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Thread: OT: Politics

  1. #1141
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    Harry Reid in 1993: It*s insane to reward illegal immigrants by giving their children birthright citizenship. *If you subsidize something, you*ll get more of it. We*ve chosen to subsidize illegal immigration with citizenship."
    Was/is Reid a racist?
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  2. #1142
    Depending on the language he used to support his proposal, then yes.

  3. #1143
    Quote Originally Posted by pbjosh View Post
    Ah, the Personal Insult Bait.

    Ignoring it Gordon. Talk like a real person and actually try to not insult everyone's intelligence with 5th grade taunts for a while and you might deserve a reply.
    actually its that i assume you are an intelligent and reasonable person, but when you attempt to pendent your way out of the very obvious conclusion that trump wields racism commonly, im forced to either conclude that you know its true, and are just lying about it because you think its ok, or you agree with his politics and dont care, or that you actually just agree with it. OR that you can't see what everyone else can see, including his rally goers, his supporters, the naizis and white nationalists, and the majority who oppose him. we all can see it. we have the legal documents of republicans admitting it in court, there are books on the decades of right wing political strategy using racism, and we have a track record as far back as the late 1970s on trumps personal records on this stuff. we have hours of tape.

    when it is a duck, its a duck.

    and either you can see that, and are lying for political convince, or you can't see it, and thus im forced to conclude you are a moron.

    so you tell me. i don't really know which one is worse frankly.

    and playing the martyr is a funny one. "oh boo ho the mean liberals called me a moron, poor me, poor me"

    pathetic.

    irony declared my life and all its relationships are without meaning, im not crying for help. i think a grown man can take being accused of being a moron without needing a shoulder to cry on. but then im also of the political thought process that masculinity isn't under attack either. idk, a mixed bag there.
    Last edited by cockerpunk; 10-31-2018 at 02:04 PM.
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  4. #1144
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    A grown man can also choose to not interact with people he doesn't want to. Without malice, without feeling the least bit bad, or hurt, or any of the projecting you seem to be doing. I just said, you know what, I don't want to discuss politics with Gordon any more. [shrugs] So I stopped.

    Simple as that. You are not some special case. At my mid 40's, this is the same as saying I don't to watch this TV show any more and just flipping the channel. I don't have to respond to you, nobody does. It is a simple choice and I am making mine clear with really no feelings of pain, hurt, or anything. Just not interested. And you know what, not a lot of people on here are either I believe. Who knows, I might be wrong. That is their choice, and they are welcome to it either way.

    Have a good day Gordon.

    Depending on the language he used to support his proposal, then yes.
    So, what would be some examples of the language used? Hypothetically, I am just curious what language would be good and bad. And this is an honest question, I read this today to look for examples:

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ist/985438002/

    And it seems that there is a perception thing. He has said the same thing to white people, white dominated countries, and white congress people.

    As in, if you call somebody dumb, that is bad, but if they are black, then it is racist. Which really is just stupid. He didn't call out their race. He called out his perception of their intelligence, gang affiliation, their career, radical Islam, a bunch of other things like shite ole countries and a country not sending us their best. But nothing directly by race. If you didn't know their race, of that the country had a different race, say, Canada instead of Mexico, it wouldn't be racist comments.

    While I can see some correlations, nothing really seems directly racist. Just, tacky as all get out. Inelegant, childish, thin skinned and petty. Twice. It is rhetoric, and bad at even that.

    But since he said exactly the same thing about Canada or Britain or white people:

    "Another attack in London by a loser terrorist.These are sick and demented people who were in the sights of Scotland Yard. Must be proactive!"

    "I love Canada, but they*ve taken advantage of our Country for many years!"

    "There is no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal. If we don*t make a fair deal for the U.S. after decades of abuse, Canada will be out. Congress should not interfere w/ these negotiations or I will simply terminate NAFTA entirely & we will be far better off*"

    Chris Matthews "must have the lowest IQ on television" for "telling people that domestic terrorists are from the right."

    Trump's IQ was higher than that of "idiot Jon Stewart," adding, "That's true. And by a lot."
    Even from all of those examples, if you didn't know the race of the person or area or related, they would just be 5th grade taunts.

    But if the target is black, then he is racist. That seems like a really triggery way to look at it.

    Edit: It could be looked at this way - Trump insults, belittles, talks down to, and is a braggart to ANYBODY. He is an equal opportunity ass.
    Last edited by pbjosh; 10-31-2018 at 03:04 PM.
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  5. #1145
    Insider Unfated33's Avatar
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    I've been in the camp for a few months (years?) now that Josh is hyper-partisan, and that informs his arguments and opinions. It is interesting because Josh seems to portray himself as more moderate in his conversation, and is perhaps the most likely person to bring out "both sides do it" arguments - regardless of whether that argument is effective in the moment or not. I've been far more curious about whether Josh views that he is partisan or moderate in his politics.

    I think this is becoming more common with people who identify politically as libertarians to argue that they are socially liberal and therefore moderate, as well. Which, honestly, is an argument I'm inclined to buy provided their stance does fall moderately. In the case of Josh specifically, the tell for me is the extreme sourcing he tends to use for his arguments. I'd be more inclined to engage with The Economist or Wall Street Journal as a source rather than National Review or Redstate. The part that perhaps bugs me the most is when Josh, and I apologize for not providing the direct evidence here when calling this out, will pull direct quotes from fringe websites and post it unsourced or as if it his personally formed thought.

    So my argument for partisanship is twofold: 1. Josh seems to primarily read from the extreme fringes of right wing thought and sources from them and 2. Josh does not seem to discriminate in the value of the sources in his argument, sometimes even arguing other users' source bias prima facie (implying that he sees all sources as equally biased in different directions). Josh has previously made claims that sites like Fact Check have bias, and is likely to think sources like AP and NPR are unreliable due to bias. I'd be very interested to hear a response to that claim.

    This has all lead me to believe that he does not debate online as an "honest agent" but rather as an actor of moderation to soften his partisanship image. On topics where it is difficult to be a partisan and appear moderate at the same time, such as recently, Josh seems to become uncomfortable and be more likely to attack.

    Not sure what the point to my post is, I just like being in the meta of the discussion. I believe Josh is not stupid nor racist, but just very Republican and it is important that the Right be right to him. I still struggle with Gordon's responses despite that his politics are more mine than not.

  6. #1146
    Quote Originally Posted by Unfated33 View Post
    I've been in the camp for a few months (years?) now that Josh is hyper-partisan, and that informs his arguments and opinions. It is interesting because Josh seems to portray himself as more moderate in his conversation, and is perhaps the most likely person to bring out "both sides do it" arguments - regardless of whether that argument is effective in the moment or not. I've been far more curious about whether Josh views that he is partisan or moderate in his politics.

    I think this is becoming more common with people who identify politically as libertarians to argue that they are socially liberal and therefore moderate, as well. Which, honestly, is an argument I'm inclined to buy provided their stance does fall moderately. In the case of Josh specifically, the tell for me is the extreme sourcing he tends to use for his arguments. I'd be more inclined to engage with The Economist or Wall Street Journal as a source rather than National Review or Redstate. The part that perhaps bugs me the most is when Josh, and I apologize for not providing the direct evidence here when calling this out, will pull direct quotes from fringe websites and post it unsourced or as if it his personally formed thought.

    So my argument for partisanship is twofold: 1. Josh seems to primarily read from the extreme fringes of right wing thought and sources from them and 2. Josh does not seem to discriminate in the value of the sources in his argument, sometimes even arguing other users' source bias prima facie (implying that he sees all sources as equally biased in different directions). Josh has previously made claims that sites like Fact Check have bias, and is likely to think sources like AP and NPR are unreliable due to bias. I'd be very interested to hear a response to that claim.

    This has all lead me to believe that he does not debate online as an "honest agent" but rather as an actor of moderation to soften his partisanship image. On topics where it is difficult to be a partisan and appear moderate at the same time, such as recently, Josh seems to become uncomfortable and be more likely to attack.

    Not sure what the point to my post is, I just like being in the meta of the discussion. I believe Josh is not stupid nor racist, but just very Republican and it is important that the Right be right to him. I still struggle with Gordon's responses despite that his politics are more mine than not.
    josh is like the old trojanman (ted) from stock class paintball.

    fancies himself a bit of an intellectual of the anti-intellectuals. that makes his positions read as if they are more moderate than they are. this is why we conflict in style so much ... i don't do bullshit, intellectual or not (i have similar issues with overly intellectual left wingers). he tries to dodge by using pedantry, basically an attempt to loose the forest by examining the trees. this is also why he refused to answer straightforward questions (is putting children in cages at the boarder evil?), and dodges and throws new things into the discussion so often. its keeps you focused on the trees, not on the forest. there are mountains of evidence that trump and republicans use racism all over there platform. but he will try and find the one bit, the one statement so he can pedantry his way out of the problem.

    as i said i don't know if this is some kind of ruse, or political maneuver, but i've seen it before several times.

    as i have already detailed, my style makes me seem so much farther left to right wingers, just because i dont take shit and i talk rough with them. but really my politics can be pretty much accurately described by a mid-1990s democrat. im not even that liberal in the grand scheme of things, im just practical.

    and as noted, im pissed as shit that long standing assumptions right wingers throw around as fact are simply wrong. welfare is actually very efficient, and has a very low fraud rate for example. its also quite successful at helping people. and i truly believe that the trump era has ripped the vainer off about the GOP's long history of this stuff. he shows they never really cared about capitalism or the free market. they never really cared about morality of leadership etc etc. they never really cared about children, or babies, or even democracy. they only cared about those things so far as they could be used as arguments to continue to support the social and economic structures that benefited them. as soon as they saw those things no longer supported there social and economic status? down they go.
    Last edited by cockerpunk; 10-31-2018 at 03:25 PM.
    social conservatism: the mortal fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.

  7. #1147
    Quote Originally Posted by pbjosh View Post
    A grown man can also choose to not interact with people he doesn't want to. Without malice, without feeling the least bit bad, or hurt, or any of the projecting you seem to be doing. I just said, you know what, I don't want to discuss politics with Gordon any more. [shrugs] So I stopped.

    Simple as that. You are not some special case. At my mid 40's, this is the same as saying I don't to watch this TV show any more and just flipping the channel. I don't have to respond to you, nobody does. It is a simple choice and I am making mine clear with really no feelings of pain, hurt, or anything. Just not interested. And you know what, not a lot of people on here are either I believe. Who knows, I might be wrong. That is their choice, and they are welcome to it either way.

    Have a good day Gordon.



    So, what would be some examples of the language used? Hypothetically, I am just curious what language would be good and bad. And this is an honest question, I read this today to look for examples:

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ist/985438002/

    And it seems that there is a perception thing. He has said the same thing to white people, white dominated countries, and white congress people.

    As in, if you call somebody dumb, that is bad, but if they are black, then it is racist. Which really is just stupid. He didn't call out their race. He called out his perception of their intelligence, gang affiliation, their career, radical Islam, a bunch of other things like shite ole countries and a country not sending us their best. But nothing directly by race. If you didn't know their race, of that the country had a different race, say, Canada instead of Mexico, it wouldn't be racist comments.

    While I can see some correlations, nothing really seems directly racist. Just, tacky as all get out. Inelegant, childish, thin skinned and petty. Twice. It is rhetoric, and bad at even that.

    But since he said exactly the same thing about Canada or Britain or white people:



    Even from all of those examples, if you didn't know the race of the person or area or related, they would just be 5th grade taunts.

    But if the target is black, then he is racist. That seems like a really triggery way to look at it.

    Edit: It could be looked at this way - Trump insults, belittles, talks down to, and is a braggart to ANYBODY. He is an equal opportunity ass.
    I don't mean to be obtuse, but when determining whether language has racial or xenophobic undertones I think you have to look at historical usage of the words used. Immigrants throughout history have been described using similar terms Trump and his supporters uses to describe illegal aliens - criminals, diseased, changing the complexion of this country, etc. The same goes for language used to describe African Americans. You may see it as a double standard, but to a lot of people see it as code because of this country's history. Given that the successes of the civil rights movement are just 60 years old, I think we should be a little sensitive to that still. So applying that, if Harry Reid came out saying "we can't have birthright citizenship because it will change the the complexion of this country," that's xenophobic in my mind. In the alternative, if he said "birthright citizenship is bad because it encourages more people to immigrate illegally" then we are talking about whether that's a right we should have. The latter is an acceptable and important discussion to have.

    Further, and you are free to disagree with me, but Trump in my eyes doesn't get the benefit of the doubt on his language given his history. Most notably, he and his father also settled with the DOJ over complaints his was specifically barring African Americans from living in his apartments. He called for the death penalty for the central park 5 even after they were exonerated. He latched on to a conspiracy theory that Obama wasn't a citizen of this country. To me that suggests a pattern.

  8. #1148
    oh boy the central park 5 ... yeah thats a story ahaha.

    "law and order" my ass.

    just racism. it all comes back to racism.
    social conservatism: the mortal fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.

  9. #1149
    Insider Unfated33's Avatar
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    I would have to say that I'm literally a mid-1990's Democrat. Though I voted for McCain - twice - and have been known to support republican local candidates in many elections.

    I remember the days when you would get candidates like Jack Kemp and Richard Lugar - solid republican statesmen that are nowhere to be found in the current party. The red team is shifting, but the red voters don't seem to see it. Partisanship sucks.

  10. #1150
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    Unfated:

    You are not the first to say this, it is a fairly normal conclusion. There is a reason. But first lets be honest here - I am being a bit of a hypocrite.

    I will explain first by showing one example, very clear and detailed, about the bias in the AP system.

    Then I will point out a fallacy in your comment.

    Then I will accept how I to am using that same fallacy.

    Then we get to the heart of why you see my position as partisan, and I don't.

    _________________________________

    A lot of the normal, mainstream press doesn't discuss, or comments with a certain bias. 96% of all donations from the media during the last election went to Clinton. That includes everyone from Fox. So I am not making a really outrageous claim when I say it leans left. With that a certain bias. Some topics and information is simply not popular. If I link, again, to the forum posts from JouroList you can see where most of the left sided media actually work to bury stories like Rev. Wright.

    For an inside look, here is one former AP reporter on how the narrative of Isreal is wrought:

    https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-new...-insider-guide

    "To offer a sense of scale: Before the outbreak of the civil war in Syria, the permanent AP presence in that country consisted of a single regime-approved stringer. The AP*s editors believed, that is, that Syria*s importance was less than one-40th that of Israel. I don*t mean to pick on the AP*the agency is wholly average, which makes it useful as an example. The big players in the news business practice groupthink, and these staffing arrangements were reflected across the herd. Staffing levels in Israel have decreased somewhat since the Arab uprisings began, but remain high. And when Israel flares up, as it did this summer, reporters are often moved from deadlier conflicts. Israel still trumps nearly everything else.

    The volume of press coverage that results, even when little is going on, gives this conflict a prominence compared to which its actual human toll is absurdly small. In all of 2013, for example, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict claimed 42 lives*that is, roughly the monthly homicide rate in the city of Chicago. Jerusalem, internationally renowned as a city of conflict, had slightly fewer violent deaths per capita last year than Portland, Ore., one of America*s safer cities. In contrast, in three years the Syrian conflict has claimed an estimated 190,000 lives, or about 70,000 more than the number of people who have ever died in the Arab-Israeli conflict since it began a century ago.

    News organizations have nonetheless decided that this conflict is more important than, for example, the more than 1,600 women murdered in Pakistan last year (271 after being raped and 193 of them burned alive), the ongoing erasure of Tibet by the Chinese Communist Party, the carnage in Congo (more than 5 million dead as of 2012) or the Central African Republic, and the drug wars in Mexico (death toll between 2006 and 2012: 60,000), let alone conflicts no one has ever heard of in obscure corners of India or Thailand. They believe Israel to be the most important story on earth, or very close."

    Corruption, for example, is a pressing concern for many Palestinians under the rule of the Palestinian Authority, but when I and another reporter once suggested an article on the subject, we were informed by the bureau chief that Palestinian corruption was *not the story.* (Israeli corruption was, and we covered it at length.)

    Israeli actions are analyzed and criticized, and every flaw in Israeli society is aggressively reported. In one seven-week period, from Nov. 8 to Dec. 16, 2011, I decided to count the stories coming out of our bureau on the various moral failings of Israeli society*proposed legislation meant to suppress the media, the rising influence of Orthodox Jews, unauthorized settlement outposts, gender segregation, and so forth. I counted 27 separate articles, an average of a story every two days. In a very conservative estimate, this seven-week tally was higher than the total number of significantly critical stories about Palestinian government and society, including the totalitarian Islamists of Hamas, that our bureau had published in the preceding three years.
    There is much more at the link.

    I could really fill up the word limit here on examples where the media are working on a certain narrative. If I am debating a person on the left, there are not a lot of sources in the WSJ or the NYT who will even be allowed by the editor to print something that is counter to that.

    But you have to look past the editors that are gate keepers for the story - the one who would kill a story about Hamas simply to focus on Israel.

    It is this way with most topics. I hope you can understand why I would say: The AP has a Bias, and kills news counter to their agenda. This is just Israel. It is similar on most topics.

    NPR has one also. So does Fox, and Breitbart and most news. That is not really a new comment. ALL NEWS DOES IT. Because we have such crappy media at the moment.
    _________________________________

    To respond to someone who is up and fed a diet of bias, you have to go to other sources of news. You have to dig a little deeper. Most of the time I just find the first source. I don't have time to wander through just the WSJ or the NYT on the off chance they mentioned a topic. I google, find a source, and use it.

    Now, if all you are doing is basing your reply on the source, well, you run into a Fallacy. And that ruins your entire position.

    The Ad Hominem Fallacy is, well:

    short for argumentum ad hominem, is a fallacious argumentative strategy whereby genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself
    By saying
    Josh does not seem to discriminate in the value of the sources in his argument, sometimes even arguing other users' source bias prima facie (implying that he sees all sources as equally biased in different directions). Josh has previously made claims that sites like Fact Check have bias, and is likely to think sources like AP and NPR are unreliable due to bias. I'd be very interested to hear a response to that claim.
    I don't care about the source for the most part (okay, I don't go to Infowars or related), I care more about the content. Yes, most of it has a bias. That is how media is nowadays.

    The source is not the issue - it is the information contained within. I hear, and I mean almost every Facebook political argument has it, somebody saying "well, I am not going to believe it, Faux News said it."

    Well, that is a point where "genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument." In these cases, the source.

    So, second point - just killing the argument because of the source (which is something I do also) is a fallacy in the argument.

    __________________________

    Third - well, I feel the AP and often NPR or NYT is a bad source because they have a bias. And often I disregard their 'allowed' content because of it. And that is hypocritical of me to do it, and I welcome anybody calling me on it.

    But when I say they have a bias, I am also not making an incorrect statement.
    ___________________________

    When I argue with someone who would bash, say, abortion rights, LBGT rights, or maybe anti-vaxxers, cancer causing stuff, I will use sources on the other side of the table. I will find sources exactly the same way - googling till I find what I want to support my position from whichever side I am on. But you are not privy to that.

    Look at the make up of people talking in here.

    Irony is the closest person to me on here. And often we go at it. The rest is more to the left than normal, with Gordon and Steve being the 8% of the frenzied sort who spout some extremely partisan positions. Often without anything to back it up in Gordon's case.

    So in response you see news sources that are not in the Mainstream because the comments come from the left, and far left at that often, so the reply comes from the right. If you took some crazy right wing stance you most likely would see a left wing reply from me.
    _________________________________

    For news, since Steve asked me back at some point what I read. I use a few aggregator sites that are libertarian or anti-mainstream news, some European sites, WSJ, NYT, Reason are in my inbox, and the Independent is on my facebook feed. The rest are links from my often very liberal friends on FB or otherwise. Beyond that I read tech sites. My go to site is Instapundit.com - and has been for almost 2 decades. Due to that I read news from hundreds of sources. NYT, Huffpo, Dailymail, zerohedge, bloggers, youtube, la times, NYP, you name it. I can be on Israel Times to Sacramento Bee to NPR to twitter in a few minutes.

    I normally don't give a shit about the source, but I often dislike the content.
    __________________________________

    That being said, I think reporters are rather ignorant. I have seen to much of the Gell-Munn Amnesia affect in myself to listen to them too much any more:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect

    Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward*reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

    **Michael Crichton
    __________________________________

    So, that was the quick response. I am going to take my kids trick or treating. Have a great Halloween every one.
    Josh Coray
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