[Winstonm]

[Winstonm]

I saw a headline today in Yahoo! news that begged for a continuation, but alas, the Yahoo! headline writer missed a great chance to audtion for The Onion. In honor of Blackshoe, I'll follow the actual Yahoo! news quote with italics to separate real quote from my addition.


Democrats Want Obama to Stop Compromising- President Offers to Meet Them Halfway

[mike777]

 phil_20686, on 2011-August-31, 07:00, said:

When I was reading enlightenment philosophy, they stressed the importance of universal education in a democracy, as a better educated population could be trusted to make better decisions. At some point the idea entered our culture that "Everyone has a right to their opinion". A liberal education (in the old sense) stands opposed to this, because the most important thing it teaches you is that some people really do think much better than others. A well educated man does not form an opinion by going to the source material and assuming he will be able to figure it all out, he finds the opinions of experts and when the experts disagree he finds enough experts to form a consensus, and failing that he muddles through as best he can.

The problem is, it has become ok for politicians, as the mouthpieces for democracy, to put forward their own ideas on an equal footing. As if their opinion is equal. It would be much better, and more honest, for politicians to admit that they do not actually understand what is going on, and so they are seeking expert advice/consensus. In fact the opposite is happening, politicians are advancing their own ideas and assuming that because people voted for them, they must be right. A dangerous state of affairs.

an age old debate should politicians
1) weigh expert opinion and then vote the xperts
2) follow the pox popular
3) follow their own conscience/ideas.
--


In the USA it is split between the House, the peoples house and a more contempletive senate with the president having veto power and the supreme court another veto.

---


As a side note this is the whole debate regarding multicultures; are all cultures equal or are some (western) more equal?

[blackshoe]

"All cultures equal". What does that mean?

[awm]

An amusing article by a former Republican staffer about how far our country has fallen.

[mike777]

 blackshoe, on 2011-September-02, 15:15, said:

"All cultures equal". What does that mean?

This question/debate in fact has been a big deal the last few decades....if you seem to have missed it...lucky you.

for starters google multiculturism

[blackshoe]

Answer the question, Mike. What does "all cultures equal" mean to you. I don't really care what it means to some ivory tower academic. You asked a question, I'm trying to understand it. If I don't understand your question, I can't answer it. If you can't answer mine, well, I guess there's no point in trying to answer yours.

[PassedOut]

 mike777, on 2011-September-04, 01:15, said:

This question/debate in fact has been a big deal the last few decades....if you seem to have missed it...lucky you.

for starters google multiculturism

I don't understand your phrase "all cultures equal" either. Followed your advice to "google multiculturalism" and still don't: "Worthy of study" does not mean "equal."

[jonottawa]

Perry is looking less and less like a shoe-in. Romney's opened up a slight lead (40%-36.5% as I post this) on intrade.

[Gerben42]

What puzzles me is how many people vote for the Republican party. Statistically, the vast majority of Americans will never reach an income level that will put them in the GOP target group. The vast majority is more helped by Democrat programs like Universal Healthcare and tax raises for the rich.

And the tea party is even worse. Do people not notice that they are trying to take away all safety nets for Average Joe? Unless I have a 7-figure income, I'd think twice before voting for them.

[kenberg]

With something so puzzling, you have to look elsewhere for the explanation. The first election that I paid much attention to was Eisenhower-Stephenson in 1952. The story is that an interview went as follows:

Interviewer: Gov. Stevenson, it has been said that you are the thinking man's candidate.
Stevenson: Yes, but I need a majority.

Very witty. My parents voted for Eisenhower. They also voted for Hubert Humphrey as a Senator from Minnesota. Humphrey put together the DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor) Coalition. And he never once suggested that my parents were stupid.

Maybe people vote their pocketbooks, but not entirely.

[PassedOut]

 jonottawa, on 2011-September-17, 03:14, said:

Perry is looking less and less like a shoe-in. Romney's opened up a slight lead (40%-36.5% as I post this) on intrade.

Yes. The attacks on Perry for taking action to prevent cervical cancer and for rejecting a hardline stance against illegal immigration have hurt him with the tea partiers. And he hasn't seemed comfortable taking criticism. It will be interesting to see how he goes about pushing up Romney's and Bachmann's negatives in the weeks ahead.

[Winstonm]

Does it strike anyone else as chilling that this guy Perry is actually a mainstream GOP candidate for President - that he is being taken seriously?

US history describes a plentiful array of weirdness in state governorships, but those wackos were regularly shouted down when it came to the national races (think Geo Wallace). Now the GOP has devolved into a race between the Dark Ages candidate, Perry, and the Feudal Ownership candidate, Romney.

The U.F.O. candidate, Ms. Michelle - well, how does one explain any airtime on national t.v. for this third-kind encouteress?

[cherdano]

I find it disgusting that Perry is even considered a viable candidate.

If you haven't seen the Death-Penalty-cheers clip at the GOP debate, you can watch it here:
http://www.huffingto...e_n_953214.html
Short summary:
- Moderator asks softball question: "Have you ever struggled with the having had 234 people executed during your term as governor, wondering whether any one of them might have been innocent?"
- Crowd cheers at the mention of 234 executions.
- Perry: "No I have never struggled with that, our system works perfectly fine."

Well, there is

• Cameron Todd Willingham. He was almost certainly innocently executed. He was convicted of killing his children by setting his own house on fire. The conviction was entirely based on the testimony of an arson "expert". Well, on review by an actual expert, Gerald Hurst, all of his reasoning fell apart, and all facts are completely consistent with an accidental fire.
  Perry (or Perry's officed) didn't even grant Cunningham's request for stay that was accompanied by Hurst's report. (Hurst had become aware of the case a few weeks before Cunningham's scheduled execution.) Later, Perry sabotaged a commission that was reviewing the Cunningham case as part of a thorough review of the use of forensic evidence in the Texas justice system (Google "Texas Forensic Science Commission for details.")
  
• Duane Buck. He was scheduled to be executed yesterday, until the supreme court intervened. His guilt isn't in question, but the decision between execution and a life long prison sentence has been racially tainted, beyond repair without a full retrial.
  Short summary: Beyond deciding on the conviction, the jury also had to decide whether Buck would be a future danger. A psychologist, under cross-examination answered "Yes." to a question whether Buck is more likely to be dangerous since he is black. The prosecution referred to this statement in their closing arguments. This time, Perry and clemency board denied a request for further review, even though former prosecutors of his case had supported his request, former attorney general and now-Senator Cornyn had listed it as a racially tainted conviction, among many others. The Supreme Court's order arrived two hours into a six hour window in which he was scheduled to be executed.

The power of the president isn't as big as the campaigns pretend - presidents cannot pass laws or appoint an undersecretary of agriculture without 60 senators consenting. But under current practice, he does have the power to kill by executive order. Someone with proven lack of judgment or interest in these matters is utterly unqualified.

[y66]

 Gerben42, on 2011-September-17, 04:18, said:

What puzzles me is how many people vote for the Republican party. Statistically, the vast majority of Americans will never reach an income level that will put them in the GOP target group. The vast majority is more helped by Democrat programs like Universal Healthcare and tax raises for the rich.

And the tea party is even worse. Do people not notice that they are trying to take away all safety nets for Average Joe? Unless I have a 7-figure income, I'd think twice before voting for them.

From What Makes People Vote Republican by Jonathan Haidt, Professor of Social Psychology, University of Virginia

Quote

What makes people vote Republican? Why in particular do working class and rural Americans usually vote for pro-business Republicans when their economic interests would seem better served by Democratic policies? We psychologists have been examining the origins of ideology ever since Hitler sent us Germany's best psychologists, and we long ago reported that strict parenting and a variety of personal insecurities work together to turn people against liberalism, diversity, and progress. But now that we can map the brains, genes, and unconscious attitudes of conservatives, we have refined our diagnosis: conservatism is a partially heritable personality trait that predisposes some people to be cognitively inflexible, fond of hierarchy, and inordinately afraid of uncertainty, change, and death. People vote Republican because Republicans offer "moral clarity"—a simple vision of good and evil that activates deep seated fears in much of the electorate. Democrats, in contrast, appeal to reason with their long-winded explorations of policy options for a complex world.

Diagnosis is a pleasure. It is a thrill to solve a mystery from scattered clues, and it is empowering to know what makes others tick. In the psychological community, where almost all of us are politically liberal, our diagnosis of conservatism gives us the additional pleasure of shared righteous anger. We can explain how Republicans exploit frames, phrases, and fears to trick Americans into supporting policies (such as the "war on terror" and repeal of the "death tax") that damage the national interest for partisan advantage.

But with pleasure comes seduction, and with righteous pleasure comes seduction wearing a halo. Our diagnosis explains away Republican successes while convincing us and our fellow liberals that we hold the moral high ground. Our diagnosis tells us that we have nothing to learn from other ideologies, and it blinds us to what I think is one of the main reasons that so many Americans voted Republican over the last 30 years: they honestly prefer the Republican vision of a moral order to the one offered by Democrats. To see what Democrats have been missing, it helps to take off the halo, step back for a moment, and think about what morality really is.

more

[helene_t]

 cherdano, on 2011-September-17, 10:24, said:

[*]Cameron Todd Cunningham. He was almost certainly innocently executed. He was convicted of killing his children by setting his own house on fire. The conviction was entirely based on the testimony of an arson "expert". Well, on review by an actual expert, Gerald Hurst, all of his reasoning fell apart, and all facts are completely consistent with an accidental fire.
Perry (or Perry's officed) didn't even grant Cunningham's request for stay that was accompanied by Hurst's report. (Hurst had become aware of the case a few weeks before Cunningham's scheduled execution.) Later, Perry sabotaged a commission that was reviewing the Cunningham case as part of a thorough review of the use of forensic evidence in the Texas justice system (Google "Texas Forensic Science Commission for details.")

Wow, I just read the Huffington Post story about Perry's efforts to prevent the forensic science committee from looking into the Cunningham case. Perry is clearly a criminal.

[helene_t]

 y66, on 2011-September-17, 12:43, said:

From What Makes People Vote Republican by Jonathan Haidt, Professor of Social Psychology, University of Virginia
more

Intersting. The essay ends with:

Quote

America lacks the long history, small size, ethnic homogeneity, and soccer mania that holds many other nations together, so our flag, our founding fathers, our military, and our common language take on a moral importance that many liberals find hard to fathom.

Unity is not the great need of the hour, it is the eternal struggle of our immigrant nation. The three Durkheimian foundations of ingroup, authority, and purity are powerful tools in that struggle. Until Democrats understand this point, they will be vulnerable to the seductive but false belief that Americans vote for Republicans primarily because they have been duped into doing so.

[Gerben42]

Very interesting indeed. But it doesn't touch the important issue that politicians at a national level are so far away from our average lives, that one really should vote for them with your wallet. But in a way the same thing is happening in Germany as well. People are voting for the Green party, even though economically they are a very destructive force. Voting Green or Republican makes people feel better about themselves.

[PassedOut]

Ron Paul wins California straw poll

Quote

Paul won with 44.9% of the votes, Texas Gov. Rick Perry came in second with 29.3% of the votes, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney came in third with 8.8% of the votes.

The California Republican Party, associated members and registered guests were allowed to vote in the straw poll, according to the statement.

Paul was scheduled to give speeches in Los Angeles on Saturday, including the keynote at the Republican Liberty Caucus of California.

He has gained momentum in the race for the White House in recent weeks, according to the latest CNN/ORC International Poll. Among current GOP candidates, Paul placed third in the poll with 13%, following Romney in second place with 21% and Perry in first with 32%.

In my opinion, Ron Paul has gone up because he always says just what he thinks (no matter how nuts that might be) instead of trying to channel the opinions of his audience. It's pretty refreshing to see a politician like that on stage.

Bachmann sank fast, except in Iowa, but she can cut up Perry for awhile. And Palin is still waiting for the "draft Sarah" movement.

[Winstonm]

 helene_t, on 2011-September-17, 14:02, said:

Wow, I just read the Huffington Post story about Perry's efforts to prevent the forensic science committee from looking into the Cunningham case. Perry is clearly a criminal.

Between the Willingham tragedy and the Haidt piece lies a province with which I have little-to-no understanding. I cannot fathom being so slavishly addicted to an ideologically-based heirarchy that individual justice becomes an expendable agent of manipulations in order to preserve status quo. It simply does not register with me that for many the idea is not to relentlessly pursue and attempt to identify reality but instead to protect a tribal population from exposure to reality by following ancient customs and rituals.

It is not just Perry to blame. The entire legal system collapsed in shame, from the frontline investigators to the police to the lawyers and on up the ladder. It is the entirety of society that is to blame.

Again, Sam Harris is shown to be accurate: what people believe matters.