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  • Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

    Originally posted by unofan View Post
    In before the poutrage machine claims a double standard: The WaPo was wrong to publish that political cartoon. I get that the point was aimed at Cruz himself, but you leave the kids out of it.
    Yup. Are there any editors left at newspapers anymore or did they all get laid off? Amazes me some of the stuff that gets through.
    Legally drunk???? If its "legal", what's the ------- problem?!? - George Carlin

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    • Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

      Originally posted by unofan View Post
      In before the poutrage machine claims a double standard: The WaPo was wrong to publish that political cartoon. I get that the point was aimed at Cruz himself, but you leave the kids out of it.
      Not like Cruz didn't drag his poor family into his ****. They already have to be related to him, haven't they suffered enough?
      http://goo.gl/IN8zg8

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      • Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

        There is a double standard concerning kids and it is entirely appropriate. Pols prostitute their kids as political props all the time, and media and opponents should not say anything about it. It's one of the ways the game is played. Tale as old as time.

        WaPo is hardly the first to fall into the trap, and every side has its occasional atrocious violations of this unwritten rule over the years, but (1) Cruz is in the right to blast them and (2) this actually helps Cruz now trot the cherubs out there even more and wring even more political points from them (about which nobody should say one peep).

        Editors should not be this dumb.
        Last edited by Kepler; 12-23-2015, 09:32 AM.
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        • Originally posted by Foxton View Post
          Not like Cruz didn't drag his poor family into his ****. They already have to be related to him, haven't they suffered enough?
          http://goo.gl/IN8zg8
          I don't care. You still don't portray the kids as monkeys, even if the dig is ultimately aimed at Cruz himself.

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          • Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

            Originally posted by Rover View Post
            Yup. Are there any editors left at newspapers anymore or did they all get laid off? Amazes me some of the stuff that gets through.
            I was doing some unrelated research and was reading through papers from the 50s and 60s recently.

            The quality, clarity, seriousness, and complexity of news articles has dropped precipitously over the last half century. I know that's hardly news, but even with that presupposition I was shocked. Even the Gray Lady herself, though still by far the best of the bunch, has really slipped.
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            • Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

              Originally posted by Rover View Post
              Kep, I really do admire your devotion to Sanders even though I have fun with it on occasion,
              The funny thing is I'm not all that devoted. He is probably the closest aligned to me of any presidential candidate with a non-zero chance of winning that I will see in my lifetime. But it isn't as if I am working for his campaign. His value to me is his restoration of a genuine left dialog in a country where the Overton window has been pushed so far to the right it's dangling off the edge of the building.

              Bernie matters to me to the extent that his themes will be back in 2020 and, as importantly, 2018. If we keep having to choose between center-right and far-right candidates, the country will continue to fail the vast majority of its citizens for the benefit of a vanishingly small but overwhelmingly powerful minority -- the perennial internal threat to democracy that we must eternally beat back.

              but where we disagree is in the idea that a logical based appeal to these people who feel society has left them behind will work. Being a conservative nowadays isn't like being one 40 years ago, which are the people from the past that Sanders might appeal to. Being conservative is a state of mind, not an ideology anymore. That's how you get people to vote on things based on emotion, and for things that go against their interests, or at the very least have nothing to do with their interests. IMHO you recall the conservatives of your youth and project that onto the current crop, when I believe the cons of your youth or either dead or left the GOP awhile ago.
              I've said this a million times before but I'll say it again: Conservatism is far, far more than its dominant voices in any generation, and Conservatism's underlying values are very much the same as Liberalism's: a working balance between the freedoms to and the freedoms from. A healthy society needs a constant tension between both forces to remain flexible and stay out of the ditches the the left (stifling bureaucracy) and the right (predatory plutocracy). Two roads diverged in a wood: one towards serfdom to the state and the other towards serfdom to the wealthy. It is the paradox of Conservativism and Liberalism that each is only healthy as a restraint against the other, and left unopposed the cure becomes the disease. Thus is Platonic Conservatism a necessary and laudable project.

              The voices representing the project, on the other hand, are diverse and range all over the familiar 2x2 matrix of good/evil vs informed/ignorant. At any given time one of the quadrants dominates. During the 70s-80s influential conservatives tended to cluster in the good-ignorant quadrant. During the Dubya Debacle they were firmly in the evil-informed quadrant. Come 2016, it looks as though they have crossed the line into evil-ignorant. But despite the distribution, there are still particular voices in each quadrant. Examples:

              good-informed: David Frum, Glenn Reynolds, Matt Welch
              good-ignorant: ? Ben Carson maybe? No idea.
              evil-informed: Ted Cruz, Antonin Scalia, Ramesh Ponnuru, Jonah Goldberg, Charles Krauthammer, 90% of the Neocons
              evil-ignorant: Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Mark Levin, 90% of the Fox Newsies, much of the GOP presidential field
              Last edited by Kepler; 12-23-2015, 10:45 AM.
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              • Originally posted by Kepler View Post
                I was doing some unrelated research and was reading through papers from the 50s and 60s recently.

                The quality, clarity, seriousness, and complexity of news articles has dropped precipitously over the last half century. I know that's hardly news, but even with that presupposition I was shocked. Even the Gray Lady herself, though still by far the best of the bunch, has really slipped.
                Gotta write it fast because you can access literally every newspaper now. Now it's a race against time for who can get it out the fastest. Plus it's not even newspapers now. TV stations, even local affiliates, write stories on their sites. Less time means less in depth.

                Gotta write it short because people have less attention spans, and because long form takes too long to post.

                Gotta make it edgy so it gets clicks and spread around for advertising $$$.
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                • Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

                  Originally posted by Kepler View Post
                  The funny thing is I'm not all that devoted. He is probably the closest aligned to me of any presidential candidate with a non-zero chance of winning that I will see in my lifetime. But it isn't as if I am working for his campaign. His value to me is his restoration of a genuine left dialog in a country where the Overton window has been pushed so far to the right it's dangling off the edge of the building.

                  Bernie matters to me to the extent that his themes will be back in 2020 and, as importantly, 2018. If we keep having to choose between center-right and far-right candidates, the country will continue to fail the vast majority of its citizens for the benefit of a vanishingly small but overwhelmingly powerful minority -- the perennial internal threat to democracy that we must eternally beat back.



                  I've said this a million times before but I'll say it again: Conservatism is far, far more than its dominant voices in any generation, and Conservatism's underlying values are very much the same as Liberalism's: a working balance between the freedoms to and the freedoms from. A healthy society needs a constant tension between both forces to remain flexible and stay out of the ditches the the left (stifling bureaucracy) and the right (predatory plutocracy). Two roads diverged in a wood: one towards serfdom to the state and the other towards serfdom to the wealthy. It is the paradox of Conservativism and Liberalism that each is only healthy as a restraint against the other, and left unopposed the cure becomes the disease. Thus is Platonic Conservatism a necessary and laudable project.
                  I always find your big-picture essays valuable and thought-provoking. But what is "Platonic Conservatism"? I want to replace that with "secular" conservatism as having social value.
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                  • Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

                    Appreciate the breakdown Kep but its a bit academic in nature. Cons go like this:

                    65% - people who want to stick it to somebody else. Generally these are the older white working class, but they don't have to be. The target of their ire changes from black to hippies to Commies to gays to immigrants, but its always anger towards some group of people. This coincides with the polling % of Trump/Cruz/Carson. Social conservatives live in this group.

                    20% - Cold Warriors. These are people who remember the Cold War and would like to relive it because the world was a lot simpler then. John McCain for example. They buy into the notion that Reagan would never allow incident xyz to happen, even though terrorism was a big problem during his terms in office (Beirut, kidnappings in Lebanon, hijackings, etc), but that these things all happen because of Jimmy Carter...somehow. Usually this person is your crabby old uncle at Thanksgiving dinner.

                    15% - Country club rich people who benefit from GOP tax policies, or think they do. As I mentioned before, the % of people who think they pay the top rate vs the % that actually do is staggering. When Dems talk of "raising the top rate" these people immediately think their taxes are going up. They also vote GOP on a national level if their property taxes go up, even though one has little to do with the other.
                    Legally drunk???? If its "legal", what's the ------- problem?!? - George Carlin

                    Ever notice how everybody who drives slower than you is an idiot, and everybody who drives faster is a maniac? - George Carlin

                    "I've never seen so much reason and bullsh*t contained in ONE MAN."

                    Comment


                    • Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

                      Originally posted by Spartanforlife4 View Post
                      Gotta write it fast because you can access literally every newspaper now. Now it's a race against time for who can get it out the fastest. Plus it's not even newspapers now. TV stations, even local affiliates, write stories on their sites. Less time means less in depth.

                      Gotta write it short because people have less attention spans, and because long form takes too long to post.

                      Gotta make it edgy so it gets clicks and spread around for advertising $$$.
                      Sadly, I think you explained it all, perfectly.

                      Newspapers started out as a way to get news fast (daily; even semi-daily with special editions!) rather than having to wait for other media (bulletins, minutes, gazettes, broadsheets). Now that other media is instantaneous newspapers could possibly survive if they went the other way: stressing rigor and editorial control and getting the news more slowly (still daily) but correctly and more trust-worthily.

                      The problem with information now isn't overload, it's lack of quality control.
                      Last edited by Kepler; 12-23-2015, 11:33 AM.
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                      • Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

                        Originally posted by geezer View Post
                        I always find your big-picture essays valuable and thought-provoking. But what is "Platonic Conservatism"? I want to replace that with "secular" conservatism as having social value.
                        I just meant Platonic in the sense of essential or "prior to any specific exemplar." Maybe better to call it transcendental after Kant, except boy has that word been dragged through the New Age mud.
                        Last edited by Kepler; 12-23-2015, 11:31 AM.
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                        • Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

                          65% - people who want to stick it to somebody else. Generally these are the older white working class, but they don't have to be. The target of their ire changes from black to hippies to Commies to gays to immigrants, but its always anger towards some group of people. This coincides with the polling % of Trump/Cruz/Carson. Social conservatives live in this group.

                          20% - Cold Warriors. These are people who remember the Cold War and would like to relive it because the world was a lot simpler then. John McCain for example. They buy into the notion that Reagan would never allow incident xyz to happen, even though terrorism was a big problem during his terms in office (Beirut, kidnappings in Lebanon, hijackings, etc), but that these things all happen because of Jimmy Carter...somehow. Usually this person is your crabby old uncle at Thanksgiving dinner.

                          15% - Country club rich people who benefit from GOP tax policies, or think they do. As I mentioned before, the % of people who think they pay the top rate vs the % that actually do is staggering. When Dems talk of "raising the top rate" these people immediately think their taxes are going up. They also vote GOP on a national level if their property taxes go up, even though one has little to do with the other.
                          10% - people who want to stick it to somebody else -- these people always exist, on both sides, and always will
                          20% - Cold Warriors -- still reliving the Reagan Glory Days, just like Last Call for FDR did before them; the model has been discontinued
                          15% - Country club rich people -- those who benefit from GOP tax policies, or think they do
                          55% - The Forgotten -- middle and lower middle class people scared sh-tless by wage stagnation, debt, terrorism, and social change who just want things back the way they were before

                          I sympathize with that 55%. They got utterly screwed -- trapped in and torn by the gears of history. If they got to experience the good times that their equivalents 50 years ago did, it was as children, which only makes their nostalgia more poignant. Like Loyalist families during the Revolution, the crows (which they hadn't even been aware of) have come home to roost. They personally did nothing wrong but they're the ones who are getting tarred and feathered or shipped off to Labrador. Have you seen Labrador?

                          The 50% have had to side with the Republicans by default, and now they have realized the Republicans have just been using them. So what do they do? They have no credible connection with any Democrats above the district level, and even the Democrats are heavily compromised. Harry S Truman is not walking through that door. That leaves them the choice of sticking it out with the GOP or trying to go it alone. The latter has been political suicide in the US for over a hundred years. So they hold their nose and vote, getting sadder and/or madder with every cycle.

                          I don't blame them a bit. There but for the grace of ethnography go I.
                          Last edited by Kepler; 12-23-2015, 12:46 PM.
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                          • Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

                            Interesting thing looking at the aggregate polls for Dem primaries on RealClearPolitics. All that have Clinton up 30+ are registered voters. Most polling likely voters are only around +15-22. The ones that seem to break this trend are Fox News (RV swayed toward Sanders) and PPD (LV swayed toward Hillary).

                            Not sure what it is on Republicans, since there are so many candidates RCP had to leave that data off to show Pataki and others with no chance and I don't feel like clicking through 10 different polls to find if it's RV or LV.
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                            • Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

                              Originally posted by Spartanforlife4 View Post
                              Interesting thing looking at the aggregate polls for Dem primaries on RealClearPolitics. All that have Clinton up 30+ are registered voters. Most polling likely voters are only around +15-22.
                              That seems backwards. I would have assumed Bernie's support would disproportionately come from voters deemed less likely (typically, youth and/or not having voted in the prior election).
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                              • Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

                                If the cartoon didn't specifically call out Cruz, it would probably get a pass. All pols do this sh*t. The Cruz ad is merely one of the most vomitous examples in recent history.

                                That said...monkeys? Really? How dumb do you have to be to think that's going to be cool with anyone, regardless of the context? That editor should be out of a job effective today.

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