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colonelslime posted: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. The problem is that everyone remembers this, except for Americans.
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Dec 8, 2012 05:45
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Mitchicon posted:I used to un-ironically call my myself socially liberal, fiscally conservative. Oh god so did I  Ugh why did I buy into that crap. At least I was like only 19 at the time.
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Dec 8, 2012 06:00
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Mitchicon posted:The problem is that everyone remembers this, except for Americans. Which was kind of the point of my post that Soap Bat Derby quoted. I never thought that the Iranian revolution was caused by US actions, but a lot of the rhetoric in the media, and not even just the right wing fringe, takes this kind of ahistorical approach to Iran's belligerence and acts as if the only reason Iran would resist US pressure is because they're crazy Mooslims out to nuke Israel.
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Dec 8, 2012 06:03
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colonelslime posted:Which was kind of the point of my post that Soap Bat Derby quoted. I never thought that the Iranian revolution was caused by US actions, but a lot of the rhetoric in the media, and not even just the right wing fringe, takes this kind of ahistorical approach to Iran's belligerence and acts as if the only reason Iran would resist US pressure is because they're crazy Mooslims out to nuke Israel. Oddly enough, I learned this while a linguist at the military language institute while learning Farsi. That was a real kick in the face. Amused to Death posted:Oh god so did I Because it made us feel good. The sort of "compassionate profiteer" bullshit is easy to buy into because it makes us feel comfortable about American society and what we've been told about being tolerant. It's way easier to recognize when people are being obviously marginalized, rather than understanding institutional inequality. The first part requires you to be honest about what you observe, the second requires you at actively research and understand your surroundings.
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Dec 8, 2012 06:15
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I'd imagine that a good 80% of young progressives were dumbass libertarians or pseudo-libertarians at one point. If you're a relatively intelligent person, there's a huge draw to the whole Randian "Use Your Mind to Shape the Universe" outlook. I mostly just think that teenage libertarians are adorably naive, now.
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Dec 8, 2012 07:03
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BUSH 2112 posted:I'd imagine that a good 80% of young progressives were dumbass libertarians or pseudo-libertarians at one point. If you're a relatively intelligent person, there's a huge draw to the whole Randian "Use Your Mind to Shape the Universe" outlook. I mostly just think that teenage libertarians are adorably naive, now.
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Dec 8, 2012 07:10
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BUSH 2112 posted:I'd imagine that a good 80% of young progressives were dumbass libertarians or pseudo-libertarians at one point. If you're a relatively intelligent person, there's a huge draw to the whole Randian "Use Your Mind to Shape the Universe" outlook. I mostly just think that teenage libertarians are adorably naive, now. Or it was obvious the rich are kind of evil from a young age.
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Dec 8, 2012 08:03
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Amused to Death posted:Oh god so did I Much like me, you probably had no problem with gays or minorities, but at the same time was all  over having a portion of your first paycheck taken away for Social Security. That, and you thought that those who weren't financially secure must deserve it, because how hard can it really be if everyone you personally know can get by?I also admit to liking Rand for a while as a high school junior due to having no idea what a "social contract" was. It was *your* money, right? Why should anyone force you to pay taxes or help anyone?
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Dec 8, 2012 08:12
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I must have been an odd kid. I grew up in a somewhat wealthy household as well as a working poor household and a solid middle-middle class one - parents divorced when I was 6, Dad was/is a lawyer, Mom a Winn Dixie deli hand and later a medical assistant married to a beer warehouse super. I knew what taxes meant, and it was my father who told me taxes buy civilization, I never knew where the line came from but he always quoted that line. I grew up with a respect for the safety net as I and my siblings were assigned to my mother for primary custody. No family issues outside of money, and that went away by the time I was in middle school. Lived on food stamps, knew what WIC was, etc. Also had been to Europe, Australia, the Caribbean, Central America and all but the most depopulated states by the time I went to high school. Suffice it to say I didn't run across Rand until college and after a short tryst rooted in self-worship and conceit (I was the smart kid in school, academic decathlons and poo poo, got praise from teachers, so the whole self-importance complex took root) I realized that Objectivism was a bunch of psychobabble frippery designed to give awful people an esoteric excuse to be lovely and never accept their fallibility or even acknowledge their common humanity. I had an odd childhood in that sense. Grew up in a poor household but simultaneously never wanted for anything. Got a sort of philosophical education from my father who, while being decidedly fiscally conservative, is practical about it - knows the savings of UHC, gets the tax problems, just thinks we spend too much on dumb poo poo. I don't quite know how best to explain it other than I grew up simultaneously privileged and poor and have a political mindset that is both socially and fiscally liberal in the sense that I believe in the right of the government to equalize inequality through taxation and transfer payments, but also fiscally conservative in the sense that we spend too much on the military and spies and the subsidization of dirty industry. I guess that goes with the social part, though.
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Dec 8, 2012 08:37
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ProperGanderPusher posted:Much like me, you probably had no problem with gays or minorities, but at the same time was all No, in fact we were poor as poo poo I wasn't even ever really against taxes. I mean I liked Social Security and I also had no delusions of where I was in the social ladder and that I'd be getting back all the other federal taxes come the new year. Plus we had been on food stamps and welfare back when.(ah memories, I vaguely remember the old food stamps that looked like monopoly money) Heck, my store started this charity thing where everyone had to give up something weekly from their paycheck for a specific charity, most people chose of course the 25 cent option, I chose the $1.50 option(and I made it for Planned Parenthood, the  look from the person responsible for getting us to pick a charity to choose was well worth the weekly donations). I just firmly believed in, well, ALL GLORY TO THE MARKET. I was convinced if unleashed the market would solve everything. It would lower prices, increase employment, all those normal talking points. I think being poor actually fueled the ideas since "Hey, we and tons of others are poor, obviously government hasn't worked in solving this poo poo." Hell I even had some crazy idea that in fact all government assistance programs should in fact not be privatized since that would just be getting rid of them, but instead be handed to non profit private companies that would compete against each other for something, and then do something, where in the end something would happen with the most successful company. I don't know, I wish I could remember what the actual plan was because I distinctly remember the person I was arguing with I got to go "Huh, I never thought of it that way. I don't think it'd be better but that could actually work", and she was a poster I debated with a lot somewhere else at time. We never usually agreed on economic issues, but we liked each other and always kept on with it since we were both serious about being calm and trying to back up points. My crazy non profit market plan for government assistance though was apparently so crazy it made sense.
Amused to Death fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Dec 8, 2012 |
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Dec 8, 2012 08:41
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BUSH 2112 posted:I'd imagine that a good 80% of young progressives were dumbass libertarians or pseudo-libertarians at one point. If you're a relatively intelligent person, there's a huge draw to the whole Randian "Use Your Mind to Shape the Universe" outlook. I mostly just think that teenage libertarians are adorably naive, now. I read Atlas Shrugged in high school on recommendation from a lady, and it just pissed me off. I probably wouldn't have even finished it if I didn't have an in-school suspension where the choices were to sit in an empty room doing nothing for eight hours or read the only book in my backpack at the time. Even at age 18 or so, I recognized that there was seriously some utterly ridiculous poo poo happening, and I'm not even talking about perpetual motion machines or forcefields or whatever, I'm just talking about basic situations that spiral into insanity. Like some minor celebrity demanding a stopped train pass through a tunnel that will kill everyone on-board (it's a coal train and the tunnel has no ventilation or some poo poo, I don't remember), and the railroad company literally firing everyone who said "No way man it's gonna kill everyone" until someone finally says "Okay let it go through hurrr the railroad can't risk a snub from this C-list celeb" and then everybody dies. There's also a scene that stuck out to me where a team of the brilliant capitalists is trying to rescue John Galt, and one of them gets the drop on a marine and is all "Move or I'll shoot you" and the marine's all "B-b-but I was told to follow orders to NOT move!" and then the capitalist says "If you follow your orders you'll die you have to make a decision on your own to not die" and since the marine is a stupid incompetent government worker he literally stands there sputtering and spasming like a robot that's been told a paradox going "Orders, but I don't wanna die but I have ORDERS but if I follow them I WILL die BEEP BOOP ERROR" until the capitalist shoots him. Basically I'm saying anyone over the age of thirteen who thinks these books are serious, thoughtful works may have a cognitive disability. Wolfsheim fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Dec 8, 2012 |
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Dec 8, 2012 09:19
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If we did go over the scary "fiscal cliff" and legislation was immediately proposed by Democrats to keep the popular tax cuts and such, how in the heck would conservative media people be able to spin that?
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Dec 8, 2012 10:16
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Lycus posted:My joy over Limbaugh's ratings plummeting is tempered by the fact that his #1 spot is being taken by Savage. I'm not sure if terrible radio shows are ever not going to be the most popular. Limbaugh is actually good at it, though. Savage is just a madman. It is good to have a switch to a less charismatic rear end in a top hat.
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Dec 8, 2012 10:39
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All Of The Dicks posted:Limbaugh is actually good at it, though. Savage is just a madman. It is good to have a switch to a less charismatic rear end in a top hat. But is Rush really all that charismatic, when you get right down to it? How many people is he winning over with his rhetoric? Re: Kids going through a libertarian phase... I never did. I must have been lucky. My parents both have advanced degrees, working in a field that paid enough to keep us comfortable (although in retrospect there were probably many discussions about coming up short that I was not privy to as a child). Regardless of that, my folks never bitched (or even resented) taxes they paid. I think it came from the fact that they both had parents who went through the Depression and consequently understood what social programs are for. My folks are liberal through and through, and the most conservative thing I can say about them is that my mom was a little taken aback the first time my brother told her that he was moving in with his girlfriend. That lasted about five minutes, though. Both my folks voted for McGovern in 1972, and my dad has said before that Bill Clinton was too conservative for him. The funny thing is, neither of them were ever hippies or even took part in much of that 1960s counter-culture stuff. My dad was into jazz and didn't care much for the sound of amplified overdriven guitar, neither of them drinks (my mom didn't ever, I suspect my dad did), and even though we never went to church (and neither one of them is religious) most of our neighbors would have sworn that we were churchgoers from the way we behaved. The point is, I managed to avoid every bit of the conservative mindset from the womb onward. And I never even heard of Rand until libertarians started bringing it up online. I avoided all that bullshit entirely. I never went through a libertarian phase, or even a mildly conservative one. It's probably unfair, then, that I have little patience for little shits who parrot the bullshit talking points of their conservative parents, or the middle class white privileged libertarian nonsense. I respect the lot of you that managed to climb out of that pit of FYGM. I just wish more people would. And if I never hear "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" again, it'll be too soon.
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Dec 8, 2012 13:05
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I never went through a libertarian phase either. I was one of those people who had Ayn Rand worshipping friends (who since have rejected her) who totally thought I needed to read Atlas Shrugged because it changed their lives. (In reality they got into it because of that one Rush album the band has since apologized over.) So my first impression of Rand was that it was basically a religious cult of poor-haters who all see themselves as demigods above ordinary humans. Ever since I've pretty much despised Rand personally for turning some of my friends into miniature Ayn Rands for a couple years. That's what her work does - makes people into mini Rands. Mini poor hating self superior hypocritical sociopaths. Her work is effective in that regard. It's doggerel trash in any other aspect though. I remember reading Atlas Shrugged for the first time and feeling like I was reading some very bad fanfiction. "Who is John Galt?" He's Mary Sue, that's who. Spacedad fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Dec 8, 2012 |
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Dec 8, 2012 15:41
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Walter posted:I must have been lucky. My parents both have advanced degrees, working in a field that paid enough to keep us comfortable (although in retrospect there were probably many discussions about coming up short that I was not privy to as a child). Regardless of that, my folks never bitched (or even resented) taxes they paid. This was pretty much me as well. In addition, I don't really have any crazy conservative relatives; no one in my family really goes more right wing than "I pay my taxes, leave me alone please".
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Dec 8, 2012 15:45
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I never went through it because my older brother did. I got to see what he was saying and why from the outside, without risking indocrination myself, and how little sense any of it made. He's still never rejected it, which makes me a sad panda, because it means there's no way I can discuss politics with him to this day. The only people further right than him are my sister and her husband, who gave the whole family 'You're all hellbound here's where Jesus is comin!' warning packets at Thanksgiving this year. I've still never actually read Atlas Shrugged, because I've heard enough to see there's no real reason to.
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Dec 8, 2012 16:17
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Walter posted:But is Rush really all that charismatic, when you get right down to it? How many people is he winning over with his rhetoric? It's entirely possible it's just the area I live in (northwest Louisiana) but Rush is practically sacred around here. My circle is fairly liberal but their families are anything but. During the Sandra Fluke debacle my old roommate's mother for example did the most amazing gymnastics I've ever seen to defend Rush and deflect criticism onto anyone and everything else. She wasn't the only one of course, but she really stood out because otherwise she's really sweet and caring. It blew my mind she could feel the way she did about such an awful man. Rush is very charismatic when speaking to the right crowd; that's why he and his influence is so scary. EDIT: On a similar topic, I still have trouble convincing people that Fox News isn't "just another news channel". I work in IT and it seems that industry attracts a lot of just-worlders and libertarians. A good buddy of mine just plainly will not believe stuff like Jane Akre's case actually happened, regardless of what he's shown. He really believes it's just a new channel reporting news. You can't really reason with people like that. FNC and the conservative media complex know what they are doing and how to appeal to people like my buddy. Levantine fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Dec 8, 2012 |
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Dec 8, 2012 16:59
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I thought Libertarian rhetoric about freedom and liberty and so on sounded pretty cool right up until the guy trying to sell me on it mentioned the free market, at which point I lost interest.
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Dec 8, 2012 19:23
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Wolfsheim posted:Basically I'm saying anyone over the age of thirteen who thinks these books are serious, thoughtful works may have a cognitive disability. The funny thing is that I started reading about Objectivism before reading Atlas Shrugged. By the time I started reading it, I was already having doubts about the whole thing, and after I finished the book I had lost all respect for Rand and her philosophy. Once I realized what kind of terrible human beings she held up as being heroes, I was done with it.
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Dec 8, 2012 19:26
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Much to the disappointment of conservatives, "2016: Obama's America" was not nominated for any academy awards
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Dec 8, 2012 19:33
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quote:Hollywood is seldom just about money. It’s about propaganda. And if you defy the party line, you stand no chance of winning. So when Dinesh D’Souza’s movie got passed over, I wasn’t even vaguely surprised,” noted Dan Gainor, VP of Business and Culture at the Media Research Institute. “Is that bias? Of course. Jack Nicholson was close: Hollywood can’t handle the truth. And they can’t handle disagreement. Their one-sided view of what deserves awards underlines that.” The fact that this idiot is part of "The Media Research Institute" and yet has no idea that the character he's paraphrasing ordered a man to be murdered, then lied about it and tried to pin the blame on two innocent people because of his delusions of grandeur is pretty hilarious. Then again, so is the fact that this "documentary" has about as much truth to it as a Disney historical fiction. I guess Loose Change is technically a documentary, too. Maybe they should submit it to the Academy. Also, I guess that "hit" is a relative term. Last I checked a 33 million dollar gross is pretty bad.
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Dec 8, 2012 20:01
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4th highest grossing documentary, right behind Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. Also depending on how you define documentary, it's 19th.
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Dec 8, 2012 20:29
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Hot Yellow KoolAid posted:Much to the disappointment of conservatives, "2016: Obama's America" was not nominated for any academy awards Bring back blacklisting! Goddamn commies are running Hollywood again! If Reagan were still alive he'd see to it that a travesty of this magnitude would never happen!
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Dec 8, 2012 20:34
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Unfortunately, in the non-political sense, being fiscally conservative goes directly against what Fiscal Conservatives do quite often. It was just posted in the Republican Rebuilding thread, but this is the perfect example. Texas cut planned parenthood funding by 73 million. Then a study came out saying that this is likely going to cause 23,000 more kids to be born, which will cost the state 273 million. There's some backpedaling going on right now. The same can be said of a lot of military contracts, some seriously questionable "non-profit" organizations, and allowing companies to hide so much money offshores or out of state. So much of the GOP right now involves looking at an immediate benefit without actually doing all the math. Unfortunately, so does quite a bit of the left. The "household budget" analogy is incredibly wrong on many levels, but it's being run like we're living paycheck to paycheck (1 or 2 year cycles) instead of looking 5 or 10 or 20 years down the line. To me, being fiscally conservative should mean making sure dollars are being spent where they help the most in the long run, and not placing burden where it will cause more problems. It should mean investing smarter and being willing to take a hit when you have to in order to keep things under control in the long term. And it should mean not letting corporations steal from us. But that's apparently not good politics.
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Dec 8, 2012 20:35
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Okay CBS isn't exactly right wing but I bet fox news will bring this up. Those goshdarn rappers all hate america!
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Dec 8, 2012 20:49
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Lord Lambeth posted:Okay CBS isn't exactly right wing but I bet fox news will bring this up. Those goshdarn rappers all hate america! South Koreans seem to be wary of US Forces Korea whenever they go and kill their children and get off scott free, which is what Psy was mad about in 2002.
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Dec 8, 2012 21:02
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Lord Lambeth posted:Okay CBS isn't exactly right wing but I bet fox news will bring this up. Those goshdarn rappers all hate america! They're right wing when it comes to ARE TROOPS, just like every other news outlet that refuses to reflect on how our lovely foreign policies (in this case 60 years occupation of South Korea and Japan by the United States military) might piss people off. "Why do they get so mad at us?!  "
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Dec 8, 2012 21:10
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Hot Yellow KoolAid posted:Much to the disappointment of conservatives, "2016: Obama's America" was not nominated for any academy awards Countdown until creation of Conservative Movie Awards. And a lot of kids are taught from day one that the world is fair and if you work hard and do the right thing you'll definitely make it. When you view it like that, fiscal conservative makes sense. Why spend all that extra money to help people that don't want to help themselves? It's not until people stop taking care of you that you realize the world doesn't give a poo poo about you unless you were born into a rich family that you start seeing things how they really are.
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Dec 8, 2012 21:12
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Lord Lambeth posted:Okay CBS isn't exactly right wing but I bet fox news will bring this up. Those goshdarn rappers all hate america! This makes me like him more.
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Dec 8, 2012 21:22
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colonelslime posted:This makes me like him more. Further reading on the subject (a kind person linked to this in the cartoons thread): http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/07/gangnam-nationalism-why-psys-anti-american-rap-shouldnt-surprise-you/
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Dec 8, 2012 21:37
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Hot Yellow KoolAid posted:Much to the disappointment of conservatives, "2016: Obama's America" was not nominated for any academy awards Yes, clearly this was because of hollywood liberals and not because 2016 is a laughably bad film.
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Dec 8, 2012 22:35
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Peven Stan posted:South Koreans seem to be wary of US Forces Korea whenever they go and kill their children and get off scott free, which is what Psy was mad about in 2002. It was an accident. Innocent people should not be subjected to a show trial for any reason.
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Dec 8, 2012 22:40
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Typical Pubbie posted:It was an accident. Innocent people should not be subjected to a show trial for any reason. Mind backing your claims about how it was an accident or that a South Korean court would be a show trial.
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Dec 8, 2012 22:51
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Typical Pubbie posted:It was an accident. Innocent people should not be subjected to a show trial for any reason. It doesn't matter whether or not it was a technical accident. The US has a long record of antagonizing people in SK and Japan by doing stupid poo poo and getting whisked out of the country to not face any consequences. You can't see how this pattern might make people upset?
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Dec 8, 2012 22:56
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Mind backing your claims about how it was an accident or that a South Korean court would be a show trial. It was a terrible accident, but it was certainly accidental. The two operators were tried in a court martial and found not guilty of negligent homicide.
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Dec 8, 2012 23:01
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It's something that wouldn't have happened if large, military grade vehicles weren't barreling down a civilian road in a country that isn't their own. Quit trying to justify the stationing of United States military personnel, bases, and equipment in foreign countries. There's absolutely no reason why either South Korea or Japan need the United State's protection. Both countries have militaries that are perfectly capable of defending them in the event of a (highly unlikely) war. Darkman Fanpage fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Dec 8, 2012 |
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Dec 8, 2012 23:09
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Crasscrab posted:It's something that wouldn't have happened if large, military grade vehicles weren't barreling down a civilian road in a country that isn't their own. The problem wasn't so much speed as it was communication between the AFV's commander and driver. The commander saw the kids, the driver didn't. The commander attempted to warn the driver, but the driver was talking to another vehicle platoon on a different communication frequency and didn't get the message. In the aftermath, a number of steps were taken to ensure that that sort of thing didn't happen again, but it was cold comfort for the families of the two dead girls. Crasscrab posted:Quit trying to justify the stationing of United States military personnel, bases, and equipment in foreign countries. There's absolutely no reason why either South Korea or Japan need the United State's protection. Both countries have militaries that are perfectly capable of defending them in the event of a (highly unlikely) war. The troops aren't there to stop invasions, there aren't enough of them for that. Zeroisanumber fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Dec 8, 2012 |
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Dec 8, 2012 23:15
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Oh, so we're there for moral support. Good to know!
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Dec 8, 2012 23:19
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