A friend posted a link to the Media Matters blog post, "Michelle Malkin hates politics in her sports, except when she doesn't"
I was just thinking this morning that the reason why people cheat (in my son's school) is because in-group loyalty is more important to them than personal integrity/ethics. In fact, if I had known a certain ex-boyfriend in High School, I would have loathed him, because he would have been exactly the guy who kept batting his eyes at me asking me to let him cheat on his paper: his attention as a football star in exchange for my willingness to put myself at risk on his behalf. (And.... No. Actually I once was kicked out of a housing situation for not letting my roommates cheat off me. So, I know exactly how averse I am.)
Extrapolate that out. You get a set of people who believe that the value of being part of the group is so high that they justify doing all sorts of contemptible things: horrible hazing rituals (hazing in general is just idiotic; but some is more funny than hurtful) and of course lawbreaking.
But maybe a bit more subtle, when people arrange their values in this way, they assume "everyone else" has the same motivations. So if you wear Los Suns jerseys, then presumably you're saying it's more important for you to be part of the group of Hispanic activists (and their progressive-libertarian allies) than it is to be part of the group "Arizona." You're not just expressing solidarity, you've switched loyalties.
In contrast, Tebow making a "pro-family" advertisement was him expressing a personal belief that this woman clearly thinks that everyone who follows sports already has.
So this woman is just biased in what she sees and ignorant of the idea that there's an potential reality beyond her own experience of the world.
We all are guilty of observational bias. That's the one thing that science education should be able to teach each and every student, but has missed.
