There's a fundamental problem to begin with. Any situation is too complex to describe it completely. Any event that hits our radar screens as a 'political event' has a long chain of preceding causes and other related events that would take longer to describe than the actual event itself. So we abridge the story. We summarize. How we choose to summarize both in the discussions we have and in our own internal thought scheme is quite interesting. We all come from different places, have different interests, and have different goals. A huge influence on our story-telling.
I just want to know what happened. I try and discover what the chains of cause and effect are with as little bias as possible - as doomed to failure as that inevitably is. What are the sources of bias? How can we filter them out? This is why I've tried to get outside and abandon political parties. Of course, it's silly. One just ends up with new biases to contend with.
I think one's world-view is testable to an extent by the ability to make predictions about the world. Failed predictions should cause one to question either the original assumptions or the logic of what caused it. The philosophy of modern science [Karl Popper is good for anyone not familiar with him] is that one should make testable predictions from one's hypotheses. We are all often doing this. Each of these political discussions seem to have a lot of predictions. Why? I suppose everyone has their own reasons. Being right is fun, of course. For me, it's a science-thing. A test of one's world view. Am I right? Am I wrong? If I'm wrong, what didn't and I know and what can I learn from it?
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