I would not be surprised. A friend of mine pointed out, (rough quotation), “Americans have been in power for so long everyone has to deal with us. Unfortunately, we have to deal with us every bit as much as they do. It’s why countries learn about the US, but the US knows far less about other countries. It’s also why they get angry at us for not knowing about them, not realizing, there are so many other countries that we would have to learn about.”
I agree with that for the most part, though I would add in American individualism helps all of that along. I love the US, I consider it the best country on the planet, but American is like ninth or tenth thing on my list of things I would consider myself. Other countries put that a wee bit higher. We also have a very shitty school system.
Yeah, we Americans banned laid back people a long time ago, something about being too agreeable, we just couldn’t put up with that shit…
I don’t think anyone’s going to want to get rid of the 14th (let’s ask Eric and Ucci), which comes back to my point that conservatives or anyone wishing to revert the Constitution probably already have something in mind without first exploring how the original Constitution was meant to be interpreted in its time. Did the original function of government involve protecting civil liberties? If so, that would imply the protection of citizens (or aliens?) from enslavement, no?
My guess is that to formally “ratify” the Constitution was something they thought would only have to be done once, but to amend it might be done again and again through its history. So 9 out of 13 (roughly 3/4 as you pointed out) was appropriate wording for a one time thing. If that’s the case, then I think they would have said something like 36 or 37 states out of 50 must consent to a brand new Constitution for today.
So the 9 states rule continues to this day?
Thanks!
BTW, I just thought of an issue that Canadians can get very riled up about: French separatism! Actually, it’s really the Quebecois that get all riled up; the rest of Canada mostly laughs at the issue, which pisses off the Quebecois even more. They have an inferiority complex. They want to be separate from Canada yet hold on to all the benefits that come with being a province. Have you ever heard of their concept of a “nation within a nation”?
In situations like that, if you tune out the noise and look at what's really going on, you'll find that one side is providing the data, and the other side is trying to explain that data away. That's how you know who's right. So with the liberal bias issue- no progressive source that you find (and I haven't looked at your links yet) is going to deny that almost every American journalist is a leftist, or that almost every American college professor is a leftist. why? Because they are fact, and all they can do to deny them is lie. Most people don't straight up lie.
They're going to try to come up with ways to convince you that the huge discrepancies don't actually have an impact- they're going to explain to you how having 90% of the people teaching humanities being progressive won't lead to slanted presentation of the humanities. They're going to explain to you that almost every political journalist voting for Democrats isn't going to lead to slanted coverage.
If you don't think you can trust my sources, then find one that says the opposite! FIND a source that says that no, in fact, most college professors or journalists are conservative Republicans, or that it's close to 50/50. You won't. As far as it reflecting the population, just compare the ratio of liberal/Democrat academics and journalists to how conservatives perform in American elections.
Even the one that denies it acknowledges that it's the consensus.
If you dig some more, you will find plenty of liberals trying to explain the fact that academics/journalism is dominated by leftists in various non-prejudicial ways, such as conservatives just not being the kinds of people who tend to choose those professions. Or, you will find plenty of liberals explaining that [i]just because[/i] most people presenting the public with information are leftists, that doesn't mean the information provided will slant left. Then you just have to ask yourself if that's consistent with what progressives teach- would progressives be alright with all academics and journalists being white, or male, or straight, or wealthy, or Catholic, or Republican? Does "Just because group X completely dominates the media and academics, doesn't mean group Y has anything to worry about" sound like the kind of thing a progressive would say?
I thought it was kind of weird that you would call it a conspiracy in the first place. It's a bit like calling "Wealthy businessmen tend to vote Republican" a conspiracy. Either they do or they don't.
Well, actually my first objection was that not allowing people to donate to political campaigns would be an unenforceable, catastrophic violation of the First Amendment that wealthy/powerful people would always find a way to get around, while completely silencing the political voice of regular people. It wasn't until after a couple exchanges that I noticed every example of a 'bad guy' liz used just happened to be a conservative, and it got me thinking that liberals have a lot more to gain from campaign finance reform.
That there is a liberal academic/journalistic bias is such an easy thing to confirm though. Sure, she might not have known it, but if she was a conservative she would have known it because our noses are rubbed in it every day. Which again has been kind of my point through this thread- any sweeping reforms to political activity designed to 'cure corruption' or otherwise rescue the political process from itself are in danger of just being stealth or unconscious attempts to shut out the other political faction. And that goes for both sides, of course. If a bunch of conservatives get together and come up with some great idea on how to fix the political process, it will probably shut liberals out of the process, and they might not even realize they are doing it.
I don't follow the reasoning in the above. Liberals get tons of political donations through liberal churches, union dues, academics foundations, and individual donors. People donate to their respective parties, there's nothing new about that. But if you shut off ALL donations, then you still have every university, every union, and almost every cable news channel functioning as free campaigning for the left, whereas all the conservatives will have is basically churches [i]which Liz wants to restrict the political influence of as well[/i].
Because it would be a case of two wrongs not making a right? I don't want to pass a law preventing people from donating political campaigns AND I don't want to pass some law requiring political allegiance quotas in newsrooms and universities because I like the first amendment! Legal restrictions aren't the answer. Transparency, exposure and (real) education are. Make sure everybody knows who the media are and what they're really about. Make sure everybody knows the agenda academics intend for everybody else's children. That'll turn things around, if the people deserve to have them turned around.
Well, that was quick. We've gone from you thinking liberals controlling the media and academia being a conspiracy theory conservatives made up, to it all being true and yet the fault of conservatives somehow- all in the span of one exchange. It's like you've done a complete 180 on the facts and somehow still trying to make it seem like I'm wrong.
I’ve been in that exchange lots of times- you mention media/academic bias, the leftist declares it doesn’t really exist and that conservatives are lying/paranoid. You prove to them that it exists, and immediately the gears are shifted to ‘stop whining’ or ‘you sound like a black/woman/fag/whatever/demanding affirmative action’ or ‘conservatives just need to work harder then’. How about this, though; instead of that, let’s acknowledge the weight of the point I’ve made relative to the conversation at hand- the conservatives aren’t lying or paranoid; the left really does have control over the media and academia; that’s bound to have a huge impact on American politics. You didn’t know about any of this until I pointed it out to you, and THAT is bound to have an impact on your personal perceptions of American politics. Just let it sink in- virtually everything you have been told in your entire life about American politics has been told to you by members of ONE political party, and they kept you unaware of this as they were doing it.* That’s not exaggeration. That literally happened. So, with that in mind, it should be clear why I am hesitant to restrict a company, individual, church, or special interest group from spending money to put out a political message or endorse a candidate.
It may indeed be worthwhile to discuss what conservatives can do about this sorry state of affairs (since of course, liberals will do nothing). But I don’t think that’s really salient to what we’re talking about here.
Assuming, of course, you haven’t spent lots and lots of time digesting openly conservative news sources.
But Ucci, you’re one of the sources. You are a mad cow (no offense). Do you imagine Liz saying the same things about liberals if she tried to help me sift through the noise to find the real information?
Having said that, I have been gathering a few useful insights from my internet searches: it now seems more real to me that the liberal dominated media/education sector theory is widely believed, and I might even go so far as to say it’s plausible! But it’s still possible for a whole society to believe in rumors passed around about itself without those rumors being true. Every liberal in Hollywood may feel that he/she is open to allowing conservatives to work in the industry even though he/she believes, based on the rumors, that no other liberal is, just like every male employers will say he is open to hiring women, unlike all the other male employers who, according to the stats he’s read, are highly likely to discriminate unconsciously. Eric voiced skepticism over the reliability of these stats, and I think the same reasoning can be pulled over to the liberal/conservative debate. But I’m just putting that out there as something to keep in mind; I’m not trying to resist the conclusion that you’re drawing.
It’s hard to tell what the exact numerical figures would be but it seems pretty close between Democrats and Republicans, with the Republicans having a bit more of a lead (what the hell happened in 1972?). Still though, I don’t think looking back on the history the federal election results is a good way of measure a recent rise in liberalism.
I wouldn’t know. Based on what you and Eric have been telling me, I suppose it isn’t the kind of thing a liberal would say. But this is a charge of inconsistency, not error. The question remains about whether the dominations of the media and the education system by liberals is a threat to conservatives or not (at least in my mind, it is). If they are a threat (in the sense that they’ll bias the output of information), they shouldn’t be claiming to be so objective and impartial. If they aren’t (if they can put their biases and partiality aside for the sake of being honest and objective in the information they put out), then they shouldn’t get so alarmed every time some industry or organization appears to be dominated by one group at the expense of another (at least, not on the same grounds).
I can see how they would be so apologetic about their conduct in the industries they dominate, however–it’s typical of any group that dominates in this sphere or that sphere, and it isn’t necessarily a matter of denial or lying; think about it: you hold position X. That means that you think X is true objectively. You can admit that you’re not perfect and that as human, you are bound to be biased and partial to some views and some values over others, but when asked about this or that view/value in particular, it can be difficult to see yourself as biased/partial, not just because it pains you to admit it, but because you hold that view/value to be objective, to be consistent with reality. For one to say position X is just one’s bias is to say it doesn’t match up perfectly with reality, or that it isn’t objective or rational, but then why hold to X at all? One has to see a schism between X and reality before one can admit to being biased. Both liberals and conservatives hold the views they do because they believe those views depict objective reality; the result is that while both groups can readily admit to having all the failings of human nature–bias, prejudice, fallability–they will often deny it when challenged with particular examples. In the case of liberals dominating certain industries, they won’t readily see themselves as a threat to conservatives or anyone else, but it won’t be as difficult for them to see other dominant groups in other industries as a threat to less dominant groups.
At the same time, of course, this is a rather naive view–that their prejudices don’t affect their work or the information they put into the media isn’t a very enlightened assumption–but it’s hardly unusual. And like I said, the question remains. For example, you say that liberals explain their domination of these industries with “conservatives just not being the kinds of people who tend to choose those professions.” Well, why can’t this be right? Why isn’t this an objective and accurate understanding of such domination? If it’s true, if they just gravitate towards education, journalism, and the film industry and conservatives don’t, why should they have to account for this fact as a defense against the charge of unethical business/political pratices?
I didn’t say it was a conspiracy theory, I said it sounded like a conspiracy theory. You’ve gotta keep in mind, Ucci, I’m hearing about this stuff for the first time, and the way it’s being thrown at me (by you and Eric) is in a similar way as Joker or James or Chakra Superstar present their conspiracy theories (not as bad as those guys, but still). I think it’s the bitterness. Conservatives in America have obviously grown tired of hitting their heads against what seems like a monolithic liberal brick wall, and the bitterness from that results in the language they use veering towards oversimplification, generalization, and black and white depictions of the other camp–and I feel like I’m getting a caricurature or a cartoon image of them, which doesn’t merit that much credibility in my mind–that’s when it starts seeming like a conspiracy theory to me.
This could be what I was missing. Being a total newbie to this conservative vs. liberal debate, I probably didn’t catch on to this conservative thread in all Liz’s “bad guy” examples.
That’s why you need me!
I don’t think this is what Liz meant. I think she was just falling back on the separation between church and state. In other words, I think she’s against churches pushing for some kind of political reform on religious grounds–and if she’s fair, she’d stand behind this regardless of what affiliation the church had to conservatism or liberalism. She would also fight against churches donating to political causes, but that’s on separate grounds as I understand it, and she should also, if she’s fair, fight against it regardless of the affiliation.
Now, a couple questions on this:
I’m wondering if the liberal dominated media and education system theory is just happenstance. What would we find if we looked at all industries in America. We could list out the top 100 major industries in the US from oil & gas to information technology, from fisheries to medicine, and so on. What do you think the chances are that nearly all of them will have a ratio of liberals to conservatives close to 50/50? Do you think the distribution will always be roughly even? I’d guess that there would probably be a sizable handful in which the ratio is roughly close to 50/50, but there would be a sizable handful that would be noticeably left-leaning, and a sizable handful that would be noticeably right-leaning. I think maybe the overall distribution across all industries would seem like a random scattering. Do you think the liberal trend in journalism, Hollywood, and education might just be coincidence? I mean, could it be that somehow, Americans recognized that these three industries so happen to be some of the more liberalist saturated industries? I mean, Eric, in one of his posts above, gave a theory about why this is, and I’ve come across other theories through google, and one of the prerequisites of coming up with such theories is that one also tries to explain what these three industries all have in common: dissemination of information. Right! I recognize that too. But for me, it was kind of a stretch to find that commonality. I mean, Hollywood and university professors? Really? At first glance, they don’t seem to have much in common at all, but I can see how the dessemination of information might be a common element there (once you point it out), but at the same time, I think that if you allow your imagination to stretch far enough, you could probably find common elements between almost any arbitrarily chosen industries. And that’s not to mention other media or information desseminating industries that don’t feature a high concentration of liberals. Liz mentioned the point about certain businesses paying Google to advertize for them, and this was a question in my mind as I was searching for hits supporting the liberal dominated media/education system theory: what if Google is biased towards conservatism? It certainly seemed to feature a lot of hits in which conservatists complained about, and quite openly bashed, liberals–yet it’s an information desseminating business. But the point is this: could it be that the theory of the liberal dominated media/education system have come about by certain individuals somehow coming across the fact that these three industries–with very little connecting them otherwise–happened to be, by happenstance, among the top liberalist industries in America? Couldn’t there be other industries in which conservatists dominate, industries that, in their own way, give power to conservatists?
Liz’s original idea was, I believe, to prevent the political system from becoming corrupted from politicians being bought off by big businesses. But buying politicians’ cooperation is not the only way big businesses can gain leverage in the political process. If they are barred from donating to political campaigns, couldn’t they divert their money into the very industries that liberals supposedly dominate? If a hard-to-do conservative wants to get into Hollywood in order to make his conservative propaganda movie and desseminate it into the minds of regular Americans, but is finding that the big whig liberals of the industry won’t give him the time of day, couldn’t he appeal to those very same business men who would have otherwise channeled their money directly into politics? Or couldn’t those business men have sought out disgruntled conservatives who want to spread their right-wing ideologies through Hollywood or other media? Couldn’t one such business man put his money into erecting a conservative oriented university? What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think blocking political donations would necessarily disarm conservatives in their battle against liberals, so long as those donators simply re-invest their money into other areas–in fact, into the very battle ground on which liberals presently hold sway. Isn’t this a viable option?
I can’t argue with that (from a conservative perspective).
So true!
Ucci, I don’t mind you bringing up facts (if that’s what you think they are); just don’t start to becoming the victim. I hate victim mentality–it’s one of my biggest pet peeves. Consider the point I made above–the one about liberals simply gravitating towards the media and education industries–assume, for the moment, there just happens to be a correlation between liking liberal ideologies and liking media stuff–or teaching, or self-expression (or something like that); if this drives liberals into Hollywood or teaching professions or whatnot, and it drives conservatives away, then no one’s a victim. If this is not the reason why media and education are dominated by liberals (perhaps the Democrats are deliberately funding these industries to bring liberals in and keep conservatives out) then I’ll have to hear it (and believe it) before I start thinking conservatives are victims (and even then, my first impulse would be to try to bring you out of your victim mentality).
Plausible by all means.
Moooooo!
Absolutely. Believe it or not, I can appreciate it from your point of view.
Oh, I wouldn’t mind that–just as long as we acknowledge these would be conservative solutions, not overall American.
[size=50](Ucci, you know I’m playing Devil’s advocate, don’t you? I’ll be doing so for a bit longer).[/size]
There are hundreds of conservative colleges and universities in the US. They can be Catholic or Protestant, but they usually advertise themselves as ‘interdenominational.’ They’re all private schools.
This got me to thinking. It’s unconstitutional for the State to fund religious schools, because the funding uses tax monies. So, ucci, are you talking about schools that accept funding from the government or that are private? The Ivy League universities are private as are quite a few other well known universities, so this is an important consideration when looking at any, essentially demographic, ‘study’ of faculties. At what schools do the two groups teach and which schools were a part of the study?
Also, when you say liberals far outweigh conservatives in academia, are you talking about religious, fiscal, political, or social conservatives? I ask because I would feel very uncomfortable teaching Biology 101 if I held deep religious beliefs about creationism. I’d feel equally uncomfortable teaching creationism if I firmly believed in evolution. Like seeks like for comfort.
The same holds true for journalism, I think, if you’re talking about dailies. Dailies depend on advertising for survival. The reporter who reports ‘news’ must needs do exactly that. Any blatant bias would be in the editorials and op-eds. The first, the editorials, express the opinion of the editorial board as written by the editor; the second is a guest speaker, usually a ‘known’ author, who is often, but not always, affiliated with the editorial board. (Op-ed means ‘opposite the editorial page.’ Wikipedia) People also have their say in the Letters to the Editor. So, generally speaking, dailies in larger market areas do, at least, try to be as impartial as possible. This includes magazines, as well.
Or are you talking more about individual word choice? If so, that’s a toughie. The problem stems, I believe, from adjectives and adverbs which connote feeling, which is their point. For example, there’s a great deal of difference between, “As the storm approached the city, most inhabitants sought shelter in the nearest safe facility.” and “As the life-threatening storm lumbered its way into the heavily populated city, the inhabitants, in panic, scrambled to find shelter wherever and however they could.”
Here’s another, closer to home, use of hyperbole.You said that my idea to reform campaign financing was a " … catastrophic violation of the First Amendment." Why add ‘catastrophic’?
We all use words to communicate and communication is different depending on the audience either reading or listening to what you have to say. We can use the same words, or their variations, to do a lot of things, from condemnation to acceptance, from insult to praise. It takes awareness and care to find anything that isn’t biased in some way–or to say or write anything that is completely unbiased. That’s how people are.
The same can be said for the people who read and/or listen to us. If a person looks for something in print, s/he’ll find it. We all filter what we hear, read, see, experience, through our own minds. And our filtration systems often lead us to accept what we believe in to begin with and to reject anything else. I’ve never, for example, called anyone a ‘bad guy’–not even the Koch brothers.
I hope you don’t include actors in your analysis of the Entertainment industry–actors play roles and earn their living in so doing. They have the choice to accept the offered role, or not. So does the producer/production board. You must be talking about the writers, directors and theatre owners. If there is liberal bias in the entertainment industry, maybe it’s because that’s what sells.
You make it sound as if the Entertainment industry is trying to take over the minds of the people who turn on their TVs or plunk down their money to watch a movie. But people go to these forms of entertainment for different reasons. Take Norma Rae as an example. That wasn’t a movie just about union organizing–it had history, social issues of the time, family relationships, psychology–mostly, it was a superb vehicle for Sally Field as an actor.
If being me is my attempt to not be labeled either one thing or another, then, please, respect that desire. You may disagree with my thoughts and that’s fine. I would hope you wouldn’t disagree with my right to think.
gib, you asked: “Have you ever heard of their concept of a “nation within a nation”?” You were speaking of the Quebecois, and I have heard of the concept. Can’t that be compared to Monaco? If ISIS wants a caliphate within Iraq, and if it’s successful, wouldn’t that be a nation within a nation?
I’m quibbling.
If by ‘civil’ rights, you mean ‘human’ rights, there are, I believe, more countries in the world more concerned with human rights than is the US. I’ll see if I can find the link, but it’ll have to wait until later, please.
I’m wondering if conservatives like Ucci are talking about the documentary-style film genre that was popular a few years back: films like Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 or Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me–there were a few films like this that came out in the first decade of the 20th century. It’s the only thing out of Hollywood I can think of that’s undeniably left-wing (remember, Canadians get Hollywood too). There’s also the common happy feel-good messages of environmentalism and family oriented values played out against big-business and money making that often come with children’s movies (which I’m constantly bombarded with having a 3 year old and a 5 year old), but I don’t think this comes out of liberalism; it seems to come out of basic family values and what society in general would consider wholesome for children.
What I mean by “civil rights” is what was made more explicit in the 14th amendment–I haven’t read through the whole document, but from what I understand, the amendment was ratified in order to address the civil status of former slaves. If conservatives want to revert the Constitution back to its original state, they would have to undo this amendment. But I’m wondering if the protection of the civil rights of citizens was a fundamental function of government according to the original constitution, and if so, why did it not ipso facto prohibit slavery from the beginning?
I’m going to research Monaco and ISIS a bit more in-depth and get back to you.
Of course. But then you'll take those genuflections about the importance of facts to heart, and discover that I'm actually right about the media and academia being dominated by liberals, and that will be that. It is not equal and opposite...but a political faction will certainly posture that way when it's on the wrong side of the data.
That's all true, and that's the kind of thing I'm talking about- in a discussion like this, generally one side is going to be presenting the data, and the other side is going to be coming up with fringe/alternative/unfalsifiable scenarios to interpret the facts in ways that don't make their side or themselves look bad.
The important thing is, they don’t exist. You have people saying that most college professors and journalists are progressives, and people saying “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean there’s a political bias in those fields because…” It seems like you’re trying really hard to maintain a “Both sides are equally right and wrong” stance because that’s maybe what you think a good intellectual ought to do, but when it comes to the political affiliation of college professors and journalists, there is no ‘both sides’, nobody is arguing that they’re all conservative Republicans.
Um....the fact that the left controls the media and academia has been true for at least four years, which is how often federal elections happen, so just look at the most recent Federal election if you want. This is starting to get strained. Fine, you can't tell if most Americans are conservative or liberal, you can't tell if most academics are conservative or liberal, and you don't trust any source about any thing. You have to understand that you're working really hard to put yourself in a completely shitty situation with respect to politics, which, I'm afraid, does concern empirical matters from time to time. You aren't going to be able to lock yourself in a closet, trusting nothing but what enters your head, and discover whether or not there is a liberal academic bias in the U.S.- trust me, as a fellow rationalist it is tempting to try and solve every problem that way, but sometimes you just have to count the horse's teeth.
The percentage of progressives/liberals in journalism and academics far outstrips the percentage of progressives/liberals in the U.S. population, even the recent U.S. population (though that distinction is meaningless since the bias in media is NOT a recent problem in the first place). Confirm it however you like to confirm things- I don't really care the method you use, because these are easily obtainable facts and anything you do will point you to the same conclusion.
Apparently when it comes to politics, you are presenting yourself as an empty vessel that is impossible to fill. Fine. Let's pretend you didn't know that the left is interested in class representational equality in career fields until me and Eric brought it up. You don't know what Affirmative Action is, or what quotas are, you don't know who's idea they were, or why. That the left is associated with egalitarianism and equality is news to you. I'd love to show you these things, but you won't believe any source I present, or any source you find yourself, so you're in a pickle.
For the rest of us, it's obvious that one race, one gender, one religion etc. dominating something as important as journalism or academia would be anathema to everything the left stands for, so one political ideology dominating in such a way should be as well.
And the inconsistency would have an explanation. Equal representation is extremely important to progressives. When the ideological slant of academia and journalism is pointed out to them, progressives are suddenly in the position of explaining why equal representation isn't important after all. It's more important to a progressive that a university's professors represent a wide variety of skin tones than it is that they represent a wide variety of ideas. Why?
That’s true, but again it doesn’t have to be mysterious. Ask the same progressives that are running the media and dominating academics if men could put their biases aside for the sake of being honest and objective, when and if those fields were dominated by men. Ask them if whites could do this when whites were dominating these fields. I’m not talking about mere inconsistency here- the very people who are dominating these fields, who you are wondering ‘can they put their biases aside’, are the very people that will tell you if you ask them that NO, people cannot put those biases aside, which is why representational equality is so important. The left considers it a huge problem for anthropology, for example, that only white western Europeans did anthropology for so long. Why? because despite your best intentions, if all you have access to is a ‘white western european perspective’, then that will affect your results. That’s what the faction who controls academics and media think happens when one faction controls academics.
Yes but YOU don’t have to wait for them to come around. You’re working very hard to present yourself as being in the Rawlsian perfection position of having no prior biases or commitments, considering only what the deliverances of reason present to you. So? Irrespective of what progressives say to defend it or conservatives say to defame it, does your pure unadulterated reason see a problem with one political ideology dominating the institutions from which news is presented and history is taught (out of proportion with that ideologies representation in the populace), or doesn’t it?
It very well could be! And if it WERE true that the reason there weren't many conservative professors or journalists is just that these fields aren't what a conservative-minded person tends to want to pursue, that wouldnt change a damn thing that I've argued. It's still true that the misrepresentation is there, that any reasonable person would expect it to have an effect on the material that is taught, and that consequently journalism and academics end up being sources of political power and political campaigning for liberals, in a way that mirrors corporate and religious sources for conservatives. To wit, campaign finance reform that focuses on corporate money and religious influence amounts to progressives attacking the conservative power base while leaving their own unexamined. Which is my thesis here.
First, I don't know that I've made that charge. Second, "I'm the only one who wanted the job, so therefor anything I do in the name of the job is excusable" doesn't seem like much of a defense to me.
Understandable, and all of the above is correct.
Again, knowing that the vast majority of Churches are opposed to her ideologically as she says it.
Knowing that 90% of that money will go to conservative candidates and causes.
Statistically, any deviation from the norm (let's assume the norm is 50/50) would be small in an industry that employs millions. Sure, you will find statistically interesting deviations in all sorts of industries- a slant towards conservatives in the beef and oil industries, a slant towards liberals in the organic foods industry- but any slant of more than a few points is going to have an explanation. The slant to the left in academics and journalism is not small- it's not like 55:45, it's like 7:1.
Recognize also that the media and academics are the two primary sources that [i]intelligent people are supposed to get their ideological views from.[/i] So even if it were a coincidence, that doesn't speak to the effects. Even if it were true that it's just happenstance that every single professor teaching ethics in some state was a leftist-utilitarian (hypothetical example), there would still be a good reason to fix it.
Yes, and liz’s aim in this thread was to equate political corruption with the influence of those industries, and to seek ways to reduce it. As far as this pull towards equal and opposite I feel you reaching for, you’re just going to have to decide if schools and the news being dominated by one political faction is equalled out (in terms of political influence) by whatever industries you suspect are conservative controlled. Me personally, I think there’s a huge difference between a liberal professor teaching his political views as ‘the way it is’ to 19 year olds, and an oil corporation donating money to political campaigns that support the oil industry. At least the second one CAN be transparent and representative of how the political system is supposed to work, even if it isn’t always.
Sure, that and many other fantasy scenarios could happen, and stuff like that does happen. We have Fox News now, for example. But here’s an interesting thing. I bet you knew that Fox News was a conservative-leaning news channel full of partisan propaganda that should be taken with a grain of salt or not trusted at all because of this, but you DIDN’T know that every other news channel was the same thing for the left. So half of the problem is getting conservative options out there, the other half of the problem is getting the liberal options to admit that that’s what they are. Which of course is going to be very difficult when the flow of information is the very thing that’s controlled by one political faction.
Then stop trying to make me sound like one. You're the one that raised this whole "conservatives need to fight for their rights" canard, not me. Academics and journalism are controlled by one political faction. This is a problem for the political process, because it's very hard for people to get reliable information that isn't filtered through them. If there's a victim in that scenario, it's everybody equally, including liberals.
Can I answer this question without playing into the 'victim mentality' you so despise? Anyway, no, the above is clearly false. A group could come into power through pure happenstance and still go on to abuse the fuck out of other people with that power. Again, I don't want to play the victim, I'm just analyzing the logic of your comment.
I don’t care if you think conservatives are victims or not, you can stop going there any time you like. Progressives control academics and the media in the U.S. Given the role these institutions play, this is bad for political discourse. That’s what concerns me.
No, I didn’t. You have to understand I’ve dealt with people saying the things you are saying in all sincerity for well over a decade, and you and I haven’t discussed politics before to my knowledge. I have no idea what you actually think about anything, and what’s merely for the sake of argument.
Run the numbers. Pepperdine, for example, has about a 50/50 split between liberal and conservative professors, and that's the norm. What you're calling a 'conservative college' is just a college that actually has some level of conservative scholarship present, and it rarely if ever rises to the degree of slant present in what you'd just call a 'normal college'.
This isn't "Uccisore's crazy theory", I'm simply informing you and gib of something you were previously unaware of. That the vast majority of college professors and journalists are leftists/progressives/democrats in the U.S. is something you can confirm for yourself in any number of ways, so I'm not taking the bait and turning this into "Let's analyze this as if it's a controversial new idea Uccisore has presented".
I’m talking about people who identify as liberals/progressives if you ask them, and people who register as democrats.
Actually, the slant in the sciences isn't that bad- by which I mean it's merely 3 or 4 to one in favor of liberals. It's things like humanities- you know teaching moral and political perspectives- where it jumps to 10 to 1, 22 to 1, or "we couldn't find the '1' to base our ratio on", depending on the field. By saying that the ratio is merely 6-7 to one or so, I'm doing liberals a credit and including all majors, where political bias shouldn't even come up. If we limit the discussion only to fields where political/ethical ideas are actively taught as the curriculum, it's much higher.
Except that they don’t. They try to APPEAR as impartial as possible, that’s very different. APPEARING impartial simply means not announcing your bias, when you work in an industry where the vast majority of your colleagues are going to play along because they have the same bias you do.
No. None of this is a 'toughie'. Look at statistics on critical stories on Republican candidates vs Democratic candidates on election years. Look at statistics on journalists who register as democrats vs. the population at large.
The rest of your post seems to be based on the assumption that I’m talking about my personal feelings when I read an editorial or something- that I think the media is biased for no reason other than I watched the news and perceived some bias. To hell with me and my anecdotes. Just look up the numbers. Type “Journalists registered republicans” into Google, and just find whatever you find. Type “Professors registered democrats (or republicans)” and find whatever you find. I’m not making up personal theories that I have to defend.
I think, again, we are getting side tracked. The point of Ucci pointing out the bias was not to argue the existence of the bias, it’s that restricting who donates does not stop corruption. It creates a bias leaning towards those that do not use that which was restricted. Instead, like Ucci said, the goal should be transparency in those involved in the political process, it is not special divides and limitations, that’ll stop the corruption, it is the sunlight…
No, it is not just documentary-style films. As I said before, it is so much a part of the story, most people don’t even know its there. I’ve already told you, I don’t believe in conspiracies. It is not a one sided, group of hippie, communist, bastards, laughing manically over a finished product, like witches over a brew in a shakespearian play.
What it is, is passed off as “common thought,” by a group of people never actually exposed to a conservative thought in their lives. It is not a conspiracy because of what is required for one, but it is a one sided, uninformed view of the world. Watch Captain America 2, it is a liberal philosophy that runs the movie. However, it would take a lot of knowledge and understanding and active external seeking to actually understand the philosophy behind the ideology of the movie. Is that an exclusionary example, no. Is there possible examples of conservative ideology sneaking into other “popular” movies, sure… (See the new Batman trilogy for a possible example.)
Understand, it doesn’t matter that they have an ideology, the problem is in the acknowledgement, they have a point of view they are attempting to get across. If they openly said, I am liberal, this is what I think and what my movie is written around, I’d never bring it up. Instead we get a group of fools, that say they are in the middle, and worse, they fucking believe it. Most of the time they don’t even know there is another side, other than the EVIL conservatives… Don’t believe me? Look at this thread, and I bet, that most of those people calling conservatives racist believe they are in the middle. As much as I disagree with Peter K, at least he acknowledges what he is, gaining more respect from me, than any “in the middle.” I do acknowledge, my respect of them is of little importance to them, and rightly so (I’m some guy on the internet)…
As much as I have enjoyed Liz, because she has gained respect in other area’s, including actually arguing and not just throwing insults, she has yet to state a Conservative thought, while repeatedly showing progressive opinions. If she is not openly progressive/leftist/liberal, then she is lying to herself, or us. She may very well be a complete Conservative on all the things not discussed on this forum, because I’ve talked to her in other places, but I would be very surprised…
Human rights are a bunk ideology, passed along in the name of getting the “Leftists” way. At one time they may have meant something, now they are only the worst kind of faith… Believed in blindly, with no form of allowed questioning.
As to why slavery was not thrown out from the beginning, there are a couple of different responses - they expected it to go away on its own, because it is not economically efficient, but they wanted the states that supported it to join the union. Slavery was common at that time, and took many years, including a civil war here, to get rid of it. Slavery has existed as long as humans have interacted, suggesting that it should have just disappeared because now we don’t like it is childish. Some of the supporters look at slavery as wrong, but also looked at the legacy they inherited from their family as important, that throwing away wealth was to destroy that legacy. People are bastards.
But regardless of the accuracy of any of these idea’s, Slavery is wrong, and they should have gotten rid of it from the start, but things are never easy and mistakes so easily made… Not all of us can hope England will help with our difficult issues… I’m looking at you Canada…
Side note to an earlier statement from you gib, I don’t believe in human global warming either. That the earth is warming I can accept (with a brick of salt), that humans are responsible, that we can do a thing about it, that we understand anything close to everything going on, is absurd. That Global Warming, as an aspect of the Environmentalism religion, is a faith, that people believe in, I will laugh at with acknowledgement…
Sure, but she’d probably warning me about all the things conservatives will tell me, like you warned me about what liberals will tell me, with an air of “watch for when they say this” or “don’t fall for it when they say that”.
Well, if the pattern’s there, I’ll keep my eye out for it (but then again, maybe I’ll find it anyway now that you’ve put the idea in my head…hmm, maybe I’ll look for the pattern on both sides).
I’m not trying to maintain anything at this point, I’m trying to resist. I’m getting most of my education from you and Eric so far (Liz has been offering her ideas on how to reform the system and also teaching me a bit about the history of the American Constitution, but other than that, she’s been mainly debating with you), and you guys have been pulling me very strongly towards the conservative end (no surprise there); I’ve been sensing that for the past couple of posts, so now I’m resisting. I do want to stay on neutral grounds for a while yet as I think it’s too soon for me to rashly settle on any conclusions. Doesn’t mean I intend to stay here–I just like to digest and reflect for a good long while.
Ok, in the last federal election, the Democrats won–and I’m supposed to conclude from that that there isn’t an overall rise in liberalism among the general public in America?
Maybe it’s time I explained my method. I like to get my information first and foremost from talking to people directly. What I get out of this is what those people believe–how they see the world, what they think of certain groups, how rational they seem to be, how prejudiced, how educated… As for the “facts” they present to me, well I take those with a grain of salt–I firstly recognize those alleged facts as what they believe–what the world looks like to them.
After a while–often a very long while–patterns do emerge, pictures of what the general trends in thought are among specific groups of people (whether that’s Conservatives, Liberals, Americans, Feminists, ILP members… I have to keep in mind the group whose thoughts I’m exploring). These patterns and pictures emerge very slowly, but it is (for me) the most reliable–and empirical–way of examining what people believe and value–and this also gives me a statistical picture of how many believe X as apposed to not-X–and how zealously, and how bitterly, or how partially or impartially (based on how readily they give accounts of the opposite side’s position, and so on). For me, getting a picture of how other people view the world is the closest thing to “facts” as I’m going to get.
Nonetheless, there comes a point when my intuition simply tells me that such and such source or google hit seems reliable or accurate–but this is informed very influentially by my direct discussions with ordinary people. Without much of the latter, I’ll be quite skeptical most of the time when it comes to non-human sources (about either side of an issue)–[size=50](and in all seriousness, I think I believe you when you say the media and education system are dominated by liberals… but I’m never 100% certain about anything).[/size]
Resistant to being filled.
Yep.
I have an answer to this, but you’re probably going to interpret it as my attempt to be impartial and equal on both sides–the way I interpret myself is that I’m trying to respond as a philosopher. You ask me why “it’s more important to a progressive that a university’s professors represent a wide variety of skin tones than it is that they represent a wide variety of ideas.” And thinking as a philosopher, I can think of at least this one answer (maybe more if I had more time):
Maybe the difference is that skin color or sex or ethnicity or national origin or sexual orientation (etc.) is a part of who a person is whereas ideologies or beliefs or values are a part of how a person is raised or how a person is conditioned to think ← iow, it doesn’t define who a person is, at least not at the core.
If you can answer a question for me, it might persuade me in your direction: in their attempts to have equal representation in areas of social or political power (government, education, media, etc.), do liberals overwhelmingly fight for equal representation of religious affiliation? Because that would be an example of what a person is raised or conditioned to believe. If they overwhelmingly (that word–“overwhelmingly”–is important) argue for this, then I’ll buy that they’re being hypocrites by claiming that equal representation in media and education isn’t important.
Actually, I thought of another argument: doesn’t it seem kind of absurd to you to expect a group of people who believe in equal representation to allow into power another group who doesn’t believe in equal representation? Couldn’t an argument be made (again, in a philosophical vein) that such a move would defeat the purpose (not saying conservatives don’t believe in equal representation–I wouldn’t know yet–but I’m sure liberals would say such a thing).
So it’s a charge of hypocrisy, you’re saying.
It does… and it’s not unadulterated, and I do have a slight bias in favor of liberalism (only recently learning that), although I think a lot of conservative points are very good points… but more on that below.
OK.
It doesn’t, but I’m just saying you can’t accuse them of doing anything wrong simply in virtue of dominating a field in terms of their numbers; in fact, not even in virtue of some prediction, however plausible, of bias and self-interest creeping into their agenda because of such domination. You actually have to show they are abusing the power they get from being dominant. Not saying you haven’t shown this; just pointing out where the line should be drawn.
Are they? Didn’t know that. But still, aren’t most Americans, regardless of their left-wing or right-wing ideology, against the uniting of Church and state?
See, I’m still not convinced that Liz actually knew that–like I said, I figured she was trying to propose a solution to a problem that, I assume, most Americans, regardless of their left-wing or right-wing ideology, agree exists: politicians being bought off by big businesses. Admittedly, this assumption stems from not being exposed to all this conservative vs. liberal debate and all the ramification that follow from it.
You see, I think sometimes when we have our biases or prejudices, they only come to the surface of our minds when they are threatened, and then we might be tempted to pursue ulterior agendas or to conspire or to lie or play games all in the name of defending our biases and prejudices… but when they aren’t threatened, we pursue our ordinary or “default” agendas without realizing they can be just as biased or one-sided. What I mean is, maybe someone like Liz, in proposing to cut political financing, doesn’t actually have an ulterior agenda in mind (i.e. weakening the conservative power base) but honestly has in mind only to solve the problem of politicians being bought off by big businesses. It might still be biased and one-sided, but not because of a ulterior agenda; rather because to bring to mind considerations of what that would mean for the other camp–how it would harm them or be unfair to them–just doesn’t show up on the radar. Why would it? Why would the mind make conscious something that doesn’t support your agenda. (<-- this is not me excusing liberals, it’s me psychologizing them; same psychology would apply to conservatives, of course).
Perhaps, but I was questioning the approach of explaining the predominance of liberals in the media and in education by appeal to one single overarching factor: the desire to disseminate information. Maybe each of the three industries–Hollywood, journalism, and education–have completely different an unrelated explanations (to be honest, I’m not sure why I brought this up–I think I’m trying to offer an alternate picture which isn’t so given to conspiracy theories, or images of liberals as “they’re all the same”–which isn’t to say this is the right approach, but I think there’s a lot of unwarranted assumptions being made, a lot of conclusions being jumped to way too early).
Again, I don’t know enough about how the American system works to make that decision–I guess I’ll be sticking to a temporary neutral ground (what you’re calling “equal and opposite”?) for a while yet; in the mean time, what do you mean by “how the political system is supposed to work”? Do you mean that it’s okay that politicians are bought out in this way? That the political system was designed to allow this to happen?
No I didn’t. I’m a dummy when it comes to this stuff (really, I am! ). I’ve heard of Fox News, probably watched it several times (without knowing it was Fox News), but I had no idea whether what I was watching was conservative or liberal (or whether it was Fox News or CNN or whatever). I have been getting the impression over the years that American news programs (it’s becoming more and more easy to tell that it’s American) are veering towards sensationalism and away from objectivity and impartiality–and I would expect this to be true for both liberal programs and conservative ones–in fact, it’s starting to look a lot like reality TV. Have you ever noticed that on reality shows, when they cut to the personal interviews in which the individual is talking into the camera, they seem fake–they seem like they’re acting, or reading from a cue card (I was once told that they do one take in which the person just freely expresses his/her thoughts and stories, but then they do several takes after that asking them to “put more emotion into it” or “get more excited” or “use this word, that phrase”, etc.). It almost seems like reporters and news anchors are following the same process. But I didn’t know that Fox News was conservative until recently.
Ok, but you added the bold into that; all I said was that one group being attracted to some industry and another group of being uninterested in that industry doesn’t automatically result in the latter group being a victim of the former.
Overall, a good point Ucci, and I think I’ll agree for now. It brings up yet another avenue of thought* which we will have to delve into at some point in the life of this thread–but I feel we’re getting bogged down in this left vs. right crap way too deeply at the moment. You and Liz and Eric can keep on that topic as long as you like, but I want to dig myself out, maybe find a smooth transition into something else.
The media being a very significant factor in how politics plays out ← that’s something we haven’t touched on yet (can we without getting into liberals vs. conservatives? ). We’ve touched on education briefly, but not in light of this left vs. right debate.
Well, then perhaps it’s time I came clean. Like I said above, I’m mildly left leaning, but don’t you ever make a cookie-cutter caricature out of me . Over at the Fellow Americans, I ask you this… thread, I asked a question about why it seems to me that there’s always this polarization between two ends of a dichotomy amongst Americans–Republican/Democrat, Conservative/Liberal, Industrialist/Environmentalist, Capitalist/Socialist–and more importantly, why is it always assumed that they line up at the poles (“do an overwhelming number of Americans assume that if you fall into camp X rather than Y, then you also fall into camp A rather than B?” I said). Well, this is one thing I’m vehemently resistant too. I think we all have a moral duty (sometimes to a greater degree, sometimes to a lesser degree) to help others who are less fortunate, but don’t think that I therefore am a Marxist or that I don’t believe that a free market is healthy, or that government intervention is never a bad idea, or that affirmative action is unquestionably the right thing to do, or that equal representation of all possible groups in every single industry ought to be our highest priority. If you’ve never come across a liberal who has opinions on both sides of the fence, then this is a first for you.
Why do I have mildly left leaning sentiment (without realizing it until now)? I think partly because I’m Canadian, but also because I’m somewhat of a humanist. First the Canadian part:
We just don’t have the same history as America–we don’t have the same origins–your nation began with rebellion; you stood for individualism and independence. You learnt that freedom was something that had to be fought for. You have to stand your grounds in order to earn freedom.
We don’t have that in our history. That’s not to say we don’t value freedom and independence and individualism just as much as yo guys–it’s more like we don’t believe these things are necessarily things we have to fight for in order to get. What Americans and Canadians have in common historically is that we both came out from under British rule, but whereas America had to fight to get out from under the British thumb, Canadians more or less made a deal (this is more of a metaphor than an actual historical event): give us our autonomy and we’ll continue to be a loyal British colony. Of course, to have autonomy is, for all practical purposes, equivalent to gaining independence, so long as both parties honor the deal–and they did honor the deal, and as history rolled along, the Canadian experience wasn’t all that different from what Americans experienced as political freedom, until such a point that to have such freedom was expected by the common person. Once it’s expected, any move the government makes to try and take away that freedom will be met with hostility and eventually rebellion… and I think this is what the British eventually understood. They felt what it was like to hold onto rulership over a rebelling people and learned a lesson from it which they applied to the Canadian colonies: just give them their autonomy and we’ll all get along.
In other words, whereas America had to fight for their freedom, the Canadian experience was more like a smooth and peaceful transition into a similar state of freedom–not unlike the British people themselves–that is, the manner by which they maintain a house of representatives and a legislative body to balance out the power of the monarchy. British history features at least a thousand years of the people and their government learning how to get along together; not that it isn’t a bumpy ride–it is rife with tyrants–but the British did eventually manage to sort out the mess. Canadian history can be seen as a seamless transition of that same process, the same hashing out and negotiating, with the American Revolution and eventually Canadian confederacy in 1867 (when we were officially recognized as a sovereign nation as opposed to a colony) being the pivotal landmarks in our history when we could say that workable deals between the people and the government had been made.
What does this history lesson have to do with liberalism and conservatism? It is that, for Canadians, liberal approaches and conservative approaches were always intermixed, there was never a “purely” liberal way of doing things or a “purely” conservative way of doing things; that the government would have a hand in this or that sector of the economy or this or that social issue was always taken for granted as they way things work; it’s the nature of negotiation and making deals with the government. And of course, that comes with the other side of the coin–too much interferences, or the government interfering in ways disagreeable to the people, was always seen as a bad way to run a country, and the government understood this from the very beginning. So the question of whether socialism is bad or not, and therefore whether liberalism is bad or not, doesn’t typically arise in the minds of Canadians, at least not as frequently as it seems to in the minds of Americans–it never really did. It’s always been taken for granted that a little bit of socialism is a healthy thing. “Socialism” was never a dirty word here, in other words, it was just seen as one possible approach to certain problems that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. “Communism” was always a dirty word, of course, but that I think is a reaction to the Soviet Union and its empire (and justifiably so). So I’m not always going to be against socialism. I guess that’s what makes me somewhat sympathetic to liberal causes (sometimes).
Now for humanism: I’ve been through many phases in my philosophical careers (amateur career I should say–I’m certainly not getting paid ). I started out very interested in psychology and the mind, then in consciousness and metaphysics–here I stayed for a good long while with an interest in spirituality paralleling it–then I got interest in the concept of enlightenment; that lead into questions of maturity and morality; I settled on the two being the same thing, and moved on the questions of freedom. This has lead me to be very interested in the philosophy of human nature: what is it to be human? I feel that this, for me at my current point in my philosophical path, is the most profound question for me hitherto, and it is very influential over almost all aspects of my life. Most relevantly, it influences me in two ways: 1) it has inspired me to want to express my own humanity–I want to show the world the fullness of my being human (ecce homo as Nietzsche titled one of his books), to be an example of a human being to everyone I come in contact with, and 2) it has encouraged me never to lose sight of the goodness in man, and when I can’t find the goodness (believe me, this happens a lot) to remember always that there is the potential for goodness. ← Here finally we come back to the topic. I see the goodness in man more in liberal pursuits than in conservative ones–the compassion for the suffering of others, the desire to help those in need–but I don’t want to imply that conservatives don’t have this compassion or drive to help; it just seems like it’s separate from their ideological views (in the sense that a self-presenting conservative would predictably be against government initiated social services, but that says nothing of whether he donates to a humanitarian cause or not–in other words, I would think the compassion of the conservative is simply carried out outside the scope of most of the publicly visible debates they have with liberals, so we don’t typically see it, and that can lead to the illusion of its being absent). In short, I’ve been lead by my philosophy towards a certain compassion for human beings, to be inspired towards helping others alleviate their suffering, and this I think helps me to appreciate some of the causes that liberals claim to stand for.
Fuck that was a long post. I apologize to Liz and Eric for not addressing your posts (and also to Ucci for making him read through all the above). I’ll try my best to respond to you two tomorrow some time.
(and Liz, I’m still going to research Monaco and ISIS).
Well, shoot, I hit the wrong button again. I’ll have to repeat what I said tomorrow.
In the meantime, I agree with gib, but I want to use my own words. I’ll do that tomorrow.
That was for you, ucci.
While I’m here, though, I’ll answer Eric.
Eric, you said, “Human rights are a bunk ideology, passed along in the name of getting the “Leftists” way. At one time they may have meant something, now they are only the worst kind of faith… Believed in blindly, with no form of allowed questioning.”
Like it or not, the US is a member of the UN. It was a dream of our President, Woodrow Wilson, who sponsored the short-lived League of Nations, to have such an organization.
When I mentioned human rights, I was thinking of the UN and the above mentioned International Bill of Rights.
It’s actually the primary example I use as a pile of shit that people have passed off as “rights.” It is the most useless crap I have ever read in my life, thankfully, that is matched with the uselessness of the UN… Which is a bigger pile of corruption and problems than the US government has ever been. Needless to say, I’m familiar.
How, a bunch of unelected bureaucrats from countries who’s interests do not coincide with the US, are going to make peace, I’ll never understand… And that is without touching on the stupidity that is the UN bill of “rights.” (I can rant harder on this, but, I’d have to move it to the rant house, because my hate for it might leak out a little more. Over time I have reduced things I HATE, so that I don’t throw the word around willy nilly and it means something… The UN and its bill of “rights” is one.)
True. Though he did not found them, the UN was founded after WWII by FDR… Which, much like the rest of his policies, is failure.
American media is not dominated by liberals. Conservatives like to claim it is so they can achieve underdog status, which is the best they can do given that they are wrong on so many issues.
Academia is dominated by liberals, which is not surprising given that academics, unlike media-types, are in the business of educating people about the truth.
No, liberals are in education because they do not have to produce long term results. Like all of progressive philosophy, the only thing that matters is the illusion of accomplishment. 5 months of teaching and the occasional paper written, the paper requiring new idea’s, not good ones, is enough to be a teacher. Additionally, the education departments has things like tenure, so that at the point that their failure to teach anything of value is realized, it becomes harder to fire them… LIberals’ll tell you that they teach people the truth, but they’ll also tell you there is no absolute truth, so the truth becomes what they teach… Academics have lost influence and respectability because of the left taking over. They have also lessened the usefulness of a college degree. Talk to actual business owners, they’ll tell you how frustratingly useless the children coming out of college are, to the point that a bachelors degree is roughly the equivalent to what a high school diploma was 20 years ago.
Everything that is wrong in academia can be laid at the liberals feet.
Liberals produce nothing of value long term, and only survive in places when they are not required to… Show me a person that must build a long lasting, permanent structure and you’ll be showing me a conservative…
This is also why liberals are so prevalent in the media, nothing more than illusions and wishful thinking. To be fair they do not dominate all media, even as there are more of them in the industry. As people realize what absolute crap they peddle, conservative outlets gain power. This is why, Fox gets as much viewership as many of the others combined. It’s why alternative media is almost exclusively conservative, and the liberal media, any that wasn’t established long ago, dies… (and many of them are dying anyway. Read a good news paper recently?) Though there are odd exclusions to this… Hell, even Huffington Post, which started as a liberal alternative media source, only gained real influence when they step towards the middle/right.
Great, now I’ll never know if the conservatism I spy in the Batman trilogy is real or something you planted in my imagination. Thanks a lot, Eric!
I can see how the concept of human rights has become distorted and misused, but I’d be careful about calling it a bunk ideology. At least at one point, the idea was a good one ← isn’t that what you’re saying? And by implication, it still is (when used correctly). It’s an incredibly useful idea–useful for fighting real injustice and a defense against brutality and tyranny. I don’t think you want to throw that out the window.
Glad to hear you think slavery is wrong. So what would your response be to the implication of removing the 14th amendment, the implication that it would open the door for slavery to come back in?
Don’t worry, I’ve trained myself over the year not to believe it either. Every winter, I can easily convince myself that global warming is bullshit.
Why should it be absurd? This is the thing that’s bewildered me about the whole debate. Why should it be such a tough science to figure out? Why should it be so mysterious? I mean, it’s a matter of identifying green house gases, how much of them are being put out by what sources and at what rate, and understanding the effects that those gases have on the atmosphere and the heat from the sun. This all seems completely measurable and quantitative. What’s so difficult?
Does that mean anyone who believes in global warming is part of the Environmentalism religion?
And do you really think Canada gets help from England when we’re in trouble?
Liz,
I just researched Monaco and according to the wikipedia article, they are a sovereign nation, so they wouldn’t count as a “nation with a nation” (I mean, yes they are physically within the French borders–actually, sandwiched between the French and the Mediterranean–but that’s not what’s meant by “nation within a nation”). I’m not sure how to answer the question of ISIS becoming the new Caliphate in the region. According to the wikipedia article on ISIS, it seems like ISIS simply overthrew the prior state and replacement it by a religiously centered one. I also read the wikipedia article on the Caliphate and it does define the Caliphate as a state, but it almost seems like a state that would parallel the formal political (secular?) states in the region–something like the power of the church coinciding with the power of the king in mideival European nations. So I don’t know how to answer that one. But the idea of a “nation within a nation”–at least, the way the Quebecois were spinning it–was that they wanted to be recognized of sovereign yet at the same time subject to the Canadian federation–they wanted to have their cake and eat it too–and it’s really an incoherent concept if you think about it: sovereign yet subject to another government? How does that make any sense? Personally, I think they wanted to use that card in order to cherry pick which policies they wanted to follow and which they didn’t. If they want to keep some of the benefits that come with being a province, they’d play the “we’re still subjects” card, and when they wanted to defy the federal government, they’d play the “we’re a sovereign nation” card.
i wonder what you consider a real accomplishment rather than illusory one. Owning a chain of profitable stores that peddle unhealthy, greasy foods or cheap foreign made merchandise, probably.
You don’t actually know anyone who teaches at a university, do you?
You mean, ideas you don’t like, because they were come up with by liberals.
Of value? You mean like math and science and philosophy? Writing? You’re right, nothing of value gets taught by academics.
The usefulness of a college degree has been lessened only relative to its cost, which has been driven into the stratosphere thanks to US style capitalism.
And yet, try getting those same business owners to hire anyone who doesn’t have a degree.
Well, yeah, so can everything that is right.
This statement is meaningless.
And yet, out of the other corner of the conservative’s mouth will always come some complaint about liberal media bias. It’s, well, amusing, like i said.
Yeah, there’s a lot of noise posing as conclusive evidence on the web. But, my editorializing aside, it is indeed true that in the US, academia is dominated by liberals, but the news media is not.
But it’s still possible for a whole society to believe in rumors passed around about itself without those rumors being true. Every liberal in Hollywood may feel that he/she is open to allowing conservatives to work in the industry even though he/she believes, based on the rumors, that no other liberal is, just like every male employers will say he is open to hiring women, unlike all the other male employers who, according to the stats he’s read, are highly likely to discriminate unconsciously. Eric voiced skepticism over the reliability of these stats, and I think the same reasoning can be pulled over to the liberal/conservative debate. But I’m just putting that out there as something to keep in mind; I’m not trying to resist the conclusion that you’re drawing.
That the earth is warming I can accept (with a brick of salt), that humans are responsible, that we can do a thing about it, that we understand anything close to everything going on, is absurd. That Global Warming, as an aspect of the Environmentalism religion, is a faith, that people believe in, I will laugh at with acknowledgement…