Amusingly, cognitive dissonance theory predicts that psychologists will rationalize their error and insist that it doesn't invalidate their conclusions.
Many anthropology programs are already dealing with a glut of students envisioning themselves doing the kind of work they watch on CSI, but it hasn't been that much of a problem since it only takes one class for them to be disabused of the notion. Although I and other anthropology students have found those people to be something of a nuisance, it isn't really a serious issue since anyone who sticks with that major won't be under any illusion that their job will mirror what they've seen on television.
(for the record I'm a cultural graduate and find physical/forensics to be incredibly dull)
>>It's not as frustrating as arguing with someone who knows what they're talking about.
Actually that isn't frustrating at all. Arguing with someone who really does know something worthwhile is invigorating and rewarding, namely because it often allows me to learn something or at least consider a new perspective. I certainly don't pretend to have all the answers, so the primary means for me to challenge my own current positions and to broaden my knowledge are to discuss topics with intelligent people who can either test my assumptions or teach me something. You, unfortunately, are not only a waste of time, but you honestly think that you're not a total dumbass. That's problematic because your participation discourages people who might engage in legitimate discussion and because it's just frustrating to deal with someone who has no clue that he's ignorant.
>>Blix said...
As I stated, Blix believes the negatives outweigh the positives but that the positives in this case are the new freedoms and opportunities offered to Iraqi citizens. This is the part of your behavior I don't understand. You seem to habitually state something that supports your opponent's position and ostensibly proves you wrong, only to act like it proved you correct. It just strikes me as bizarre.
>>On the contrary, she specifically refered to the Governing Council's "pullbacks in the rights [women] were given under Saddam Hussein."
I can understand you not knowing anything at all about Iraq. Some people just don't feel compelled to learn, and that's fine for the most part. What I don't understand is why you can't read a sentence in the English language and comprehend it. Senator Clinton did not say the Governing Council was involved in any pullbacks in women's rights. Several women are on the Governing Council and it has arguably been the most Western/progressive agency in the entire country. What she said, and I just posted the quote in my previous message so I'm flabbergasted that you have the audacity to say something completely different, is that the women on these councils (that again did not exist under Saddam) were concerned about the incorporation of religious law into the civil system. Notice the word "attempting" as that pretty obviously implies that nothing had happened yet. Notice that her comments in the issue were all regarding hypotheticals, although it's understandable that people so blind with hatred of Bush that they actually prefer Saddam Hussein would try to glorify his murderous regime by twisting her words. I'm no fan of Hillary Clinton, but I think she's be extremely offended by the words you are attempting to put in her mouth.
>>what they did in January to women's mobility.
Show me any laws introduced by the Governing Council that restricted women's mobility. And while we're at it, here is a link detailing just how horrible women were treated under Saddam's rule.
>>Beginning in late December 2003...
Ah ok, that's fine. If you'll care to follow the news you'll notice that many of those troops actually haven't been rotated out of Iraq as planned, nor have all their replacements been sent it. Overall troop strength has remained steady at around 150-170k. But did you not have enough math skills to realize that even 240,000 would still mean the U.S. had a far less percentage of total involvement in this war than '91? You're quibbling over semantics just because you're embarassed about doubting something that turned out to be true.
>>You make me smile.
And you make me despair for the future of this country and humanity in general.
I think the age-old problem is what to do with such people. Do you A) ignore them or B) continue arguing? While ignoring them would probably be less stressful and perhaps more productive, somehow it just seems wrong, a bit like surrender. Then again continuing to argue certainly won't ever change their minds. I need to read Atlas Shrugged again and find that great quote about the biggest enemy of truth being the irrational mind. I think Danneskjold said it late in the book, but I can't recall where.
Anyway, thanks for the head's up. I should probably just move along now.
Because you're "looking" with your eyes closed. Please tell me what part of "the '90s bubble was unsustainable and about to burst regardless of presidential involvement" you don't understand. If you simply don't understand big words like "unsustainable" and "regardless," try this attempt at monosyllabic re-phrasing on for size:
"No one could have stopped the drop."
Monosyllabism is actually pretty hard. Regardless, the point that people such as yourself apparently fail to grasp is that in my opinion no one could have prevented an economic downturn, and therefore since no one could have stopped it, I wanted to see a Democrat get the blame.
>>prove my point that republicans get unfair blame for economic downturns.
#1) I already pointed out the fact that Reagan oversaw the second largest period of economic growth while Carter presided over an economic downturn.
#2) Most economists agree that presidents have little effect on the economy, and much of what they do comes from appointing the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. That's important because Reagan (starting in '87), Bush 1, Clinton, and Bush 2 have all had the same guy - Alan Greenspan.
#3) Despite #1 and #2 there is still a prevailing myth that Democrats are good for the economy and Republicans are bad for it.
By all means, if you have difficulty understanding big words, let me know which ones stump you and I'll either point you to an online dictionary or try to phrase things in a context even you can understand.
I like how you insist that my analogy is incorrect, and yet don't even attempt to explain how. If a child thinks he's studying too much and a parent thinks he's studying too little, why are these opinions evidence that the truth is somewhere in between? That makes no sense. You think it's logical only because you've apparently never had any schooling in logical thought. Seriously please tell me if you've ever had a course in logic because you clearly have no idea how it actually operates.
>>The simplest answer is to say that the media is in the middle. Reality, after all, is subjective in itself.
Your "simplest answer" has nothing at all to do with reality. I've already given you several ways that bias can be quantitatively or qualitatively measured. What part of "universities and research institutions have done extensive studies on this subject" do you not understand? Suddenly those colleges and institutions don't know what they're doing because you don't like the results they came up with? Clearly you have absolutely no ability to admit facts even when they're proven right to your face, which again, is a characteristic I associate with liberal philosophy.
And by the way, reality is absolutely not subjective. Reality exists, it is our perception of it that changes. But Billy Joe whose drug-induced haze causes him to think he can fly is not changing the reality of his descent and rapid transformation into a bloody stain on the ground. Reality exists, we simply strive to match our perceptions as closely to that absolute as we can, but it is difficult because of the subjectivity of our perceptions. Sounds like you're a post-modernist, if you even know what that means, and post-modernists are the biggest jokes of the academic community.
>>Not all democrats are liberals.
ARGH! In the very statement you responded to I said that we can just say "left bias" or "biased toward Democrats" if you prefer. You're not answering why the fact that over 80%+ of media professionals are registered Democrats or that 85%+ voted Democrat in the last two presidential elections is not evidence of a "left-leaning" or "favoring Democrats" bias. Answer that question if you can, otherwise acknowledge that you can't.
>>Take a look at southern democrats
Dude, you need to know who you're talking to. I've lived smack dab in the middle of the South all my life. First, there aren't as many southern people of any political affiliation as you would assume working in the media. Most of our reporters are northern transplants, perhaps because most of the papers and broadcast stations in this country are owned by a few corporations. Second, southern democrats don't vote for Democratic presdential candidates. Look at how few southern states Gore and even Clinton won even though quite a few have Democrats outnumbering Republicans (and incidentally, watch to see if Kerry wins any at all). If more southern democrats were in the media you certainly wouldn't be seeing 85%+ votes for the Democratic candidate.
>>Party affiliation does not prove bias anyway.
Not alone, no. It is at least theoretically possible that a profession overwhelmingly populated by people of one political ideology who vote overwhelmingly for one political party wouldn't favor that party in their reporting. I don't think you buy that statement if 80%+ of media professions were Republican, though. You only consider that very remote possibility because they happen to be on "your side." But when you take political affiliation with voting record with word usage analyses and other measures, then you have pretty iron-clad proof.
>>it is nowhere near being called a communist
Ok, hold on a second. What you just said is probably the dumbest thing I have read on Slashdot and maybe the dumbest thing I have ever read. You just passed js7a's remarkable achieveme
Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to be arguing with someone who knows nothing and certainly doesn't know they're humiliating themselves with a startling amount of stupidity? This, perhaps, goes beyond your inability to comprehend the mass question regarding DU ordinance. Where in that link does Hans Blix say anything about Iraqis not experiencing freedoms and opportunities? Your link suggests the exact opposite! When Blix said, "It's positive that Saddam and his bloody regime is gone" what exactly do you think he was talking about? Presumably the fact that the Iraqi people now have access to freedoms they haven't experienced in decades.
Clearly you must be the brightest bulb in your family. There are two possibilities here. Perhaps you simply lacked the intellectual capacity to understand that the issue was whether or not you were a first class moron for saying that the Iraqi people are experiencing new freedoms and opportunities, not whether the war was the "right" or "good" thing to do. I explicitly stated that I wasn't addressing that question because it is too early to judge. What I challenged was your incalculably stupid suggestion that the Iraqis are not experiencing new freedoms and opportunities. You can't find a single person who agrees with you on that precisely because it is one of the dumbest things any human has ever said in the history of the world.
Ok, I can see where that article might have misled someone as simple-minded as you are, but Senator Clinton didn't actually say that women were better off under Saddam. Look at the pdf file of the full transcript of that speech at the Brookings Institution. The portion in question is on page 19. Here is the relevant text:
"We also have to do more on women's rights and roles. And I have been
deeply troubled by what I hear coming out of Iraq. When I was there and met with
women members of the governing councils and local--of the national governing councils
and local governing councils in Baghdad and Kirkuk, they were starting to express
concerns about some of the pullbacks in the rights that they were given under Saddam
Hussein. He was an equal opportunity oppressor, but on paper women had rights; they
went to school; they participated in the professions; they participated in government; and
business and, as long as they stayed out of his way, they had considerable freedom of
movement.
Now, what we see happening in Iraq is the governing council attempting
to shift large parts of civil law into religious jurisdiction. This would be a horrific
mistake and especially for it to happen on our watch. And I have spoken to the White
House about this on several occasions. I appreciated Ambassador Bremer speaking out
about the need to involve women. But we must go much further. I would like to see a
statement from the President. I would like to see a much greater emphasis that we will
not have become the vehicle by which women's rights in Iraq are turned back."
Notice the following things if you have the mental capacity to understand them:
#1) She spoke with women on local and national governing councils, councils that didn't even exist under Saddam. Therefore those women obviously have not only gained access to freedoms and opportunities they didn't have before, they are exercising them.
#2) Senator Clinton is talking about Iraqi women's concern about what might happen in the future, based on worries about implementation of sharia in places like Afghanistan under the Taliban. That hasn't happened yet, and presumably won't. The very fact that women are on the governing councils strongly suggests that to be a flight of fancy given that any anti-female attitudes necessary for
You want to explain to me how my hope that Gore would get elected and therefore blamed by the inevitable economic collapse was harmful to the country? I had no idea my idle wistfulness had such a dramatic effect on the course of U.S. history. If only I had known that by not indulging that hope I might have spared us all this economic upheaval.
>>yet you wish for them to maintain control and continue doing the "wrong" things just to prove a petty little point?
You know the saying about how people should have to pass a test or get a license before they can have children? I'm in favor of the same kind of standard for posting your thoughts on the internet.
Read my post again genius. I said "the '90s bubble was unsustainable and about to burst regardless of presidential involvement." Does that sound like I'm blaming someone or saying the Democrats did/would have done the "wrong thing" or am I specifically saying that no one could have prevented it? As for wanting them to be blamed, I share the opinion of most economists that presidential policies have relatively little affect on the economy and therefore I do get frustrated when Republicans get blamed for every economic downturn while Democrats get enormous credit (nevermind that Reagan presided over a growth period second only to Clinton's and Carter watched his economy go into the toilet).
>>Looks to me like you and your "liberals" are just two sides of the same coin. Pot, kettle and all that.
Looks to me like you might want to make sure you actually understand something before you respond to it, much less criticize it. I know I'd be embarrassed if I had completely missed a fairly obvious and explicitly stated point.
>>Since you are counting percentages, you get a 0 out of 1 for contradicting yourself.
Do you even understand what "contradicting" means? If so, where have I "contradicted" myself?
As for your poll, check the facts again. The CPA's May survey said:
"The Coalition Forces should...
Pull out immediately 41
Wait for an Iraqi government 45"
The 55% was in response to a question as to whether or not they believed attacks would decrease after U.S. troops left, not whether or not they wanted troops to leave immediately. Take note that this survey was also conducted just after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. In March and April CPA polls the number of Iraqis who wanted the U.S. to leave immediately numbered under 20%. I'm trying to find any polls since May, but the CPA seems to be the only one that took them regularly and obviously they're long gone.
Furthermore, I love how your blog guy complains that the poll results were surpressed even though I easily found articles about it on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and Fox websites just now.
>>Hans Blix, Hillary Clinton, The Queen of England, a number of international courts of law, several insurance agencies, and what were you saying about credibility?
Do you make a habit of ridiculous statements? Show me any link that shows any of those people saying that Iraqis haven't seen an increase in freedoms and opportunities. Senator Clinton not only didn't say what you claim she said, she's said the exact opposite, that she doesn't regret her vote to approve military action in part precisely because it has increased freedoms for the Iraqi people.
>>No. URL?
There is no URL that points this out. As far as I know I'm the only human being who has actually noticed this fact. But sometimes it's actually possible to discover things by looking up the numbers yourself. For instance you can go here to find out that over 500,000 U.S. troops were deployed in the first Gulf War, along with around 75,000 troops from other countries. Meanwhile under 200,000 U.S. troops were involved with Iraq this time around, along with about 50,000 foreign troops. (in both wars Britian carried the vast majority of the foreign load - 50k in '91 and 40k last year) Really the only substantive difference between the "coalition" in '91 and the "coalition" in '03 is that a bunch of countries in '91 gave their verbal support while not actually doing anything to help. But the media makes it out as if we had so much more international support in '91. Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one skeptical enough to actually look up the numbers myself. Anyone who did would have noticed that the percentage of U.S. troops was actually lower this time around.
It's far too early to say whether it was "the right thing to do" or if it will bring about a stable, respectable government, but I never said otherwise. What I said was that the invasion of Iraq produced less damage than pretty much any other comparable military action in history. That is already true. It will remain true in the future unless something unprecedented happens given that we have already established that occupations, while turbulent, feature low levels of destruction and casualties.
I think what you have to do is understand that what I'm saying is different from what you want to argue against. What I'm saying is statistically valid, and therefore on solid factual ground. What you're talking about is a subjective evaluation that I'm not touching precisely because it is subjective and because I agree that more time is needed in order to make a competent evaluation of that aspect. But once you come to acknowledge that those are two separate issues, then perhaps you can acknowledge that what I said about the relatively low rates of damage and casualties is true. No more time is necessary to acknowledge that.
>>If the US is still fighting in Iraq in 5 years time
We're really not "fighting" in Iraq now. As I already pointed out to you, insurgency-type actions in Iraq or Northern Ireland or anywhere else produce far, far less destruction and death than full-scale military encounters. The full-scale military encounters in Iraq are over and done with. These occasional guerilla attacks are unfortunate and it's terrible that we continue to lose some U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians, but those rates are barely higher than a normal murder rate, certainly nothing even close to the scale associated with traditional "fighting."
#2) More faulty reasoning. While I agree that spending was reckless, it again doesn't change the fact that money went into your family's pocket that otherwise wouldn't have been there. The very fact that some of you can't admit that is the perfect evidence of your irrational bias. You simply can't admit something good because your political opinions aren't based on fact, logic, or reason but rather emotions like anger, resentment, and hate.
#1) Afghanistan's still young, give it time. Moreover, giving someone the right to govern themselves doesn't mean they'll do a good job of it. Our obligation, at least as far as I see it, is just to do what we can to give them the opportunity to make their own destiny, not to hold their hands through it.
But while we're on the subject, how about South Korea? Becoming a first-world nation is not an easy proposition, and South Korea certainly went through it's share of rough times, but now it's a first class nation in large part because we stood up and gave people their right to self-determination. How about the West Germans? Anyone think the South Vietnamese wouldn't have been better off if we had stuck around and won that fight?
We have our share of failures, no question, not the least of which was our support of dictators like Saddam in the '70s and '80s, but I think you can make a pretty convincing argument that the United States has also done more good for people around the globe than any other country in the history of the world. I'm proud of that too. I love my country and I love being an American, even though I know and acknowledge our most egregious errors.
>>If a conservative thinks something is liberal and a liberal thinks something is conservative it is only LOGICAL to assume that the belief is inbetween the two idealogies.
Actually that's not logical at all, because as I said, it's defining the real condition by relative perspectives. I'll try and dig up the official name for your logical error, but it's standard stuff in any Deductive Logic course at university. Suffice it to say that respective opinions have no bearing on reality. What matters is that reality, which we attempt to discern through evidentiary investigation.
While I'm looking for the term for the mistake you're making, consider this hypothetical:
Adult A thinks that Child B is not spending enough time studying.
Child B thinks that he is spending too much time studying.
According to your logic, the truth must logically be somewhere in the middle. Real logic, however, says that no determination can be made based on the respective positions of opinions lacking evidentiary support. In this case the reality of the situation could be fairly accurately determined by looking at Child B's grades. Let's assume that Child B is getting Cs. If so then the parent's supposition could actually be correct even though Child B actually thinks the opposite is true. According to your logic that would not follow.
>>Would you rather assume that it is actaully more liberal than a liberal believes or more conservative than a conservative believes?
It's certainly possible. No example jumps straight to mind, but I know there have been scientific debates over the degree of a particular phenomenon where it was eventually discovered that the degree was even higher than what objectors had considered too high to begin with. Reality has nothing to do with the respective positions of un-supported opinions.
>>Liberal != Democrat.
More or less, given that I've already acknowledged the media bias to be "soft core." Liberal is just a more convenient term, but if you prefer I'll try and stick to "left-leaning" or "biased toward the Democrat party." But meanwhile I can't help but note that you didn't offer an explanation for why that fact about registration and voting record isn't significant.
>>I can find studies that say the opposite. So what?
I don't think you can, and if you could I'd be very interested in seeing them. FAIR is the only group I've seen who has managed to put together a study that proports to show something other than left-bias and it obviously didn't involve word usage, just subjective interpretation of survey data. I've never seen a word usage analysis by a university or respected research institution turn up anything other than a slight to moderate left bias. And for the record, word usage analysis usually involves comparison of content in similar events or issues. It's still subjective to some extent because you're dealing in language and not easily quantifiable data, but they're pretty convincing in terms of establishing general trends. I was involved with one at my university regarding NY Times coverage of the Middle East. (surprise, surprise, it was biased toward Israel and against Arab states)
And again, neither categorically dismissing nor simply ignoring a point are effective means of addressing it. If you want to say that Democrat registration and voting records aren't suggestions of bias, you need to explain why. And if you want to say that word usage analyses aren't legitimate proof then you need to explain why.
>>Please cite examples. Besides, if he has "toned down his rhetoric" is it fair to continue to call him a racist?
The Tawana Brawley incident is well known and featured a number of anti-white remarks. The 1995 Harlem rallies are also pretty well known. That's where the "white interloper" quote came from, although Sharpton's partner Morris Powell was considerably more blunt and just used the word "
>>a longer time frame has shown they were unmitigated disasters for the occupying forces
Northern Ireland never featured a large number of casualties for the occupying forces. The main concern there was obviously occupation-inspired terrorism, which certainly could be an issue for us. And as for Algeria, that was an actual war for independence, not a static guerrilla environment like most "occupations." Moreover, those examples and probably just about every other one you could come up with would deal with annexed territories, and despite the fears of the Arab world, we obviously have no intention of claiming Iraq as our own.
>>on a short time frame they were disasters for the local people
I don't think you can make a successful argument there. The Japanese and German peoples suffered from the extreme damage done during the war itself, but actually improved during occupation, although I'll grant the possibility that they might have been better on their own. I don't think so, but it's fair game for speculation. But both of those cases actually support my point about low casualty rates during occupation. Most of the damage done to the Iraqi people is already over and now they're recovering. Occasional incidents like Najaf and Fallujah will pop up, but for the most part the only remaining risks to them are terrorism and a lack of necessary resources.
>>good in the short term but I believe that the jury is still out about weather they are better off independent than under the Indonesians
I have a very hard time accepting this as a reasonable statement given what I have read and seen about how they were treated under Indonesian rule.
>>I believe that my point stands - it is too early to tell if the Iraqi people are better off as a result of the invasion.
Either I misunderstood your point or else you're attempting to change it, and if the former is true then you apparently misunderstood my statement since "Are they better off?" would not apply to what I said about casualty rates. Those would be two separate issues. So no, it isn't too early to say that the invasion of Iraq is among the least destructive major military invasions in the history of the world. All such actions involve considerable destruction, damage, and loss of life, but the overall totals and rates are dramatically lower than what has been record for comparable events. That's not to say that they and our soldiers aren't still suffering, but it is important to keep things in perspective. Comparisons to Vietnam and the like (and you certainly didn't do this but others have) only demonstrate complete ignorance of the two situations and their statistically respective wakes.
>>of course we had to go to war to end the sanctions!!!
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Slashdot isn't the best place for me to be debating public policy. It seems that the average poster here is either very young or has very specific interests, of which international issues don't seem to be included.
No, technically you're right, we definitely could have ended sanctions against Iraq. In fact, Russia, China, France, and Germany wanted to do just that for the last several years prior to the invasion, no doubt influenced by the fact that they had been conducted illegal business and had massive contracts to do much more business if only sanctions could be removed. But removing sanctions would mean: #1) Hussein could go back to producing WMD and everyone seems to be overlooking the fact that while we didn't find actual WMD we did find that he'd built new dual-use factories specifically for the creation of WMD, presumably once the heat was off. #2) No means of punishing regimes.
Now personally, I'm not a fan of sanctions. I think it's a means of doing dirty work from afar and conveniently forgetting about the problem. That's one of the reasons I did and still do support taking Hussein out once and for all. I don't think sanctions are particularly effective, and we know that they usually end up hurting the average citizen far, far more than the leader who committed the actionable crimes in the first place. But you have to recognize that just doing away with sanctions altogether is not an effective or acceptable solution. You have to propose an alternative, and in this case I think military intervention was a better solution. Obviously you have a different idea, but I haven't heard what your preferred solution was. If we shouldn't have invaded and should have ended sanctions, you would do what exactly? If I had to guess I'd put my money on "nothing."
>>mugged by the criminals that didn't exist under Saddam
Actually, chief, Saddam's men were the criminals back then. His men did the raping, robbing, and killing. But in a general sense, yes fascist states are the systems of government with the lowest rates of crime. Somehow I don't think that quite makes them a legitimate option.
>>for a lot of people it is just the standard "meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
For a lot of people it is exchanging one set of difficulties for another, but I think most of us take our freedoms so much for granted that we can't even begin to conceive of how valuable they are. We read about "Give me liberty or give me death!" in books, but I don't think many of us have any conception of that mentality. Heck, look at the uprising in '91 that we cowardly and stupidly failed to support. They were willing to fight and give up their lives for a chance at freedom, and they probably would have succeeded back then and saved quite a bit of heartache if we had just given them some support.
>>your examples are terrible
I'm willing to consider that possibility, but you need to actually explain why my examples are terrible instead of just insisting that they are because you don't like them. That isn't a particularly convincing argument on your part, although I understand that I'm fighting an up-hill battle since conservative viewpoints don't receive a particularly warm reception among the young who fancy themselves tech-savvy.
Not really. Even if this stretched out over a period of decades we could still say the same thing, just qualified by time period as these things generally are. And while our casualty totals continue to rise, it's an extremely low rate judged against other major military encounters. For that matter Donald Rumsfeld was right (albeit uncouth) in pointing out that the rate of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq is lower than civilians killed in Washington, D.C. Moreover, the civilian casualty rate in Iraq is even lower. Most of their risk has already passed.
>>That makes the media pretty much right in the middle.
You're defining conditions by claims, which is an extraordinarily specious argument. Apply that reasoning to just about anything and it would sound pretty ridiculous, as it does here. Opposing claims is not evidence of an intermediate condition. "Creationists say that evolution is wrong and scientists say that it's right, so evolution is probably half-right." That kind of thinking makes no sense and is an obstruction to legitimate argument.
Ignore claims for the moment and look at facts:
#1) Those who work in the media are registered Democrat and vote Democrat by overwhelming margins.
#2) Word usage analyses by places such as Harvard, Stanford, and UCLA show a clear left-leaning bias.
>>How exactly is Sharpton a racist?
Al Sharpton has made numerous comments throughout his public life condemning white people as a whole. That by definition is racist, although some continue to insist that prejudice against the majority race cannot be considered racism. Granted, he's toned down his rhetoric in the last year or so, but has a history of bigotry against the "white interloper."
>>No, because the right has done such an effective job at tarnishing the word "liberal".
Faulty premise. You mean to tell me that liberals haven't tarnished the word "conservative." The word conjures up images of stubborn, ignorant white men often with racist overtones. You can't pretend that only one side has attempted to denigrate the other, but for whatever reason conservatives haven't become ashamed of their designation. I suspect this actually has very little to do with what epithets are attached to a particular political designation and more to do with how comfortable people are with their own views.
>>they are merely shills for the republicans.
Clearly you haven't actually listened to much talk radio. Rush and his ilk regularly express their displeasure with Bush, albeit not as much as the Democrats. Those talk show hosts are out to serve themselves, no one else.
>>They are in no way, shape, or form, a news source. If they wanted to counter the so-called liberal media they would involve themselves in reporting underreported news not punditry.
Again you seem to be missing key points here. Let's assume for the moment that the media is biased. What does that actually mean? It means that they are influencing the presentation of the news and/or introducing their opinions into the news. Thus punditry must be involved or there is no question of bias to begin with. And have you actually bothered to turn on the radio? Every right-wing show out there brings up what it considers to be under or un-reported news, sometimes legitimate and sometimes not. If you can't grasp that then I don't know exactly what grounds we're going to argue from.
>>accusing liberals of threatening our democracy
It's not the fact that they're liberal which threatens our democracy, but the fact that a significant minority of them have become so hate-filled and irrational. Liberalism itself is no threat, and moreover it's even an asset. Liberalism, even in excess, helps to keep America questioning its own assumptions and actions. I don't think much of liberalism when it comes to making decisions, because I think there is a certain flawed idealism and hypocrisy that hampers realistic discussion and action, but it's certainly a benefit to our democracy.
The hate and irrationality, however, are poisonous and counter-productive. I have no problem saying that John Kerry is probably a good man who is trying to do what he thinks is in the best interests of the country. I don't know many liberals who can or at least would say the same about George Bush.
>>stop viewing people like yourself as the spawn of satan.
I think you misunderstood me. I don't mind being d
>>anyone who insists you base your opinion on only a fragment of the story is NOT someone you should be listening to.
You mean like those anti-war individuals who selectively ignore the quality of life under Saddam Hussein and sanctions in their evaluation of the effects on the Iraqi people?
To clarify a point that should have been obvious, I'm not saying that you base your opinion of the entire war on one part of the results, I'm saying that it's just as important to acknowledge that positive things did result from the war as acknowledging the negative ones. The question wasn't whether or not the war was the right thing to do, that question is far too complex and emotionally charged for a flippant post on a message board like this. I was talking about the recognition of positives regarding individuals and their actions.
Let me clarify further with an example:
I don't like John Kerry and don't want him elected. While I don't like the fact that Kerry attacks Cheney for receiving deferments when Kerry himself received several during schooling and applied for additional ones, I can simultaneously acknowledge the positives of Kerry's service in Vietnam.
By acknowledging a positive I am not endorsing the person or the situation, I'm just building a more healthy and justifiable perception by attempting to see the positives as well as the negatives. In the same way one could look at Iraq and while still objecting to the war, acknowledging that significantly good things did result from it. Whether or not those good things outweight the bad things is a separate issue and not one that I asked.
>>The vast majority of Iraqis want the U.S. to leave right away because hey belive that if we leave they will be safer.
Actionable ignorance is far more dangerous than apathy, my mistake. What you just said is actually 100% false. Nearly every poll I've seen that bothered to ask the question has confirmed that Iraqis do not want the United States to pull its troops out of Iraq immediately precisely because they believe that without U.S. troops the security situation would be that much worse. In fact, those polls indicate that most Iraqis want U.S. troops to be more active in securing the peace.
>>I see no increase in freedoms and opportunities.
Ok, in my last response to you I made it clear that I wasn't calling you stupid, just your inability to understand the irrelevance of mass to the DU issue, but now I think I can safely say that you're either stupid or so biased that you're incapable of honesty. Seriously, no one can say with any legitimacy whatsoever that they can't see any increase in freedoms and opportunities. The very fact that we even know what Iraqis think now is a demonstration of their freedoms and opportunities. They finally have the ability to complain, something they could never do before, and incidentally a reason why it's no surprise that they seem to complain constantly. If I'd been prevented from complaining for decades I imagine I would do it with every breath as well. They can assemble freely and before too long they're going to begin the long, arduous process of appointing and constructing their own government. Things are tough over there, change always is, but no one can say that there has been no increase in freedoms and opportunities without looking like a total moron.
>>it will be until we can build an international coalition
Let me guess, you didn't bother to read a thing about Iraq between 1991 and 2003. In fact, I'd hazard a guess to say that you don't care about the Iraqi people at all, their only utility to use is as a means for criticizing the administration. I say that because of your complete and utter ignorance as to their opinion. If you knew anything at all you would know that the U.N. and the nations like France and Russia which support Hussein are far more widely despised in Iraq than we are. Moreover, what have international coalitions ever accomplished? Did you even know that in the oft-mentioned coalition in 1991 U.S. troops made up an even higher percentage of the total forces than they have in this conflict? (due to a much larger U.S. force back then while the British force is largely similar in size to what it was then)
>>he can hold a rally without screening by use of loyalty oaths.
If right-wingers were angry and obsessed enough to infiltrate and sabotage Democrat rallies, how long do you think it would take them to do the same thing? It's a product of the political climate.
>>Unless by "helping out" you mean lowering real median household income by 1.5 grand and pushing 4.3 million into poverty, according to the Census.
You have the same problem as that Entropy fellow. You distract from the relevant facts with irrelevant ones. The question wasn't whether or not people are better off, the question was whether or not tax cuts helped. Clearly the economy has taken a succession of blows (and incidentally I'm willing to bet a large sum of money that you had no idea that the fiscal year of steepest economic decline over the last decade was Clinton's last year in office - to clarify, the economy still grew the last year under Clinton but the drop from growth the previous year to that one was the largest single year drop and shows what any reasonable economist knew, that the '90s bubble was unsustainable and about to burst regardless of presidential involvement. In fact, I openly welcomed the idea of Gore getting elected in 2000 because I knew the economy was tanking and looked forward to a Democrat finally get
Well, one sentence of your post was right. (Just in case you're unsure, it was the first one.)
>>The war in Iraq was a failure because the collateral casualties and damage to international law far outweigh the nonexistent "increases" in opportunity the Iraqis have.
By conflict standards the collateral damage and casualty rates in Iraq have been among the lowest, perhaps the very lowest of any major invasion in history. Some damage and casualties are inevitable in any military engagement, so if you mean to say that these things automatically outweigh freedom gain and other less tangible benefits then you're going to devalue all conflict scenarios. In such a case you might want to explain why the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World Wars, etc can't be seen as net positive results. For my part I think it's pretty safe to say that freedoms are worth lives and hardships.
You also might want to note that, according to the numbers produced by UNICEF and other organizations that opposed U.N. sanctions against Hussein's regime, far fewer people died as a result of the military conflict than died under sanctions. Now I have always questioned their numbers, but since many of the people who object to the war are many of the same people who objected to sanctions, that fact seems particularly relevant.
>>There is zero benefit to middle-class people, since the dollar's recent fall due primarily to the cuts (and the war) far outweighs the piddling benefit the middle class got from their tax cuts.
This is some startlingly bad logic, not to mention a possible lie. Decline in the dollar began long before Bush's tax cuts and I'd love to hear any argument as to how they're related anyway. As for the faulty logic, currency changes are important for international relationships, but obviously within the system the effect is negligible since both the buyers and sellers are dealing in dollars. In those cases there is no currency exchange and therefore it is largely unaffected by a dip in value (some effects are still felt due to mitigating costs like transportation's reliance on oil, etc). But even more obvious, compare the net result of currency dip + no tax cuts versus currency dip + tax cuts. Which scenario works out better for the middle class? Obviously it's the latter.
I will give you credit for not being lazy, although I'm not sure if it's better to abuse intellectual effort in the support of something that is fundamentally anti-intellectual, namely the cause of irrational dislike. That's actually an interesting question, whether or not it's better to be lazy or to exert effort in the service of something detrimental to discussion. I imagine I'd lean toward the former, evidenced by the fact that I'd rather have irrational people not vote than do so for illegitimate reasons.
I actually just slapped my own forehead when I read your response. I didn't just have the urge, I actually did it. Thanks to your unbelievable response I have a red welt on my forehead and will not be able to go out in public for another thirty seconds or so.
*sigh* How can I explain this to someone who didn't already get what should have been a blindingly obvious point?
Comparing the mass was not only misleading but stupid because of their enormously different chemical character. Seriously, just use whatever brain you have. Why does a single DU shell have ever so much more mass than the uranium in just one bomb designed to cause massive destruction? Because they operate in different fashions. The former is relatively stable from a chemical stand-point and does not cause molecular destabilization or the release of catastrophic energies upon detonation, while the latter is extremely unstable and does produce off-the-charts energies when detonated. That's the whole frigging point, that mass has nothing at all to do with the equation because they're of completely different physical character, and therefore mass is irrelevant, and therefore bringing it up not only makes the arguer look less credible but deceitful.
For the record, tack on the handicaps of stupidity to my earlier cautions about misleading statements and irrationality. If you're just plain stupid then obviously people are never going to have a productive discussion with you whether you're attempting honest self-reflection or not. I'm not saying you are stupid, but your response certainly was. If you can't understand how mass is irrelevant and misleading to the issue then you don't have the capacity to add anything positive to the discussion.
If you can't find anything more than that then you aren't looking. Demonizing philosophical opponents is endemic of small or at least lazy minds.
Here are some possibilities:
#1) The positives in Iraq. Even if you find it incomprehensible and unjustifiable that we would invade a sovereign country pre-emptively, or if you dwell on the collateral casualties, you should stil be able to acknowledge the enormous increase in freedoms and opportunities for self-determination provided to the Iraqi people.
#2) Tax breaks positives. Even if you object to tax breaks for rich individuals or think that any tax breaks are unethical unless accompanies by cuts in spending, you should still be able to acknowledge that tax breaks have helped not only middle income but low income families, many of the latter have in fact seen their tax burden disappear completely.
Seriously, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of examples. If you can't think of any more, it's only because you aren't looking. If I as a conservative can think of many positives in the Clinton regime than you can certainly do the same for Bush.
D'oh. Clearly I should have said Congressman or Representative Rangel, not Senator. I gave that moron more credit than he already doesn't deserve. Shame on me. -1
I'm actually for mandatory 6-month service, but that's neither here nor there. As mentioned by others, this article certainly wasn't censored by anyone. The draft proposals received a fair amount of media coverage both in print and on television, but they went away quickly since both the administration and the Pentagon vowed that they had no intention of re-instating any such draft.
Another contributing factor to the short news cycle was the fact that Senator (and I use the term loosely) Rangel introduced the bill because he said he wanted to protest against blacks being forced to carry a disproporationate burden. Rangel conspicuously disappeared after the Pentagon informed him that while blacks do account for a higher overall percentage of military enlistment than their share of the general population, they actually account for less than their share of active duty combatants. (much of their enlistment is in non-combat support roles like tech, etc)
I'm actually all for abandoning the use of DU shells, but claims like this:
"the 800 tons of DU used in Afghanistan is the radioactive equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs. The amount of DU used in Iraq is equivalent to 250,000 Nagasaki bombs"
effectively undermine any chance of credibility or acceptance. It sounds like nonsense, and for good reason, because it is nonsense. They're comparing raw mass of the uranium used at Nagasaki (given that atomic bombs actually use tiny amounts of uranium) against the collective mass of all DU shells used, completely ignoring the fact that they're of enormously different chemical character.
If you say something like "Politician X rapes babies!" or "NAFTA has caused more deaths than all wars in the twentieth century combined!, you forfeit all consideration of other statements. I realize this is not your claim, only one you're repeating, but it's not helpful. In fact it's extremely harmful, because mindless statements like those only serve to undermine legitimate objection.
If the right gave up it would only be because they finally accepted the fact that rational arguments are lost on irrational minds.
#1) Nothing about FAIR's study is air-tight. Any study conducted with the intention of proving a pre-conceived belief should be met with the most extreme skepticism, but this particular piece is nothing more than a transparent attempt at drowning the reader in a mountain of misleading rhetoric and data as if it proved any kind of point.
For instance the survey addresses self-image, a cardinal sin for statistical analysis. People regularly mis-report or under-report their behavior in cases where they would prefer to see themselves as "better" than they actually are. Seriously, it's classic. Take any statistics course in the country and that should be one of the first things you learn. Of course if you ask someone whether or not they're centrist they're generally going to say, especially with "left" and "liberal" having such a negative connotation in this society, even among leftist liberals. Who was the last major politician you can think of who publicly identified himself as a liberal?
The rest of the questions only show that the media isn't as left as FAIR and its interests. I don't think there has ever been a question about media liberals being soft-core, although I wonder whether or not rabid lefties use this as their reason for the ridiculous suggestion that the media is actually right-wing or if they figure that making such preposterous allegations effectively negates claims made about left-leaning media bias.
Anyway, scientific studies are based on data, not self-evaluations. For instance, the fact that an overwhelming majority of journalists, editors, and producers are registered Democrats (over 80%) and that even more have voted Democrat (over 85%) in the last two presidential elections. Or you can look at word usage analyses conducted by universities and independent research institutions that consistently show left-leaning media bias.
#2) Whether or not AIM does a convincing job of stating their argument says nothing at all about the validity of the position, just their ability to argue it. Pretending that their failings, whatever they may be, are evidence that their "side" is wrong is nothing more than a cheap parlor trick. That'd be like someone painting all Democrats as fire-brand racists just because Al Sharpton happened to be one of their presidential candidates.
Seriously, liberals need to get a grip on reality before anyone can take them seriously. Do you see conservatives scared of identifying themselves with that label? I haven't, although I leave open the possibility that my experience may be statistically aberrant. Do you see more than a handful of people trying to say that talk radio isn't strongly right-leaning? Again no, pretty much everyone I've seen admits that the radio goes right, though they justify that bias by saying that they're trying to counter left-leaning television media.
Until liberals can: A) admit their own faults and B) admit that conservatives aren't the spawn of Satan, there really isn't much chance of productive discussion with them. It takes a solid grasp of reality, honest introspection, and a willingness to listen for two sides to get together. I'll grant that conservatives have certainly been out of line at times themselves as well, but right now the left is so hate-filled and irrational that it's damaging and perhaps even threatening our democracy.
And as for the original subject of the thread, this list is certainly biased but I have no problem giving attention to any of those "stories." It would certainly have more credibility if it attempted to be representative in the slightest, but that doesn't mean they automatically don't have valid points to make.
Slashdot Mirror
Amusingly, cognitive dissonance theory predicts that psychologists will rationalize their error and insist that it doesn't invalidate their conclusions.
Many anthropology programs are already dealing with a glut of students envisioning themselves doing the kind of work they watch on CSI, but it hasn't been that much of a problem since it only takes one class for them to be disabused of the notion. Although I and other anthropology students have found those people to be something of a nuisance, it isn't really a serious issue since anyone who sticks with that major won't be under any illusion that their job will mirror what they've seen on television.
(for the record I'm a cultural graduate and find physical/forensics to be incredibly dull)
>>It's not as frustrating as arguing with someone who knows what they're talking about.
Actually that isn't frustrating at all. Arguing with someone who really does know something worthwhile is invigorating and rewarding, namely because it often allows me to learn something or at least consider a new perspective. I certainly don't pretend to have all the answers, so the primary means for me to challenge my own current positions and to broaden my knowledge are to discuss topics with intelligent people who can either test my assumptions or teach me something. You, unfortunately, are not only a waste of time, but you honestly think that you're not a total dumbass. That's problematic because your participation discourages people who might engage in legitimate discussion and because it's just frustrating to deal with someone who has no clue that he's ignorant.
>>Blix said...
As I stated, Blix believes the negatives outweigh the positives but that the positives in this case are the new freedoms and opportunities offered to Iraqi citizens. This is the part of your behavior I don't understand. You seem to habitually state something that supports your opponent's position and ostensibly proves you wrong, only to act like it proved you correct. It just strikes me as bizarre.
>>On the contrary, she specifically refered to the Governing Council's "pullbacks in the rights [women] were given under Saddam Hussein."
I can understand you not knowing anything at all about Iraq. Some people just don't feel compelled to learn, and that's fine for the most part. What I don't understand is why you can't read a sentence in the English language and comprehend it. Senator Clinton did not say the Governing Council was involved in any pullbacks in women's rights. Several women are on the Governing Council and it has arguably been the most Western/progressive agency in the entire country. What she said, and I just posted the quote in my previous message so I'm flabbergasted that you have the audacity to say something completely different, is that the women on these councils (that again did not exist under Saddam) were concerned about the incorporation of religious law into the civil system. Notice the word "attempting" as that pretty obviously implies that nothing had happened yet. Notice that her comments in the issue were all regarding hypotheticals, although it's understandable that people so blind with hatred of Bush that they actually prefer Saddam Hussein would try to glorify his murderous regime by twisting her words. I'm no fan of Hillary Clinton, but I think she's be extremely offended by the words you are attempting to put in her mouth.
>>what they did in January to women's mobility.
Show me any laws introduced by the Governing Council that restricted women's mobility. And while we're at it, here is a link detailing just how horrible women were treated under Saddam's rule.
>>Beginning in late December 2003...
Ah ok, that's fine. If you'll care to follow the news you'll notice that many of those troops actually haven't been rotated out of Iraq as planned, nor have all their replacements been sent it. Overall troop strength has remained steady at around 150-170k. But did you not have enough math skills to realize that even 240,000 would still mean the U.S. had a far less percentage of total involvement in this war than '91? You're quibbling over semantics just because you're embarassed about doubting something that turned out to be true.
>>You make me smile.
And you make me despair for the future of this country and humanity in general.
I think the age-old problem is what to do with such people. Do you A) ignore them or B) continue arguing? While ignoring them would probably be less stressful and perhaps more productive, somehow it just seems wrong, a bit like surrender. Then again continuing to argue certainly won't ever change their minds. I need to read Atlas Shrugged again and find that great quote about the biggest enemy of truth being the irrational mind. I think Danneskjold said it late in the book, but I can't recall where.
Anyway, thanks for the head's up. I should probably just move along now.
>>Looks pretty black and white to me.
Because you're "looking" with your eyes closed. Please tell me what part of "the '90s bubble was unsustainable and about to burst regardless of presidential involvement" you don't understand. If you simply don't understand big words like "unsustainable" and "regardless," try this attempt at monosyllabic re-phrasing on for size:
"No one could have stopped the drop."
Monosyllabism is actually pretty hard. Regardless, the point that people such as yourself apparently fail to grasp is that in my opinion no one could have prevented an economic downturn, and therefore since no one could have stopped it, I wanted to see a Democrat get the blame.
>>prove my point that republicans get unfair blame for economic downturns.
#1) I already pointed out the fact that Reagan oversaw the second largest period of economic growth while Carter presided over an economic downturn.
#2) Most economists agree that presidents have little effect on the economy, and much of what they do comes from appointing the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. That's important because Reagan (starting in '87), Bush 1, Clinton, and Bush 2 have all had the same guy - Alan Greenspan.
#3) Despite #1 and #2 there is still a prevailing myth that Democrats are good for the economy and Republicans are bad for it.
By all means, if you have difficulty understanding big words, let me know which ones stump you and I'll either point you to an online dictionary or try to phrase things in a context even you can understand.
>>Not at all.
I like how you insist that my analogy is incorrect, and yet don't even attempt to explain how. If a child thinks he's studying too much and a parent thinks he's studying too little, why are these opinions evidence that the truth is somewhere in between? That makes no sense. You think it's logical only because you've apparently never had any schooling in logical thought. Seriously please tell me if you've ever had a course in logic because you clearly have no idea how it actually operates.
>>The simplest answer is to say that the media is in the middle. Reality, after all, is subjective in itself.
Your "simplest answer" has nothing at all to do with reality. I've already given you several ways that bias can be quantitatively or qualitatively measured. What part of "universities and research institutions have done extensive studies on this subject" do you not understand? Suddenly those colleges and institutions don't know what they're doing because you don't like the results they came up with? Clearly you have absolutely no ability to admit facts even when they're proven right to your face, which again, is a characteristic I associate with liberal philosophy.
And by the way, reality is absolutely not subjective. Reality exists, it is our perception of it that changes. But Billy Joe whose drug-induced haze causes him to think he can fly is not changing the reality of his descent and rapid transformation into a bloody stain on the ground. Reality exists, we simply strive to match our perceptions as closely to that absolute as we can, but it is difficult because of the subjectivity of our perceptions. Sounds like you're a post-modernist, if you even know what that means, and post-modernists are the biggest jokes of the academic community.
>>Not all democrats are liberals.
ARGH! In the very statement you responded to I said that we can just say "left bias" or "biased toward Democrats" if you prefer. You're not answering why the fact that over 80%+ of media professionals are registered Democrats or that 85%+ voted Democrat in the last two presidential elections is not evidence of a "left-leaning" or "favoring Democrats" bias. Answer that question if you can, otherwise acknowledge that you can't.
>>Take a look at southern democrats
Dude, you need to know who you're talking to. I've lived smack dab in the middle of the South all my life. First, there aren't as many southern people of any political affiliation as you would assume working in the media. Most of our reporters are northern transplants, perhaps because most of the papers and broadcast stations in this country are owned by a few corporations. Second, southern democrats don't vote for Democratic presdential candidates. Look at how few southern states Gore and even Clinton won even though quite a few have Democrats outnumbering Republicans (and incidentally, watch to see if Kerry wins any at all). If more southern democrats were in the media you certainly wouldn't be seeing 85%+ votes for the Democratic candidate.
>>Party affiliation does not prove bias anyway.
Not alone, no. It is at least theoretically possible that a profession overwhelmingly populated by people of one political ideology who vote overwhelmingly for one political party wouldn't favor that party in their reporting. I don't think you buy that statement if 80%+ of media professions were Republican, though. You only consider that very remote possibility because they happen to be on "your side." But when you take political affiliation with voting record with word usage analyses and other measures, then you have pretty iron-clad proof.
>>it is nowhere near being called a communist
Ok, hold on a second. What you just said is probably the dumbest thing I have read on Slashdot and maybe the dumbest thing I have ever read. You just passed js7a's remarkable achieveme
>> Done.
Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to be arguing with someone who knows nothing and certainly doesn't know they're humiliating themselves with a startling amount of stupidity? This, perhaps, goes beyond your inability to comprehend the mass question regarding DU ordinance. Where in that link does Hans Blix say anything about Iraqis not experiencing freedoms and opportunities? Your link suggests the exact opposite! When Blix said, "It's positive that Saddam and his bloody regime is gone" what exactly do you think he was talking about? Presumably the fact that the Iraqi people now have access to freedoms they haven't experienced in decades.
Clearly you must be the brightest bulb in your family. There are two possibilities here. Perhaps you simply lacked the intellectual capacity to understand that the issue was whether or not you were a first class moron for saying that the Iraqi people are experiencing new freedoms and opportunities, not whether the war was the "right" or "good" thing to do. I explicitly stated that I wasn't addressing that question because it is too early to judge. What I challenged was your incalculably stupid suggestion that the Iraqis are not experiencing new freedoms and opportunities. You can't find a single person who agrees with you on that precisely because it is one of the dumbest things any human has ever said in the history of the world.
>> Oh?
Ok, I can see where that article might have misled someone as simple-minded as you are, but Senator Clinton didn't actually say that women were better off under Saddam. Look at the pdf file of the full transcript of that speech at the Brookings Institution. The portion in question is on page 19. Here is the relevant text:
"We also have to do more on women's rights and roles. And I have been deeply troubled by what I hear coming out of Iraq. When I was there and met with women members of the governing councils and local--of the national governing councils and local governing councils in Baghdad and Kirkuk, they were starting to express concerns about some of the pullbacks in the rights that they were given under Saddam Hussein. He was an equal opportunity oppressor, but on paper women had rights; they went to school; they participated in the professions; they participated in government; and business and, as long as they stayed out of his way, they had considerable freedom of movement.
Now, what we see happening in Iraq is the governing council attempting to shift large parts of civil law into religious jurisdiction. This would be a horrific mistake and especially for it to happen on our watch. And I have spoken to the White House about this on several occasions. I appreciated Ambassador Bremer speaking out about the need to involve women. But we must go much further. I would like to see a statement from the President. I would like to see a much greater emphasis that we will not have become the vehicle by which women's rights in Iraq are turned back."
Notice the following things if you have the mental capacity to understand them:
#1) She spoke with women on local and national governing councils, councils that didn't even exist under Saddam. Therefore those women obviously have not only gained access to freedoms and opportunities they didn't have before, they are exercising them.
#2) Senator Clinton is talking about Iraqi women's concern about what might happen in the future, based on worries about implementation of sharia in places like Afghanistan under the Taliban. That hasn't happened yet, and presumably won't. The very fact that women are on the governing councils strongly suggests that to be a flight of fancy given that any anti-female attitudes necessary for
>>Never mind doing what's best for the country
You want to explain to me how my hope that Gore would get elected and therefore blamed by the inevitable economic collapse was harmful to the country? I had no idea my idle wistfulness had such a dramatic effect on the course of U.S. history. If only I had known that by not indulging that hope I might have spared us all this economic upheaval.
>>yet you wish for them to maintain control and continue doing the "wrong" things just to prove a petty little point?
You know the saying about how people should have to pass a test or get a license before they can have children? I'm in favor of the same kind of standard for posting your thoughts on the internet.
Read my post again genius. I said "the '90s bubble was unsustainable and about to burst regardless of presidential involvement." Does that sound like I'm blaming someone or saying the Democrats did/would have done the "wrong thing" or am I specifically saying that no one could have prevented it? As for wanting them to be blamed, I share the opinion of most economists that presidential policies have relatively little affect on the economy and therefore I do get frustrated when Republicans get blamed for every economic downturn while Democrats get enormous credit (nevermind that Reagan presided over a growth period second only to Clinton's and Carter watched his economy go into the toilet).
>>Looks to me like you and your "liberals" are just two sides of the same coin. Pot, kettle and all that.
Looks to me like you might want to make sure you actually understand something before you respond to it, much less criticize it. I know I'd be embarrassed if I had completely missed a fairly obvious and explicitly stated point.
>>Since you are counting percentages, you get a 0 out of 1 for contradicting yourself.
Do you even understand what "contradicting" means? If so, where have I "contradicted" myself?
As for your poll, check the facts again. The CPA's May survey said:
"The Coalition Forces should...
Pull out immediately 41
Wait for an Iraqi government 45"
The 55% was in response to a question as to whether or not they believed attacks would decrease after U.S. troops left, not whether or not they wanted troops to leave immediately. Take note that this survey was also conducted just after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. In March and April CPA polls the number of Iraqis who wanted the U.S. to leave immediately numbered under 20%. I'm trying to find any polls since May, but the CPA seems to be the only one that took them regularly and obviously they're long gone.
Furthermore, I love how your blog guy complains that the poll results were surpressed even though I easily found articles about it on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and Fox websites just now.
>>Hans Blix, Hillary Clinton, The Queen of England, a number of international courts of law, several insurance agencies, and what were you saying about credibility?
Do you make a habit of ridiculous statements? Show me any link that shows any of those people saying that Iraqis haven't seen an increase in freedoms and opportunities. Senator Clinton not only didn't say what you claim she said, she's said the exact opposite, that she doesn't regret her vote to approve military action in part precisely because it has increased freedoms for the Iraqi people.
>>No. URL?
There is no URL that points this out. As far as I know I'm the only human being who has actually noticed this fact. But sometimes it's actually possible to discover things by looking up the numbers yourself. For instance you can go here to find out that over 500,000 U.S. troops were deployed in the first Gulf War, along with around 75,000 troops from other countries. Meanwhile under 200,000 U.S. troops were involved with Iraq this time around, along with about 50,000 foreign troops. (in both wars Britian carried the vast majority of the foreign load - 50k in '91 and 40k last year) Really the only substantive difference between the "coalition" in '91 and the "coalition" in '03 is that a bunch of countries in '91 gave their verbal support while not actually doing anything to help. But the media makes it out as if we had so much more international support in '91. Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one skeptical enough to actually look up the numbers myself. Anyone who did would have noticed that the percentage of U.S. troops was actually lower this time around.
>>It is too early to judge the Iraq invasion.
It's far too early to say whether it was "the right thing to do" or if it will bring about a stable, respectable government, but I never said otherwise. What I said was that the invasion of Iraq produced less damage than pretty much any other comparable military action in history. That is already true. It will remain true in the future unless something unprecedented happens given that we have already established that occupations, while turbulent, feature low levels of destruction and casualties.
I think what you have to do is understand that what I'm saying is different from what you want to argue against. What I'm saying is statistically valid, and therefore on solid factual ground. What you're talking about is a subjective evaluation that I'm not touching precisely because it is subjective and because I agree that more time is needed in order to make a competent evaluation of that aspect. But once you come to acknowledge that those are two separate issues, then perhaps you can acknowledge that what I said about the relatively low rates of damage and casualties is true. No more time is necessary to acknowledge that.
>>If the US is still fighting in Iraq in 5 years time
We're really not "fighting" in Iraq now. As I already pointed out to you, insurgency-type actions in Iraq or Northern Ireland or anywhere else produce far, far less destruction and death than full-scale military encounters. The full-scale military encounters in Iraq are over and done with. These occasional guerilla attacks are unfortunate and it's terrible that we continue to lose some U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians, but those rates are barely higher than a normal murder rate, certainly nothing even close to the scale associated with traditional "fighting."
#2) More faulty reasoning. While I agree that spending was reckless, it again doesn't change the fact that money went into your family's pocket that otherwise wouldn't have been there. The very fact that some of you can't admit that is the perfect evidence of your irrational bias. You simply can't admit something good because your political opinions aren't based on fact, logic, or reason but rather emotions like anger, resentment, and hate.
#1) Afghanistan's still young, give it time. Moreover, giving someone the right to govern themselves doesn't mean they'll do a good job of it. Our obligation, at least as far as I see it, is just to do what we can to give them the opportunity to make their own destiny, not to hold their hands through it.
But while we're on the subject, how about South Korea? Becoming a first-world nation is not an easy proposition, and South Korea certainly went through it's share of rough times, but now it's a first class nation in large part because we stood up and gave people their right to self-determination. How about the West Germans? Anyone think the South Vietnamese wouldn't have been better off if we had stuck around and won that fight?
We have our share of failures, no question, not the least of which was our support of dictators like Saddam in the '70s and '80s, but I think you can make a pretty convincing argument that the United States has also done more good for people around the globe than any other country in the history of the world. I'm proud of that too. I love my country and I love being an American, even though I know and acknowledge our most egregious errors.
>>If a conservative thinks something is liberal and a liberal thinks something is conservative it is only LOGICAL to assume that the belief is inbetween the two idealogies.
Actually that's not logical at all, because as I said, it's defining the real condition by relative perspectives. I'll try and dig up the official name for your logical error, but it's standard stuff in any Deductive Logic course at university. Suffice it to say that respective opinions have no bearing on reality. What matters is that reality, which we attempt to discern through evidentiary investigation.
While I'm looking for the term for the mistake you're making, consider this hypothetical:
Adult A thinks that Child B is not spending enough time studying.
Child B thinks that he is spending too much time studying.
According to your logic, the truth must logically be somewhere in the middle. Real logic, however, says that no determination can be made based on the respective positions of opinions lacking evidentiary support. In this case the reality of the situation could be fairly accurately determined by looking at Child B's grades. Let's assume that Child B is getting Cs. If so then the parent's supposition could actually be correct even though Child B actually thinks the opposite is true. According to your logic that would not follow.
>>Would you rather assume that it is actaully more liberal than a liberal believes or more conservative than a conservative believes?
It's certainly possible. No example jumps straight to mind, but I know there have been scientific debates over the degree of a particular phenomenon where it was eventually discovered that the degree was even higher than what objectors had considered too high to begin with. Reality has nothing to do with the respective positions of un-supported opinions.
>>Liberal != Democrat.
More or less, given that I've already acknowledged the media bias to be "soft core." Liberal is just a more convenient term, but if you prefer I'll try and stick to "left-leaning" or "biased toward the Democrat party." But meanwhile I can't help but note that you didn't offer an explanation for why that fact about registration and voting record isn't significant.
>>I can find studies that say the opposite. So what?
I don't think you can, and if you could I'd be very interested in seeing them. FAIR is the only group I've seen who has managed to put together a study that proports to show something other than left-bias and it obviously didn't involve word usage, just subjective interpretation of survey data. I've never seen a word usage analysis by a university or respected research institution turn up anything other than a slight to moderate left bias. And for the record, word usage analysis usually involves comparison of content in similar events or issues. It's still subjective to some extent because you're dealing in language and not easily quantifiable data, but they're pretty convincing in terms of establishing general trends. I was involved with one at my university regarding NY Times coverage of the Middle East. (surprise, surprise, it was biased toward Israel and against Arab states)
And again, neither categorically dismissing nor simply ignoring a point are effective means of addressing it. If you want to say that Democrat registration and voting records aren't suggestions of bias, you need to explain why. And if you want to say that word usage analyses aren't legitimate proof then you need to explain why.
>>Please cite examples. Besides, if he has "toned down his rhetoric" is it fair to continue to call him a racist?
The Tawana Brawley incident is well known and featured a number of anti-white remarks. The 1995 Harlem rallies are also pretty well known. That's where the "white interloper" quote came from, although Sharpton's partner Morris Powell was considerably more blunt and just used the word "
>>a longer time frame has shown they were unmitigated disasters for the occupying forces
Northern Ireland never featured a large number of casualties for the occupying forces. The main concern there was obviously occupation-inspired terrorism, which certainly could be an issue for us. And as for Algeria, that was an actual war for independence, not a static guerrilla environment like most "occupations." Moreover, those examples and probably just about every other one you could come up with would deal with annexed territories, and despite the fears of the Arab world, we obviously have no intention of claiming Iraq as our own.
>>on a short time frame they were disasters for the local people
I don't think you can make a successful argument there. The Japanese and German peoples suffered from the extreme damage done during the war itself, but actually improved during occupation, although I'll grant the possibility that they might have been better on their own. I don't think so, but it's fair game for speculation. But both of those cases actually support my point about low casualty rates during occupation. Most of the damage done to the Iraqi people is already over and now they're recovering. Occasional incidents like Najaf and Fallujah will pop up, but for the most part the only remaining risks to them are terrorism and a lack of necessary resources.
>>good in the short term but I believe that the jury is still out about weather they are better off independent than under the Indonesians
I have a very hard time accepting this as a reasonable statement given what I have read and seen about how they were treated under Indonesian rule.
>>I believe that my point stands - it is too early to tell if the Iraqi people are better off as a result of the invasion.
Either I misunderstood your point or else you're attempting to change it, and if the former is true then you apparently misunderstood my statement since "Are they better off?" would not apply to what I said about casualty rates. Those would be two separate issues. So no, it isn't too early to say that the invasion of Iraq is among the least destructive major military invasions in the history of the world. All such actions involve considerable destruction, damage, and loss of life, but the overall totals and rates are dramatically lower than what has been record for comparable events. That's not to say that they and our soldiers aren't still suffering, but it is important to keep things in perspective. Comparisons to Vietnam and the like (and you certainly didn't do this but others have) only demonstrate complete ignorance of the two situations and their statistically respective wakes.
>>of course we had to go to war to end the sanctions!!!
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Slashdot isn't the best place for me to be debating public policy. It seems that the average poster here is either very young or has very specific interests, of which international issues don't seem to be included.
No, technically you're right, we definitely could have ended sanctions against Iraq. In fact, Russia, China, France, and Germany wanted to do just that for the last several years prior to the invasion, no doubt influenced by the fact that they had been conducted illegal business and had massive contracts to do much more business if only sanctions could be removed. But removing sanctions would mean: #1) Hussein could go back to producing WMD and everyone seems to be overlooking the fact that while we didn't find actual WMD we did find that he'd built new dual-use factories specifically for the creation of WMD, presumably once the heat was off. #2) No means of punishing regimes.
Now personally, I'm not a fan of sanctions. I think it's a means of doing dirty work from afar and conveniently forgetting about the problem. That's one of the reasons I did and still do support taking Hussein out once and for all. I don't think sanctions are particularly effective, and we know that they usually end up hurting the average citizen far, far more than the leader who committed the actionable crimes in the first place. But you have to recognize that just doing away with sanctions altogether is not an effective or acceptable solution. You have to propose an alternative, and in this case I think military intervention was a better solution. Obviously you have a different idea, but I haven't heard what your preferred solution was. If we shouldn't have invaded and should have ended sanctions, you would do what exactly? If I had to guess I'd put my money on "nothing."
>>mugged by the criminals that didn't exist under Saddam
Actually, chief, Saddam's men were the criminals back then. His men did the raping, robbing, and killing. But in a general sense, yes fascist states are the systems of government with the lowest rates of crime. Somehow I don't think that quite makes them a legitimate option.
>>for a lot of people it is just the standard "meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
For a lot of people it is exchanging one set of difficulties for another, but I think most of us take our freedoms so much for granted that we can't even begin to conceive of how valuable they are. We read about "Give me liberty or give me death!" in books, but I don't think many of us have any conception of that mentality. Heck, look at the uprising in '91 that we cowardly and stupidly failed to support. They were willing to fight and give up their lives for a chance at freedom, and they probably would have succeeded back then and saved quite a bit of heartache if we had just given them some support.
>>your examples are terrible
I'm willing to consider that possibility, but you need to actually explain why my examples are terrible instead of just insisting that they are because you don't like them. That isn't a particularly convincing argument on your part, although I understand that I'm fighting an up-hill battle since conservative viewpoints don't receive a particularly warm reception among the young who fancy themselves tech-savvy.
Not really. Even if this stretched out over a period of decades we could still say the same thing, just qualified by time period as these things generally are. And while our casualty totals continue to rise, it's an extremely low rate judged against other major military encounters. For that matter Donald Rumsfeld was right (albeit uncouth) in pointing out that the rate of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq is lower than civilians killed in Washington, D.C. Moreover, the civilian casualty rate in Iraq is even lower. Most of their risk has already passed.
>>That makes the media pretty much right in the middle.
You're defining conditions by claims, which is an extraordinarily specious argument. Apply that reasoning to just about anything and it would sound pretty ridiculous, as it does here. Opposing claims is not evidence of an intermediate condition. "Creationists say that evolution is wrong and scientists say that it's right, so evolution is probably half-right." That kind of thinking makes no sense and is an obstruction to legitimate argument.
Ignore claims for the moment and look at facts:
#1) Those who work in the media are registered Democrat and vote Democrat by overwhelming margins.
#2) Word usage analyses by places such as Harvard, Stanford, and UCLA show a clear left-leaning bias.
>>How exactly is Sharpton a racist?
Al Sharpton has made numerous comments throughout his public life condemning white people as a whole. That by definition is racist, although some continue to insist that prejudice against the majority race cannot be considered racism. Granted, he's toned down his rhetoric in the last year or so, but has a history of bigotry against the "white interloper."
>>No, because the right has done such an effective job at tarnishing the word "liberal".
Faulty premise. You mean to tell me that liberals haven't tarnished the word "conservative." The word conjures up images of stubborn, ignorant white men often with racist overtones. You can't pretend that only one side has attempted to denigrate the other, but for whatever reason conservatives haven't become ashamed of their designation. I suspect this actually has very little to do with what epithets are attached to a particular political designation and more to do with how comfortable people are with their own views.
>>they are merely shills for the republicans.
Clearly you haven't actually listened to much talk radio. Rush and his ilk regularly express their displeasure with Bush, albeit not as much as the Democrats. Those talk show hosts are out to serve themselves, no one else.
>>They are in no way, shape, or form, a news source. If they wanted to counter the so-called liberal media they would involve themselves in reporting underreported news not punditry.
Again you seem to be missing key points here. Let's assume for the moment that the media is biased. What does that actually mean? It means that they are influencing the presentation of the news and/or introducing their opinions into the news. Thus punditry must be involved or there is no question of bias to begin with. And have you actually bothered to turn on the radio? Every right-wing show out there brings up what it considers to be under or un-reported news, sometimes legitimate and sometimes not. If you can't grasp that then I don't know exactly what grounds we're going to argue from.
>>accusing liberals of threatening our democracy
It's not the fact that they're liberal which threatens our democracy, but the fact that a significant minority of them have become so hate-filled and irrational. Liberalism itself is no threat, and moreover it's even an asset. Liberalism, even in excess, helps to keep America questioning its own assumptions and actions. I don't think much of liberalism when it comes to making decisions, because I think there is a certain flawed idealism and hypocrisy that hampers realistic discussion and action, but it's certainly a benefit to our democracy.
The hate and irrationality, however, are poisonous and counter-productive. I have no problem saying that John Kerry is probably a good man who is trying to do what he thinks is in the best interests of the country. I don't know many liberals who can or at least would say the same about George Bush.
>>stop viewing people like yourself as the spawn of satan.
I think you misunderstood me. I don't mind being d
>>anyone who insists you base your opinion on only a fragment of the story is NOT someone you should be listening to.
You mean like those anti-war individuals who selectively ignore the quality of life under Saddam Hussein and sanctions in their evaluation of the effects on the Iraqi people?
To clarify a point that should have been obvious, I'm not saying that you base your opinion of the entire war on one part of the results, I'm saying that it's just as important to acknowledge that positive things did result from the war as acknowledging the negative ones. The question wasn't whether or not the war was the right thing to do, that question is far too complex and emotionally charged for a flippant post on a message board like this. I was talking about the recognition of positives regarding individuals and their actions.
Let me clarify further with an example: I don't like John Kerry and don't want him elected. While I don't like the fact that Kerry attacks Cheney for receiving deferments when Kerry himself received several during schooling and applied for additional ones, I can simultaneously acknowledge the positives of Kerry's service in Vietnam.
By acknowledging a positive I am not endorsing the person or the situation, I'm just building a more healthy and justifiable perception by attempting to see the positives as well as the negatives. In the same way one could look at Iraq and while still objecting to the war, acknowledging that significantly good things did result from it. Whether or not those good things outweight the bad things is a separate issue and not one that I asked.
>>The vast majority of Iraqis want the U.S. to leave right away because hey belive that if we leave they will be safer.
Actionable ignorance is far more dangerous than apathy, my mistake. What you just said is actually 100% false. Nearly every poll I've seen that bothered to ask the question has confirmed that Iraqis do not want the United States to pull its troops out of Iraq immediately precisely because they believe that without U.S. troops the security situation would be that much worse. In fact, those polls indicate that most Iraqis want U.S. troops to be more active in securing the peace.
>>I see no increase in freedoms and opportunities.
Ok, in my last response to you I made it clear that I wasn't calling you stupid, just your inability to understand the irrelevance of mass to the DU issue, but now I think I can safely say that you're either stupid or so biased that you're incapable of honesty. Seriously, no one can say with any legitimacy whatsoever that they can't see any increase in freedoms and opportunities. The very fact that we even know what Iraqis think now is a demonstration of their freedoms and opportunities. They finally have the ability to complain, something they could never do before, and incidentally a reason why it's no surprise that they seem to complain constantly. If I'd been prevented from complaining for decades I imagine I would do it with every breath as well. They can assemble freely and before too long they're going to begin the long, arduous process of appointing and constructing their own government. Things are tough over there, change always is, but no one can say that there has been no increase in freedoms and opportunities without looking like a total moron.
>>it will be until we can build an international coalition
Let me guess, you didn't bother to read a thing about Iraq between 1991 and 2003. In fact, I'd hazard a guess to say that you don't care about the Iraqi people at all, their only utility to use is as a means for criticizing the administration. I say that because of your complete and utter ignorance as to their opinion. If you knew anything at all you would know that the U.N. and the nations like France and Russia which support Hussein are far more widely despised in Iraq than we are. Moreover, what have international coalitions ever accomplished? Did you even know that in the oft-mentioned coalition in 1991 U.S. troops made up an even higher percentage of the total forces than they have in this conflict? (due to a much larger U.S. force back then while the British force is largely similar in size to what it was then)
>>he can hold a rally without screening by use of loyalty oaths.
If right-wingers were angry and obsessed enough to infiltrate and sabotage Democrat rallies, how long do you think it would take them to do the same thing? It's a product of the political climate.
>>Unless by "helping out" you mean lowering real median household income by 1.5 grand and pushing 4.3 million into poverty, according to the Census.
You have the same problem as that Entropy fellow. You distract from the relevant facts with irrelevant ones. The question wasn't whether or not people are better off, the question was whether or not tax cuts helped. Clearly the economy has taken a succession of blows (and incidentally I'm willing to bet a large sum of money that you had no idea that the fiscal year of steepest economic decline over the last decade was Clinton's last year in office - to clarify, the economy still grew the last year under Clinton but the drop from growth the previous year to that one was the largest single year drop and shows what any reasonable economist knew, that the '90s bubble was unsustainable and about to burst regardless of presidential involvement. In fact, I openly welcomed the idea of Gore getting elected in 2000 because I knew the economy was tanking and looked forward to a Democrat finally get
Well, one sentence of your post was right. (Just in case you're unsure, it was the first one.)
>>The war in Iraq was a failure because the collateral casualties and damage to international law far outweigh the nonexistent "increases" in opportunity the Iraqis have.
By conflict standards the collateral damage and casualty rates in Iraq have been among the lowest, perhaps the very lowest of any major invasion in history. Some damage and casualties are inevitable in any military engagement, so if you mean to say that these things automatically outweigh freedom gain and other less tangible benefits then you're going to devalue all conflict scenarios. In such a case you might want to explain why the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World Wars, etc can't be seen as net positive results. For my part I think it's pretty safe to say that freedoms are worth lives and hardships.
You also might want to note that, according to the numbers produced by UNICEF and other organizations that opposed U.N. sanctions against Hussein's regime, far fewer people died as a result of the military conflict than died under sanctions. Now I have always questioned their numbers, but since many of the people who object to the war are many of the same people who objected to sanctions, that fact seems particularly relevant.
>>There is zero benefit to middle-class people, since the dollar's recent fall due primarily to the cuts (and the war) far outweighs the piddling benefit the middle class got from their tax cuts.
This is some startlingly bad logic, not to mention a possible lie. Decline in the dollar began long before Bush's tax cuts and I'd love to hear any argument as to how they're related anyway. As for the faulty logic, currency changes are important for international relationships, but obviously within the system the effect is negligible since both the buyers and sellers are dealing in dollars. In those cases there is no currency exchange and therefore it is largely unaffected by a dip in value (some effects are still felt due to mitigating costs like transportation's reliance on oil, etc). But even more obvious, compare the net result of currency dip + no tax cuts versus currency dip + tax cuts. Which scenario works out better for the middle class? Obviously it's the latter.
I will give you credit for not being lazy, although I'm not sure if it's better to abuse intellectual effort in the support of something that is fundamentally anti-intellectual, namely the cause of irrational dislike. That's actually an interesting question, whether or not it's better to be lazy or to exert effort in the service of something detrimental to discussion. I imagine I'd lean toward the former, evidenced by the fact that I'd rather have irrational people not vote than do so for illegitimate reasons.
I actually just slapped my own forehead when I read your response. I didn't just have the urge, I actually did it. Thanks to your unbelievable response I have a red welt on my forehead and will not be able to go out in public for another thirty seconds or so.
*sigh* How can I explain this to someone who didn't already get what should have been a blindingly obvious point?
Comparing the mass was not only misleading but stupid because of their enormously different chemical character. Seriously, just use whatever brain you have. Why does a single DU shell have ever so much more mass than the uranium in just one bomb designed to cause massive destruction? Because they operate in different fashions. The former is relatively stable from a chemical stand-point and does not cause molecular destabilization or the release of catastrophic energies upon detonation, while the latter is extremely unstable and does produce off-the-charts energies when detonated. That's the whole frigging point, that mass has nothing at all to do with the equation because they're of completely different physical character, and therefore mass is irrelevant, and therefore bringing it up not only makes the arguer look less credible but deceitful.
For the record, tack on the handicaps of stupidity to my earlier cautions about misleading statements and irrationality. If you're just plain stupid then obviously people are never going to have a productive discussion with you whether you're attempting honest self-reflection or not. I'm not saying you are stupid, but your response certainly was. If you can't understand how mass is irrelevant and misleading to the issue then you don't have the capacity to add anything positive to the discussion.
If you can't find anything more than that then you aren't looking. Demonizing philosophical opponents is endemic of small or at least lazy minds.
Here are some possibilities:
#1) The positives in Iraq. Even if you find it incomprehensible and unjustifiable that we would invade a sovereign country pre-emptively, or if you dwell on the collateral casualties, you should stil be able to acknowledge the enormous increase in freedoms and opportunities for self-determination provided to the Iraqi people.
#2) Tax breaks positives. Even if you object to tax breaks for rich individuals or think that any tax breaks are unethical unless accompanies by cuts in spending, you should still be able to acknowledge that tax breaks have helped not only middle income but low income families, many of the latter have in fact seen their tax burden disappear completely.
Seriously, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of examples. If you can't think of any more, it's only because you aren't looking. If I as a conservative can think of many positives in the Clinton regime than you can certainly do the same for Bush.
Choose not to be a small mind. It's that simple.
D'oh. Clearly I should have said Congressman or Representative Rangel, not Senator. I gave that moron more credit than he already doesn't deserve. Shame on me. -1
I'm actually for mandatory 6-month service, but that's neither here nor there. As mentioned by others, this article certainly wasn't censored by anyone. The draft proposals received a fair amount of media coverage both in print and on television, but they went away quickly since both the administration and the Pentagon vowed that they had no intention of re-instating any such draft.
Another contributing factor to the short news cycle was the fact that Senator (and I use the term loosely) Rangel introduced the bill because he said he wanted to protest against blacks being forced to carry a disproporationate burden. Rangel conspicuously disappeared after the Pentagon informed him that while blacks do account for a higher overall percentage of military enlistment than their share of the general population, they actually account for less than their share of active duty combatants. (much of their enlistment is in non-combat support roles like tech, etc)
I'm actually all for abandoning the use of DU shells, but claims like this:
"the 800 tons of DU used in Afghanistan is the radioactive equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs. The amount of DU used in Iraq is equivalent to 250,000 Nagasaki bombs"
effectively undermine any chance of credibility or acceptance. It sounds like nonsense, and for good reason, because it is nonsense. They're comparing raw mass of the uranium used at Nagasaki (given that atomic bombs actually use tiny amounts of uranium) against the collective mass of all DU shells used, completely ignoring the fact that they're of enormously different chemical character.
If you say something like "Politician X rapes babies!" or "NAFTA has caused more deaths than all wars in the twentieth century combined!, you forfeit all consideration of other statements. I realize this is not your claim, only one you're repeating, but it's not helpful. In fact it's extremely harmful, because mindless statements like those only serve to undermine legitimate objection.
If the right gave up it would only be because they finally accepted the fact that rational arguments are lost on irrational minds.
#1) Nothing about FAIR's study is air-tight. Any study conducted with the intention of proving a pre-conceived belief should be met with the most extreme skepticism, but this particular piece is nothing more than a transparent attempt at drowning the reader in a mountain of misleading rhetoric and data as if it proved any kind of point.
For instance the survey addresses self-image, a cardinal sin for statistical analysis. People regularly mis-report or under-report their behavior in cases where they would prefer to see themselves as "better" than they actually are. Seriously, it's classic. Take any statistics course in the country and that should be one of the first things you learn. Of course if you ask someone whether or not they're centrist they're generally going to say, especially with "left" and "liberal" having such a negative connotation in this society, even among leftist liberals. Who was the last major politician you can think of who publicly identified himself as a liberal?
The rest of the questions only show that the media isn't as left as FAIR and its interests. I don't think there has ever been a question about media liberals being soft-core, although I wonder whether or not rabid lefties use this as their reason for the ridiculous suggestion that the media is actually right-wing or if they figure that making such preposterous allegations effectively negates claims made about left-leaning media bias.
Anyway, scientific studies are based on data, not self-evaluations. For instance, the fact that an overwhelming majority of journalists, editors, and producers are registered Democrats (over 80%) and that even more have voted Democrat (over 85%) in the last two presidential elections. Or you can look at word usage analyses conducted by universities and independent research institutions that consistently show left-leaning media bias.
#2) Whether or not AIM does a convincing job of stating their argument says nothing at all about the validity of the position, just their ability to argue it. Pretending that their failings, whatever they may be, are evidence that their "side" is wrong is nothing more than a cheap parlor trick. That'd be like someone painting all Democrats as fire-brand racists just because Al Sharpton happened to be one of their presidential candidates.
Seriously, liberals need to get a grip on reality before anyone can take them seriously. Do you see conservatives scared of identifying themselves with that label? I haven't, although I leave open the possibility that my experience may be statistically aberrant. Do you see more than a handful of people trying to say that talk radio isn't strongly right-leaning? Again no, pretty much everyone I've seen admits that the radio goes right, though they justify that bias by saying that they're trying to counter left-leaning television media.
Until liberals can: A) admit their own faults and B) admit that conservatives aren't the spawn of Satan, there really isn't much chance of productive discussion with them. It takes a solid grasp of reality, honest introspection, and a willingness to listen for two sides to get together. I'll grant that conservatives have certainly been out of line at times themselves as well, but right now the left is so hate-filled and irrational that it's damaging and perhaps even threatening our democracy.
And as for the original subject of the thread, this list is certainly biased but I have no problem giving attention to any of those "stories." It would certainly have more credibility if it attempted to be representative in the slightest, but that doesn't mean they automatically don't have valid points to make.