re: #203 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

There was a time when there were a limited number of broadcasters, and the costs were prohibitively high for many.

Now there are as many “broadcasters” as there are IP addresses and the costs are minimal.

And it means that people can now insulate themselves from any sort of reporting that does not fit their preconceived notions.

There is that. And it works both ways (I suspect for example the denizens of Mr. Johnson’s hospitality here do not spend copious amounts of time at places like Barb Wire or Daily Caller either.)

Costs being minimal depend on where you live though. Large swaths of the nation do not have inexpensive access to the Internet or have things like cell service. (I’ve held forth on this before so I won’t do it again.)

I would note though that conservatism thrives on a lack of education or reason: It was precisely for that reason a few years ago that the Texas GOP inserted a plank in its platform to eliminate teaching critical thinking to children in school as “undermining parental authority.”

It is why all manners of religious groups want to equate their faith with science in education.

Such things lead many to believe that atheists are evil and criminal, epileptics are demon-possessed, or Slavs are mentally inferior (I’ve gotten all those, and my divorce was predicated on the second one up there, secular court system be damned).

I need to hit the rack for now … I had a long day wrestling with the water system, and negotiating with the state over what we’re going to do about it. (Here: a day and a half of state school, now fix our paperwork nightmare going back forty years and five pages of state discrepancies.)