As with most people I get my information from many sources. This is the benefit of a free society. When you live in a free country it is very important that you keep up with what is happening in government at all levels. It is important that you be an educated consumer with well-developed critical thinking skills.
It is important that you stay up to date with what your elected officials are doing. Are they trying to follow the policies they enunciated to the public on the campaign trail? Are they, overall doing the things that you want them to do or doing things that you have no problem with? Do they respond to you when you have complaints? Does their office respond to you in writing or on telephone when you have a problem, need direction or assistance?
I recently read about the fiasco of US Senators and Representatives not responding to their constituents when they brought up prisoner abuse that was happening in Iraq. This is not acceptable and as a constituent of an elected official you should try to find out why your complaints were not addressed and if the answer is not satisfactory you should vote against this individual, encourage everyone you know to vote against this individual, and publicize the reasons for your displeasure with this individual. It is the least one can do to get an unresponsive elected official removed from office (of course you can also solicit the help of groups or organizations that have more influence by virtue of their size and/or campaign contributions.
It is unfortunate that many elected officials respond only to those that have the ‘ear’ of many voters or give a lot of money. If you find a politician like this who also does not respond to your request for help or assistance in any way (like not even pointing you in another direction or telling you to contact such and such an organization or government agency or just saying something like, ‘my office does not handle this issue’) then you should probably vote against him or her and encourage others to do the same.
Of course in the US we have representative government. What you are doing when you elect someone is basically saying you trust this person to govern or legislate in a manner you in general support. The congressman or congresswoman is supposed to govern, legislate and vote on issue as he or she see fit and only take your opinion on issues under consideration. The elected official is not really obligated to respond to your every complaint or request for assistance.
However, I feel to not respond to a constituent in any way is rude and really unacceptable. Take your feelings to the ballot box and demonstrate your displeasure.
Now, I think I started out talking about how the fact that so many sources of information make developing critical thinking skills critical. What I want to say is one must view all information through a critical lens.
If you get information from television news like CNN it is important that you are aware of the ways things can be slanted. Things like inflection, and pitch in voice, and emphasis can give negative or positive connotations.
There are assumptions being made about your beliefs or point of view when an anchorperson talks to you. Do you agree with the underlying premise or point of view? Maybe you don’t.
Even the facts given should not be just accepted. The information may not be accurate although professional journalists are supposed to try and get the facts straight. Some things put across as facts may not be facts at all. This especially applies to the pundits, ‘talking heads’ and so called experts that come on many news programs.
Don’t assume the ‘experts’ know more than you because in many cases they do not and your life experiences may make you a better analyst on a certain issue than they are.
I remember before the Iraq war many experts argued that al Qaeda would never talk to the Saddam regime, meet with it or be in cahoots with it because they disagree on so many issues.
Now we know that al Qaeda wanted to and did speak to the Saddam regime on at least two occasions to see if they could work with the Saddam regime. Some expert on CNN (an ‘expert’ with an English accent) firmly stated back then that there was know way al Qaeda would work with the Saddam regime. It seems al Qaeda was more than willing to work with Saddam but Saddam, according to present reports seemed to have not been that interested in working with al Qaeda at that point (we think).
Quantifiers and modifiers are important. I use them all the time because in life things come in shades of gray and things are rarely a hundred percent. Adjectives, adverbs, and others parts of speech that modify the written and spoken word are used a lot by me and when I use them they are important. I just don’t put them there as filler. When I use words or phrases like “seems” (which means could be but maybe not), “almost”, “most of the time”, “sometime”, “on most occasions”, “mostly”, “slowly”, “black”, “green”, “blue,” “or”, or “and” (two conjunctions) they are important.
When listening to news or reading something quantifiers or modifiers should be paid attention to. Always watch for the ‘coloring’ of an issue.
Another way an issue is shaped is by overemphasizing some facts while underemphasizing or not even mentioning other facts. Try to get all sides of an issue (remember context) before you come to any conclusions
Remember, when you have pundits on two sides of an issue you may still not be getting a complete picture. Sometime a pundit on one side of an issue will accept a premise from an opposing side that you may not accept for example or a point or fact may not be brought up by one side or the other.
Studies and Surveys can be manipulated or inaccurate (or the conclusions not reflective of the data). So if you hear of a study or survey that has come to certain conclusions you should not necessarily buy into these conclusions (although properly developed and used empirical tools are usually [note the quantifier] some of the most reliable tools used in analysis or critical thinking).
I have briefly touched on critical thinking (and what to do about unresponsive politicians among other things) here but it is best that you buy or borrow text that cover critical thinking and reasoning in an organized, and detail manner (which a blog, in most cases [note the quantifying phrase-things are rarely 100%] does not do). There are a lot of books out there that can help you (to many to mention). In these times where there is a flood of information out there it is more important than ever that one hones his or her critical thinking skills. Don’t be a puppet controlled by a puppet master. Use your brain. As a human being it is the main tool you have to navigate through this world.