Tonight I heard Alan Colmes try and rebut the idea that McCain is for the middle class with...
"How many times has he voted to raise the minimum wage?"
To which he kept grilling the guy he was talking to as if he was really onto something. Alan Colmes was like... yes! I got him! This is a totally legit question! What was even sadder was that the guy he was supposedly "nailing" with this hard hitting question, didn't know the answer, couldn't tell you why this is a stupid question (he kept just saying it was a "talking point"), and had an even more annoying tone to him than Colmes does.
We've gone from "oh, is it moral to force certain contracts?" to ... "is the minimum wage a good thing?" to "is the minimum wage good for the middle class?"... "do you believe in the minimum wage?" to "how come you don't believe in the minimum wage?" and now to the even more circular "how many times have you raised the minimum wage?"
You can get right to it. As Al Gore said... "the debate is over!"
I guess the media gets dumber and dumber.
And of course Palin gets the question of how many times has McCain voted for more regulations and intervention. And of course he does all the time. And it's not on principle or because McCain is knowledgeable about such matters. You better be prepared to apologize for any economics-related intelligence when going against the media.
You're right that it's pretty ridiculous. Minimum wage is so easly refuted that it boggles the mind why even politicians can't learn a two-sentence explanation to put an issue to rest than to simply dodge the question on every issue.
When's the last time you heard a politican talk about something in economic terms rather than in social terms (ie "more blank for blank people") even if it wasn't correct?
bigwig:. Minimum wage is so easly refuted that it boggles the mind why even politicians can't learn a two-sentence explanation to put an issue to rest than to simply dodge the question on every issue.
Perhaps but convincing people to agree with your argument is more difficult, you'll no doubt hear "what about the poor" if you try.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
It's all about narrowing the sphere of "legitimate" debate. The narrower it becomes, the harder intellectual thought becomes. Personally I cannot stand news-related professionals. They're worse than second-hand dealers in ideas, they're just plain morons who try to look smart.
-Jon
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Henchman, I feel like I should be collecting your avatars so I can make an action comic of them.
The media is bankrupt. That's why it's important that we focus on the interwebz, the decentralized future of media.
I think the future the line of questioning will either be:
"Why haven't you spent every waking hour devoted to raising the minimum wage?"
or...
"If you like America so much, how come you don't want them to have high wages?"
Or, you know, just skip that out and go straight to "Why are you in favour of exploitation of the poor by the capitalist pigs".