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How can we break our addiction to contempt?

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Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#191

Post by the_optimist »

JasonCannon wrote: post #151
the_optimist wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fomenting hatred is so lame.

You'll notice at no point am I saying to hate white men. At all. In fact I'm saying that despite people having valid reasons to not trust white men, we should still stand for them and watch out for their interests to. Which in fact, is the complete opposite of fomenting hatred.

"people have a valid reason not to trust _____ " is the very definition of prejudice, and synonymous with bigotry. Again: fill in the blank with any group just to stand witness. I hear the historic racialist explaining that Black/Japanese/Chinese/Albinos/whatever are untrustworthy. Plain old prejudice couched in modern clothing.

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#192

Post by JasonCannon »

the_optimist wrote: post #191
JasonCannon wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll notice at no point am I saying to hate white men. At all. In fact I'm saying that despite people having valid reasons to not trust white men, we should still stand for them and watch out for their interests to. Which in fact, is the complete opposite of fomenting hatred.

"people have a valid reason not to trust _____ " is the very definition of prejudice, and synonymous with bigotry. Again: fill in the blank with any group just to stand witness. I hear the historic racialist explaining that Black/Japanese/Chinese/Albinos/whatever are untrustworthy. Plain old prejudice couched in modern clothing.

Except white men have historically and continue to oppress women and people of color. Black/Japanese/Chinese/Albinos have never oppressed white men in America. That's the huge difference you are (very purposely) missing.

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#193

Post by the_optimist »

JasonCannon wrote: post #192
the_optimist wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"people have a valid reason not to trust _____ " is the very definition of prejudice, and synonymous with bigotry. Again: fill in the blank with any group just to stand witness. I hear the historic racialist explaining that Black/Japanese/Chinese/Albinos/whatever are untrustworthy. Plain old prejudice couched in modern clothing.

Except white men have historically and continue to oppress women and people of color. Black/Japanese/Chinese/Albinos have never oppressed white men in America. That's the huge difference you are (very purposely) missing.

Yes, I am intentionally ignoring your slander. There's not even measured statistical analysis here let alone causality, and even then, such analyses are often used to try to rationalize bigotry on the basis of some artifact. This is merely boring slander desperately trying to justify prejudice. Tiresome at best, but moreover used to rationalize truly horrific reality like genocide. Totally grotesque. "Not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#194

Post by mrtesthah »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #104
mrtesthah wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you cite an example of left-wing news outlets playing "fast and loose" in a way that literally jeopardized the foundation of US democracy and incited mass violence? Even if you think the investigation into Trump's ties to Russian influence was unjustified, it relied on democratically-elected representatives to impeach him, and it never undermined the rule of law itself. I'm sure you can find examples with lesser…

>"in a way that literally jeopardized the foundation of US democracy" What does this even mean? This is way too vague and nebulous to ever get a grip on. I'm guessing you're talking about members of House/Senate contesting the results of the election, which they had a right to do, and followed the constitutional procedure for. You could also say this relied on democratically-elected representatives and wasn't undermi…

>What does this even mean? This is way too vague and nebulous to ever get a grip on.

No, the idea that democracy is undermined when citizens are told that their elections are no longer valid or trustworthy, and when politicians no longer respect the results of those elections, is actually very clear and straightforward. The legitimacy of those in power is upheld by the legitimacy of elections. Take away the latter, and what remains is tyranny.

>Surely the summer riots are more deserving of a term like "mass violence", no?

We're talking specifically about lies told by the media that resulted in mass violence. So, no.

>Maxine Waters told people to harass Trump staffers

Remember, we're speaking now in terms of actual outcomes. You'd need to point to demonstrable mass violence that resulted from her comments.

>I am confident you can get the same kind of result (eroded faith in Democracy) by tweaking the questions to appeal to the sensibilities of people on the left

I'm sure you've got a great imagination, but what counts is evidence. Given your confidence, surely you can find a study or poll somewhere to support that hypothesis. And given the vast sums of money behind right-wing think tanks and PACs, I would not expect such studies to be wanting for funding.

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#195

Post by mrtesthah »

iammisc wrote: post #94
mrtesthah wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you cite an example of left-wing news outlets playing "fast and loose" in a way that literally jeopardized the foundation of US democracy and incited mass violence? Even if you think the investigation into Trump's ties to Russian influence was unjustified, it relied on democratically-elected representatives to impeach him, and it never undermined the rule of law itself. I'm sure you can find examples with lesser…

You start off with a premise that is not immediately obvious. You claim right-wing news outlets are jeopardizing the 'foundation of US democracy', but most right wingers would counter that democracy is not the foundational value of the United States, but rather, individual rights, that even democracy is subservient to the rights of the individual. For example, no matter how many people would vote for such an ability,…

>...most right wingers would counter that democracy is not the foundational value of the United States, but rather, individual rights, that even democracy is subservient to the rights of the individual...

That's a good point, but consider the following:

Civil liberties don't exist in a vacuum -- their definitions arise out of conflict among members of society. I.e., the individual, alone in nature, has no need for them. One of the functions of a government is to protect those liberties, especially among those in the minority.

Without trusted elections and therefore a sound democracy, elected officials have no legitimacy. Without a legitimate claim to power, they become tyrants, and the state loses its moral authority to uphold one person's civil liberties against another's. There is no longer any social consensus backing those decisions.

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#196

Post by JasonCannon »

the_optimist wrote: post #193
JasonCannon wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except white men have historically and continue to oppress women and people of color. Black/Japanese/Chinese/Albinos have never oppressed white men in America. That's the huge difference you are (very purposely) missing.

Yes, I am intentionally ignoring your slander. There's not even measured statistical analysis here let alone causality, and even then, such analyses are often used to try to rationalize bigotry on the basis of some artifact. This is merely boring slander desperately trying to justify prejudice. Tiresome at best, but moreover used to rationalize truly horrific reality like genocide. Totally grotesque. "Not by the colo…

Ok, it's pretty obvious at this point that you are not actually trying to have a serious conversation. My slander? It's slander to say that white men have oppressed and often continue to oppress women and people of color? Ok my guy. Apparently history and paying attention to what is currently going on is slander. Stop your trolling.

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#197

Post by newbie789 »

etherael wrote: post #172
newbie789 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t mention anything about gene therapy or whatever other bananas theory that can be inserted into literally any conversation nowadays. What I did bring up is the fact that people are willing to deny themselves, their families and neighbors the ability to leave their own homes to get food and medicine in order to “own the libs.” While this sort of Markov-chain sounding word salad about… whatever, must indicate t…

All you're doing here is re-stating your original argument, seemingly without actually understanding my criticism of it. I'm not sure what you're hoping to accomplish by that, but it strikes me as very strange. Look, let's say we observe an employee and employer undertaking a discussion that goes something like this. "Take this medicine" "No I don't want to" "Take it or else you're fired" "I'm not going to take it, f…

>All you’re doing here is restating your argument without actually understanding my criticism of it.

My criticism of your argument is that it’s silly to decide that nobody in town can leave their houses during the winter because you don’t want to get a shot. Furthermore, it’s downright ghastly to gloat about the upcoming, totally avoidable, suffering that they’ll be imparting on people that _AGREE WITH THEM_ in order make their point and own the libs.

Pro tip: We might actually be having a two way conversation if your next response included words like “snow” or “plow” or “stranded in your house by no fault of your own.” But please go on with your regurgitated Facebook nonsense about experiments or whatever.

The only thing that’s important is that you’re right!

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#198

Post by the_optimist »

JasonCannon wrote: post #196
the_optimist wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I am intentionally ignoring your slander. There's not even measured statistical analysis here let alone causality, and even then, such analyses are often used to try to rationalize bigotry on the basis of some artifact. This is merely boring slander desperately trying to justify prejudice. Tiresome at best, but moreover used to rationalize truly horrific reality like genocide. Totally grotesque. "Not by the colo…

Ok, it's pretty obvious at this point that you are not actually trying to have a serious conversation. My slander? It's slander to say that white men have oppressed and often continue to oppress women and people of color? Ok my guy. Apparently history and paying attention to what is currently going on is slander. Stop your trolling.

Yes, this is slander based on skin tone: a very mundane bigotry meme repeated in history. This should have died out long ago, but here you are doing your best to perpetuate it for the ages. I have nothing further to add.

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#199

Post by mrtesthah »

Jensson wrote: post #98
mrtesthah wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you cite an example of left-wing news outlets playing "fast and loose" in a way that literally jeopardized the foundation of US democracy and incited mass violence? Even if you think the investigation into Trump's ties to Russian influence was unjustified, it relied on democratically-elected representatives to impeach him, and it never undermined the rule of law itself. I'm sure you can find examples with lesser…

> Can you cite an example of left-wing news outlets playing "fast and loose" in a way that literally jeopardized the foundation of US democracy and incited mass violence? Protests summer 2020? There was a huge surge covid a month after those protests everywhere in USA, even though it was summer and covid should have been low as everywhere else in the world during summers. All of the left wing politicians and news out…

>Those protests lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths.

This sounds like an opinion disguised as fact. If that wasn’t your intention then you’ll need to show peer-reviewed evidence of at the very least a strong association between those two outcomes.

Moreover, we’re specifically talking about lies perpetrated by the media that led to mass violence. The George Floyd protests weren’t fomented by media lies — you can go ask a poor black American if you want to know what’s going on.

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#200

Post by AnimalMuppet »

googlryas wrote: post #176
CalChris wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Krauss was in fact working for OAN and Sputnik at the same time and Sputnik is funded by the Russian government. Maddow even won attorney fees in that case. Rouz is a propagandist; quotes in the decision amply demonstrate that. Quoting the appeals decision, The challenged statement was an obvious exaggeration, cushioned within an undisputed news story. Equating Maddow’s exaggeration with Jones and Carlson is just ran…

If they actually are on the payroll, how is it an "obvious exaggeration" to say that they are getting paid by the Russian government? If something is demonstrably true, why would one need to hide behind the "No reasonable person would believe this to be true" defense?

Because when you're defending a lawsuit, you lay out multiple lines of defense. What we said was true, but even if it wasn't true, we had good reason to think it was, but even if we really didn't have good reason, we're just entertainment. That way you're not doomed if the court accepts some convoluted argument that what you said wasn't actually true.
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