re: #43 Renaissance_Man

The saddest thing to me is how little people tend to change their views when presented with new information. Many people don’t understand what the progressive tax system is; that it is literally impossible for (esoteric deductions aside) making more money to lower your income through increasing your tax.

However, many people who are opposed to raising taxes on the grounds that it ‘punishes success’ and are under the impression that it’s possible to lose money by making more money, thanks to tax brackets, don’t alter their opinion at all, one whit, in the least, when they are actually given the correct information about how progressive taxation works.

Likewise, if people are shown that government investment in basic science provides more than its funding level in economic benefit for private industry and the nation, it often doesn’t affect their idealogical stance on whether the government should fund private research.

The culture war is being fought with such huge amounts of propaganda, and tying into the worst parts of human nature. The problem is that it’s a ‘good’ strategy. It’s also an immoral, unethical one that is dooming our country to second-class status behind China, but propaganda is effective, propaganda works.