Originally Posted By mawnck >>Please. Zombies have NEVER existed. Stalin and co. (Orwell's metaphor) really did. You know this.<< I shouldn't even dignify that with an answer, because you already damn well know this. The zombies were also a metaphor. >>It wasn't so long ago that liberals were fond of quoting Franklin in response to some of Bush's moves: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Yet that seems to be what you're advocating. << Essential liberty is gone. It has been given up, past tense. See the link in post 1. You have no substantive liberty in an economic system that would allow that to happen. You can still write letters to the editor, post on internet discussion boards, and even occupy public places (for a little while anyway) but it changes nothing. Half the country has been bamboozled into supporting our corporate rulers, and the other half has been bamboozled into thinking their leaders aren't doing exactly the same thing. The rule of law only applies to you, not to the bankers or the politicians. Defending "the constitution" at this point is defending the status quo. >>There are ways to fight back that do not require becoming like them.<< No effective ones. As proven by the last several years. And the link in post 1.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 >>Please. Zombies have NEVER existed. Stalin and co. (Orwell's metaphor) really did. You know this.<< <I shouldn't even dignify that with an answer, because you already damn well know this. The zombies were also a metaphor.> Of what, exactly? A metaphor has to work, or it doesn't, well, work. Who are the zombies? The tea party crew who are about 30% of the country (if that) and rapidly aging? You can't even get them out to a rally any more. >>It wasn't so long ago that liberals were fond of quoting Franklin in response to some of Bush's moves: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Yet that seems to be what you're advocating. << <Essential liberty is gone. It has been given up, past tense. See the link in post 1. You have no substantive liberty in an economic system that would allow that to happen.> Because derivatives happen, essential liberty is gone? Sorry, but no. <You can still write letters to the editor, post on internet discussion boards, and even occupy public places (for a little while anyway) but it changes nothing. Half the country has been bamboozled into supporting our corporate rulers, and the other half has been bamboozled into thinking their leaders aren't doing exactly the same thing.> And only you and a Select Few are wise enough to see this? This is really conspiracy theory territory. And because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't make them "bamboozled." <The rule of law only applies to you, not to the bankers or the politicians. Defending "the constitution" at this point is defending the status quo.> How is anyone supposed to raise an alarm if our corporate masters decide to outlaw freedom of speech that they decide harms them? Do you not see the disconnect? If the suppression of free speech happens, guess what - it's not going to be the powerless enforcing it on the powerful, but the other way around... one would think that obvious. So don't be so eager to say that it's not a right we particularly need. >>There are ways to fight back that do not require becoming like them.<< <No effective ones. As proven by the last several years. And the link in post 1.> I agree with you (in part) on the problem. Your "solution" - hell no.
Originally Posted By tiggertoo Overall, I hope you’re correct. I’ve just become sadly cynical about the collective rationale of the American electorate. Some of the data coming out of PS and Political Science Quarterly is leaving me befuddled and, frankly, rather depressed. <<It's pointing out the lies, exhausting as it can be.>> Exhaustive? Or futile? I ask, because learning and rejecting genuine lies takes reasoning; however, ideology is swiftly moving in the direction of devout religious conviction, an exhibition of para-reasoning. Try to convince a Christian that Jesus did not rise from the dead, Muhammad wasn’t visited by angels, or that any other tenet of their religion is untrue. It actually makes them MORE defiance, and gives they the opportunity to view themselves as persecuted, and bolsters their faith in these tenets. That’s the same trajectory I see in the political media. If the facts challenge their beliefs, the fact takers are rejected as bias. If the narrative about an event places an ideology in a negative light, those within that ideology circle wagons and crys out to everyone how persecuted they are, while patting themselves for “fighting the good fight”. I do my best to point reality out where I can. But it actually seems to give most greater strength in their convictions, rather than educating. It’s disheartening, and self-defeating. I mean, it takes a serious conviction (or brainwashing) to support legislation that goes against one’s own interests (medicare, social security, Medicaid cuts, etc.). I do agree that the generation most inspired by such ideology is closer to the event horizon than most. So I hope you are correct about us nearing the high-water mark. But even Pickett’s Charge was a near Confederate success. So I’m not ready to minimize the effect they make yet just have.
Originally Posted By tiggertoo <<Mawnck, what do you mean by the Great Experiment?>> To venture a guess, I would think it meant the Great Experiment in democracy. It works among an informed and knowledge-thristy populace. But dangerous and destructive it the populace is very easily manipulated.
Originally Posted By tiggertoo "So I’m not ready to minimize the effect they make yet just have." Should have read: "...the effect they can have just yet." Darn fingers have minds of their own.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I don't want to minimize the effect they can have just yet either. In fact, how many times on these very boards have I talked about those very people (some of them related to me) and how impossible they can be to shake out of their belief system, and how the noise machine manipulates them? I just don't want to overstate the case, either - or "correct" the problem with something like jettisoning civil liberties.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>To venture a guess, I would think it meant the Great Experiment in democracy. It works among an informed and knowledge-thristy populace. But dangerous and destructive it the populace is very easily manipulated.<< Yes, exactly. Thank you. >>I just don't want to overstate the case, either - or "correct" the problem with something like jettisoning civil liberties.<< Understand what lies at the root of what I'm saying here. (And again, I'm not getting enough free time to argue all this the way it needs arguing, or organize it the way it needs organizing, for which I once again apologize). And please let's just set the zombies thing aside. Zombies are too distracting. One of our problems in this country is that we place too much emphasis on absolutes. I have come to believe that one of those absolutes that we place too much emphasis on is "the Constitution will fix everything". I don't think it does, and I think we, as a people, need to be ready to admit that. You seem very offended at the idea that we would EVER throw the sucker out. But that's the same logic as signing the Norquist "no taxes" pledge. You're taking options off the table that we might actually NEED at some point. The hardest thing about talking about this is figuring out "who is we"? I tend to use it in the "we the people" sense, but that's contradictory. We the people elected the spineless jellyfish who are selling us down the river. So yeah, the "we" I'm talking about might very well be a minority who must restore civil order by physical force. I'm ABSOLUTELY not proposing we do it today. There's no reason to at this point. But things could get that bad. They HAVE gotten that bad before, most famously in Germany, a Western culture much like our own. How would you feel about a grassroots campaign to stamp out Fox News? No government involved ... just give cable systems a hard time, encourage people to FORCE their brainwashed relatives to avoid it, and so on. Up the ante, using free speech? Would you be down with something like that?
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>You seem very offended at the idea that we would EVER throw the sucker out. But that's the same logic as signing the Norquist "no taxes" pledge. You're taking options off the table that we might actually NEED at some point.<< I'm thinking back to times when we've ignored the Constitution. I can't think of many times when the greater good has been served by doing so. Our country, our way of life, is defined by that document. Throwing the sucker out would make us... something other than America. >>How would you feel about a grassroots campaign to stamp out Fox News? No government involved ... just give cable systems a hard time, encourage people to FORCE their brainwashed relatives to avoid it, and so on. Up the ante, using free speech? Would you be down with something like that?<< All for it. I'm not sure it'd work, but pointing out direct lies is a start. Fox & Friends seems to be the worst offenders when it comes to playing fast and loose with the facts -- they clearly went to the Ted Baxter School of Bombast and Humility.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>Up the ante, using free speech? Would you be down with something like that?<< I'm game. But I think this had to be done with an understanding of human psychology. An effort to yank Fox News, for example, even at the grassroots, would be met with fierce resistance as the other side just digs in even harder. There are ways to convince people by appealing to their basic values. So, for example, there was an experiment done (someone here might've even linked to it) on how people approach climate change. Two groups of climate change skeptics were shown the same evidence for climate change, but then the recommendations were changed. With one group, they used liberal buzzwords and proposed things like tighter government regulation. This group overwhelmingly rejected the evidence for climate change. Not the recommendations, mind, but the actual evidence they'd just been shown. They considered it suspect. Now the second group was given different proposals, using conservative buzzwords with lots of references to the free market. This group accepted the evidence for climate change. In other words, there are ways to get people on your side, but you have to appeal to their core values. What do these Fox News wackos want? Death to America? Nope, probably similar things to what you and I want. This isn't a pipe dream; winning people over is possible, just through many of the same methods you fear are destroying us.
Originally Posted By ecdc I'd add, I do think there's a place for ridicule and shaming. Seriously. But you need a majority on your side first. Then you can shame the leftovers determined to be stupid, racist, and paranoid.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder I have a suggestion. Someone should introduce legislation to ban these idiotic pledges. They're political blackmail and do nothing more than make the signer beholden to special interests rather than the constituency that elected them.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 "You seem very offended at the idea that we would EVER throw the sucker out. But that's the same logic as signing the Norquist "no taxes" pledge. You're taking options off the table that we might actually NEED at some point." I disagree. The Norquist pledge is a simplistic thing literally dreamed up by a 12-year old. The Constitution is what our country is founded on. I don't fetishize it--it was of course highly flawed originally and has had to be amended many times to fix the worst parts. And the first amendment has never been absolute: libel, slander, "fire" in a crowded theatre, etc. And Lincoln suspended habeus corpus (though that itself is permitted in case of " armed insurrection," and the civil war certainly qualifies). But those things apply to everybody I object to the idea that some "we" can suspend civil liberties for others. >How would you feel about a grassroots campaign to stamp out Fox News? No government involved ... just give cable systems a hard time, encourage people to FORCE their brainwashed relatives to avoid it, and so on. Up the ante, using free speech? Would you be down with something like that?<< Not sure how you force my brainwashed relatives not to watch Fox, but otherwise, sure. As I said before, the answer to bad speech is more speech.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer You can't stamp out Fox News unless there is overwhelming support among the populace to do so. And if there is that much support, then Fox News will have changed its branding strategy so as not to lose advertising revenue. If there isn't much support for it, then whoever makes the decision to shut it down is not going to last very long. And the particular type of news that Fox broadcasts will just find another outlet. Iran is trying to cut themselves off from the internet entirely in a similar attempt to control the story, but that's going to fail as well. The economic problems this country is facing are dire, but frankly we've been through worse. People eventually figure out that they are being sold a bill of goods. That's that way history works. Giving up on free speech is not the way to solve our problems any more than not talking about a relationship issue is the way to save your marriage. I don't agree with what Fox News has to say, but I'll defend their right to say it. But I'll also expect them - and everyone else - the understand that the freedom of speech does not exempt you from the consequences of what you have to say.
Originally Posted By DyGDisney I saw a booth set up in front of the Post Office today collecting signatures to Impeach Obama. There were pictures there of President Obama with a Hitler mustache. I couldn't stop, but was wondering on what grounds this group thought they should have the President impeached. I wish I had had time to stop and ask them, because I have a feeling they really don't know; they just know he's bad because FOX told them so. They know he's a socialist who has trampled all over our constitution because conservative radio and internet said so. I'm all for a grassroots campaign to get them off the air; unfortunately I don't think it would work.
Originally Posted By Autopia Deb >>> I don't agree with what Fox News has to say, but I'll defend their right to say it. But I'll also expect them - and everyone else - the understand that the freedom of speech does not exempt you from the consequences of what you have to say.<<< This!
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 Can you imagine how boring message boards would be if opposing views were eliminated?
Originally Posted By ecdc While I've made it pretty clear that I don't agree with mawnck here, let's be fair. He's not talking about eliminating "opposing viewpoints," as if he's some hypersensitive patriot who can't handle differences of opinion. mawnck has just connected the dots. This isn't opposing viewpoints; it's a multi-billion dollar campaign through the likes of Fox News and Clear Channel to get voters scared so they'll elect people who are bought and sold by many of those same entities. This is a concerted, systematic effort to concentrate American power in the hands of the few so those few can be puppeteers of those in Congress, giving us the illusion of choice and Democracy, when in reality, we'll have no such thing. Yeah, I know how boilerplate left-wing that sounds. It also has the unfortunate quality of being true.
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 Yeah, I know how boilerplate left-wing that sounds. It also has the unfortunate quality of being true.<< How is that any different than NBC exploiting the Zimmerman shooting to make it look like it was blatant racism? Or CBS fabricating evidence against George W Bush? This isn't just Fox news trying to exploit situations...
