Right Wing Cartoonist vs Reality

I agree, but the problem is that those who are not on the loony fringe of the left & right, tend to not do much speaking. The moderate left, center and moderate right just don't say much, thus the impression is that the left is communistic, anti religion, anti capitalistic and the right is fascist, fundamentalist and anti socialistic.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002

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Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

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Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

Exactly why generalization is dangerous. Even when the so-called "moderates" of whatever "side" are talking, they're certainly less exciting, less frightening, less ridiculous, and overall less notable than the fringe folks. People are far more likely to notice and remember things that have an emotional impact or confirm a pre-existing belief, regardless of that actual comments and positions in real life.A person could say a hundred perfectly normal and ordinary things, express dozens of perfectly acceptable positions...but if that person then says just one comment that we consider strange or objectionable or extreme, like "It's okay to keep the Gitmo detainees imprisoned indefinitely without charge, trial, or even any presented evidence of any crime, because they're terrorists." Internally, we'd all be marking whether this person is now on our "side" or their "side," and every reasonable comment the person has ever made is forgotten. Our impression of that person is now based on our generalization of the "side" we've placed him/her on. and not any of their own statements...and the outrageous statement by the one person is tallied as another drop of evidence supporting our pre-existing generalization for that "side," regardless of actual accuracy.Polarization is literally built-in to the human brain. Continually escalating tribalism is the natural state of affairs; it takes active effort in the form of education (and sometimes the cognitive pressure point of social pressure to combat an unacceptable result, like how racism is now socially unacceptable in the West) or a greater external enemy to bring disparate groups together.Human psychology makes politics (and sales/marketing, and religion...) downright frightening.

Ah, moderates...God bless 'em and preserve the rest of us.

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Some say they've passed their darkest hour
Those moderates are back in power.
But listen close with open ears
They'll help us out in a couple a hundred years.
But don't push 'em...whatever you do...
or else you get those extremists back in.

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Phil Ochs, Talking Birmingham Jam

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Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?
-Shakespeare

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Real things always push back.
-William James

Um... you guys are committing the fallacy of the middle man.I've already proven that the majority of conservatives are evil. The fact that they put Boehner in congress, someone who has shamelessly passed out bribe checks from the tobacco companies to other congressmen, is proof of this.You guys keep blaming that the majority of conservatives are moderates, and yet voting results continue to prove you wrong. Let's step back to reality, shall we? I know what you guys are saying are more politically correct, but are you willing to sacrifice reality and truth for the sake of political correctness?PS - Don't be surprised if I don't respond to you in days. I've been practically living in my lab. Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

..."you guys?" WHo are you lumping me in with? The irony, it burns.For that matter, how have I committed the GOlden Mean fallacy? I haven't commented on which positions are right, I never once said that moderates have the best ideas, or that the correct course of action lies between the "left" and "right."All of my posts have been about the risks of overgeneralization, because an individual can almost never establish an accurate representative of a group sufficient to predict the beliefs of a self-identified member of that group. The hell you have - and I say that as a pretty hardcore liberal. I think that many of the positions supported by the official Republican Party are at best misguided or ignorant or stupid and at worst totally unethical. Attempting to restrict abortion, to deny gays the right to marry according to their own wishes, to cut social programs that keep Americans alive instead of cutting the gargantuan military budget...I could go on, and I certainly oppose strongly those positions. Some I would even identify as "evil."But we all know that American voters are very, very often single-issue idiots. There are self-identified conservatives who vote Republican solely for gun rights, but oppose their party on gay rights or the treatment of the Gitmo detainees and who hated Bush the Lesser, for example.Just like how I'm a self-identified liberal, I tend to vote Democrat, and yet by and large I really dislike Obama and the party I vote for because they really don't accurately represent my interests and views - they just do better than the Republicans, and there unfortunately aren't any other viable choices.You can't just sweepingly generalize that "American conservatives are evil." They aren't a single unified group. Oh come on. American conservatives in general did not put Boehner into the HOuse - the 8th District of Ohio did. Are you now going to lump in self-identified conservatives from everywhere else in the country with that one district in that one state? How do conservatives from other districts, who had no ability to cast a vote on the matter, bear responsibility for Boehner?Not to mention that we all know American politics is very rarely about choosing someone you want to vote for, and more about keeping the worst guy out of office.Taz, you're very clearly just running with your initial hypothesis that "conservatives are evil" and specifically looking for confirmation of your established belief rather than trying to test it. You see Boehner, you see Bush (come on, somebody finish that joke...), and you see confirmation that conservatives are evil.So how can we test your hypothesis, Taz, rather than looking for more confirmations? You're a scientist, you work in a lab, what evidence would potentially falsify (or at least add weight to alternatives) your generalization that "conservatives are evil?" I didn't claim any such thing - and besides that, most Americans don't even vote. In the 2008 election, the highest turnout since the 60s, we had only a 56.8% voter turnout! Midterm elections typically have voter turnouts in the mid-30% range! We know why voters are apathetic - there are very, very rarely any good choices, the average person's view of even the politician they would vote for is often poor, it feels like a chore rather than self-governance... With such a low voter turnout, how can you honestly say that voting results are indicative of the majorty of a subgroup of Americans? Are the self-identified conservatives who don;t vote now just as responsible for electing specific representatives as those who did vote? I can agree that apathy and failing to vote does affect election results, certainly, but you can't hold the guy who didn't vote equally as responsible for electing (Congressional Bastard) as the guy who actually did vote for him, and you certainly can't say that the apathetic non-voter supported (Congressional Bastard)! Taz, I see you making sweeping judgments on a very large, varied group of people based on a tiny amount of information. I see you very obviously falling for the traps of confirmation bias.I'm willing to believe that "all conservative Americans are evil" if sufficient evidence is provided, but you've in absolutely no way shifted that probability by using the election of Boehner by a single district in a single state as indicative of all American conservatives, nor have you proven that Boehner is exceptionally evil amongst his peers. He handed out bribes for tobacco companies? Sure, that's bad. But my understanding is that bribery (whether directly or in the form of influential lobbyists "gifts" and such) is rather the normal state of affairs in Washington. Are so-called liberal Congresscritters actually less guilty of the same evil? Did you even check? Or did you just see "oh, there's a Republican who did something evil, that confirms my hypothesis that he's exceptionally evil and therefore supprots my broader hypothesis that all conservatives are evil, never mind if there are liberals that do the same thing, that would significantly lower the weight of the evidence I prefer so I'm not going to bother looking." If your hypothesis is that conservative politicians like Boehner are more corrupt than liberal politicians, you need to check whether conservative corruption significantly deviates from the rate of corruption among all politicians. If it's close, then observing that Boehner is corrupt is rather like observing that he's in Congress.Let's try this: Obama is a self-identified liberal. He's supported a few traditionally liberal goals, like healthcare, even if he did so rather weakly and I think fudged the job. But he's also not a good guy. His administration defended DOMA for years. His adminsitration made only a halfhearted attempt to close Gitmo, and now is proceeding with military show-trials, and still has taken no steps to grant the detainees basic legal rights like habeas corpus or the right to a lawyer in violation of the Constitution and international law. He's worked hard to retain basically all of the power Bush the Lesser grabbed, including the disgusting PATRIOT Act.Does Obama represent you, as an American liberal? He certainly doesn't represent me. And yet I'm almost certain to vote for him again, simply because the alternatives will represent me less. Is President Obama evil? Am I evil for voting for him, even if I don't support many of his policies? Am I significantly different from a self-identified conservative who had similar feelings about Bush?

I agree for the same reasons. Elections are normally the lessor of 2 evils.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002

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Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

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Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

This line of yours says it all. Why should we even care what all those bastards think if they don't vote? Like their opinion really matter in the debate... Where did I say ALL this or that? I said voting and polling results have consistently proven that the conservatives (those who vote anyway) are oppose to progress in regard to human rights. Women's rights, black people's rights, hispanics, etc. all have been opposed by the majority of the right. Are you seriously going to deny this? Wait, do you doubt this? All you have to do is google. Boehner admitted this. What are you talking about? I never liked Obama. Yes, they are directly responsible for all the evil their fellow conservatives have done. They could have stopped them but they didn't. Again, why do their opinions matter if they don't say anything? I don't give a fuck if most conservatives support human rights. If they don't vote, then they don't matter.

My friend pointed me here tonight: http://thinkprogress.org/ --

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NH GOP Senator Says The Mentally Ill Are ‘Defective People’ That Should Be Shipped Off To Siberia
State budget writers looking for cash to balance the books have stripped a cumulative $1.8 billion from mental health services over the last 2 1/2 years, with some states like Kentucky slashing their spending by as much as 47 percent. This is particularly alarming when viewed alongside incidents like the mass shooting by Jared Loughner, who many suggest was mentally disturbed.

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In light of this huge wave of cuts, Sharon Omand, a community health care center manager and resident of Stafford, New Hampshire, called her state senator Martin Harty (R) recently to request more funding for community mental health programs and for the homeless. Omand was shocked by Harty’s response. The state senator told her the world is too populated and that there are too many defective people. When Omand asked what should be done with these defective people that are mentally ill, Harty suggested sending them to Siberia, something that he said Hitler was right to do

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OK, Harty is described as being 90 years old:

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Harty has not apologized for making his comments. Republican State House Speaker William O’Brien said that at Harty’s age [90 years old], he has earned the right to say what he thinks, but ‘he needs to appreciate that as a representative, he will be held to a higher standard.’

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With all due respect (meant entirely in the Woody-Allen sense), since at that age I would deservedly be challenged as to my ability to continue driving, I should expect one to be challenged as to one's ability to run a state.For one thing, Hitler never ever decided to send anyone to Siberia, no matter how mentally deficient. No, he (or at least his minions) painted up buses or trucks to depict them as going to really fun places. And they loaded them up with mental deficients to go on really fun excursions to really fun places. And they piped the exhaust of the vehicle into the passenger space in order to kill them by carbon-monoxide poisoning. At 90 years old, Harly should know his history (or rather what to us is history, but to him was current events). You don't ship them out, but rather you kill them right here.My brother-in-law is a life-long Republican and a fundamentalist (of the Chuck Smith variety, quite literally) for the past couple decades. He has since retired, about a decade ago. He really surprised me a few years ago when he said, "I've come to realize that the Republicans are not my friends."

If you read one of my earlier posts in this thread, I described this man I know who in the course of only a couple years changed from a hard liner right wing advocate to a liberal commie all because he lost his job and developed a spinal degenerative disease. The only thing holding his family up are the very federal programs he condemned just a couple years ago. And the only thing keeping him from becoming outright a cripple is Obama's healthcare reform, something that he very vocally hated with a passion just a couple years ago.Off the top of my head, I can name half a dozen people who have been affected by the economic hard times we're facing and have converted because they have been left behind and abandoned by the very system they used to advocate. Even my brother has taken a 180 degree turn because the republican candidate he supported promised to halt all construction projects in order to give more tax cuts for the rich in our state. Almost immediately, my brother's company prepared to face possible massive layoffs of its engineers.This is what it takes to make rightwingers see why conservative ideals are evil and unempathetic toward people. All it takes is put these right wingers in a situation where their livelihood could be compromised and see how long they'll keep advocating giving the rich more tax breaks at the cost of the middle and lower income brackets.Bill Maher's this week's show (which I managed to catch a glimpse of when I came home from work late tonight) suggested that we should have a new reality tv where every week we pick up a wall street executive and drop him in a poor neighborhood. I know how these executives will change because I've seen it happened to half a dozen people I know. Almost overnight, my brother, a devout right wing christian conservative, changed his stance because the republican candidate whom he supported was going to make him lose his job in order to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. And over the course of 2 years, my acquaintance changed from a tea party member to an outright liberal because his tea party ideals was going to put him, his wife, and his two young daughters in the street just because he lost his job and he no insurance company would cover him for his condition.Try to be politically correct all you want, moderates. I won't negotiate with evil.

Some things Asay forgot:http://jackdean.posterous.com/...s-is-what-class-war-looks-l

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This will be a very short diary. I just wanted to get this chart out there. I originally received it as a post by the Facebook group "The Christian Left." This chart puts the class war in simple, visual terms. On the left you have the "shared sacrifices" and "painful cuts" that the Republicans claim we must make to get our fiscal house in order. On the right, you can plainly see WHY these cuts are "necessary." The reason? Because we already gave away all that money to America's wealthiest individuals and corporations.

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This just mirrors what we're seeing in Wisconsin, where Governor Walker (R-Koch) claims that ordinary public sector workers need to fork over at least $137 million to save the budget. Problem is, he just gave away $117 million in tax breaks for his corporate pals. This is out and out class warfare. The big corporations in America have decided that they can get even richer by raiding the public treasury. It's time for the middle class to stand up and defend itself!

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Enjoy

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
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Actually, I've been aware of these figures for quite a while. I've pointed them out once and a right winger called it a coincidence. Not being able to counter such claim, I never mentioned it again.

Ted Rall has written a similar column entitled "The Phony Budget Crisis" (line here).

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The budget "crisis" is a phony construction, the result of right-wing "starve the beast" ideology. There is plenty of money out there--but the pols don't want it.

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There is no need to lay off a single teacher, close a single library for an extra hour, or raise a single fee by one red cent.

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Every government can not only balance its budget, but wind up with a surplus.

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The solution is simple: tax the rich.

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RAZD writes:

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Correction: they are usually for balancing the budget and responsible spending.

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Incorrect. They claim to be so but every time they get into power, they destroy the budget with irresponsible spending.It's why since the modern economy began after WWII, the economy has always done better under Democrats than under Republicans. If it were not for the interest alone on the Reagan/Bush debt (with a Republican-controlled Senate Finance Committee run by Bob Dole, if you will recall), the budget would have been balanced in 1994. It's why the Great Depression happened. It's why, in 1937 when the Republicans got back into power in the Congress and started complaining about "irresponsible spending," the economy collapsed again. It's why the Reagan/Bush recession was the worst since the Great Depression. It's why the Bush II recession topped that. Clinton cut more public-sector jobs than Reagan created and yet still Clinton's total job-creation numbers trounced Reagan (in fact, all Democratic presidents since WWII have had better job-creation numbers than all Republicans.)Who do you think it was that said, "Deficits don't matter"? It wasn't a Democrat.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Omnivorous writes:

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They don't ritually snarl and spit when they say Obama, or roll their eyes when they interview Democrats.

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Um, did you completely miss the 2000 election? Where on earth do you think "Gore said he invented the Internet" came from? Why do you think the media has adopted the Fox-style "just asking" nonsense: "Is Obama the Antichrist?" That was the cover of Newsweek. The Tea Party was an astroturf group created by Fox News and was treated as legitimate by the rest of the media with not a single player pointing out the nonsense of "Keep your government hands off my Medicare!"What on earth makes you think they don't "snarl and spit when they say Obama or roll their eyes when they interview Democrats"?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Does the term "dead on arrival" mean anything to you?How about the agreement Reagan had with the democrats in his first term to raise taxes if they cut spending? And how he allowed taxes to be raised but then the democrats raised spending even more? And then again?Plenty of blame to go around. How about we just blame almost all politicians instead of playing party politics?