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Count Freebasie posted:The lunatics are certainly running the asylum at this point, and any movement of them coming back to reality will be a painfully slow one since there seems to be more and more dissonance in the group. Yeah, there used to be jokes about how the republicans were always good at lock-stepping while democrats were like herding cats. I think the reason that's reversed is the ease of use of the internet for everyone these days, young and old - conservatives tend to be even crazier these days because they've found other crazies online they can gravitate towards. This gets accelerated by all the pandering forces in play that previously used to keep them all in lock-step - namely conservative talk radio and TV like fox. Meanwhile, democrats have found ways to come to consensus and have healthy discussion between their 'herded cats' who now understand how important it is to find common ground with others in order to get poo poo done. Democratic, liberal, and progressive discussions online tend to be on the reasonable fact-checking and searching-for-truth side of things, instead of languishing in delusion. The progressives who previously felt alienated now feel included and that they have a say in shaping the discussion forward. And so...coming out of the Bush era, we have a marvelously organized and intelligent democratic party, up against a republican party which has become a hollow shell that resembles more a default place for Bill-of-rights-hating fundamentalist christian miscreants, bloated wealthy Ayn Rand worshipping plutocrats, and racist whack-jobs to wind up than a political party any more. For an equivalent of what happened to the GOP to happen to the democrats, you would have to imagine what would happen if 9-11 truthers and chemtrails people took over huge chunks of the party - rather than got laughed at and routinely ridiculed whenever they pop up. The republican party needs to shed the crazies the way that you would want to shed dead skin tissue after a bad sunburn - and replace them by creating new policy that is relevant to what is happening now, and which connects with people regardless if they are a democrat, a minority, etc. Spacedad fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Dec 7, 2012 |
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Spacedad posted:I think the reason that's reversed is the ease of use of the internet for everyone these days, young and old - conservatives tend to be even crazier these days because they've found other crazies online they can gravitate towards. I'm isolating this part of your post. I'm 35 and my parents are both 66. I'm a social liberal and pretty conservative, fiscally, but my mom basically thinks I'm a Communist, pinko, leftist, Muslim apologist, liberal. And here's why I took that snippet of your post out: The older generation, especially my parents and their friends, have gained a basic understanding of computers and the internet, so now they have discovered "new" sources of information. Since they have no idea that so much of the content of the internet is pure drivel, any email forward that they receive from another of their right-wing friends comes across to them as something akin to finding the Dead Sea Scrolls. Any bullshit forward that hits their inbox gets the same validation and value as something that would be broadcast to them by Walter Cronkite. My father will tell me of some new leftist plot that was exposed by some determined lone-gunman truth-finder that was forwarded to him by a friend. Then, I'll often shoot it down by showing them an article on Snopes that refutes it, which is followed by the inevitable sound byte that Republicans are so adept at vomiting on cue: "That's a liberal website! Of course they'll say it's not true!"
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Dec 7, 2012 04:35
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Spacedad posted:I'm waiting for a tipping point when the sane ones wrest control away from the increasingly isolated crazies and the party starts the long slow process of coming back to the real world. Anyone have a good source on how far the country has swung to the right, for how long, and since when? I try to talk to people about this, and I can cite the Souther Strategy and how low taxes are, historically speaking. Other than that, I don't have much. I know goons often talk about how, fiscally-speaking, the Democratic Party is center-right. Any food info on this too?
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Dec 7, 2012 04:43
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Sydney Bottocks posted:That video I posted pretty much says it all. You have two of the conservative movement's most visible (and risible) media figures, arguing with each other about taxes being raised on rich people, and one of them tells the other "You sound like Obama!" simply because she dares to suggest that the Republicans accept this particular battle as lost and regroup and refocus; because otherwise they'll just confirm in peoples' minds that they are the party of the rich, and they'll keep losing voters because of it. It truly boggles the (rational) mind that they're even arguing about this. I think it tells us a lot about Ann Coulter. For all her bile about "Rockefeller Republicans," she certainly seems to be one behind her professional troll facade. I don't know if that's reassuring or not, though. 
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Dec 7, 2012 05:06
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I grew up in a house that always had Am talk radio on. It was played more for back ground noise than for informational purposes. In 90's when times were better and the wright wing message more muted and focused. It could have a certain appeal. I mean if you can go to state subsided school, get a job that could support a family, and thats the case for others you know. It all kinda made sense. But what happens when the ideas are wrong? I think Fox News/ and the infotainment industry just kept pushing further and further to the right. For the republican/conservative ideology where is the loving line? If the republicans wants to gain power back they are going to have to tell the Infotainment groups to stop the current message to back peddle like crazy. Have the pundits change the tune to "of course we need health care reform this is how we are gonna slove the problem" "of course we need to save money here are ways that will save money" "Of course there needs to be government regulations of business here is how we will do it" The previous poster was correct, you cant succeed if its all about the hate. I would love Obama to come out and pariot some of the republicans talking points and see if they will bash them because he said it. How the gently caress can the political parties get poo poo done if the media narrative is all about my guy vs their guy with no loving context. My guys says "X" so gently caress yeah X all the way. Their Guy says "Y" so gently caress Y Then when the side says "X" Their Guy said "X" gently caress X. Thats when the media needs to step in and point out they are acting stupid instead the media is the one talking like that and pushing it that way.
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Dec 7, 2012 07:30
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Walter posted:Any student at a public university (particularly if they're classified as in-state) who identifies as libertarian (in the now common "no taxes / socialism is bad" mode) deserves to be publicly and mercilessly ridiculed. Which is something I take pride in doing. Especially as the last hard left leaning member of our college's political arts magazine. (We used to be packed to the gills with anarchists and socialists, which weren't many since were in a conservative part of New York City. The members now are a bunch of your run of the mill center-center left liberals) But me and two of my friends in the magazine have pretty much run them out of the office whenever were around cause we just beat them like red headed stepchildren. In the 3 months they were coming around they admitted to being UN Black Helicopter types, 9/11 Truthers and Birthers all ontop of their already crazy Born Again Fundie crap they would spew just ended up being a nut job overdose for many people around the office. Though it did get people interested in reading my undergrad thesis paper I finished a few years ago when I wrapped up my major (and sadly not my gen ed stuff, this school is an ordeal to get out of) which is on paranoid thought in American politics One of the things I hate though is people just assuming I'm politically biased when ever I disagree with them. Tonight while hanging around our schools newspaper someone commented on a book I was reading ("As Goes Texas," its about Texas's influence on the United States government) and it got us talking about other pop political/history books and one guy said they enjoyed Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" which I was was awful and crap and was rebuked by saying I was just too leftwardly biased.
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Dec 7, 2012 09:38
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beatlegs posted:Maybe I'm missing something, but are they agreeing, seriously agreeing, that taxes should be raised only on rich liberals? And like, how would that work? It's just a new spin she's using to try and justify her new position. She's talking about taxing a different kind of rich person than liberals talk about in the hopes that the idea of general taxes on the super rich might be more palatable to conservatives. Hannity is having none of that of course but I wouldn't be surprised if a similar kind of framing becomes common with some Republicans who want to be a part of an actual political party that does things.
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Dec 7, 2012 09:49
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KomradeX posted:One of the things I hate though is people just assuming I'm politically biased when ever I disagree with them. Tonight while hanging around our schools newspaper someone commented on a book I was reading ("As Goes Texas," its about Texas's influence on the United States government) and it got us talking about other pop political/history books and one guy said they enjoyed Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" which I was was awful and crap and was rebuked by saying I was just too leftwardly biased. Everyone is biased, and in America critical thinking gets boiled down to a south park style both sides argument, so people will accuse you of bias and then be totally blind to the fact that their own cool, dispassionate, and objective argument that obama is a deadly muslim communist is just a counterweight to some kind of straw man idea that obama is the best president ever.
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Dec 7, 2012 17:33
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Peven Stan posted:Everyone is biased, and in America critical thinking gets boiled down to a south park style both sides argument, so people will accuse you of bias and then be totally blind to the fact that their own cool, dispassionate, and objective argument that obama is a deadly muslim communist is just a counterweight to some kind of straw man idea that obama is the best president ever. Oh I agree entirely, and I know I'm biased, hell I admit whenever prompted. I just hate that your bias means your wrong cause what you believe is outside of the "acceptable political discourse." Hell I've been lumped in with the Libertarian Fundie 9/11 UN Black Helicopter Squad because I present Marxist and Anti-Capitalist arguments in articles I write. Its mind boggling
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Dec 7, 2012 19:25
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Guess who refuses to admit he failed miserabily at his job?Dick Morris posted:“Romney was, in fact, leading before Sandy and that his chances blew away in the storm with its famous bipartisan photo of Governor Chris Christie with Obama,” Morris writes. “And there was no way to measure the impact of Sandy since there could not logistically be any polling. Why was I wrong? I’m a pollster, not a meteorologist!” Oh, okay. White people were blown away by the storm, like in that McCoy cartoon. Makes sense. Anything else that could have changed the tide, Dick? An Incompetent Asshat posted:There is a very good story to be told about Bain and it was masterfully captured in an ad produced by Romney media guru Stuart Stevens but was aired for only limited times and there was no follow up. Had that very ad been run more, Romney would, in my opinion, have been elected president! Ooooh, there was a magic bullet ad that, for some reason, the Romney campaign decided to keep under wraps. Full tears and overuse of the term "blacks" here: http://www.dickmorris.com/whites-stayed-home-and-re-elected-obama/
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Dec 7, 2012 19:48
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I thought Sandy hit states like NY and NJ, the hardest. I'm trying to figure out what this guy's logic is but how did Sandy make white people in Colorado, Virginia, or Florida stay home?
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Dec 7, 2012 19:58
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Spacedad posted:I think the reason that's reversed is the ease of use of the internet for everyone these days, young and old - conservatives tend to be even crazier these days because they've found other crazies online they can gravitate towards. This gets accelerated by all the pandering forces in play that previously used to keep them all in lock-step - namely conservative talk radio and TV like fox. Disgusting. Why does Fox News still exist? Is there really still an audience for their pathetic excuse for "journalism"? Hmph.. Anyone want to help me build a large moon cannon to wipe Fox News from the face of the earth?
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Dec 7, 2012 20:01
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Peven Stan posted:I thought Sandy hit states like NY and NJ, the hardest. I'm trying to figure out what this guy's logic is but how did Sandy make white people in Colorado, Virginia, or Florida stay home? No, don't you see? Millions of people saw a photo of Chris Christie with Obama and decided to vote for Obama right then and there. Non-whites vote based on things like that, so it explains everything really.
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Dec 7, 2012 20:11
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Unzip and Attack posted:No, don't you see? Millions of people saw a photo of Chris Christie with Obama and decided to vote for Obama right then and there. Non-whites vote based on things like that, so it explains everything really. Actually, his point is that white people stayed home because they temporarily lost the fear of Obama by seeing him with Christie and therefore let MINORITIES be the deciding demographic. Also, if more of them had seen THE AWESOME AD... something something, president Romney
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Dec 7, 2012 20:19
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Dick Morris, lisping persuasively posted:“Romney was, in fact, leading before Sandy and that his chances blew away in the storm with its famous bipartisan photo of Governor Chris Christie with Obama,” Morris writes. “And there was no way to measure the impact of Sandy since there could not logistically be any polling. Why was I wrong? I’m a pollster, not a meteorologist!” My, Dick, what a precise and well developed Dolchstoßlegende you've developed there! Maybe you should go on Fox News and tell us all abouhahahaha oh god this pleasure.
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Dec 7, 2012 20:26
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SedanChair posted:My, Dick, what a precise and well developed Dolchstoßlegende you've developed there! Maybe you should go on Fox News and tell us all abouhahahaha oh god this pleasure. Stabbed in the back by, of all things, a hurricane for gently caress's sake. The republicans really have it hard if mother nature is conspiring with radical muslim Obama to screw them out of an election.
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Dec 7, 2012 20:31
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Peven Stan posted:Stabbed in the back by, of all things, a hurricane for gently caress's sake. The republicans really have it hard if mother nature is conspiring with radical muslim Obama to screw them out of an election. Really gotta imagine all the super crazies who thought that Katrina was some sort of punishment from God, then Sandy rolls along and...
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Dec 7, 2012 20:36
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Peven Stan posted:Everyone is biased, and in America critical thinking gets boiled down to a south park style both sides argument, so people will accuse you of bias and then be totally blind to the fact that their own cool, dispassionate, and objective argument that obama is a deadly muslim communist is just a counterweight to some kind of straw man idea that obama is the best president ever. Yeah. The purpose of brainlessly invoking a 'truth lies in the middle' and 'fairness and balance' thing is to give the objectively false 'side' an air of legitimacy it does not deserve. The most egregious example of this for me is evolution versus creationism. Evolution is a science that has withstood rigorous testing, extensive study, and supporting by mountains of evidence that is the result of countless hours of hard work on the part of scientists. Creationism wants to skip all that effort and just be considered somehow equal for 'fairness.' That's immediately imbalanced - it's like a guy on tricycle challenging a formula 1 race car driver to a race, but only if the guy on the trike is placed two inches from the finish line at the start. Obviously that tricycle is equal to a formula one race car and the truth lies in the middle. There are indeed issues where there is nuance and multiple valid perspectives - but dumbing down something into a brainless dichotomy is just lazy and is a surrendering of one's critical faculties in a way that makes one wrongly feel as though they are taking the intellectual high ground. Spacedad fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Dec 7, 2012 |
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Dec 7, 2012 20:37
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You know, with the acceptance of possibly some immigration reform, Coulter the other night on FOX saying "WE LOST SEAN", Rove and company not being on the network anymore, I was wondering if at least FOX was going to slightly moderate itself and leave losing social issues at least to the true believers like Limbaugh. Nope. In the course of half a day, we have Bill O'Riley agreeing gays are responsible for the War on Christmas http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/12/07/1301451/bill-oreilly-blames-fabricated-war-on-christmas-on-fabricated-gay-rights-agenda/ And do you remember that War on Men article from a week or so ago from Suzanne Venker? Well apparently they've decided to double down on that. She's back with a new article today and a round of appearances on the network. To be succinct about the article, "Women, your natural place is submission to your man, deal with it." http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/12/07/let-call-truce-in-war-on-men/ Also men, you are loners who like to kill things. That's not even a slightly hyperbolic summary, that's literally what is written about you guys. Given their doubling down on craziness, and the reports that both Maddow and O'Donnel had been topping their time slots for the three major news stations in the weeks following the election, I look forward to the upcoming "FOX is no longer number one in viewers" article in the hopefully not so distant future.
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Dec 7, 2012 20:57
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DarkUltim8Hedgehog posted:Disgusting. Why does Fox News still exist? Is there really still an audience for their pathetic excuse for "journalism"? Hmph.. Fox exists to make profit by 'cheating' at the news - making fake tabloid issues where there are none. (Example: war on Christmas). It is also the propaganda wing of the Republican Party, effectively. It has become too powerful for its own good though - it has chased away anyone who would act as objective fact checkers. And so, even though Nate Silver made his data available to anyone for a great deal of time before the election, both everyone at Fox and its audience seriously thought a Romney landslide was imminent. Even Romney himself was fooled - he didn't have a concession speech prepared. To say nothing of Sheldon 'fool and his money' Adelson. They literally all deluded one another.
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Dec 7, 2012 20:58
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Count Freebasie posted:I'm a social liberal and pretty conservative, fiscally Not to pick on you here, but Christ, I wish people would stop saying this. It's meaningless bullshit. I assume what it means is that you like gay people and black folks, but think taxes are too high or some such thing? Am I close?
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Dec 7, 2012 21:19
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Walter posted:Not to pick on you here, but Christ, I wish people would stop saying this. It's meaningless bullshit. I think most "socially liberal, fiscal conservative" types are for civil liberties and equal rights, but against things like social welfare. So they're cool with gays/blacks/weed but FYGM. Edit: I guess that's a pretty apt description of libertarianism too.
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Dec 7, 2012 21:26
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Frankly, I don't think you can be socially liberal while being fiscally conservative because it still means you buy into the just world hypothesis. "Sure, I have nothing against the poor, or minorities, or gays and such. But they can all totally bootstrap themselves to success just as equally as everyone else. All of these groups face proportionally much higher rates of everything from poverty and lack of health care to education levels to abuse? Don't worry, the market will fix it."
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Dec 7, 2012 21:29
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Yeah, that was pretty much my point. I hear lots of people say this, and I don't think they really think through the actual implications of the two positions. They don't go well together. Not persecuting gay people for wanting to get married, having a few black friends, and thinking weed should be legalized doesn't make you "socially liberal."
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Dec 7, 2012 21:46
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I think you guys are too hard on people that call themselves socially liberal and fiscally conservative. It's such a broad and vague categorization that it really doesn't tell you anything. I find that most people that refer to themselves this way are just not very political, and as a result they lack the proper verbiage to articulate their beliefs. It's frustrating that people aren't politically aware enough to align their vote with their core values, but that can be blamed on many things.
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Dec 7, 2012 21:52
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Amused to Death posted:Frankly, I don't think you can be socially liberal while being fiscally conservative because it still means you buy into the just world hypothesis. "Sure, I have nothing against the poor, or minorities, or gays and such. But they can all totally bootstrap themselves to success just as equally as everyone else. All of these groups face proportionally much higher rates of everything from poverty and lack of health care to education levels to abuse? Don't worry, the market will fix it." That is exactly how my guardians are. Get the government out of the bedroom and gently caress the poors, they should have been able to afford health insurance and Obama is a socialist and spend less! It just comes down to money for them it seems. They don't care about all the rest they just care about money over everything else in the world.
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Dec 7, 2012 21:58
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Sword of Chomsky posted:I think you guys are too hard on people that call themselves socially liberal and fiscally conservative. It's such a broad and vague categorization that it really doesn't tell you anything. I find that most people that refer to themselves this way are just not very political, and as a result they lack the proper verbiage to articulate their beliefs. It's frustrating that people aren't politically aware enough to align their vote with their core values, but that can be blamed on many things. It's just like people who say "multiculturalism has failed." They may not be aware of the intent of those who crafted the message, but they certainly didn't come up with it on their own. It's a red flag that their political thinking has been poisoned by Libertarian talking points. I used to think the same thing about myself, then I realized that the only part of the sentence I really cared about was the social aspect. Freed from the need to defend American Toryism, my education began.
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Dec 7, 2012 22:08
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Do you all consider Alex Jones to be a part of the dittohead complex? I live in Austin, and so when I turn to talk radio it's him most of the time. He has a veneer of being outside the left/right paradigm, but he still invokes fear and anger in his listeners, same as any AM host. He's pretty Bircher-y too, obviously. Today Alex was smugging about a cat parasite which (he believes) is the central cause of depression and suicide in humans. Alex has known about this parasite for ages, and now everyone else is just catching on, so he was feeling pretty good about himself. The parasite is also why he doesn't like cats. The more I listen to it, the more I understand how his listeners, and most right wing radio listeners generally, must feel. These people live in a very dark, fearful psychic space. The world is closing in on them at every turn. Soon there will be bread lines and runaway inflation and their cats will make them commit suicide. Nothing they can do will stop the tide, so they might as well take advantage of Alex's branded apocalypse merchandise and the cycle continues. It's really, really sad. And now I've come away feeling sort of sorry for these people when I just want to laugh. 
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Dec 7, 2012 22:36
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BanjoFish posted:Do you all consider Alex Jones to be a part of the dittohead complex? I live in Austin, and so when I turn to talk radio it's him most of the time. He has a veneer of being outside the left/right paradigm, but he still invokes fear and anger in his listeners, same as any AM host. He's pretty Bircher-y too, obviously. I don't know if Alex Jones has a particular political base other than the paranoid nuts who populate Prisonplanet.com. From the very little that I know about him I think he falls under the libertarian/populist banner, but his ideas are so far out and kooky that I can't ascribe them to either the left or the right.
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Dec 7, 2012 22:41
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Zeroisanumber posted:I don't know if Alex Jones has a particular political base other than the paranoid nuts who populate Prisonplanet.com. From the very little that I know about him I think he falls under the libertarian/populist banner, but his ideas are so far out and kooky that I can't ascribe them to either the left or the right. Looking at infowars, I think the description of todays show is interesting: Alex Jones posted:On the Friday, December 7 edition of the Alex Jones Show, Alex runs down developing news stories, including moves against Syria as the USS Eisenhower arrives in the waters off the besieged Middle Eastern nation. It now looks certain Western-Arab military intervention against the Assad regime is due to begin shortly with the participation of the U.S., France, Britain, Turkey, Jordan and other anti-Assad Arab nations. Alex talks with Syrian Girl about the latest developments. Alex also talks with global warming skeptic Lord Christopher Monckton about his eviction from a United Nations climate change summit taking place in Qatar on Thursday. Alex also covers the latest surge in gun sales and takes your calls during today's worldwide broadcast. It's kind of funny that he believes there are so many mysterious forces at work which manipulate all of society: the UN, floride in the water, vaccines, etc. but somehow global warming is just too crazy to be real.
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Dec 7, 2012 22:59
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Zeroisanumber posted:I don't know if Alex Jones has a particular political base other than the paranoid nuts who populate Prisonplanet.com. From the very little that I know about him I think he falls under the libertarian/populist banner, but his ideas are so far out and kooky that I can't ascribe them to either the left or the right. Alex Jones is just Alex Jones. His positions are basically the combined crazies on both flanks. The kind of people who believe, that the UN is coming to take our guns and outlaw automobiles, chemtrails and fluoride are poisoning our precious bodily fluids, the government is logging everything you do on the internet (true), and that vaccines secretly cause autism. The positions generally skew right just because there's a hundred Birchers, birthers, and goldbugs for every 9/11 truther, but really it's just a collection of nutbags.
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Dec 7, 2012 23:13
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Alex Jones is a loving idiot paranoid who, despite lacking any credentials whatsoever, suffers under the delusions that he is expert in: - engineering (Inside Job  )- domestic policy - foreign policy - finance The man is a certifiable loving joke. And when he is right, as all clocks are at some point (namely, the erosion of constitutional and amendment rights), he still completely misses the loving target, blaming the U.N, New World Order, Bilderburg Group, liberal media (  ), foreigners, and on, and on.You know, anybody except every administration since FDR died, which is to say, the people who actually have the power to make and break rules of government. Mister Facetious fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Dec 7, 2012 |
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Dec 7, 2012 23:29
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SedanChair posted:Ah, but you see, your link has "gov" in the URL. *shuts off mind* My mother just did this. I heard a news story about how motorcycle accidents cost 16 Billion a year, not counting long-term care for people with head and neck injuries. My position was that choosing to not wear a helmet while riding is no longer just a matter of personal liberty, because it infringes on my pocket-book, so Wear a Helmet. Literally because the study came from the Government, my mother rejected my position out of hand without even thinking.
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Dec 7, 2012 23:31
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colonelslime posted:Oh man, Iran. Anyone who talks about Iran's belligerence to the US as not being exactly what the US deserves is full of poo poo. A country that claims to love freedom and democracy helps overthrow a popular democratically elected leader and re-empowers the monarchy, because said leader decided to nationalize the oil fields. There are no Have a dose of reality: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3390388&pagenumber=761&perpage=40#post407562579
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Dec 8, 2012 00:10
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big enough for that incident
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Sick_Boy posted:Why didn’t whites vote and why didn’t we all spot it sooner? I don't understand this passage at all (aside from the part where he tries to duck any responsibility for being wrong). Because of Sandy, there could be no polling. But there WAS a poll after Sandy, by Gallup. Which was wrong by 4 points or so. What?  Sick_Boy posted:There is a very good story to be told about Bain and it was masterfully captured in an ad produced by Romney media guru Stuart Stevens but was aired for only limited times and there was no follow up. Had that very ad been run more, Romney would, in my opinion, have been elected president! I wondered about this very thing throughout the campaign. Since Romney's main argument for President was based on his private sector experience (since the current GOP environment prevents him claiming credit for Romneycare), which boiled down to Bain, I figured there HAD to be some kind of positive stories about good things that came out of Bain, and the fact that we pretty much didn't hear about this, even from Romney's campaign, was pretty damning. Implying there wasn't much of anything except arcane finance maneuvers, loading up companies with debt and stripping the copper wire out of their walls. I wonder if this ad is on Youtube.
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Dec 8, 2012 00:55
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There is this old dude who every so often comes to the coffeeshop I read at, and he is always blasting Alex Jones on a stereo boombox radio raheem style as he sits down to drink his coffee. I have an upsetting amount of familiarity with Jones' style because of this guy.
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Dec 8, 2012 03:47
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His movies are fantastic, especially if you're as high as a loving kite. Having been a soldier for a few years, I haven't had the opportunity, but I guess his popularity dropped off post bush and he hasn't seemed to put out films with nearly the regularity he used to.
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Dec 8, 2012 04:09
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Amused to Death posted:Frankly, I don't think you can be socially liberal while being fiscally conservative because it still means you buy into the just world hypothesis. "Sure, I have nothing against the poor, or minorities, or gays and such. But they can all totally bootstrap themselves to success just as equally as everyone else. All of these groups face proportionally much higher rates of everything from poverty and lack of health care to education levels to abuse? Don't worry, the market will fix it." I used to un-ironically call my myself socially liberal, fiscally conservative. The problem is that fiscal conservatism perpetuates social inequality, leading to social exploitation. It took me awhile to learn this.
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Dec 8, 2012 05:16
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Then you realize that "fiscal conservatives" aren't fiscally conservative at all since they believe (sincerely or otherwise) that tax cuts lower the deficit. They literally use government debt to pay for their tax cuts, and government spending to enrich their friends at Koch and Haliburton. There's nothing fiscally conservative about them.
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Dec 8, 2012 05:27
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Soap Bat Derby posted:Have a dose of reality: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3390388&pagenumber=761&perpage=40#post407562579 That was a really interesting post, thanks.  I was aware of some of the history surrounding Operation Ajax, but I didn't know the Mossadegh had suspended the Majlis during his election. In that context, the whole "overthrew democratically elected leader" does become specious.But, I don't think this negates my point that the US taking the side of, and continuing to support until the revolution, the Shah's regime is rather ironic given the calls to democracy it continuously made and makes. And given that operation Ajax was still conducted by the US for the sake of British interests, I don't think tracing at least some of Iran's belligerence towards the West, or its resistance to US demands that it cease its nuclear program, to western intervention in Iran is that far fetched. The Iranian regime has every reason not to trust US intentions, and every reason to resist hegemonic demands that it get in line. Edit: What the hell is fiscal conservatism anyway? I've yet to see a definition of it that wasn't stated in platitudes about government inefficiency and the need to streamline services. The phrases seems to just be a shibboleth for FYGM avarice created so that people could identify each other without saying "I am a greedy bastard" Political Whores fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Dec 8, 2012 |
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Dec 8, 2012 05:39
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