[LinearPhilosopher]

 worrywort, on 06 April 2013 - 12:01 AM, said:

Great news out of New Hampshire: a rejection of private prison bids. Wish this would become a trend.
http://thinkprogress...te-prison-bids/

forgive my ignorance, but what is the issue with privatized prisons?

[Terez]

 BalrogLord, on 07 April 2013 - 09:42 PM, said:

 worrywort, on 06 April 2013 - 12:01 AM, said:

Great news out of New Hampshire: a rejection of private prison bids. Wish this would become a trend.
http://thinkprogress...te-prison-bids/

forgive my ignorance, but what is the issue with privatized prisons?

Profit motive to imprison people.

[Shinrei]

 worrywort, on 04 April 2013 - 08:53 PM, said:

Hey, people who are slightly more conservative economically and not particularly conservative socially, but still realize that libertarians are basically sociopaths, you should either get a hold of the Republican Party or start a whole new one. Either way it's time to give up the ghost on this whole Tea Party thing. Otherwise, after they bring about the apocalypse, you'll be the first they cannibalize, from sheer proximity alone.

I gave up on the Republican party around about Iraq2. I can't go hardcore libertarian (not because I believe they are sociopaths, but because they put too much unfounded faith in people/companies not to be shortsighted and do the right thing for society, like not pollute). The government needs serious serious reforms, but that doesn't mean it should also just be shutdown/thrown away like many of the teaparty candidates seem to think.

But then again, who truly feels their political party actually represents what they themselves think? People who call themselves progressives must be constantly upset at Obama and their representatives over, well, a lot of things.

[Obdigore]

No no, I love having to decide between conservatives and regressives.

[Shinrei]

I don't even know what those terms mean anymore....

[Gnaw]

 Shinrei, on 08 April 2013 - 08:20 AM, said:

 worrywort, on 04 April 2013 - 08:53 PM, said:

Hey, people who are slightly more conservative economically and not particularly conservative socially, but still realize that libertarians are basically sociopaths, you should either get a hold of the Republican Party or start a whole new one. Either way it's time to give up the ghost on this whole Tea Party thing. Otherwise, after they bring about the apocalypse, you'll be the first they cannibalize, from sheer proximity alone.

I gave up on the Republican party around about Iraq2. I can't go hardcore libertarian (not because I believe they are sociopaths, but because they put too much unfounded faith in people/companies not to be shortsighted and do the right thing for society, like not pollute).

I'm sorta libertarian. But I think there is a vast distinction between libertarianism and Rand's Objectivism. Bill Maher addressed it in his show Friday night.

Quote

BILL MAHER: Libertarians have to stop ruining libertarianism, or at least do a better job explaining the difference between today's libertarian and just being a selfish prick. Now, many years ago on a television network far, far away, I expressed support for libertarianism because back then it meant I didn't want big government in my bedroom, or my medicine chest, or especially not in the second drawer of the nightstand on the left side of my bed. And I still believe that, but somewhere along the way, libertarianism morphed into this creepy obsession with free market capitalism based on an Ayn Rand novel called Atlas Shrugged, a book that's never been read all the way through by anyone with a girlfriend.

Paul Ryan once said Ayn Rand taught him what my value systems are. And I believe him, because her book has a strange appeal to people who are kind of smart, but not really. (HBO's Real Time, April 5, 2013)

The clip can be seen here.
http://www.realclear...tarianism_.html


I have no hostages to fortune, so I sometimes think it would be nice to see the country after a few years of Randite policies. Anticipatory Schadenfreude. But then I remember what mid 1800s England looked like. The price to say, "I told you so." is just too fucking high.

I cannot figure out why some people think that Atlas Shrugged and, to a much lesser degree, The Fountainhead are Utopian. Atlas Shrugged is as dystopian as anything I've ever read.

[worry]

Who doesn't prefer to think they'll be the boot coming down and not the face staring up at it?

[Gnaw]

I ran across this earlier. This seems like an appropriate thread for it.

[Gnaw]

 worrywort, on 08 April 2013 - 09:13 PM, said:

Who doesn't prefer to think they'll be the boot coming down and not the face staring up at it?

A bit like that poll result that pops up now and then: the percentage of people who think they're above average.


Edit: spelling

This post has been edited by Gnaw: 09 April 2013 - 01:42 AM

[Terez]

On that conversation we had a while back on children and ownership:

http://www.huffingto..._n_3044279.html

[worry]

That was laughable, and I'd call it a sign of the times if I wasn't so sure it's just a sign of the existential panic of right wing radio/TV as their vestigial nature dawns on them. They wanna take your guns, they wanna get rid of Christmas, they wanna take your kids. This nonsense is in its death knells.

[Shinrei]

Sounds like semantic interpretation of belong as meaning "a part of" vs. "possession". Right wing media is always on the llokout for things to be outraged about.

[worry]

http://tpmdc.talking...-on-seniors.php

[Terez]

 Shinrei, on 10 April 2013 - 01:04 PM, said:

Sounds like semantic interpretation of belong as meaning "a part of" vs. "possession". Right wing media is always on the llokout for things to be outraged about.

This is true, but possession of children has always been a hot topic for the right wing media. That conservative mentality is pervasive, though; you just tend to see more outrage from the right wing over little things like this (and more over truly substantial issues).

[Terez]

I was going to start a thread, but then I recalled the existence of this thread.

Curious as to how much coverage the Zimmerman trial/verdict/aftermath have been getting outside the US. It has been pretty intense here, not just because of news coverage but because of Facebook/Twitter which all of you non-American users have no doubt been subjected to in some form or another. I'm sure my dose has been extra-intense because I live in Mississippi and follow my local newspaper and TV news station on Facebook and often jump into the comments on these things. From the outside it's easy to see the states of the former Confederacy as a bunch of GOP-voting white people and easy to forget that we have the highest per capita black populations in the US, though the non-Southern cities are similar and sometimes blacker overall. Anyway, the commentary in local social media has been extremely ugly. I've seen a lot of talk, mostly from the right, about an impending "race war", which many white southerners look forward to with great anticipation. The phrase "The South will rise again" carries a lot of implications, and you might say those sentiments have gone into overdrive.

The crazy thing is that it seems to have come out of nowhere. There were some media discussions about the Trayvon killing when it happened, so I kind of expected the trial to be like that, but it didn't end up that way at all. It's like all the dormant American racism has come to the surface. You might say it started to go into overdrive when Obama was elected, or while he was running, and especially when he became president, but it was always kind of lurking in the crazy corners of the internet and on Fox. Now it's everywhere. It's nuts. In a way, I think it's good that it's all coming to the surface so maybe some people somewhere will wake up to the intensity of the problem, but it's still kind of overwhelming.

[Gnaw]

 Terez, on 20 July 2013 - 05:37 AM, said:

I was going to start a thread, but then I recalled the existence of this thread.

Curious as to how much coverage the Zimmerman trial/verdict/aftermath have been getting outside the US. It has been pretty intense here, not just because of news coverage but because of Facebook/Twitter which all of you non-American users have no doubt been subjected to in some form or another. I'm sure my dose has been extra-intense because I live in Mississippi and follow my local newspaper and TV news station on Facebook and often jump into the comments on these things. From the outside it's easy to see the states of the former Confederacy as a bunch of GOP-voting white people and easy to forget that we have the highest per capita black populations in the US, though the non-Southern cities are similar and sometimes blacker overall. Anyway, the commentary in local social media has been extremely ugly. I've seen a lot of talk, mostly from the right, about an impending "race war", which many white southerners look forward to with great anticipation. The phrase "The South will rise again" carries a lot of implications, and you might say those sentiments have gone into overdrive.

The crazy thing is that it seems to have come out of nowhere. There were some media discussions about the Trayvon killing when it happened, so I kind of expected the trial to be like that, but it didn't end up that way at all. It's like all the dormant American racism has come to the surface. You might say it started to go into overdrive when Obama was elected, or while he was running, and especially when he became president, but it was always kind of lurking in the crazy corners of the internet and on Fox. Now it's everywhere. It's nuts. In a way, I think it's good that it's all coming to the surface so maybe some people somewhere will wake up to the intensity of the problem, but it's still kind of overwhelming.

I lived in NC from 89 -98. Made a few trips down into southern Georgia to livestock auctions. That "the south will rise again" shit was hiding just below a lot of people's outer shell. So I have zero problem believing the intensity level now.

What has shocked me is the intensity of the anti-women stance that showed up in this last election cycle. I can understand the pro-life stance. But I was blown away by the number of people who proved that their pro-life stance is just cover for "women should be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen."

Also, I was shocked, but less so, by the intensity level of much of the opposition to the AHCA. I understand much of the opposition to this part or that part. What just blew me away was the apparent percentage that claim to believe that all health care should be "if you can't afford it, learn to live without it."

There is a spirit of meanness in this country that I just can't quite get my head around. And I think that spirit is what lies below all of the above. That spirit is nothing new. But what seems (to me) to be new is the number of people in this country who seem to share it. It's rather fucking depressive.



World English Dictionarymean ² (miːn) — adj

1.chiefly ( Brit ) miserly, ungenerous, or petty
2.humble, obscure, or lowly: he rose from mean origins to highoffice
3.despicable, ignoble, or callous: a mean action
4.poor or shabby: mean clothing ; a mean abode



mean·ness (mnns)n.

1. The state of being inferior in quality, character, or value; commonness.

2. The quality or state of being selfish or stingy.

3. A spiteful or malicious act.

[Obdigore]

and the follow-up : http://www.foxnews.c...-zealot-author/

It absolutely boggles my mind that these people push this, and seem to live in this, world so disconnected from reality.

[Terez]

From all the hype about that video, what I saw was not what I expected. (I watched it yesterday.) He was very defensive from the beginning and definitely could have made his points with more class. I realize that this is Fox and they're not very classy, but the way he argued in that interview just played into their hands.

[QuickTidal]

She starts from the outset, first words out of her mouth, on the offensive with him. I think in that situation his answers were just fine. She's not listening to him from word one either...she's just waiting for her turn to talk. She's not interviewing him, she's just hammering him with some sort of Christian wrong-footing that had no place in the convo. I mean honestly, nothing she says has ANY bearing on what he was asked on the show for. In that regard, as far as I'm concerned, she got off light. He calmly eviscerates her repeatedly and shows just how the media has coloured religion and then attempted to fuse it into all arena's, including scholarly endeavours like theology.

I think the best thing about that whole video is that a woman (who one must assume is a Christian), a religion that teaches tolerance of other faiths, actually implies that because a person is of one faith, that they somehow aren't allowed (in her silly little obtuse head) to study other faiths and have opinions on them.

She shouldn't be allowed on TV ever again to interview anyone. I wouldn't even let her report on Entertainment quite frankly.

But I guess it's FOX so you gotta expect idiocy. I just never thought I'd see it so blatantly represented.

[Nicodimas]

Even if your were the biggest obama fan..you gotta be pretty disappointed..maybe the veil was lifted? ?

It would be interesting if Saudi Arabia revolts, we take two different sides <syria/saud> on different conflicts.

Republicans are easily taking office after this adminstartion without a doubt. They can pretty much put whoever in too! USA! USA!
everyone knows it too. Im hoping we get the most right winger bastard that completely goes all the way with the agenda.

This administration is a disaster.

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 14 August 2013 - 07:00 AM