What is it that makes us pick and choose to believe what we're told?

[KOPBET]

Rev Al said we can't trust the local prosecutor. Should we believe that too?

 

[Biggsly]

I'm not condoning, but seriously, it's better than raping women and killing kids, property can be replaced. We have insurance for a reason.

...and since the BS detector is running full throttle on this, if you give someone the chance to steal they will.......and, wait for it,........it crosses social and economic lines...from CEO's to homeless peeps. Thieves are dirty nasty souls, no matter what color your skin is or how much money you have.

people have been looting, squatting and stealing since the Stone Age.

Good point.

 

[Blinocac200sx]

Rev Al said we can't trust the local prosecutor. Should we believe that too?

I definitely don't trust Al Sharpton, remember Tawana Brawley?

 

[YukonGlocker]

so, in the past few days i've been reading a lot of threads about two very different topics that seem to have one large thing in common. Some people refuse to believe the official investigation.

Right now we've got two threads on the main page, one about Ferguson and one about Bengazi. In one thread people seem very pleased with the official investigation and take it as fact, in the other it's dismissed as a coverup and that justice wasn't served.

Now, i'm curious why we are willing to believe the government on one issue but not the other? Maybe this is a larger philosophical question or maybe it's just our own world view influencing our judgment? Both cases had 'eye witness' testimony that people want to either impeach as false or embrace as true. Why are we willing to believe the grand jury's findings as unbiased and fair but assume that a bipartisan congressional committee has to be lying? Why does the other side feel the opposite?

Also, i'm not weighing in on whether either side's findings were correct. I'm just fascinated by the fact that people here (and especially on social media) seem perfectly happy to say the government got it right in one instance and wrong in the other. And yes, these aren't apples to apples situations, but i'm talking about the way people react to the evidence and 'what they are told'.

Great questions. There are a lot things going on (that I don't have time to unpack right now), but confirmation bias is at the heart of these discrepancies in beliefs/thought-processes.

 

[donner]

Excellent question.

I'm sure that part of it has to do with the information we've seen.

In the Ferguson case autopsy reports have been released, a cell phone video with candid audio of two people talking about the events immediately after they happened corroborated the officers story were released, among other things.

Regarding Bengazi, we were fed B.S. stories about a YouTube video and "at this point, what difference does it make?" attitudes toward the incident.

I agree that there is more clear evidence regarding Ferguson NOW, but that doesn't mean that the Bengazi evidence doesn't exist. And my question really isn't even about specifics. I mostly find it odd how some people are so willing to accept one person's 'eye witness' statement in one matter and then disregard it in another.

Federal government with a history of lies, cover-ups, and ulterior motives versus state and local government that is more accountable to the local population.

I agree about the .gov, but i think there are lots of well documented incidents over time where minority groups have not received fair treatment at the hands of local governments. Again, i'm not saying that it's true in this case, but i am saying that there are those who probably have had this experience and are using that experience as the basis for doubts in this case.

Perhaps you can point to where the looting, rioting and arson is happening because of the Benghazi report findings?

Can you point to where i said there were riots or looting because of the benghazi report, either? I never said they were equal (in fact, i think i acknowledged that they aren't) and i never said the actions following in Ferguson were justified. I think we all are smart enough to recognize that the rioting and the grand jury decision are only slightly related. Some people were likely legitimately protesting the decision, just like some were going to loot no matter what was decided.

My question wasn't about the outcomes, it was comparing the reactions to what both amount to the government telling us what to believe from its investigations.

Yeah, part of it is state vs local, but to some extent I think it comes down to the veracity of the story itself. What Officer Wilson said seems pretty legitimate, given the evidence we have been presented. The Benghazi story seems far less legitimate, given the limited evidence that was slowly released over a long period of time.

I agree that transparency is needed and often lacking between the two incidents, but i also am surprised how entrenched some people are (particularly on social media) about the issues. The 'i don't need to read the report to know it was a lie' crowd seems very vocal lately (on BOTH issues).

Great questions. There are a lot things going on (that I don't have time to unpack right now), but confirmation bias is at the heart of these discrepancies in beliefs/thought-processes.

I agree. I guess i'm just fascinated that people can so easily hold contradictory positions as true simultaneously. Why are we so sure that the government gets everything wrong, yet so willing to say that it got right in the next breath? Why are my liberal friends so willing to say 'see, the benghazi report said the government didn't lie to us' in one breath and then 'but the prosecutor rigged the system in favor of the cops' in another? Why are my conservative friends willing to say 'trust the grand jury, the prosecutors presented the evidence fairly and the judgment is correct' in one breath and then 'you can't trust anything they tell you about benghazi' in the other. (yes, yes, two very different issues, but the passion with which some people defend their positions is amazing. It's like they've never been wrong and can never face the fact that there might be some truth to the other side's beliefs.)

 

[donner]

I thought about this some more during my bike ride earlier. I guess i'm just not one of those people who believes that anything i'm told is absolutely true (or that anything is 'absolutely' true for that matter, besides maybe the death and taxes thing).

 

[IndVet]

Since nobody else seems to want to say it...

Most people on OSA dislike or outright hate the president (the reason is your own). Not only that, they WANT to dislike or hate him.

The Benghazi thing was another reason to dislike him, or his minions. Now that a republican led investigation takes one of those reasons away, people are going to come up with their own reason to disbelieve the results.

 

[Big_McLargehuge]

Few people want to think objectively, to be skeptical. Not only with something they don't agree with but also with something that they do agree with. They just want to hear whatever fits their narrative and will run with it. It's all politics.

 

[Glocktogo]

I agree that there is more clear evidence regarding Ferguson NOW, but that doesn't mean that the Bengazi evidence doesn't exist. And my question really isn't even about specifics. I mostly find it odd how some people are so willing to accept one person's 'eye witness' statement in one matter and then disregard it in another.

I agree about the .gov, but i think there are lots of well documented incidents over time where minority groups have not received fair treatment at the hands of local governments. Again, i'm not saying that it's true in this case, but i am saying that there are those who probably have had this experience and are using that experience as the basis for doubts in this case.

Can you point to where i said there were riots or looting because of the benghazi report, either? I never said they were equal (in fact, i think i acknowledged that they aren't) and i never said the actions following in Ferguson were justified. I think we all are smart enough to recognize that the rioting and the grand jury decision are only slightly related. Some people were likely legitimately protesting the decision, just like some were going to loot no matter what was decided.

My question wasn't about the outcomes, it was comparing the reactions to what both amount to the government telling us what to believe from its investigations.

I agree that transparency is needed and often lacking between the two incidents, but i also am surprised how entrenched some people are (particularly on social media) about the issues. The 'i don't need to read the report to know it was a lie' crowd seems very vocal lately (on BOTH issues).

I agree. I guess i'm just fascinated that people can so easily hold contradictory positions as true simultaneously. Why are we so sure that the government gets everything wrong, yet so willing to say that it got right in the next breath? Why are my liberal friends so willing to say 'see, the benghazi report said the government didn't lie to us' in one breath and then 'but the prosecutor rigged the system in favor of the cops' in another? Why are my conservative friends willing to say 'trust the grand jury, the prosecutors presented the evidence fairly and the judgment is correct' in one breath and then 'you can't trust anything they tell you about benghazi' in the other. (yes, yes, two very different issues, but the passion with which some people defend their positions is amazing. It's like they've never been wrong and can never face the fact that there might be some truth to the other side's beliefs.)

I'll give this a try. First, most of us staked out early positions on both stories before the final act so to speak. These positions are based on our core beliefs as much as the actual facts. Since the Benghazi report came out, I've personally refrained form staking out a position on the report itself. It may be that the media interpretation of the report is the correct one. IIRC however, the report reinforces that the administration and the State Dept. screwed the pooch on Benghazi both before and after. So failure to do the wrong thing during the event is a minor mitigating factor at the most. Bengazi is about FAR more than whether there was or wasn't a stand down order given on rescue efforts.

Second, the administration initially lied to us. Only when the lie was exposed did we get the truth. That damaged their credibility. It probably did more to fuel conspiracy theories than the attack itself. Now add in a history of lies before breaking scandals (80% of guns before F&F, conservative targeting by the IRS was localized to one office, etc.), etc. They cooked their own credibility goose.

Now compare the Feguson situation. We have no documented history of the Ferguson PD lying to us. Compared to the highly regarded former SpecOps personnel giving us reports on Benghazi from their prospective, vs. Ferguson witnesses with dubous histories, a known crime issue and discovering that the alleged victim (good son heading for college soon) was on tape committing a strongarm robbery and had a history of criminal violence and gang ties, well, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see the difference.

Could both the federal government and the Ferguson government handled these situations more effectively? Absolutely. Comparing the two events however is like comparing apples to potatoes.

The Obama administration (most transparent in history) lost it. The "Our gentle giant was an angel and didn't do anything and was murdered in cold blood..." lost it.

If there's any confirmation bias here, it was in fact confirmed. Sadly, these events played out exactly as we predicted they would.

 

[YukonGlocker]

...If there's any confirmation bias here, it was in fact confirmed. Sadly, these events played out exactly as we predicted they would.

That isn't how confirmation bias works.