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csours

47% supported the strike? How could they possibly have had enough information to support it?

Iran = Bad

Man from Iran = Bad

Kill Man from Iran = Good???

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“Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.”

― Arthur Schopenhauer

edit: it's easy to read this pridefully yourself ("i have other things to be proud of and therefore i'm immune from such petty things"). i think the most significant part of the quotation is the last part - you can derive pride in direct proportion to how invested you are. most people (those that aren't nihilists) have such things that function for them in exactly the same way. it's ultimately a sublimation urge -- we prove ourselves insofar as we sacrifice. if nationalism vexes you then i challenge you to reflect on your own loyalties/commitments.

> if nationalism vexes you then i challenge you to reflect on your own loyalties/commitments.

I agree, but just because the psychological mechanisms that give rise to both humanism and nationalism are related, doesn't mean that we can't make reasonable judgments about which is better than the other, especially when the nationalism is of an ethnic or racial variety.

>doesn't mean that we can't make reasonable judgments about which is better than the other

i'm not advocating for reserving judgment. i'm simply saying that being proud of yourself for not being nationalist is pointless and if you want to understand nationalists (to whatever end -- even eradication of nationalism) then study yourself in analogy as a proxy for the other.

Or simply, be self-critical, which is the number one trait disappearing from public conversation, if not for the fact that being self-critical is seen as weakness, perhaps the reason you're reiterating yourself

"Perception is reality."

- Lee Atwater

"One has not only an ability to perceive the world but an ability to alter one's perception of it; more simply, one can change things by the manner in which one looks at them."

- Tom Robbins

"One may reasonably ask: Why do people cling to the values and practices of the past, when they so obviously no longer work? Long-standing thought patterns are hard to overcome because they often appear to serve the interests of the individual, and old ways of thinking are simpler and easier to handle. In a two-valued way of thinking, as in good and bad, right and wrong, love and hate, cause and effect, very little logical analysis is involved."

- Jacque Fresco

How about:

Soleimani = Quds leader

Quds = responsible for Iranian military actions outside Iran

Kill person responsible for Iranian military actions outside Iran = Good

Reading the above seems a bit contrived, but I know it pretty much fits for me. I had heard his named before the news broke, but wouldn’t have been able to tell you what he did upon hearing it again. As soon as I discovered he was a Quds general, I had enough information to know that I supported striking him. Granted I was already aware of Iran’s involvement in Iraq over the past few years, and that he had been killed in Iraq.

That you know who Soleimani is places you as an outlier. Nobody would know unless told he's from Iran, and even more so that he lead the Quds.

That’s the point, though - I didn’t know who he was when I first heard the name. It took maybe 30 seconds for me to determine he lead Quds, at which point I had enough information to know that I supported his being targeted.

That is by far more informed and sophisticated than most people's knowledge on this topic.

Further questions: Why was he in Bagdad? Why did the US use an airstrike? Why was he not arrested? Did the Iraqi government invite him to the country? Was he pursuing diplomatic relations with the Iraqi government, the nominal allies of the United stakes?

Speaking for myself, I could not support the killing without answers to those questions.

The real question is how could anyone not know the US and Iran have been at each other's throats for over a decade and that things were always a hairs breadth from exploding into outright warfare?

> How could they possibly have had enough information to support it?

That is true for just about any political question. The consequences are usually so complex that the average citizen can't possibly be informed well enough on the matter. Just look at what happened with brexit...

Mandatory political disclaimer: I'm not saying democracy is wrong, and I wouldn't know how to solve this problem either.

and the most divisive political questions don’t even have objective answers.

Fox news typically has more viewers than MSNBC and CNN combined. So 47% doesn't surprise me.

So Soleimani = "Man from Iran"?

Yes.

I love and sympathize with your comment heavily. As far as 47% support I think it because:

Trump = Good

Something Trump ordered = Good

Also, their only news source told them it was a good thing.

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