Blind Spots -- June 12, 2015

For quite some time I have been wanting to post a note using the phrase "blind spot" or "blind spots."

I see examples of it every day: people who seem to be normal have huge blind spots. I guess I'm not the only one who has noted this phenomenon. The Park Rapids (ND) Enterprise has a great op-ed on this very phenomenon:

It's a case of dueling press releases. But it deserves a minute of Minnesotans' time—especially those Minnesotans who oppose the Sandpiper Pipeline and can't understand why their fellow residents keep rejecting their arguments.

For those opponents, gaining this understanding is crucial. For indisputable evidence now has surfaced that the pipeline's backers are carrying the day—evidence in the form of Friday's unanimous vote in favor of the pipeline by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission.

How can that be?

How is it that even in famously liberal and environmentally sensitive Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 Lakes, the commission—four of whose five members were appointed by Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton—could vote 5-0 in favor of a controversial crude-oil pipeline?

Here's how:

Almost to a person, the opponents talk as if they're wearing green blinders—blinders that stop them from seeing any other interests besides their own.

And given that they equate their own interest with saving the Earth, it's no wonder they blast everyone else's position as not only selfish and but also environmentally irresponsible.

The trouble is, proponents of such views generally have little interest in reaching a compromise. But in America, of course, politics is the art of compromise. That means people who refuse to compromise get labeled as extremists.

And extremists tend to fare poorly in America's system of governance.

Much more at the link.

Maybe I need a "blind spot" tag. But folks probably wouldn't see it. 

Another great example. The folks with a blind spot when it comes to environmental issues in Minnesota who have an unnatural fear of pipelines have no problem with putting in a huge transmission line, that will require clear-cutting much forest, from Canada to Minnesota, which is entirely unnecessary except to provide "back-up" electricity coming from a wind farm (also unnecessary) in North Dakota. Besides a blur on the landscape forever, no one will want to live near the transmission line due to cancer fears. The transmission line will also become a landmark for aliens visiting earth in their UFOs.