Someone with well-entrenched positions can view everything through the smoky lens of confirmatory bias. They read news not for information they can use to form opinions, but for bits and pieces they can weave into pre-existing biases.
We saw an excellent example of how this works in an April 24 Monitor letter by Bill Bunker claiming that some governors were being dictatorial, followed by a May 2 fact-checking letter by Chuck Annal disputing his claims, then Bunker’s May 7 response. There is only enough space to address one issue, so let’s look at just the first claim, from paragraph 2 of the original letter.
The April statement was: Loss of freedom doesn’t seem to bother most of these folks (those on the left). Responding to Annal’s charge that no facts support this, he provided this justification: Several Democrats and the Center for Global Development have said “Never let a crisis go to waste,” followed by this comment: Seems like elation to push their agenda to me.
“Never let a crisis go to waste” could mean that we should redouble efforts to maintain stockpiles of pandemic-fighting supplies, or perhaps that we should examine why minority communities are hit harder, or that we should be more proactive in expanding access to broadband internet. It cannot mean that people with left-of-center political views are elated rather than seriously bothered by our loss of freedom in an emergency. That part, which Chuck Annal correctly notes is reprehensible, was added out of thin air.
DAVID HAGNER
Hopkinton