The most egregious form of anecdotal evidence I hear begins with “everyone I know,” yeah right, everyone you know is a middle class white person in a cubical whose big time out is going to the mall shopping for accessories and stopping off at TGI Fridays for a drink full of fruit.
The problem with all this is that we blurt out our stereotypes without prefacing it with “all”. Jews are good with money, Blacks are lazy, Mexicans work hard, Evangelical Christians are stupid, Liberals are communists, Republicans are selfish white people… All of that is crap. No wait, Republicans are not all selfish white people. I met a nice Republican back in the Summer of 1988. Oh and not to forget MS who comments here is a smart Evangelical Christian.
So how do we handle that? Damn those selfish greedy bigoted Republicans except Bob Dole and George H Bush! That’s two! Evangelical Christians are intolerance ignorant nitwits except MS, oh and those Jesus Freaks that used to come by our house in college who we gave our seeds and stems to. That’s three!
We all suffer it, but it is most prevalent listening to Rush Limbaugh and talk radio with the constant blather of “liberals are socialists, environmentalists are communists, Democrats hate America” and so on, in fact if you listen long enough you will find that is the basis of talk radio.
I have to agree with The Donald on a lot of this PC business, we are so into parsing every word the candidates make it’s getting beyond absurd.