“Well those are just my beliefs.”

As human beings living in today’s society, I am confident each and every one of us has either heard or said this statement during a political debate. After extensively arguing about gun control, abortion, or another hot topic, you may have said this in exasperation, with a hope of it moving you on from the aforementioned political battleground.

I get it, trust me, I do. Sometimes it just seems easier to end the debate. However, I have realized that defending what you think as “my beliefs” is a cop out and inherently dangerous.

Indulge me here, for a minute, please, while I take you through the threat of this blind compliance. Let’s say you start just one time defending your beliefs by saying that they are your beliefs. Maybe you’re tired and don’t feel like debating, or you “can’t handle the stupidity” of the person you’re debating (both are reasons I’ve personally heard for using this phrase). Either way, you begin to use this phrase more and more, and forget to fact check your beliefs. Well, over the course of time, new research and facts come out, yet your beliefs are still the same. Why? Because they’re your beliefs, of course!

This problem rears its ugly head because of misinformation and a general disregard that times change. The result? Politicians and American people who wholeheartedly believe in outdated data and refuse to accept that they may be wrong.

How

Every day I see people post about politics on social media. In fact, I found two accounts on Instagram called @right_conservative and @youngliberals. Combined, these accounts have about 40,000 followers. Forty thousand young Americans (Ninety percent of Instagram users are under the age of 35) see these posts and probably form their beliefs based on them. I decided the next logical step would be to view some of their posts.

Disregarding time

First, I viewed @right_conservative’s latest post, a quote from Malcolm X saying “The democrats are playing you for a political CHUMP and if you vote for them, not only are you a CHUMP, you are a traitor to your race!”

After taking A.P. United States History, my blood began to boil after seeing this image. In it was the very root of the problem I am trying to communicate: things change! It is misleading to apply Malcolm X's statement in 1960 to today's party. Clinging onto past political stereotypes only promotes the dangerous statement of “Well I believe my beliefs because they’re my beliefs.”

Also, I would just like to mention here that Malcolm X was a Muslim. This page supports Donald Trump, who quite often discusses his hatred of Muslims. I highly doubt Malcolm X would like to be associated with the Republicans today if he heard that Trump was the GOP’s presidential nominee.

People take outdated information and apply it to today, resulting in the error of believing something for the sake of believing it.

Misinformation

Let’s not forget @youngliberals, though. One of their recent posts was a picture of Ben Carson saying that he was “raised by a single mother, raised in public housing, supported by welfare, kept healthy with Medicaid, educated in public schools, received eyeglasses from a state agency, benefited from affirmative action for undergrad school, medical school paid for with grants from USPHS.” This meme tried to paint Dr. Carson as a hypocrite because of this conservative views on government programs.

This is not the first and won’t be the last post I’ve seen bashing a candidate like this. Before believing it though, read this fact check.

You see, many of these facts were taken either out of context or are completely false. With a fact checking website like PolitiFact or factcheck.org, most of these memes can be torn down, yet people don’t put in the effort.

Rather, people see this post, think it convenient for their preexisting views, and go with it. The result of this is a mass-communication of misinformation that leads people to believe their beliefs, but this time based on flawed logic.

Commercials such as this air on TV frequently and “don’t believe everything you read on the Internet!” is a buzzword in school, yet when it comes to politics, people forget this.

The problem that arises with this situation is the reliance on sound bites. Instead of reading a New York Times article on an issue, people see a meme and regard it as fact. This leads to misinformation in your beliefs and further ruins digs us into the hole of “my beliefs are my beliefs because they’re my beliefs.”

Rearing its ugly head

The effects of believing your beliefs can be seen, front and center, in America’s political battleground.

Climate change

Until about twenty or thirty years ago, there was not much data to prove climate change was real. These views got carried over to present day and, when the people who believed them were presented with new data, they stuck their head in the sand.

For instance, the 2016 GOP Party Platform states, on page 22, “The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a political mechanism, not an unbiased scientific institution. Its unreliability is reflected in its intolerance toward scientists and others who dissent from its orthodoxy.”

This is a fancy way of saying that they don’t support the IPCC because they don’t accept the doctrines of scientists who disagree on climate change. However, 97 percent of scientists agree that climate change is a real and pressing issue. So, because the IPCC doesn’t include the three percent of scientists who don’t believe in global warming, the IPCC is “unreliable.”

Furthermore, this Pew Research Center study shows that Republican Americans don’t see climate change as a real problem.

Here is the concrete result of a culmination of continued beliefs in outdated facts. When people consistently defend their beliefs by saying they’re their beliefs, it can lead to an entire political party and its supporters ignoring a global problem. All the while, the facts are at instant access, but people don’t bother to look.

Yet, I must admit this problem permeates from more than climate change. Let’s examine violence.

Violence

I don’t think a day goes by where I don’t hear about a shooting. Quite honestly, I have thought to myself, “Oh a shooting hasn’t happened in the last three days, one has got to happen today.” While this thought was incredibly morbid, I realized the core of that thought was more macabre than its facade: I have come to expect violence because it seems to mainstream.

Apparently, I’m not alone. Look at this graph from the Pew Research Center:

I must admit I am a victim to this data trend. I was one of those people who thought that violence was increasing. However, after I saw this graph, I was able to change. The core problem I am talking about in this article is a reaction to that data like this one from Newt Gingrich: .

When he was confronted by these very same facts, Gingrich ignored them, saying, “The average American, I will bet you this morning, does not think crime is down, does not think they’re safer.”

And yes, the data above supports that. The problem came when the reporter interjected, reminding Gingrich that violent crime is, in fact, down. In response, Gingrich dismissed the facts, stating, “That’s your view.”

Now I understand not knowing that statistic. It happens. But the problem lies in his response. When Gingrich ignored facts because they didn’t support his belief, that is where the problem is. You don't get to dismiss a fact when it isn't convenient for your belief.

Intelligence is, as determined by Stephen Hawking, the ability to adapt to change. By this standard, Gingrich is not intelligent because he was so cemented in his ways that he couldn’t accept a fact. Instead, his beliefs were fueled by, you guessed it, his beliefs, rather than logic and reason.

This very fact undermines the entire American system. Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers, said, “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”

Well, I would hardly determine that basing your beliefs on your beliefs makes someone well-informed, so that raises a question. Are we Americans no longer to be trusted with our own government?

My immediate reaction to this thought was to blame politicians. They’re all sleazy slime-bags right? Only out for personal gain? Of course they’ll screw up facts to get office. Well, who elects them? This takes me back to the “how” section. We created this beast!

OK, but what now?

I wish I could tell you a solution. You’ve stuck it out this far and I wish I could put a bow on this article and tell you how to change for the better, but I cannot.

According to the Scientific American, as published in their Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, when people are confronted with facts that don't support this belief there is, “a denial of the relevance of facts.”

Essentially, this means that when facts support someone’s view they become more motivated towards that view and when facts don’t support someone’s opinion, they tend to regard the issue as a “moral” issue or an issue not needing facts.

After all of this, I present to you: an unsolvable urgent problem. We are horribly ingrained in our beliefs and will continue to believe them for the sake of believing them even when their errors are discovered.

The only sort of solution I can provide is to be aware. Be aware of the toxicity of misinformation and be intelligent enough to realize when your beliefs are wrong. Advocate for you beliefs, but be flexible when presented with contradictory data, don’t flee to it being a “moral issue.”

This won’t be easy or even an overnight change. It will be hard, but if we want to continue running our country like Thomas Jefferson said, it will be worth it.

So next time you feel inclined to say, “those are just my beliefs,” remember to add a “because” on that sentence and back it up with logical, researched, fact-based reasoning.