A Pit thread for Asahi

It’s a dishonest and dehumanising one. If I never see another human being casually referred to as ‘trash’ or ‘garbage’ I’ll be very happy.

Well, it’s nice to see you finally coming out against dishonesty and dehumanisation.

asahi is one of the few people I have pitted, but no, just because he used the word “Negro” when lampooning Gov. Northam does not mean asahi is a 1970’s era racist.

~Max

Not for the general public, I would only guess that those actually in the trenches of the day to day work of Congress would have been able to anticipate that more gridlock would result. (And there’s no certainty earmarks and pork would have kept it running)
Of course having the general public only seeing it as an unmitigated good makes it much harder for any politician to say that no, we need these earmarks.

I also place it more as unintended consequence than dastardly plot. And again, kb9friender might have a completely different opinion on this.

Just because you said one thing doesn’t mean that you didn’t also say other things that contradicted it.

You are stating that the adults, the rational people, are the ones who are calling both sides extreme, who are “finally” able to have their say.

Maybe you don’t think that both sides are the same, but the people that you are currently lauding certainly do. Not sure how you manage the dissonance, but you do you.

If you have specific names of the people that you are following here, then that may help, but as it is, all you have done is asserted that the center has no voice, and that only the extremes do. The people that I’ve heard make that claim are the ones who say that both sides are the same, so maybe you are just inadvertently resembling an enlightened centrist with your vague assertions.

Be less vague, and maybe there will be fewer misunderstandings.

You may be forgiven in thinking that I joined the SDMB yesterday, but it fucking well wasn’t last night.

I was a child, living in a very conservative household, that’s why I supported the ending of earmarks. Once I learned anything about how politics and govt funding actually worked, I realized how naive I was.

Either the politicians are as naive as I was as a 12 year old, or they know what they are doing.

And from the right, if you were actually listening.

I’m not sure what point you are trying to make here. Yes, Obama went out of his way to include Republican views, to make things as bipartisan as possible. There was quite a bit that was watered down to get one or two Republican votes.

The ACA has 160 Republican amendments, and yet got no republican votes.

The recovery act, most economists agree, was not enough to reinvigorate the economy, and yet, they cut even more out of it in order to get just 3 Republicans on board.

So, yes, there were a few things that were important enough to the country and the voters that a handful of Republicans would get on board, if given enough concessions. No one has disputed that.

What you have now is an even more simplified story.

That’s what my point was. They don’t care if they cause harm, so long as it accomplishes their purpose. And their purpose was to make the administration look bad, which it did.

No, not really. The most recent one under Trump certainly was worse for Trump than the Democrats, but the ones under Obama worked well for riling up their base.

Right which is why it is so odd that you think you know how things work here, so much so that you go ahead and make assertions to that fact. We don’t even have a UHC, and a significant part of our country wants to get rid of what little we do have.

Yeah, you do have similar issues with misinformation being spread, and people acting on that misinformation in ways that harm themselves.

People like to play on those who are not doing well, and try to give them an easy answer. The easiest answer is the one that leads to hate.

Maybe it’s hubris, but I do see as a world leader in many aspects, and unfortunately, the rise of right wing authoritarianism is one of those.

It’s what I was told. Between the news that we consumed, and the political discussions at the dinner table, it was about “Cadillac Welfare Queens” and other lazy people who wanted to take our money. When I was 6, I voted for Walter Mondale (oh wow, he just died, didn’t seem to make the news.) in my weekly reader, solely based on the childish thought that Reagan had already gotten to be President, and that it was someone else’s turn. When I told my parents this, I got a huge lecture about how they just wanted to take everything that we worked for, and to give it to layabout and deadbeats. That we would lose our house, or be forced to let others move in with us and eat our food.

The reason that I stopped being a conservative is specifically because I rejected those fears.

They are, really a little bit, admit it. The examples you have given of this sort of “cancel culture” have always either been weak tea, or for some pretty egregious acts. This is your usual bullshit of making vague assertions, and not backing them up because you know that if you try to, then your position actually ends up looking pretty stupid.

Dastardly plot? could actually get behind that, I guess.

The knew that a fair amount of cooperation in congress came entirely from trading votes for special projects, and they certainly knew that that cooperation would come to an end.

The Republicans consider themselves to be the “rightful rulers” of our country, and anything that incentivized their ranks to work with the Democrats was bad.

I guess it’s just some miscommunication here. I’ll accept that it’s on my part, but I really don’t get how you can keep complaining about both sides, while simultaneously claiming that you are not engaging in bothsidesism. A lack of imagination on my part, I guess.

Well, in the spirit of accepting responsibility for creating confusion, I guess I’m having trouble expressing a position that states there are problems on both sides of the spectrum, and while I acknowledge that one side (the right) is much worse than the other (the left), I do not feel conflicted about expressing criticism of either side when I find it appropriate to do so. And I remain mystified about why this kind of “bothsidesism” has become a vilified position.

Because a centrist tries to find equivalence, even if there is none to be had.

The reason that I criticize you for your centrism is because you say things like “highly radicalized loud voices on both political extremes are largely to blame”, "ideological signaling and memetics have all but silenced facts, reason and moderation "or “welcoming the implied permission to critically mock the “true religion” of either side”. Those are not the words of someone who feels that one side is far worse than the other, those are the words of someone who is saying that both sides are to blame.

Sure, you can criticize people on the left, there certainly are some out there with some silly ideas. But the left already does police itself, extremists are acknowledged that they are heard, and if they actually have a good idea, sometimes it is considered. On the right, they are elected to office.

You complain about “cancel culture” coming from the left, and give as examples either people who have suffered no actual consequence, or people whose acts actually were pretty far beyond the pale and deserved to no longer be given a platform to express themselves. Meanwhile, on the right cancel culture has been a very real thing for decades, where influential media figures and even elected govt officials call for consequences for speech of which they don’t approve. Fans of Harry Potter being disappointed by the author’s comments about trans issues is not equivalent to the president of the United States demanding that someone be fired for kneeling during the anthem.

You put the right’s vilification of CRT into the same sentence as BLM, this infers at least that you consider them equivalent. That their concerns, motives, and methods are all pretty much the same. You even made the assertion that believing that CRT is a progressive scheme to undermine the education system is equivalent to acknowledging the fact that there are Black people who are being terrorized and oppressed in their daily lives.

I can criticize some of the acts of the left, while still appreciating the motives behind them. On the right, their acts and their motives are both deplorable. The green new deal, for instance, has a couple of good ideas, some good but impractical aspirations, and some bad ideas. I can say that while not impugning the motives of those who put it out there. The bulk of the elected Republicans put out nothing but bad ideas, and their reasons are not for the good of the country, but to promote divisiveness and hatred.

If you are only hearing the extremes of both sides, then that is a fault of social media’s algorithms showing you what you will find most “engaging”, not what will best inform you as to what is actually happening. This is aided by right wing media that will amplify the speech of any left wing extremist and try to push the narrative that they speak for anyone but themselves. “Defund the police” was chanted by a few dozen people for a couple of days, but if the narrative were to believed it was actually a Democratic position and acts as a counterweight to right wing positions that are actually held by elected officeholders.

You want to hear from the center, try NPR. I also like Sean Carrol’s podcast, and while he is a physicist, he often has on political guests, some of whom he disagrees with strongly. He still lets them make their case, but doesn’t let them get away with too much counterfactualism. Lawrence Krauss also does a similar thing, but he is far less prolific.

I don’t know, like I said, you didn’t actually say who it is that you are listening to that pronounce themselves as the adults in the room, with their “skewering of both ideologies”, so maybe they actually are rational individuals who actually take the motives and acts of the sides into account in their evaluation, but so far, anyone that I have seen that has made that sort of claim of themselves has been someone seeking to make the sides equivalent, and evaluate based on that goal.

Ahem.

IMPLIES.

That is all.

This is what you and many others spend your time doing on this board anymore. You insist on putting large warning labels on everyone who disagrees with you. Which is ironic because high minded folks as yourself used to protest at labels. Now you can’t print and apply them fast enough.

Then you presume to lecture me again on how much worse the right is than the left. You’re wasting your time. I’ve already said that repeatedly. But go on, don’t let me interrupt your roll…

I did put them into the same sentence. And I immediately said that the right’s obsession with CRT is worse than any issues that can be leveled at BLM. I wasn’t aware that in order to express an acceptable opinion I have to make a safe space for those two terms by separating them with a period. Or is it separate paragraphs now? You tell me.

What makes you think NPR, PBS, BBC, CNN are not how I start my day and who I rely on for a quick update on the latest developing news stories? There’s also NYT, WaPo, and whichever other reputable national and international news source has the latest breaking stories. For in-depth analysis and opinion pieces I read the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and lately The Atlantic. I like VICE for the short and long video analysis they provide about various current events nationally and around the world. As far as contemporary thinkers and public socio-political contributors I have heard every word that Hitchens has ever said and much of what he’s written - which should not be mistaken for unquestioning agreement with all his positions. I hang on every word that comes from Stephen Fry. I very much enjoy Lawrence Krauss and have listed to many of his podcasts. For contemporary thinkers, I enjoy the historian Yuval Noah Harari, and philosopher Alain de Botton, neuroscientist Robert Sopolsky, and many others well known names such as Dennett, Dawkins. For their sometimes contrarian views I listen to Harris and Haidt. And, If I may be forgiven, I’ve also been interested in hearing what Coleman Hughes and John McWhorter have to say about many contemporary issues. For my skewering pleasure, I listen to comedians like Colin Quinn, Ricky Gervais, Bill Maher, and many others who offer political and social commentary in their acts and as part of their podcasts or interviews. And this is just the ones that come to mind at the moment. I trust you will not rush to conclude that listening is the same thing as agreeing with every uttered syllable.

I not only do not participate in, but actually avoid popular social media like Facebook and Twitter. I detest them, if I’m honest. The one I confess to consume often is Youtube, and that has some seriously shit algorithms. So I spend too much of my time marking things “not interested” and ‘fuck off with that bullshit’.

But since you keep asking me for my source of information, have I satisfied your curiosity? What label are you going to stick on me now, I wonder.

That said, if your information feed doesn’t include some of the sources I mentioned, dare I suggest it’s your search algorithms that we should be examining more closely.

Just to share: I was a child, living in a very liberal household, and I was a fan of William Proxmire (yes, I was a weird child). And like you, once I learned anything about how politics and government funding actually worked, I realized how naive I was. Earmarks are not inherently bad, but like all elements of government (especially where money is involved) they can easily be abused.

So now I have a more nuanced view than the very simplified one I held before. And I won’t be wrong-footed by right-wingers pointing out that the Republicans did cooperate with Obama on occasion.

You are the one giving simple answers. According to you and other ‘liberals’ here, everything is misinformation, the other side is 100% to blame, and no one you dislike could possibly have a legitimate grievance.

That’s funny in an absurd way. I see where you get your beliefs, but I don’t believe your experience is universal.

Don’t be absurd. It’s a serious problem that’s only got worse since the earlier discussion. I care about facts and science, and in those areas it is a far bigger threat than crazy Republicans who have approximately zero influence on (or presence in) academia.

This is patently false. Why are you making such a patently false statement?

Give some examples that contradict it, then.

Much as I’m sure we all enjoy your usual game of “DemonTree deliberately misrepresents what other people have written and then demands they debunk the misrepresentations”, the burden of prove lies with you.

  • How many people have said “everything is misinformation”?

  • Who said “The other side is 100% to blame” (not just partly or materially but “100%”)?

  • Who said that no one they dislike could possibly have a legitimate grievance?

  • How many of those people were “liberals”?

Don’t think I’ve ever seen you make that claim. But for others, does hyperbole count?

ETA: Well, you know, asahi was probably serious.

~Max

I know you’re not stupid enough to think that “one side is 100% evil” is the same as “one side is responsible for 100% of the evil”, so why did you pull this bullshit, exactly?