy in a loony-bin kind of way....like you're breaking off into some alternate personality or something.
He's saying you're young and that so far in life experience hasn't had much opportunity to shape how you look at certain things. What's wrong with that? Why does that force you to go into "yes master" mode? Just continue discussing...add some thought and insight to go along with the studies.
As for the studies, I get what he's saying. For example, those studies that were posted to determine which networks presented material in a "negative" or "positive" light. To me, that's a scientifically impossible thing to study or analyze, and certainly impossible to quantify objectively.
Take the phrase "equal outcome for everyone". That sounds "positive" and even compassionate to some people. They think it's great....how could you be against wanting to help everyone achieve and succeed? To others, "equal outcome for everyone" sounds like socialism and something America had nothing to do with as we rose from a handful of "colonies" to the wealthiest, most powerful nation on earth. So to me, that phrase is not a good one. To someone else, it's sounds like a great humanitarian attitude. So who is right and who is wrong? Who is positive and who is negative? Well that's gonna depend on you. There is no scientific answer or way to "poll" that information.
I think what GarMan is trying to say, is that there are two ways to try to answer that question. One is to read what others are telling you (on MSNBC or Fox News, or Rush, or Chris Matthews), or what a study seems to "reveal". Another way is to live life long enough to be able to decipher what something really means. To live long enough to recognize something that's dressed up real nice and has positive words like "hope" and "change", but is really not what it claims.
He reference a good example...affirmative action. Let's make sure minorities have equal opportunity and help them get into positions and jobs they would otherwise not get. Sounds great, and the idea probably had some merit at one time. But having lived through it, GarMan can now tell you that it's crap. It's the same thing liberals want to push onto the nation in every regard these days. Give someone a position or job regardless of whether they are the best, most qualified person for the job. Give it to them to be "fair". Again, sounds nice and humanitarian-like. But if you lived through it, you know that all it did was give a lot of minorities a crutch to lean on, shifted responsibility of self-promotion from the individual "person" to the government, and kept a lot of deserving people out of jobs they were more qualified for.
Anyway, I'm just saying, have the humility and foresight to understand that your life experience
will change your views and shape your opinion, and that at some point down the road, your opinion, which by then will be shaped by real life experience, will be far more valuable and less biased to you than any "study" you can google.
PS. I don't think that all studies are worthless as references....but it does make them more relevant when they aren't essentially just another person's observation shaped by their opinion (and opinion that is of no more value than your own).
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