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@LoremIpsumDolorSitAmet said:
@boomzilla said:
@LoremIpsumDolorSitAmet said:
Now this I'd like to see. Honestly. I want to see solid evidence of this. It would be most enlightening.Again, point me to a news network that does better.
They have official policies enforcing bias at the BBCIn particular, I was thinking about their reporting on climate science. I suppose there's some dispute on this, since there have been stories about BBC executives saying not to air sceptical view points, while OTOH, anti-science MPs are apparently castigating the BBC for false balance. I admit to not really paying much attention to the BBC (or any other government owned news), so much of my impression (like most people who criticize Fox or Rush Limbaugh) comes second hand, at best.
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@boomzilla said:
In particular, I was thinking about their reporting on climate science. I suppose there's some dispute on this, since there have been stories about BBC executives saying not to air sceptical view points, while OTOH, anti-science MPs are apparently castigating the BBC for false balance. I admit to not really paying much attention to the BBC (or any other government owned news), so much of my impression (like most people who criticize Fox or Rush Limbaugh) comes second hand, at best.
Yeah... I don't know what to think about climate science either... from what I can see, nobody does. In that respect, I'd give a little credit to the BBC for being overly cautious about it. I'd rather wait until we get something we can have greater than 50% confidence in, or nothing at all.And likewise, my opinions on CNN, Fox etc. are naturally going to be biased by the criticism I hear from Americans and from select videos pushed up on YouTube... but I've certainly never heard anyone claiming they were neutral or even attempting to be neutral in any way. If they do try, they'll have a harder time than the BBC for sure. Other than ads, what keeps them on air?
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@LoremIpsumDolorSitAmet said:
And likewise, my opinions on CNN, Fox etc. are naturally going to be biased by the criticism I hear from Americans and from select videos pushed up on YouTube... but I've certainly never heard anyone claiming they were neutral or even attempting to be neutral in any way
Their news programs (again, different from opinion stuff like O'Reilly) try very hard to be viewpoint neutral, and I think they succeed a lot more than anyone else here does. People are pretty much used to their news having a seriously leftward tilt, so anything that doesn't have that sticks out.
@LoremIpsumDolorSitAmet said:
f they do try, they'll have a harder time than the BBC for sure. Other than ads, what keeps them on air?
Can you explain this? Why do you think the BBC is immune from institutional bias?
I assume most of their revenue comes from ads, which are valuable because people watch the channel. They might get some revenue from cable operators, too. A lot of that is definitely the opinion shows, but their news does a lot of good stuff, too. I think it will be good once Glenn Beck gets his station on cable systems, since we could definitely use some non-left competition.
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@boomzilla said:
@LoremIpsumDolorSitAmet said:
And likewise, my opinions on CNN, Fox etc. are naturally going to be biased by the criticism I hear from Americans and from select videos pushed up on YouTube... but I've certainly never heard anyone claiming they were neutral or even attempting to be neutral in any way
Their news programs (again, different from opinion stuff like O'Reilly) try very hard to be viewpoint neutral, and I think they succeed a lot more than anyone else here does.
I think the issue comes up more because many viewers don't draw a large line between the news and the opinion stuff. This can partly be blamed on the fact that IIRC they do news less than 12 hours a day but are billed as a news channel.
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@boomzilla said:
@LoremIpsumDolorSitAmet said:
Indeed I'm painfully aware that the BBC is vulnerable to institutional bias because the government set the license fee. However, networks that rely mostly on ads are vulnerable to that as well as bias from coroporations.And likewise, my opinions on CNN, Fox etc. are naturally going to be biased by the criticism I hear from Americans and from select videos pushed up on YouTube... but I've certainly never heard anyone claiming they were neutral or even attempting to be neutral in any way
Their news programs (again, different from opinion stuff like O'Reilly) try very hard to be viewpoint neutral, and I think they succeed a lot more than anyone else here does. People are pretty much used to their news having a seriously leftward tilt, so anything that doesn't have that sticks out.
@LoremIpsumDolorSitAmet said:
f they do try, they'll have a harder time than the BBC for sure. Other than ads, what keeps them on air?
Can you explain this? Why do you think the BBC is immune from institutional bias?
I assume most of their revenue comes from ads, which are valuable because people watch the channel. They might get some revenue from cable operators, too. A lot of that is definitely the opinion shows, but their news does a lot of good stuff, too. I think it will be good once Glenn Beck gets his station on cable systems, since we could definitely use some non-left competition.
Do TV networks over there ever try and run such filthy smear campaigns in their ads as the ones that get pushed online? Like the 'X will murder your children' kind mentioned earlier? I can imagine they try, although the networks are actually responsible for every ad they approve, so that goes some way to discourage it... in theory.
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@boomzilla said:
People are pretty much used to their news having a seriously leftward tilt
The Republican Party's biggest propaganda win during the second Bush presidency was achieving general acceptance of the idea that any viewpoint actually backed by verifiable evidence, as opposed to an opinion some blowhard pulled out his arse, could legitimately be characterized as "left".
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@LoremIpsumDolorSitAmet said:
However, networks that rely mostly on ads are vulnerable to that as well as bias from coroporations.
I don't think this is really a thing. I mean, aside from the neo-fascists and their hashtag campaigns to get people fired or whatever. If anything, the networks are chasing viewers, since that's what advertisers want.
@LoremIpsumDolorSitAmet said:
Do TV networks over there ever try and run such filthy smear campaigns in their ads as the ones that get pushed online? Like the 'X will murder your children' kind mentioned earlier? I can imagine they try, although the networks are actually responsible for every ad they approve, so that goes some way to discourage it... in theory.
Eh, sometimes. Sort of. I'm not sure how much of that is hyperbole on your part or what. I guess the most dramatic example was a Democrat ad that had a Rep. Paul Ryan look a like pushing an old lady in a wheelchair off a cliff. The commercials are probably tamer than what politicians say in stump speeches, in any case. A lot of political advertising gets done at a more local level. It doesn't make much sense for a non-national candidate (and there are only a few of those) to pay for commercials nationally.
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@boomzilla said:
I don't think this is really a thing. I mean, aside from the neo-fascists and their hashtag campaigns to get people fired or whatever. If anything, the networks are chasing viewers, since that's what advertisers want.
I was thinking about this from two potential angles... 1) if they're after viewers, it might make sense to be biased towards a majority opinion. 2) to maximize revenue, appeal to those who have higher incomes, and find out what their demographics are and how they vote. Maybe these work or maybe they don't, but if they need viewers, and viewers have bias, then the network might be tempted to be biased. I also didn't factor in actual election campaign funding. I doubt each network gets an equivalent amount of revenue from each party.@boomzilla said:
Eh, sometimes. Sort of. I'm not sure how much of that is hyperbole on your part or what. I guess the most dramatic example was a Democrat ad that had a Rep. Paul Ryan look a like pushing an old lady in a wheelchair off a cliff. The commercials are probably tamer than what politicians say in stump speeches, in any case. A lot of political advertising gets done at a more local level. It doesn't make much sense for a non-national candidate (and there are only a few of those) to pay for commercials nationally.
If I could just whitelist such ads, I would do it for the hilarity factor. I might go hunting for some during my lunch break and report back with my favourites, which all you Americans will have probably already seen several years ago.
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@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
People are pretty much used to their news having a seriously leftward tilt
The Republican Party's biggest propaganda win during the second Bush presidency was achieving general acceptance of the idea that any viewpoint actually backed by verifiable evidence, as opposed to an opinion some blowhard pulled out his arse, could legitimately be characterized as "left".WTF are you talking about? All sorts of people are subject to stuff like confirmation bias and are ignorant of various things. Do you have a particular example? Because I see lefty blowhards pulling lots of crap out of their asses and calling it truth.
I hear lefties often say things like, "Reality has a liberal bias." They're correct, of course, they just haven't figured out it's a bias against them.
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@boomzilla said:
@flabdablet said:
Climate science, health policy, war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, tax cuts for the rich just off the top of my head. Reality does indeed incline toward what has become seen as the "left" position on all of those issues.@boomzilla said:
People are pretty much used to their news having a seriously leftward tilt
The Republican Party's biggest propaganda win during the second Bush presidency was achieving general acceptance of the idea that any viewpoint actually backed by verifiable evidence, as opposed to an opinion some blowhard pulled out his arse, could legitimately be characterized as "left".WTF are you talking about?
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@flabdablet said:
Climate science, health policy, war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, tax cuts for the rich just off the top of my head. Reality does indeed incline toward what has become seen as the "left" position on all of those issues.
LOL. It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
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You probably don't deserve it, and you'll probably comprehend it as much as blakeyrat does when people explain how to do stuff, but I'll provide some meat about why you're probably wrong (you really didn't provide much in the way of information).
@flabdablet said:
@flabdablet said:
The Republican Party's biggest propaganda win during the second Bush presidency was achieving general acceptance of the idea that any viewpoint actually backed by verifiable evidence, as opposed to an opinion some blowhard pulled out his arse, could legitimately be characterized as "left".
Climate science, health policy, war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, tax cuts for the rich just off the top of my head.- Climate Science: The science is most certainly not settled. The CAGW premise relies upon the output of models that cannot even do a good job hindcasting past climate. They certainly aren't doing a good job predicting temperature right now with any skill.
- Health policy: I'm not sure what you're talking about, here. About the only significant thing I can think of that happened in this area from 2001-2008 was some expansion of Medicare. That bit has done a reasonably decent job so far, which is probably why the Democrats had to start getting rid of it. Demographics are set to explode this area of the budget in the middle term, so it probably would have had to go in any case.
- War in Afghanistan: What about it?
- War in Iraq: Again, what are you saying about this?
- Tax cuts for the rich: You probably don't realize this, but the US has an extremely progressive tax code, even after whatever tax cuts you're thinking about. In any case, it's not clear what you think is the obvious evidence here. I'm sure you're full of shit on this, because we could find prominent experts on both sides of this issue.
I must assume you've been listening to left wing blowhards pulling opinions from their nether regions instead of checking for verifiable evidence.
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@boomzilla said:
@LoremIpsumDolorSitAmet said:
And likewise, my opinions on CNN, Fox etc. are naturally going to be biased by the criticism I hear from Americans and from select videos pushed up on YouTube... but I've certainly never heard anyone claiming they were neutral or even attempting to be neutral in any way
Their news programs (again, different from opinion stuff like O'Reilly) try very hard to be viewpoint neutral, and I think they succeed a lot more than anyone else here does. People are pretty much used to their news having a seriously leftward tilt, so anything that doesn't have that sticks out.
The problem is that while mainstream news might have what appears to you to have a "leftward tilt" (pro-tip, it doesn't and never did) there is a difference between a slight bias in how news is presented, or in what stories a news team chooses to cover and the sort of straight up propaganda bullshit that Fox puts on sometimes.
Don't get me wrong, I like Fox News. They are entertaining as fuck sometimes, but they aren't "viewpoint neutral" in the least.
*The thing about ascribing bias to news is that a lot of times it depends on your own point of view. If you happen to be conservative, then seeing 3 out of 10 news reports lambaste big corporations for hurting the little man seems like a lot. Mostly because you're ignoring the 3 out of 10 reports that are all praising the amazing new innovations of Big Company X. While the liberal dude sees the same set of news reports and complains that the news is all controlled by "The Man" who is brainwashing people. For every "look at this racist white guy, man white people are racist" story out there that annoys you, there's a "look at this idiot black thug, man those guys are terrible" story that annoys liberals.
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@Snooder said:
Don't get me wrong, I like Fox News.
I gotta hand it to you, you're a very consistent concern troll.
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@boomzilla said:
Climate Science: The science is most certainly not settled. The CAGW premise relies upon the output of models that cannot even do a good job hindcasting past climate. They certainly aren't doing a good job predicting temperature right now with any skill.
"Left-leaning" reality: the CAGW premise relies on fundamental physics well corroborated by measurements performed by thousands of independent researchers, and long-term (>30 year) measured climate trends are in good agreement with those predicted by most of the models in current use.@boomzilla said:
Health policy: I'm not sure what you're talking about, here. About the only significant thing I can think of that happened in this area from 2001-2008 was some expansion of Medicare.
"Left-leaning" reality: The Bush administration did everything in its power, which was fortunately not much, to gut Medicare on the spurious grounds that if they didn't it would eventually eat the entire Budget. The reason it expanded was because more people became eligible for it, not because of Republican policy which has long been and continues to be opposed to all forms of socialized health funding.@boomzilla said:
War in Afghanistan: What about it?
"Left-leaning" reality: Bombing the shit out of one of the poorest countries in the world was never going to help catch Osama bin Laden. Nor was it ever going to help bring democracy to a fundamentally tribal society. It has cost vast numbers of lives and ridiculous amounts of money, just so that one Republican leader could look for a minute as if the intelligence community for which he was responsible had not completely screwed the pooch.@boomzilla said:
War in Iraq: Again, what are you saying about this?
"Left-leaning" reality: War in Afghanistan not going as well as we'd hoped, we have a publicity problem, what to do? LOOK, SQUIRREL!
America went to war in Iraq on completely trumped-up grounds, as was is obvious to any objective observer at the time. The war has done untold damage, both to Iraqis and to America's international reputation; it's killed about ten times as many people as the loathsome Saddam would have managed to in the same time frame, and yet there's no shortage of dickhead right-wingers ready to jump to its defense. WTF?
@boomzilla said:
Tax cuts for the rich: You probably don't realize this, but the US has an extremely progressive tax code, even after whatever tax cuts you're thinking about. In any case, it's not clear what you think is the obvious evidence here. I'm sure you're full of shit on this, because we could find prominent experts on both sides of this issue.
"Left-leaning" reality: "trickle down" supply-side economics is bullshit, you can't make economic inequity better by making your tax code less progressive, and no "prominent expert" whose opinion is based on the actual evidence of history (as opposed to the self-contained echo-chamber arguments of formal economic theory) says any different.
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Delightful.
@flabdablet said:
Left-leaning" reality: the CAGW premise relies on fundamental physics well corroborated by measurements performed by thousands of independent researchers, and long-term (>30 year) measured climate trends are in good agreement with those predicted by most of the models in current use.
Facts are stubborn things, and they just aren't agreeing with you here. Sure, the models have a lot of basic physics baked into them, but that's not enough. And I suppose the fact that you think they've done a good job at predicting says all we need to know about your ability to verify things.
@flabdablet said:
"Left-leaning" reality: The Bush administration did everything in its power, which was fortunately not much, to gut Medicare on the spurious grounds that if they didn't it would eventually eat the entire Budget. The reason it expanded was because more people became eligible for it, not because of Republican policy which has long been and continues to be opposed to all forms of socialized health funding.
Here's something that's easily verified that disputes your nonsense: Medicare Advantage. Medicare Part D. We've been told for a while that socialized medicine would be awesome if we'd just let the government go for it, and offered the Veteran's Administration (VA) as proof. Oops.
@flabdablet said:
"Left-leaning" reality: Bombing the shit out of one of the poorest countries in the world was never going to help catch Osama bin Laden. Nor was it ever going to help bring democracy to a fundamentally tribal society. It has cost vast numbers of lives and ridiculous amounts of money, just so that one Republican leader could look for a minute as if the intelligence community for which he was responsible had not completely screwed the pooch.
Yeah, it would have been a lot better to have OBL him there free to act. You are a realpolitic genius.
@flabdablet said:
America went to war in Iraq on completely trumped-up grounds, as was is obvious to any objective observer at the time.
HAHAHAHAHA! I'll just let this stand on its own, because it's so ridiculously ignorant. You really weren't paying attention to stuff back then, were you?
@flabdablet said:
"Left-leaning" reality: "trickle down" supply-side economics is bullshit, you can't make economic inequity better by making your tax code less progressive, and no "prominent expert" whose opinion is based on the actual evidence of history (as opposed to the self-contained echo-chamber arguments of formal economic theory) says any different.
Fuck inequity. We don't want to make everyone equal. Fuck you and trying to social engineer using the tax code. When "prominent expert" means anyone flabdablet agrees with, you're probably right, and that's probably a microcosm of why the bias is against "Left-leaning" reality, and why you were more accurate than you believed with your scare quotes.
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Clearly going to get no sense out of you on climate science or socialized medicine, both of which appear to be beyond your intellectual reach due to all that violent jerking that starts in your knees when either is mentioned. Perhaps I'll have more luck with the wars.
@boomzilla said:
@flabdablet said:
"Left-leaning" reality: Bombing the shit out of one of the poorest countries in the world was never going to help catch Osama bin Laden. Nor was it ever going to help bring democracy to a fundamentally tribal society. It has cost vast numbers of lives and ridiculous amounts of money, just so that one Republican leader could look for a minute as if the intelligence community for which he was responsible had not completely screwed the pooch.
Yeah, it would have been a lot better to have OBL him there free to act. You are a realpolitic genius.
How the Afghanistan war went down:
- Afghanistan can only be loosely described as a nation; such genuine authority as exists there is decentralized and tribal. There was no national police force or army with either the capability or the particular desire to capture a person such as OBL.
- US to Taliban: Hand over OBL, he done us wrong.
Taliban: Where's your evidence?
US: Fuck you, we're the US, we don't need no stinkin' evidence. We know he done it, hand him over.
Taliban: Fuck you.
US: (bombs) - Meanwhile, OBL is hiding out somewhere in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region, well informed by his contacts inside both Taliban and the Pakistani ISI and quite physically secure from bombs due to vastly superior knowledge of terrain and of the local people. The US has no decent intelligence as to his whereabouts, but keeps dropping bombs on villages regardless.
- Completely predictable and frequently predicted mission creep sees the focus shift from recapturing OBL to displacing the Taliban. Like any other insurgent organization, the Taliban retreats from major conflict zones and proceeds to inflict random harrassment on US and allied troops, whose planners appear to have learned nothing from the Soviet experience before them or the British experience before that.
- US now enmeshed in another dirty little Asian war, operating without reliable intelligence in a land where the troops cannot tell ally from enemy. Result: vast expenditure, much loss of life, tremendous destruction, somewhat sympathetic "national government" established in Kabul with fuck-all influence outside it.
- OBL nowhere in sight. Later captured in Pakistan (the US's nominal ally in this conflict) not in Afghanistan at all. Been in Pakistan for nobody knows how long.
- US still in Afghanistan, still getting shot at, still making a show of putting a band-aid on the region's machine gun wounds. World: unimpressed.
Verdict: predictable, predicted clusterfuck, kindly funded by the US taxpayer.
@boomzilla said:
@flabdablet said:
America went to war in Iraq on completely trumped-up grounds, as was is obvious to any objective observer at the time.
HAHAHAHAHA! I'll just let this stand on its own, because it's so ridiculously ignorant. You really weren't paying attention to stuff back then, were you?
What, you mean stuff like
- The US cutting the weapons inspection short when it looked like a thorough search was on the point of being completed without finding the fabled Weapons of Mass Destruction
- The relentless propaganda campaign to put about the lie that the weapons inspectors had been "thrown out", comprehensively refuted at the time by Hans Blix but drowned out by the Fox megaphone
- The relentless propaganda campaign to link Saddam Hussein with Al Qaeda, even though anybody who actually paid attention to the politics of the region understood perfectly clearly that he had no sympathy for them whatsoever
- The fact that the stated grounds for invading Iraq kept shifting, once it became apparent to all that the lie about WMD wasn't going to stand up to scrutiny; I don't think I've ever seen a more clear-cut case of "Eurasia has always been at war with Eastasia" than that
- The vast cost of the war in Iraqi lives, comprehensively ignored back in the US
- The absolutely rapacious war profiteering of Halliburton and associated organizations
- The incredible cost of the exercise to the US taxpayer
- or the fact that Iraq is still not a functioning democracy and likely won't be for another 20 years?
Yeah, I was paying attention, unlike all the 101st Fighting Keyboarders who ate up the rah-rah hook, line and sinker, and I kept paying attention even though doing so made me nauseous. Are you really so blinkered that you can honestly and genuinely believe that either of these wars was (a) a good idea going in (b) worth anything even close to the cost in life and treasure?
As for economics:
@boomzilla said:
Fuck inequity. We don't want to make everyone equal. Fuck you and trying to social engineer using the tax code.
Of course you don't! You're a right winger. Which means you probably really do believe that the amount of money a person is able to control is a good measure of the extent to which they deserve to be able to do that; the consequences of compounding returns on investment are lost on you. The social dislocation caused by extreme concentration of wealth is of no concern to you and neither are the poverty traps it creates. You're more than happy to dump a bucket of shit on people who do stupid or thuggish things after growing up in a ghetto with no prospect of a decent future, but you're not the slightest bit interested in modifying the economic conditions that create, perpetuate and grow ghettos. As for the corrupting influence of extreme concentrations of wealth on the mechanisms of government, well, that's just toooooo bad in your book, because you take it as a given that government is by its very nature corrupt. You don't seem to understand that it's excessively concentrated power in any form, not only in governmental form, that's socially destructive despite the availability of solid research that bears this out, because at the root of it you, like the sainted Thatcher, don't actually believe that society is even a thing.
I am actually quite impressed that you had the balls to come out and say "fuck inequity" in public. It isn't often that a wingnut is willing to get his fuck-you-I-got-mine on quite so unguardedly.
This is exactly why I generally can't be bothered having a good-faith discussion with you; your values are simply repugnant and I don't believe I have any chance of getting you to re-examine them regardless of what I say. You come across as an absolutely stereotypical rusted-on Republican who honestly can't decide whether anybody even slightly left of himself is best classified as Threat or Menace. There's no arguing with that kind of paranoia.
So fuck you, and you can take your pissweak "social engineering" cliche and stick it up your itching bleeding constipated arsehole. I'm truly sorry for your kids, but am consoled by the fact that they will grow up to enrage you.
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@flabdablet said:
Clearly going to get no sense out of you on climate science or socialized medicine, both of which appear to be beyond your intellectual reach due to all that violent jerking that starts in your knees when either is mentioned.
Sorry, I can't help it that the facts aren't on your side.
@flabdablet said:
How the Afghanistan war went down:
There are bits of truth in your retelling. Especially about stuff like scope creep. A lot of what you said was, basically, "There were many difficult things about this war that needed to be overcome for success." I don't think anyone has disagreed with this. I certainly didn't. Pakistan is a big problem, and there probably aren't any good solutions there. I'm sure we could have done things better, but that's also the nature of hindsight.
@flabdablet said:
The US cutting the weapons inspection short when it looked like a thorough search was on the point of being completed without finding the fabled Weapons of Mass Destruction
Wow, you really weren't paying attention to what was going on. It was clear that the searches going on were anything but thorough.
@flabdablet said:
The relentless propaganda campaign to link Saddam Hussein with Al Qaeda, even though anybody who actually paid attention to the politics of the region understood perfectly clearly that he had no sympathy for them whatsoever
There was an obvious link, in that he had an actual training camp in Iraq. But there are more than Al Qaeda in the world of terrorism. You may recall that he was funding Palestinian terror campaigns, for instance.
There were other strong reasons to go back to war in Iraq, but they didn't make great sound bites. The reality was that we already had a low level war going there in the form of the no fly zone. Saddam had largely worked around the existing sanction regime and those were probably going to go away completely, leaving him pretty free to act. I think getting rid of him was the right thing to do, but not that we did a perfect job (as if such a thing was even possible).
@flabdablet said:
I am actually quite impressed that you had the balls to come out and say "fuck inequity" in public. It isn't often that a wingnut is willing to get his fuck-you-I-got-mine on quite so unguardedly.
I'm a little more open to reality and saying stuff that needs to be said. Inequity is the wrong problem, and working to "solve" it just makes things worse over all.
@flabdablet said:
This is exactly why I generally can't be bothered having a good-faith discussion with you; your values are simply repugnant and I don't believe I have any chance of getting you to re-examine them regardless of what I say. You come across as an absolutely stereotypical rusted-on Republican who honestly can't decide whether anybody even slightly left of himself is best classified as Threat or Menace. There's no arguing with that kind of paranoia.
Yeah, I think values that you display were the sorts of things that got tens of millions of people killed last century. And you shit on philosophies that have made your nice life possible. I don't know how to convince you of your self-destructiveness.
@flabdablet said:
So fuck you, and you can take your pissweak "social engineering" cliche and stick it up your itching bleeding constipated arsehole. I'm truly sorry for your kids, but am consoled by the fact that they will grow up to enrage you.
I'm sure you'll find it's your justification for your own desires to mold society that's pissweak. Kids always enrage their parents. But they're growing up able to think. My 13 year old daughter has begun asking questions like, "Are all liberals that stupid?" She observes and thinks for herself.
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@boomzilla said:
I'm sure you'll find it's your justification for your own desires to mold society that's pissweak.
The "social engineering" canard, much beloved of the right-wing blowhard, conveniently ignores the fact that every public policy decision molds society in some way. The only difference between right-wing and left-wing approaches to public policy is the motivation behind that molding. The Right always backs policy that concentrates and centralizes wealth, and therefore power and control, while emitting a continuous barrage of propaganda chaff about being opposed to centralized power because Enterprise Good, Gubmint Bad; Left policy generally acts to dilute and spread wealth, in the belief that it is better for nobody to have too little than for some to have too much.
Of course your daughter is going to be thinking that liberals are stupid at 13: early teenagers are the most socially conservative people on the planet. It's when she's in her mid twenties and her brains have grown in and she's looked around at the way people actually are that will be the interesting time for you.
If you're very lucky and you manage to squash any idea she might have of going to college where the Terrible Liberals lurk, and you keep the Little Woman in her rightful place cleaning up all the shit the menfolk leave behind, then your ongoing effort to inculcate Fuck You I Got Mine might pay off and she'll turn into just another beaten-down Fox-consuming drone. If she doesn't, she's always welcome to visit here and see for herself what life is like in a country where nobody has to worry that a broken leg will bankrupt them. You, on the other hand, can stay where the fuck you are.
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@flabdablet said:
It's when she's in her mid twenties and her brains have grown in and she's looked around at the way people actually are
LOL!
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@flabdablet said:
The "social engineering" canard, much beloved of the right-wing blowhard, conveniently ignores the fact that every public policy decision molds society in some way.
That's not totally wrong, but there's a difference between the hubris of the collectivist and people who look for policies that accomplish something that's best done through the formalized violence of the state and disrupt as little as possible. You love to say how I'm a cookie cutter Republican, but there's way too much progressivism there for my taste, though they're still a much better option than the Democrats, who have gone full retard in that respect. Many of the guys with Rs seem OK until they get some power, and then they get the bug just like the people before them. Sadly, we've also removed some of the important checks and balances that were part of our system, and we're getting closer and closer to the mob rule that the progressives would like to run.
@flabdablet said:
The only difference between right-wing and left-wing approaches to public policy is the motivation behind that molding. The Right always backs policy that concentrates and centralizes wealth, and therefore power and control, while emitting a continuous barrage of propaganda chaff about being opposed to centralized power because Enterprise Good, Gubmint Bad; Left policy generally acts to dilute and spread wealth, in the belief that it is better for nobody to have too little than for some to have too much.
I get that this is your cartoon version of the world. The problem with the left is that they look for the apparently easy and emotionally satisfying solution without considering the consequences. There are many problems with "diluting the wealth." There are obvious moral issues with the organized and formal theft, but then there is the fact that the dilution itself tends to destroy wealth and reduce its future production. The left isn't interested in considering the trade offs or even admitting that there are any. As far as the left is concerned, if you're against any of this dilution, you're a bad person. It's lazy and stupid and dangerous.
Yes, it's obvious that leftists would rather have us all suffer than have everyone get better if it means that some get a lot better. That's just the kind of assholes that you are. You can't let go of your envy, and it's pretty unseemly. You're at least starting to realize and admit the truth (which is really quite astounding), so maybe there's some hope for you after all.
@flabdablet said:
early teenagers are the most socially conservative people on the planet
This is what Australians call, "Taking the piss," right?
@flabdablet said:
It's when she's in her mid twenties and her brains have grown in and she's looked around at the way people actually are that will be the interesting time for you.
Yeah, right now, she's still learning and can't engage in conversations so much (partly because she pays more attention to kid stuff than paying attention to the news), so that will be fun when she comes back and vindicates her upbringing. I hope it will also be when I become a grandfather, which should be awesome.
@flabdablet said:
If you're very lucky and you manage to squash any idea she might have of going to college where the Terrible Liberals lurk, and you keep the Little Woman in her rightful place cleaning up all the shit the menfolk leave behind, then your ongoing effort to inculcate Fuck You I Got Mine might pay off and she'll turn into just another beaten-down Fox-consuming drone. If she doesn't, she's always welcome to visit here and see for herself what life is like in a country where nobody has to worry that a broken leg will bankrupt them. You, on the other hand, can stay where the fuck you are.
You really hate yourself for being a man, don't you? The "I Got Mine" stuff is so lazy. I realize that you probably want poor people to have a better life. Sadly, you're part of the problem in preventing them from getting it. And you're not really interested in facts that don't conform to your view, so you can keep imagining that we're all going bankrupt from health care costs or whatever (well, we will once more of the population is reliant on the government for their health care financing).
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@boomzilla said:
[customary turgid sludge of bullshit and straw men]
Whatever, dude.
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@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
[customary turgid sludge of bullshit and straw men]
Whatever, dude.Just the sort of excellent argument we've come to expect. Great job, flabby!
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Why don't the pair of you button it? You're not convincing each other, or anyone else, and each of you is seemingly incapable of letting anyone think that they didn't get the last word. About all you're doing is filling up CS with crud, and we could always just revisit The Thread That Must Not Be Named if we want that.
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@dkf said:
and each of you is seemingly incapable of letting anyone think that they didn't get the last word
QFT
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@dkf said:
Why don't the pair of you button it?
Yeah, we know you love each other, but get a room or something.
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@flabdablet said:
Of course your daughter is going to be thinking that liberals are stupid at 13: early teenagers are the most socially conservative people on the planet. It's when she's in her mid twenties and her brains have grown in and she's looked around at the way people actually are that will be the interesting time for you.
@Winston Churchill said:
If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.
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@DrakeSmith said:
@flabdablet said:
@Adolf Hitler said:Of course your daughter is going to be thinking that liberals are stupid at 13: early teenagers are the most socially conservative people on the planet. It's when she's in her mid twenties and her brains have grown in and she's looked around at the way people actually are that will be the interesting time for you.
@Winston Churchill said:
If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.
What luck for rulers that men do not think.
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@flabdablet said:
@DrakeSmith said:
@flabdablet said:
@Adolf Hitler said:Of course your daughter is going to be thinking that liberals are stupid at 13: early teenagers are the most socially conservative people on the planet. It's when she's in her mid twenties and her brains have grown in and she's looked around at the way people actually are that will be the interesting time for you.
@Winston Churchill said:
If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.
What luck for rulers that men do not think.
Hey, look, is that Hitler's jaw? - Some Russian soldier
