Budget Player Cadet, Kimstu, et. al., there’s this new thing called confirmation bias. You should check it out.
I’ll let ya’ll get back to your circle jerk, don’t mind me. Might want to wear goggles though.
Charming.
In any case it is very old, but the fact is that what the Republicans are doing right now in congress is confirmed to be crazy and they do not care how stupid they look while damaging the future of the country.
IIUC Lamar Smith is also not even right on his boast here, in other articles it was reported that he is not looking to get the e-mails of the scientists any more, and he already has subpoenaed the scientists before.
You do realize that just saying “both sides do it” and accusing us of confirmation bias when we examine and eviscerate your nonsense doesn’t actually constitute an argument, right?
Yes, on republican-dominated forums, they have threads like this. But those threads don’t apply to anything the democrats actually support. There is a fundamental difference between “I think republicans are crazy because they support Ben Carson, who believes insane things X, Y, and Z” and “I think the democrats are crazy because…” (just to pull one example from FreeRepublic out of a hat) “…they believe the term “taxes” is misleading. All money belongs to the government, which graciously allows you to keep a little from what you owe to others.”
The difference is that Ben Carson is actually well-supported by republicans, and he actually does believe X, Y and Z, and X, Y and Z actually are completely insane. Meanwhile, no liberal in a position of power even comes close to the beliefs attributed to them.
Please, if you have an example, let’s hear it! What liberal policies are actually crazy? What insane positions do the liberals actually expound? (And keep in mind: “crazy” is not the same thing as “wrong”.)
It is not mere confirmation bias to point out that one party in the USA has completely lost their marbles. If I ask virtually anyone I know here in Europe what they think of the Democrats, they grumble about how ineffectual and overly giving they are. If I ask them what they think of the Republicans, they start to ask what the hell is wrong with America. Because from the outside, it is blatantly obvious that a solid half of politics in America has gone completely off the deep end. This isn’t just raw confirmation bias; there is actually something very wrong here. And simply using “both sides do it and if you think there are any differences that’s just confirmation bias” as a shield is disingenuous in the face of reality.
University research departments produce quite a lot of “something”. The Internet was born at Stanford and UCLA, to give one marginally interesting fringe technology that’s used in some measure by the “real world”.
I want everyone to keep the insults to a minimum. No insulting other’s parties or beliefs in even the lightest way.
The lady doth protests against confirmation bias too much methinks. But, if you say it enough times, you’ll start believing it.
PC culture, hiring and school admissions based on racial preference instead of merit, price controls, the welfare state, the deplorable condition of Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit and other big cities long under Democratic control, the New Deal, the internment of the Japanese, the Great Society, etc., etc.
All prime examples of left/democrat/liberal fuck ups. But you don’t really want a debate. You want to revel in your superiority and act like you’re not as insulated in your own echo chamber as all the Bill O’Reily fans out there. And again, say it enough times and you might start to believe it.
And lol @ holding up European opinion as something worth respecting.
And that’ll earn you a warning, Waymore. This thread has all the potential in the world to go off the rails and I want people to not let that happen.
So stop it.
I’d really like to see if there is correlation with the rise and maturing of Fox Not News.
It may//not be counter intuitive but I suspect Fox could be slowly killing the parent it loves.
Yep, Fox was launched in 1996, seems to correlate to me. Rupert Murdoch’s news corp has had exactly the same toxic effect on politics in Australia.
http://www.thenation.com/article/rupert-murdoch-has-gamed-american-politics-every-bit-thoroughly-britains/
is FoxNews a cause or a symptom, though?
Okay, so here’s some actual substance.
This is ill-defined at best. I’m not seeing a whole lot of democratic politicians explicitly backing “PC culture” in general, or even really specific cases to do with it.
You mean Affirmative Action, a program designed to counteract the massive racism faced to this day by African-Americans? That’s neither crazy nor is your portrayal of it in any way reasonable.
A bad idea, correct. Implemented in two states, proven not to work very well in those cases, and abandoned. Is it universally the wrong idea? I don’t know. Is it crazy? Not really - it could work in some circumstances and it has some substantial upsides.
The wording here is incredibly vague. I have no idea what’s supposed to be “crazy” about the welfare state, or, you know, what’s wrong with it to begin with. Many european countries have far more advanced welfare states, and they often do quite well for themselves.
This straight-up isn’t an idea. In fact, the failure of those cities may have something to do with democratic leadership… Just like the successes of the top cities in the US (which are also almost all under Democratic control, because Democrats tend to run urban centers) etc. might have something to do with democratic leadership.
In reality, there are countless complex factors involved in why these cities are suffering. Reducing it to just “because democrats” oversimplifies the issue and does not help your case at all.
In economic circles, with the exception of basically just the Mises institute, the New Deal is almost universally accepted as a huge success - something that heavily blunted the great depression until congress, convinced that the worst was over, pulled back its support two years in, which led to a second, far longer dip. This is not exactly controversial history; as usual, it’s “a handful of republicans and libertarians vs. everyone else in the profession”.
Also, this is some 70 years ago.
Seriously, to pad your list, you’re bringing up examples from that long ago? Yes, the internment of Japanese-Americans is a black mark on our nation. It also happened so long ago that it has absolutely nothing to say about the modern state of the party. Your examples are, to put it bluntly, weak sauce.
When we talk about the problems the modern republican party has, do you know what we’re citing? Major modern political players. Top candidates in the primaries of the last two elections. The largest right-wing news outlets. Influential political players like Limbaugh and Hannity. Republican congressmen. Planks of the current Republican platform. Specific issues, without the need to avail to vagueries like “the welfare state” or “PC culture” that could mean any number of things.
What did you cite? Well, the aforementioned vagueries, complex topics which you oversimplify and act like are entirely the fault of the democratic leaders in the respective areas, issues from before my parents were born, and one issue which you misrepresent and which is a mixed bag - certainly not “crazy”.
And yet, here I am. Debating. With you. I’m not within my own echo chamber. I value critique and input. If I’m wrong, I want to know, and I’m disappointed when my candidates lie or screw up. I expect the media to report on it, because vetting the candidates is a substantial part of the media’s job. There is no epistemic closure here. It’s the difference between MSNBC reporting openly and honestly about Hillary Clinton’s emails, and FOX News burying the headline that the GOP-run house committee found absolutely no wrongdoing on Benghazi.
I’d like to think the people I debate with have the same openness and honesty.
Both in a feedback loop. Rupert Murdoch has his own agenda, which he pushes, which polarises politics, leading to more extreme views, which sells more news papers and gets more viewers. Repeat…
He’s not passive just “giving people what they want”, he very definitely tries to shape things.
“Murdoch’s news outlets actively promote his personal brand of conservatism, and he has bought himself enormous influence in the political establishments of several major countries. In the US, Fox News alone enables him to set the tone of debates in the Republican Party.”
Most of western Europe’s government structures are logical, pragmatic and functioning. The population is healthy and well-educated. Why wouldn’t a reasonable person value their opinions over people with fundamental religious beliefs?
How would their social and welfare policies look if they fulfilled their defense obligations? With the National Front doing well in France do you think European nations will resist nationalistic tendencies if more terrors attacks succeed?
What defense obligations? Do you think without NATO, the next thing we’d see would be some foreign invader at the Rhein? Wait, hang on, I’m being informed that France has allies to its west. I mean, some foreign invader at the Oder? Wait, hang on, I’m being informed that Germany has allies to its west. I mean, some foreign invader at…
…I could probably keep going for quite some time. A country completely surrounded by allies in an age of peace and globalized trade is supposed to keep a huge military force… Why, exactly? What unfulfilled defense obligations are we talking about here, exactly? The only people doing any sort of “invading” are ISIS, and their preferred method of attack is not well prevented by a standing army. It’s like wondering why Canada doesn’t have a huge military force. Who are they threatened by, the Mole People? Icelandic battle fleets? The USA? (Actually, given the state of politics in that last one, I’d start to feel very worried if I was Canadian or Mexican.)
I’m not a republican but this is pretty specious thinking. Presumably France and Germany which are surrounded by allies should be willing to contribute substantially to standing forces at NATO’s borders, Poland, Lithuania, Turkey etc since they do border potentially hostile territories.
Why should only the countries on NATO’s borders need to chip in the recommended NATO defence allocations just because of a luck of geography?
To the OP - I think a big part is the messaging that Republicans have adopted. To their very great credit, Republicans have adopted a very polarized approach to messaging. They tend to distil every issue down to a black/white, good/evil duality - which makes it very easy to sell to an electorate who isn’t interested in details but just wants easily digested sound bites. So take virtually any issue and see how much cleaner the Republican message is (regardless of substance):
Taxes:
- Typical Democratic Response - well, taxes are a necessary evil. Sometimes we need to raise them to fund vital services, while taking care not to damage the economy. Sometimes we can cut them to take advantage of favorable economic conditions.
- Typical Republican Response - Taxes are always bad. Tax cuts are always good.
Abortion:
- Typical Democratic Response - well, we would hope to minimize or even eliminate the need for abortion all together. However, we believe in the fundamental right of a woman to choose and have control over her body. Further, there are cases of rape, incest or the woman’s health which further support the need for a woman to be able to choose for herself.
- Typical Republican Response - Abortion always bad.
Immigration:
- Typical Democratic Response - Immigration is a complex issue. We are a nation of immigrants which is part of what has made America great. Further, we receive numerous economic benefits from immigration including lower prices on the primarily farm goods that they help to bring to market. That said, we should be better able to control our borders.
- Typical Republican Response - Immigration is bad. Build a wall.
Climate Change:
- Typical Democratic Response - Well, in the past, there may have been mixed messages from the scientific community. But now, the vast preponderance of evidence is that the climate is changing substantially and that humans have contributed to this. As such, it’s our duty to address this, not only from an ecological standpoint, but from a national security perspective . . . .
- Typical Republican Response - There is no climate change. If there is, it’s not our fault.
Given the above, the success of someone like Trump who embraces this polarized approach to positioning begins to make perfect sense.
(The above is presented for example only, is all gross over simplifications and may or may not accurately represent typical positions of the respective parties)
What you are seeing is an increasing polarization of the electorate. The Republicans are moving to the right, and the Democrats are moving to the left.
Your main presidential candidate says that businesses don’t create jobs.
Your second main candidate is a declared socialist.
Left wing kids on campuses have gone bat-shit crazy.
Black Lives Matter - and no others.
Identity politics rules the day.
The Democrats seem to now believe that you can always fix an economy by borrowing and spending more money, and that you can heavily tax and eventually ban the key ingredient of industry without hurting the economy, because of ‘green jobs’.
Democrats seem increasingly contemptuous of the rule of law and the constitution. They have lost in court on gun control repeatedly, but keep coming back to it. Speech codes on campus, lack of due process for the accused in rape trials, an imperial president pushing the boundaries of executive power, an Attorney General hinting that she might try to prosecute speech that ‘goes over the line’, some Democrats suggesting that climate ‘deniers’ should somehow be silenced or punished, etc. There’s a depressingly authoritarian aspect to the left that seems to be getting worse.
Democrats think the problem with America is that it’s not regulated enough.
They think Capitalism is a dead political system ripe for ‘replacement’.
I could go on. The left has gone left, and the right has gone right. Because you’re on the left, you don’t see your own shift and you tend to exaggerate the shift on the other side.
As a reminder, it was only 8 years ago that Barack Obama was against gay marriage, and Clinton was still proud of the Defense of Marriage Act. Pot legalization was pretty much unthinkable a decade ago. Socialism was considered a failed political system, and capitalism had won the day.
You guys are fond of saying that Ronald Reagan could not be elected as a Republican today. By the same token, Bill Clinton of 1994 - the guy who reformed welfare, who declared the era of big government to be over, and who signed the Defense of Marriage Act, couldn’t get elected dogcatcher in today’s Democrat party. The blue dogs are all gone - Jim Webb is the most conservative Democrat I can think of, and he’s gone. Joe Lieberman was drummed out of the party.
Difficult times cause polarization. That’s what we’re seeing now. From my perspective, Bernie Sanders is every bit as crazy as Donald Trump or Ben Carson, and the Democrats following him are in denial that he’s electable, just as Trump’s followers are. He’s a crazy 77 year old man with wild hair and a set of beliefs recycled from the ash heap of history. That he has as much support as he does means the same for the Democrats as Trump’s popularity means for the Republicans.
The other factor driving all this craziness is that we have probably the worst political class in my lifestime. Washington (and Ottawa) is full of idiots, ideologues, and corruption, on the left and the right. The people are getting sick of it all and are looking for something different.
The country is moving leftwards. The country always moves leftwards. It’s a product of modernity and prosperity. Democratic politicians like Hilary and Obama, who are hardly even liberals, for god’s sake, eventually follow along. Others further to the right get left behind, retrenching to screech their dismay at the next point of progress.
In fact, the history of the world is that it has been turning right throughout the 20th century. Socialism, state industrial planning, and big government in general all took a kick in the teeth in the 80’s and 90’s, primarily because of their massive failures in the post WWII era.
I guess we’re wealthy enough and far enough removed from the history of the left’s dismal failures in the 20th century that we’re doomed to have another cycle of crazy before that wealth starts to vanish and the left starts running out of other people’s money. Again.