Epistemic Closure and the Left: Charles Pierce as Uberexample

When someone says "You and your [Political] tribe suffer from Epistemic closure," they are saying you are closed minded.

Looking at the Dance of Election 2012 since the Rise of Moderate Republican Governor Mitt Romney and Fiscal Conservative Rep. Paul Ryan (My post on that choice and the new Political Electoral map will come later) has led the Democrats to the Tarkin Doctrine (again).

What do I mean by the Tarkin Doctrine? Read this -- these are five excuses Democrats use to excuse corruption, misogyny and hypocrisy in their ranks for attacking the Right. Here are the five:

Charles Pierce's and Democratic partisans Thought leader

Tarkin Doctrine #1: "The people are confused when they Vote for the Right,"

Tarkin Doctrine #2: "All Conservatives/Republicans are Crazy/Evil/Stupid,"

Tarkin Doctrine #3: "All Conservative/Tea Party Women are Nuts or Sluts,"

Tarkin Doctrine #4:  "All Conservatives are racists/Misogynous/etc et. al,"; and

Tarkin Doctrine #5  "No matter what crime/corruption or evil thing a Democratic official does, Republicans are much worse!" [Charlie Pierces worse sin is THIS]

WOW! With that type of thinking, how can your party ever lose?

It happened to the Democrats in Election 2010 and in the WI Recall, and of course, Democrats were surprised at their loss.

When Democrats and their partisans (especially Charles Pierce) complain about "False Equivalence," It means only one thing. They are willing to attack the GOP but, like Tarkin Doctrine #5, have no desire to clean out their own corruption. 

Charles Pierce (L)

When most of your partisans cannot tell the difference between a Moderate Republican like Romney, a Fiscal Conservative like Ryan and a Social Conservative like Huckabee you will lose. 

Need I quote Sun Tzu here? 

A good example of the Epistemic Closure is Charles Pierce.  There are other democratic partisans, but I want to warn anyone in Tampa that speaks to this so called "Political Analyst," is that he uses the Tarkin Doctrine above to think politically.  Or in other words, he is a tool of the Democratic National Committee.

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Examples:

 I am not in my "newsroom" now and, as I understand it, these people have chosen to eat at a particular fast food restaurant to show their support for the views of someone who helps finance the "repair the gay" scam. If you believe that a chicken sandwich "tastes like freedom," I'm fairly sure I know how you think. Badly. Funny how I didn't see too many of these First Amendment fans standing up for that mosque in lower Manhattan.  -- 8/2/12

 

There was no point in arguing with the man. There didn't seem even to be any sport in pointing out that the "restoration of integrity in government" that he saw in the results was on behalf of a guy who took to the podium last night three steps ahead of a sitting grand jury. The distance between what I saw and what Ed Hannan saw was too great. I might as well have been talking to him in Finnish.

As hard as Scott Walker may want to pretend to be a conciliator, as hard as he wants to fool the national press in their hopeless quest for a "reasonable" Republican that they can hitch to their centrist Cinderella's carriage, he knows good and goddamn well that it's not in the cards. The forces that put him in office, and the forces that kept him there last night, are too strong for any of that, even if he were sincere, which he most assuredly was not. He is a political creature of the Wisconsin that the people in the Exposition Center last night see in their minds. He cannot exist as a political creature outside of the Wisconsin his supporters believe themselves to have re-captured for good. They are not going to be reasonable. They are going to move further toward the extreme and he's going to move with them, because he is a star now, and he has a role to play. -- 6/6/12

Paul Ryan is an authentically dangerous zealot. He does not want to reform entitlements. He wants to eliminate them. He wants to eliminate them because he doesn't believe they are a legitimate function of government. He is a smiling, aw-shucks murderer of opportunity, a creator of dystopias in which he never will have to live. This now is an argument not over what kind of political commonwealth we will have, but rather whether or not we will have one at all, because Paul Ryan does not believe in the most primary institution of that commonwealth: our government. The first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution make a lie out of every speech he's ever given. He looks at the country and sees its government as something alien that is holding down the individual entrepreneurial genius of 200 million people, and not as their creation, and the vehicle through which that genius can be channelled for the general welfare. -- 8/11/12

If he blows that dog-whistle any louder, Seamus may return from that great roof-rack in the sky.

This should surprise absolutely nobody, because, if there's one thing candidate Romney has demonstrated, it is that he really is quite a remarkable liar. Romney's ran the basic bread-and-butter Republican playbook all throughout the primaries and he's still running it this summer. The meretricious use of the president's "You didn't build it" line. The truthless welfare baiting on the commercials. Sooner or later, he was going to get around to this particular line of bullshit because it's the obvious next step. Asking a Republican presidential candidate to abandon race-baiting entirely is to ask for an awful lot of 13-second Republican stump speeches. Asking Willard Romney to do it is to assume that there is muck so foul that he will not immerse himself in it to be president. Unless Curiosity finds mud on Mars, you're pretty much out of luck there. -- 8/16/12 (attacking Moderate Republican Romney with...The Race card!)

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Charles Pierce, as shown by the examples above, does not analyze, he judges, he casts out, he stereotypes.  And he still cannot tell the difference between the Moderates and the Social Conservatives. 

I would like a job like Charles Pierce.  He is getting paid the big bucks (as my late father would say) to Bullshit about people he knows nothing about. Then, is surprised when they beat his candidate.  Thus, Pierce is the perfect example of Epistemic Closure. 

My question to the Left: Why follow a writer like Charles Pierce if he cannot understand the Right? And is proven wrong again and again? 

My question to the Right: Why do writers like Charles Pierce (and their Blog commenter) suffer from Epistemic Closure?

My question to Charles Pierce: Why write about Politics when you know nothing of the different branches and people of the Republican Party? and, How can I get paid to be as closed minded as you?