If it were reported so completely wrong, then it would hardly reflect badly on liberals who were appalled by the reported details. Really anyone should be appalled by those details.
If a story broke that a tea party organizer was found murdered with the Obama logo carved on his chest, do you think the moonbat conservatives would care? You wouldn’t see anything else on Hannity that day. But then if it turned out the dude killed himself and the reported stuff was false, would that mean the egg was on all the conservative faces for getting worked up? I think you’d be singing a different tune.
Anyhow, I find it hard to believe that such morbid details were artificially attributed to the story by the AP, but time will tell.
Eh. The problem is that, although it seems to you that this involves hard facts, there still is a great degree of subjectivity here. In trying to set up a standard for supposed ineligibility to be on the airwaves, you are attributing motives to others that are entirely opinion based. Who is to say if someone is “actively harming the public interest only to serve the convenience of those who want to hear what they believe”? It’s not like conservatives wake up in the morning and decide to lie to hurt society. They are following their world view to (in their heads) logical (and often flawed) ends. Liberals do it too, with similar results in half truths.
To try to draw arbitrary lines of acceptable truth level means that you would have to create some sort of truth squads out of entirely biased humans, a dangerous precedent that I guarantee you wouldn’t appreciate when your side didn’t benefit. The only exception should be when someone is directly promoting a crime, as in “you should go kill so-and-so”. Really views like this don’t help liberals.
As someone who has in-laws in the area and who made regular visits to the area for 20+ years - yes, LOTS of pot grown in the area, and meth as well. It’s true, sad to say.
Frankly, as a former Census field worker who was threatened with physical violence while doing my job (though obviously I was not lynched) I don’t find this at all humorous. Nor do I find it surprising. There are some incredibly hostile people out there who really don’t view Federal workers of any sort as human beings.
Again, as a former Census field worker I encountered drug dealers, gang members, and urban meth labs. Those are not the people who threatened me. It was people who were very eager to inform me of their anti-government feelings. The drug people were scary. The anti-government folks were more so. There is certainly some overlap between the two groups, but saying “oh, it’s druggies” is hiding your head in the sand in regards to people who aren’t “druggies” but are most certainly anti-government and don’t feel particular moral issue with harming people who work for the government.
Crap - you know, I don’t have steady work either, that’s why I took a Census field worker job. MOST of the people I know who took that job fell into the same category, but, of course, if you don’t have steady work during the worst economy since the Great Depression you must be a criminal or aspiring to be one. :rolleyes:
Census workers have to undergo a background check, and they do check up on what we’re doing while we’re doing it.
I find it really disturbing that people are trying to blame the victim here (oh, maybe he was a drug dealer, or trying to be one) rather than the people who murdered him. You know, the people who we know for a fact really did break the law.
By the way - Census workers who observe illegal activity while performing their duties are actually NOT allowed to report those activities. We were specifically told to just get the hell away and report to our Census supervisors, but NOT to report it ourselves. The penalty for revealing information you obtain while performing Census duties is $250,000 + jail time. They are serious about that. “Informing” on activities observed while doing census work is less likely than actually selling drugs while a Census worker. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but form my viewpoint it’s damned unlikely.
QFT. Census workers aren’t even allowed to tell you specifics about what areas we’re working. Our supervisors know, of course, but that’s about it. Hell, my boss told us in canvassing training that even if we could see piles of cash, drugs and guns sitting on the coffee table, that we couldn’t call the cops to report it.
In any event, I’m also reasonably sure that any information a Census worker told the cops would probably render that information inadmissible in court, simply because of the confidential nature of Census work. So I’m not buying Sparkman as a snitch.
Jesus Fucking Christ. Yes, that is exactly what I said. Census workers are all criminals and this guy got exactly what he deserved. Excellent synopsis of my position.
Instead of flying off the fucking handle and saying, “Look, look how these right wing nuts behave!” before the goddamn facts are in, I thought maybe we should consider other possibilities. I guess that’s not the way things are done around here, though. Yes, by all means, let’s point our fingers at the anti-government nuts! It matters not that the FBI has said next to nothing about the case and we’re speculating based on the speculations of reporters. Doesn’t matter! Right-wing nuts! Right-wing nuts!
Listen, I hate the right-wing nuts as much as the next guy. In fact, in my first post, I even said that my money was on the right-wing nuts. But, as soon as I express reservations and say that the story doesn’t quite add up for me, I get a fucking juvenile “rolleyes” and an accusation that I’m blaming the victim. Excellent work, really excellent work.
ETA: But, thanks for the information on rules against census workers informing on illegal activity. That did fight my ignorance.
What - whether something’s a fact depends on subjective judgment?
Take an example: the wingnut BS about ACORN and the Census that’s been popular this year. Yes, ACORN was one of approximately five jillion ‘partners’ of the Census Bureau for the 2010 Census. It’s a fact that the purpose of these partnerships was to promote, raise awareness of, and increase participation in the 2010 Census. It’s a fact that partners, in their role as partners, would not have access to Census data. There’s nothing subjective about these facts, and wingnut claims that ACORN was somehow going to leverage its partnership to control the Census, or get your Census data, were flat-out lies.
If they’re a sucker to bullshit stories once or twice, then you give them a warning and tell them to use Teh Google and maybe do a little checking before spreading falsehoods over the airwaves. But if they make a regular habit of using their access to the airwaves as an opportunity to present the latest glurge email as fact to their listeners, without any attempt to verify first, then jerk their license.
Maybe not, but it’s increasingly looking like a distinction without a difference.
The concept of a ‘jury’ must leave you spluttering with outrage.
The fact is that fallible humans must wrestle with stuff like this all the time. The fact that occasionally there might be a difficult judgment call is not an argument for throwing in the towel and letting people use a scarce public resource (do you have a broadcast license? Me either) to routinely spread stories that two minutes with Snopes or Google would reveal as lies.
Tell that to the families of the service men and women, Iraqi dead, and the dead from America’s incompetent health care system.
You’re either stupid, or an evil piece of shit. Probably both.
Edit: also if right wingers are so pro free speech why screaming and shooting down other people trying to express their opinion, such as on Rush’s show, or the teabaggers at town hall meetings? You self serving hypocritical piece of shit.
Even if such information was admissible in court, it would still leave the Census worker open to fine and jail due - there are NO exceptions in the rules for reporting criminal behavior. This was made very clear to us in training. You are not allowed to reveal information gathered by the Census to ANYONE, under ANY circumstances, NOT EVER. If there’s a problem, tell your supervisor. You do not tell the cops. You do not tell anyone claiming to be another part of the government. Census data stays with the Census, no one else. No exceptions.
(Of course, at some point the information is processed and distributed, but field workers have zero to do with that. We gather, we do not distribute)
What the Kentucky state police have or have not ruled out is immaterial since this is now an FBI investigation.
No, I was just observing (separate from the general point of this thread) that it’s somewhat surprising that a publicly funded institution would endorse that sort of thing.
Well, you also live out west, where the sort of people who think government agents are all out to get them are wont to go. Bet that doesn’t happen in New York.
I don’t, in fact, think it was “right wing nuts”. I think it’s insular, inbred, isolationist jackasses that have lived up in the mountains since before the 1776 Revolution. I don’t think their evident dislike of the Federal government and its agents has much to do with whether the Republicans or Democrats are in office. My in-laws live in that region and frankly a LOT of the crazies down that way don’t watch TV, don’t listen to radio, and don’t read - a significant number being unable to do so. Some of the right-wing nutcase BS might be seeping through there, and I don’t doubt seeing a black man in the Oval Office is cheesing some of them off, but they aren’t the folks going to tea parties and shouting in Town Hall meetings. These are the people of Shaw’s Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion and who shot at BOTH sides in the Civil War because they don’t like any government.
The FBI is not supposed to talk about an active case! Geez, don’t you know that? That basic bit of standard operating procedure in a criminal investigation has totally eluded your grasp? Of course the FBI says next to nothing - that’s standard in ALL their investigations!
As it happens, I am not basing my opinions strictly on the speculations of reporters - I am also a Census field worker (my assignment ended in May) which has given me some insight into the anti-government animosity some people have, and I also have been in contact with people from that field office socially (one of whom encouraged me to apply for the job) and thus I had heard one of their people was missing before it broke on the news (didn’t know he was dead, just missing, until I heard that he’d been found hanging on the TV). However, confidentiality rules prohibit me from providing a means for you to independently verify my statements so, of course, I don’t expect you to believe me.
Suicide, of course, must always be eliminated as a possibility, however unlikely, but the notion that this man might have “accidentally” scrawled “Fed” on himself and then accidentally hung himself are nothing more than bullshit. This sort of thing is not an accident, it’s an intentional. So with suicide eliminated as of yesterday (and never that strong a possibility) this is murder.
I don’t care what someone has done - even something as terrible as raping infants and eating them - lynching is not justified. Not ever. It’s mob action, it’s intimidation, and it’s murder.
Yes, - speculating that someone who has passed a government background check (which would imply no prior misdeeds) “deserved” to be strung up with a message scrawled on his chest because he had a potential opportunity to “inform on” or participate in drug traffic is a real reach. Yes, it sounded to me like you’d rather blame the victim than face the fact that someone was murdered solely because he was doing his lawful job.
Maybe I had the knee jerk reaction because I remember some uncomfortable moments during my field assignment and I’d hate to think that if MY dead body was found strung up somewhere the assumption would be that I was the one breaking the law. This incident unfortunately has hit me rather personally because I could easily imagine myself falling into danger doing that job. That doesn’t mean I regret taking the work, and I’d certainly be willing to do field work again for them, but I am also aware that there are real risks to that job.
You’re welcome. As a fieldworker in Gary, Indiana it did cause me significant concern as that was not a hypothetical question - we were explicitly told we probably WOULD witness illegal things and that, as government employees, we would be seen as threatening. Worker safety was a significant part of training. Reports of hazardous situations were taken seriously (I actually had more problem with wild animals than people - very glad I wasn’t bit by anything). Unfortunately, it turned out the blatant drug dealers and gangbangers weren’t the scariest people I encountered, but as I did swear confidentiality I don’t think I can add more to that, however enlightening it would be for this conversation.
I don’t know about New York - but tax appraisers here in the Midwest also travel in pairs.
And at times Census fieldworkers also work in at least pairs, for similar reasons. One person does the work, the other keeps an eye out for trouble and is ready to call 911.
(We can’t report illegal stuff we see, but we most certainly ARE allowed to call for help if attacked/threatened. Carrying a cellphone was a mandatory part of the job, in part for that reason.)
So basically you want to respond to this paranoia about the government becoming too intrusive by having the government revoke broadcast rights to certain conservatives. That’s really going to help.
Seriously, this would never ever work. People would never accept it, you would instantly give credence to all their crazy conspiracy theories. Even the example you gave isn’t something that could be definitively proven to be an incontrovertible fact. What commission can go in and objectively discover whether or not any members of ACORN were considering that kind of debauchery? Would you interview everyone involved about their motives? Are the conservatives going to be convinced by the results of your government fact review? No fucking way.
Those kinds of views are ridiculous I know, but politics is a social science and largely subjective. And yes your way really would be a terrible infringement even if it were remotely possible logistically.
Just bring back the “Fairness Doctrine”. It forced TV to give opposing viewpoints " an honest, equitable and balanced" opportunity for response. I found it often provided me with insights that I often was not aware of. How the hell can a bit of education about the opponent be bad?
TV and radio licenses were granted with the caveat that they had to do good by the public ,who actually are supposed to own the airwaves. Now we act like the stations own them and can do what they want with them.