I have been saying for years, to anyone who would listen, Fox News is a right wing conservative propaganda outlet, and just because they do sports and weather, that does NOT mean they are a “news” station.
Just a night or two back I actually heard something along those lines said on MSNBC, and I’m like “It took you this long to figure that out? Or actually say it out loud on camera?”
Yes, anyone with 2 neurons to rub together knows that Fox News is bullshit from top to bottom. But now we have a vewy vewy intewesting* situation with, Dominion, and Smartmatic, both voting machine companies, suing the mega propaganda station for a total of nearly Five Billion, with a “B” dollars. And that’s not counting what the courts could add to that.
Is it possible the end is near for the mighty Faux News network? Gosh I sure hope so! We saw what happened to the nasty asshat Alex Jones for his lying for dollars radio show. If only that would happen again with Faux News. I would consider that a feather in the hat for all decent Americans who are not so gullible to believe the crap Faux News has been peddling since day one. That’s all Fox has done, lie, mislead, and bake conspiracy theories so far removed from reality it would take a real Tennessee Hillbilly Bubba Joe Bob dumbass, to fall for it. And oh my gosh there are tens of thousands of them! These idiots vote.
Which is why Faux News is in business. It’s all about steering the Bubba Joe Bobs in the direction they want them go. They fill the hog trough nightly with all the tittilating lies that make the Bubba Joe Bobs angry. Angry enough to go vote Republican.
Propaganda for the win.
Even if Faux News goes down, I seriously doubt the Bubba Joe Bobs will ever wise up. If they had the capacity for that they’d have done so already. They will just find a new propaganda outlet that tells them the lies they want to hear. They apparently, actually enjoy being angry at shit that never happened, never existed, and never posed an actual threat to their simpleton ways. Pathetic. Yep, they will find another liar to follow. Probably as bad or worse than Faux News.
But here’s the thing. If the the case is made, and the courts follow through here, maybe, just maybe, the word will be out. That being, telling people these lies is going to cost you dearly.
Make it so they can only afford to tell the truth!
If you haven’t been keeping up with this stuff, here is a pretty good link with a lot of recent info, and released documents.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/07/media/fox-news-dominion-lawsuit/index.html
* That’s my Elmer Fudd impersonation 😉
Evidence Based Reality 
You might want to keep in mind that MSNBC is almost the mirror of Faux (they target their audience with ‘acceptable’ content, too) and sells just as many lies and distortions and narratives as its reflection. In Canada, it’s CBC that is narrative driven. Faux just showed how profitable it could be.
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Yes MSNBC does it’s thing too. It does what it can to sway people also. All news these days seems to be such.
But as best I can tell they are nothing quite like Faux News, in telling whopper lies daily. MSNBC or any MSM outlet are at least, as best I can tell, are following what is happening, and not making it up from whole cloth. But adding thier spin.
MSM does it’s influencing too, I get that. But there is a clear line between MSM doing and the Faux News/Alex Jones shit.
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From my understanding, there are some other outlets that carry the same *crap.* They just aren’t as well-known. So if Faux News does go down, I’m sure the Bubba Joe Bobs will know where to turn their knobs.
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Yes indeedy. But, when the gauntlet gets thrown (if it actually happens and does not get settled quietly out of court, or get dropped, or lose on appeal,) even those places might bode well to pay attention. They will have to be craftier in how they lie.
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I am working on a science fiction story in which politicians in the future are required to have an implant that doesn’t allow them to lie (kind of like Antabuse for alcoholics). You have just given me the idea that the public would demand that people placed into positions of trust in the public sphere would be “required” (via public pressure) to do the same. Can you imagine Tucker Carlson on such a regimen? Awesome.
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😆 Love it!
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Or preachers? Police? Supreme Court prospects? The orange orangatan?
I think it’s cool you are working a sci-fi story. Awesome.
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In complete agreement with you Shell. Growing up and learning from my Dad, from my schooling, my collegiate years, travelling & playing football/soccer around the world—on 4 of the 6 inhabitable continents—and then post-grad work… I learned pretty well how to employ ‘a Bullshit detector’ in most all facets of life. Granted over the last two decades it has had to be refined, to counter all the glittery, shiny, sweet-sounding (or looking) newly disguised bullshit dressed-up and re-dressed up ad infinitum these days with fancy words and phrasing, BUT… the more one hones his/her critical-thinking skills and his/her Bullshit detector, you can pretty much determine (sometimes) in 5-10 mins… “Oh. This/That is total B.S.!” Then laugh out loud.
And if not in 5-10 mins, then it is also quite easy and prudent to go thru the methods of verification, confirmation, etc, if… and this is a huge emphasis on “IF”… one will spend the necessary time examining and researching equitably the information/data to support said claim. There are many, many well-established, reputable institutions/organizations that do nothing BUT verifying or confirming claims. One quick one:
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/
Another one I’ll include below in a reply-comment that also does a good job of this… (see below) 🙂
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PolitiFact:
https://www.politifact.com/
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But as you and I both know my Friend, most ordinary folks prefer confirmation bias from sources that make themselves “feel good” or they are simply way too lazy (apathetic?) to do the homework/legwork. Sadly, this self-created bubble frequently NEVER reflects true reality or the facts. Yes? 🙄🤷♂️
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Speaking of reality, what does it say when reasonable, rational, compassionate people actually go along with the lie that males can become females? Or the reverse? That holding race-based housing for students at a prestigious university isn’t racist? That teaching children that their biology is a social construct? And the list goes on and on and on… but it’s these OTHER people who listen to and watch Faux News who are the problem living in a self-created bubble world.
Umm…
Believing ANY reality-denying ideology is the problem. I think we add to the problem when we GO ALONG with vilifying one camp but not the other and that we are JUST as guilty of confirmation bias and even worse when we are blind to the log in our own eye is but morally condemn the Other who has a speck in theirs. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
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Good points Tildeb; some of them, but not all of them. 😉
Nevertheless, as I read and reread your comment (to me specifically?) my final takeaway from it was this:
Then all of us Homo sapiens should sew up our mouths and sew together our fingers (to not write or type) and just be silent. Because we are all hypocrites whether right or wrong, or based in reality or delusion, or moral/ethical or immoral/unethical… because no one can be right? And no one can be wrong, right? 😄 Que the 1970 film “Catch-22” movie or the 2019 Hulu version:
Got it! 👍
—————
I think. We can’t really know can we? 🤭
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Yes!
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Prof, the different levels of hypocrisy rests in first vilifying someone else for doing what one is also doing (confirmation bias) but then going one step further and assuming the difference is one of ethical virtue and moral superiority!
No. This is error.
The shared error here is mistaking belief for reality – be it Faux News or MSNBC, be it Bubba the Trump lover or Karen the OAC lover – which is then compounded when we support public policies that act on this error (belief in place of reality, ie. group disparity means systemic discrimination). The error in vilifying Faux News surfaces ONLY when right wing media sources are counted as reality-denying and not left wing legacy media who sell just as much fiction to an equally gullible but oh-so-virtuous market of reality-denying people. I’ve given just a couple of boilerplate examples.
Imagine if people from both sides of the political chasm made wider each time the OTHER side is vilified, to AT LEAST agree to respect what’s demonstrably true first and act as if this mattered.
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A good example of just how much the left has been hoodwinked by having no clue what they are actually supporting in their fight against anything and everything conservative is given here in just the most recent example. If our political leaders are this clueless, imagine how justified are those who criticize it!
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Hmmm, 🤔 then I guess I just do not come from a politically-consumed background—I personally come from a scientific, engineering/mathematical testing, experimenting background where you simply follow the data and results. Or to elaborate more, my learning-educational background here led me to know/learn the difference between opinion vs. fact, or belief vs. fact.
Perhaps from this extrapolation by me of what you are saying I am too biased, too strong-headed in my life posture, with my cognitive mindset or pathology, along with my CV background… to get into serious “POLITICAL-ONLY” discussions. If so, then I completely embrace that and agree with it. I’d MUCH rather be spending my earnest hours and efforts—and I genuinely mean this, not being cheeky at all—working for NASA, the NTSB crash investigations, or serving/volunteering for a Suicide Crisis-management Hotline or clinic. 🙂
Because of exactly what you’ve pointed out here, politics and their debate/discussion is NOT really my personal cup-o-tea at all. And I’m okay with that. 😉
Respectful and warmest regards Tildeb. 🙏
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You know Tildeb, I have heard of the horrible lies told by the left, but I haven’t actually seen any.
Do you have some examples?
I have seen corrections made when an error in reporting is discovered. Which in a perfect world those mistakes would not happen, but they at least have the expected common courtesy to correct the error.
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Are you kidding me? How about, “Transwomen are women.” Really? Men can can be women? Any legacy media questioning this narrative?
How about ‘peaceful’ protests that include looting, killing, burning? Yup, that’s how antifa works. Do you care the last two Walmarts are closing in Portland because of stealing? Headline news everywhere except in media.
How about evolutionary biology today supposedly stops at the neck. This is reported everywhere. Yup, our brains contain this hidden ‘thing’ called gender, which establishes what the body should be. Really? You don’t hear echoes of ‘Of course we have a soul, you silly goose, which is the magical connection you have to this invisible god.’ Ringing a bell?
How about pretending the 1619 project is the ‘real’ history of the US.
How about the false media narrative around Covington high school or the Rittenhouse case? Media actually worked hard to keep their narrative alive evenwhen all the evidence failed to ‘do its job’ apparently.
How about altering the language of Title IX from ‘sex’ to ‘gender identity’. No problem putting serial rapist males in females prisons because, hey, those who identify as ‘transwomen’ really, really, really are women, you see, which makes their erect penises ‘female’ penises, donchaknow. Makes perfect sense.
This kind of ‘reporting’ using the stolen language of tolerance and diversity and civil rights into this massive anti liberal campaign waged across the spectrum of western civ while excusing all of it as the fault of the political right is now business as usual.
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Tildeb, in case you do not know, while people are born with male/female genetalia, and are sexed on that alone, the hormones that drive sex can be all over the place.
Meaning a person with a penis might lean towards, and prefer to identify, as closer to female than male, or vice versa. It isn’t their fault the hormones are out whack. It is NOT under their control. They are compelled by the hormonal imbalance. Like a moth to the flame.
So, it appears you would rather see sex as strictly binary, which it is not, nor forgive a person whos body is out of whack with it’s genetalia for wanting to identify with how their body is wired.
Personally, I find that a bit 1800-ish. Last I looked we are in 2023.
I don’t give a shit what consenting adults do behind closed doors. I don’t give a shit if a person with a penis wants to identify a a female. Or if a person with a vagina wants to identify as a male. It’s none of my damn business. It’s their body, they know what they feel. If what they feel no longer matters, and a person is forced to identify against their own bodies, what the fuck kind of world is that?
I also see no issue with MSM seeing it that way either.
Granted there are going to just be some deviant behaviors out there. People acting on opportunity, fantasy, or whatever. Been that way since the dawn of time I reckon. Again, ain’t none of my damn business, unless they are breaking laws doing it.
I’ve seen a lot of young adults who looked just like their parents. that is Billy looked a lot like his mother, and Suzie looked a lot like dad. If the looks are that dominant, what do you think might be happeneing with the hormones?
Franlky, you seem to be tending towards the far right stance on the issue. Which is certainly your right if that be the case. You are obviously pretty vocal on the topic.
In any event, if this is your lies from the left, I ‘m finding it pretty weak sauce.
https://www.salon.com/2019/06/25/sex-isnt-binary-and-we-should-stop-acting-like-it-is_partner/
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The thing is, SD, that while YOU don’t “give a shit,” the folks that are pushing some of these idea INSIST that you “give a shit” by repeatedly putting their outlooks “in your face.” I think many of us feel that individuals should have the right to live their lives however they want … but when they start pressuring folks to accept their, shall we say “atypical,” lifestyles, that’s when a lot of people get upset. As tildeb points out, it’s really not all that different from what Christians do to push their beliefs on society.
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Now I did not say that I don’t think the whole thing hasn’t gotten a bit out of hand.
Umpteen different pronouns and whatnot, seemingly changing daily. And this Furries thing…really? It all has been taken too far. I don’t disagree with that aspect.
Let’s dispose of the uneccessary baggage and agree to live and let live. As long as you don’t stomp on my toes. OK?
But, to say sex is absolutely binary, when it clearly isn’t, well that’s going a bit too far as well. At least in my book. Then going so far to accuse MSM of lying about gender, sounds a little like right wingnuttery projection to me.
Show me the lies. Don’t just sling them around like Fox News. I tried to find something relating to MSM failing to report riots, but all I found was Faux News shit. Or other dubious outlets.
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“But, to say sex is absolutely binary, when it clearly isn’t, well that’s going a bit too far as well.”
But it is binary. That’s exactly how far we need to go. Another way to think of this is to show a sex category in human physiology other than some combination of male/female. There simply is no third sex for humans. Pretending there is does not comport with reality.
Perhaps you’re confusing gender with sex. This is the lie constantly promoted on mainstream media where we hear the two terms conflated and then presented as if sex is on a spectrum. It’s not in reality. Gender identity is shown to cross the entire masculine/feminine spectrum, sure, but then is used by slipping in the term sex as if sex crosses some magical spectrum when it doesn’t in 99.999% of all humans. (Yes, there is a single documented case of a human hermaphrodite fertile with both genitalia.) But the constant conflation is the motte and bailey fallacy hard at work by legacy media outside of Faux News. And this matters. Sure, there are a billion genders but the truth of the matter resides in reality. And it is there we find exactly two sexes – or some combination of the two – for humans. Again, get away from people and understand the biological category in other species that are male/female; gender suddenly disappears entirely because it’s nothing more than a social construct based on temporary feelings. We are left with – you guessed it – exactly two sexes (male and female) in almost every species that doesn’t self replicate. Sure there are some molds and fish that can alter their sex but this doesn’t alter the fact of the binary reality of sex built into every cell and affecting development. The alternate is a narrative that is false in reality but a narrative that is driving gender ideology. It’s a lie.
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The problem I see here is the left, I would not know about the far left, I don’t have a clue who that is, does not tell rabble rousing lies and hammer on them daily, lying, lying, lying, 24/7. Bringing in rabid liars to lie with the hosts and pretend it’s a public service announcement…
Pizzagate? The stolen election? The voting machines? The goddamn Jewish space lasers?
The news I catch namely CNN/MSNBC/or my local NBC station, all seem fairly level headed and honest with the reporting. The spin with the talking heads though gets tiresome quickly. But the reporting seems to be pretty factual. As in, not outright lies.
Do they make mistakes yes. I have seen corrections. So, they do tend clean up the mess when one is made.
At least, that’s what I have seen. Am I biased because I prefer not to be lied to?
Where is this absolute fiction from MSM?
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Well then, Prof, you be doubly concerned if it’s facts and what seems to be the case in reality is submerged across all human endeavours when these conflict with belief in some narrative. Right now, it is sweeping university STEM programs, altering language to suit the sensitivities of offence archeologists, demanding activism from post doc students and newly minted scientists to demonstrate their ideological commitment FIRST before bothering to get around to subject knowledge and expertise. What’s true is relegated under this model and it reaches far, far beyond politics in its traditional sense. It is a social revolution indoctrinating our youngest into the stream of activism. It is denying reality outright in place of narrative and this shows up in everything from culture to science to media to entertainment to education and so on.
Yet, like good little soldiers of Christ, we line up to take sides in which religious narrative we’re going to support. The problem, I think, is that we need a lot more people to stop going along with this religious divide and get back to respecting reality first and foremost, respecting what’s true over and above what some of us demand everyone else must go along with, to stop feeding this religious divisive beast and proclaim independence from this either/or social model. We need to recognize narrative when we see it no matter the source and refuse to take sides in this internecine partisan conflict of Us and Them; our ‘side’ should be for what’s true, for what’s real, for what’s constructive, for what brings people together under a shared value system that grants the greatest amount of personal freedom for all with the highest tide for social responsibility to the least of us. There is an inclusive middle ground to be found with honest tolerance for differences without being compelled by law to validate the batshit crazy narcissistic identities of True Believers or face every form of social banishment. We need more atheists from this social contagion sweeping the Western world.
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Shell, let me reiterate: what does it say when reasonable, rational, compassionate people (like you) actually go along with the lie that males can become females?
Another way to think about the scope of this lie is to get people out of the way entirely. I do not think you would suggest that the sex of, say, dogs are now on a spectrum. I do not think you would go along with someone telling you that pollinating trees (male) do not require seeds (female) to reproduce. This is just the way biology works when – like humans – the species divide the carriers of small mobile gametes from the much more energy reliant large gametes. It is a binary system and it’s from the very first cells. Every cell in your body is male. No amount of anything can alter this biological fact. Your entire physical development as a human is dictated by this fact. It is a lie of incredible distortion to pretend this isn’t the case in reality. This is why a new term is developed called ‘gender’ that once upon a time simply meant presentation of masculine and feminine traits. Like you, I don’t give a shit how masculine or feminine anyone is. Live you life any way you want. But don;t for one second think it falls to me to ‘affirm’ the lie that you really, really, really are a different sex because you FEEL uncomfortable in your own body. Don’t think for one second that you have the right to compel people to go along with this fiction. Don’t think for one second that conflating ‘gender’ with ‘sex’ means you have magically altered reality and then demand that I use your new terminology to get around the conflicts, inconsistencies, and incoherence created by living in an altered reality. And yet, this is what legacy media does every day by going along with this lie. And this is only one aspect of how so much media is presenting a ‘woke’ narrative as if true. There are many. It’s not true in reality. It’s a lie.
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And this isn’t political. It’s about having the intellectual courage to stand on principle and refusing to go along with a lie. I don’t care what one’s political tribe might be; going along with a lie is not virtuous, not kind, not enlightened, not progressive, definitely not reasonable, rational, or compassionate. And that’s the case for both partisan camps in the ever-widening gap in the US. And trying to compel people to go along with a lie is anything but liberal: at best it is fascist, at worst totalitarian. Again, it doesn’t matter from which side of the political divide this is done. It is allowed to flourish only when people are willing to set aside respecting what’s true and going along with the lie. And the left should be criticized as much for doing so as the right. That’s all I’m saying. Whatever terms you want to use to describe someone on the right for going along with Faux News lies, remember those same terms describe those on the left for going along with the lies of MSNBC, CNN, Time, The New York Times, and so on. It’s belief in the lies that I think should be targeted. And that’s why I think we need more atheists on the job because they should recognize the same tactics used by religious people to defend their faith as today’s ideologues defending theirs.
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Tildeb, show me the lies!
I’ve seen plenty from the right. With my own eyes. I have yet to see actual LIES from MSM.
Educate me.
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And another add on:
There are plenty things on this earth that would get me to where you are with this. But this ain’t one of them…
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You seem to be ignoring genetics, hormonal imbalances, and atypical chromosomes, which play a part in sexual identity.
I don’t have a clue what any of that would be like, I’m pretty damn normal as far as social sexual constructs go. But that doesn’t mean I am not willing to give them that much benefit of the doubt.
https://www.studysmarter.us/explanations/psychology/gender/the-role-of-chromosomes-and-hormones-in-gender/
I don’t have a clue what percentage of people who have these issues. I suspect it’s pretty low. I fail to see the threat to society that is being projected from the right.
It’s a culture war. You know why it’s a culture war? Because they ain’t got anything meaningful to run on. So they keep playing the violin that makes the noise the rubes want to hear.
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One more thing, if for some reason this entire gender thing is a growing phenomenon, threatening our entire society at its very core, instead of being hateful and angry towards the people affected, my inclination would be could this be a result of all of us, no matter where we are, are living essentailly downhill from the chemical factory?
I want the cause/cure. Not the hostility/disdain for those affected.
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It’s an attack against you, SD. You just don’t recognize it as such. Yet. It’s an attack against you as an individual in law, an attack against your equality rights in law, making you in a legal sense simply a compendium of your identity groups, some of which are stripped of legal equality and made subject to group-based equity ‘rights’. It is an attack against what defines a liberal society: its founding principles that the individual is the base unit from which consent is granted to justify political power. It is an attack against free speech. It’s an attack against tolerance of differences, against diversity of thought, against equality between individuals and replaced with discrimination to impose equity. It is an abuse of language that, like religions, steals everything first like liberal tolerance and diversity and inclusion and recasts these in its own group-based image. All of this divides and causes hostility and partisanship and destruction. It builds nothing unifying. It only tears down.
This attack against you is also an attack against what you and I share and so I am attacked as well. This attack is socially based on morality just like religions try to be and it is based on a very different set of values that are group based – tribal – and not on what constitutes all of them, namely, the individual. And, like religions everywhere and totalitarian governments that use the same tactics, you are required to go along, shut your mouth, and give away our shared rights to be considered one of the good guys. All you have to do is either lie or go along with the lies.
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This is a quote by Filipovic taken from a brilliant article by Jon Haidt today over at The Free Press (I don’t know if a subscription is needed beyond my own), where the issue is about the crashing mental health of liberal girls, how it has come to be, how it presents in culture, and what we can do about it. But it starts with this idea:
“I am increasingly convinced that there are tremendously negative long-term consequences, especially to young people, coming from this reliance on the language of harm and accusations that things one finds offensive are “deeply problematic” or even violent. Just about everything researchers understand about resilience and mental well-being suggests that people who feel like they are the chief architects of their own life—to mix metaphors, that they captain their own ship, not that they are simply being tossed around by an uncontrollable ocean—are vastly better off than people whose default position is victimization, hurt, and a sense that life simply happens to them and they have no control over their response.”
Haidt goes on: “I have italicized Filipovic’s text about the benefits of feeling like you captain your own ship because it points to a psychological construct with a long history of research and measurement: locus of control.”
What I find brilliant is how this plays out in producing what is called the Woke movement and why it is so incredibly dysfunctional to the liberal cause.
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And this little nugget from FAIR contrary to the typical assumption made by Democrats about conservatives in general and Republicans specifically:
A recent report found that 77 percent of Republicans say, “America is better today because women, immigrants, and Black Americans have made progress towards equality.”
Uh oh… cognitive dissonance…
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The thing about studies and reports, you have to know who funded and carried out the study.
If Tucker Carlson did the research I think we can take it straight to the toilet and flush it.
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SD, reports out of Portland and Wisconsin during BLM riots and looting and occupation zones by legacy media was replaced by a narrative of largely peaceful protests. That was a lie including a report at night that shows the burning of several dozen cars in a
lot along with minority owned businesses gutted and smoldering down the street while the reporter on the scene insists it’s all very peaceful. There are untold number of stories dismissed or spiked out of hand because they reported on reality and simply didn’t fit the narrative at the time (like pickup trucks of people waving Palestinian flags in LA and New York literally attacking any Jews they can find, antisemitic groups on campuses successfully getting schools to divest in Israel, kicking out Jews from student councils and other student led groups, not reporting on thousands of Americans emigrating to Israel because of the socially unacceptable campus environment so blatantly hostile to Jews. Crafting news reporting by omission is an insidious form of lying. The attacks by anitfa goons against ‘hostile’ reporters (like Andy Ng) were also crafted by legacy media as a non event, or a minor inconvenience, or that such reporters ‘deserved’ this violent treatment. I’ve already mentioned the lies about the Rittenhouse case and the lies about the Covington high school incident in Washington (with an undisclosed 8 figure settlement by a consortium of legacy media for making shit up and reporting it as if true.) Look at the constant going along of smearing of strong feminists like Rowling and Dansky and Daum by legacy media as if these charges of bigotry and hatred were true – unquestioningly presented as if true – when they simply aren’t. They are fictional narratives. And the legacy media that isn’t Faux News is chalk full of this shit. Every day.
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This ain’t one of them, SD? Well, if you can swallow the whopper of a lie that males and females can switch sexes either by announcing this new truth based feelings or perhaps aided with a bit of surgery here and there, then I can understand why this ain’t one of them. But you are using faith that this is true and not reality. And I would expect more atheists would be pretty uncomfortable justifying a faith-based position on this issue while condemning equally ludicrous claims of those issues because,m well, those other ones are religious.
I think both are because both require faith to accept and denying reality to maintain.
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Just off the top of my head, SD, when it comes to media that is not far right wing: the Hunter Biden laptop, Twitter files, Wuhan lab leak, masking and school closures, all huge lies the legacy media went along with – vilifying anyone who dared to raise a concern – and reported all of them as if false when all of these are literally true. You’re not getting what’s true from legacy media; you are getting the ‘approved’ narrative. And being bombarded with daily lies about gender and ‘systemic’ inequities usually related to either race or ethnicity. We’re all being groomed to be either in this camp or that one. Perhaps you recognize the meaning of:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
I think it’s past time we returned to conviction and the principles of liberal democracy. And the first premise is: do not lie.
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Who funded reporting on facts? That’s your guiding principle?
Okay… do you trust the facts gathered by FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Freedoms)? Is there reporting from those legacy media that are not Faux News about the significant and sustained attack by the narrative these outlets continue to promote and defend but that undermine our individual rights and freedoms in the name of diversity, equity, inclusion, safety, tolerance, and being nice that are run daily by these outlets? Nowhere is this attack against you and your rights more pronounced and destructive than on campuses. (As Andrew Sullivan has pointed out, we ALL live on campus now.) Freedom of speech – the bedrock principle needed for liberal democracy – is a particular battleground that we are losing and the legacy media that isn’t Faux News isn’t carrying the story. Who loses? All of us. From Dorian Abbott at the university of Chicago:
“(W)e all lose when people self-censor.
Unfortunately, students and faculty are now self-censoring at alarming rates, in part as a result of high-profile cancellations of academics guilty of wrongthink. For example, FIRE has documented 471 attempts to get professors fired or punished for their speech over the past six years, the vast majority of which resulted in an official sanction. In a recent report for CSPI, Eric Kauffman estimates that 3 in 10,000 faculty experience such an attack each year, which corresponds to about one every three years at a large university with 1,000 faculty. Because these cancellations are so public and potentially harmful to the victim’s career, a small number can have an outsized impact on free expression. According to the same report, 70% of US centrist and conservative faculty report a climate hostile to their beliefs and 91% of Trump voting faculty say that a Trump voter would not express his/her views or are unsure. Similarly, after a major academic freedom incident in the fall of 2021, MIT polled faculty at two faculty forums and found that approximately 80% are “worried given the current atmosphere in society that your voice or your colleagues’ voices are increasingly in jeopardy” and more than 50% “feel on an everyday basis that your voice, or the voices of your colleagues are constrained at MIT.” The problem extends to students, more than 80% of whom self-censor on campus according to a 2021 FIRE survey. To get a sense of the magnitude of the self-censorship problem at universities, contrast these numbers with the fact that, according to a recent paper in SSRN by James Gibson and Joseph Sutherland, only 13% of American respondents did not feel free to speak their mind in 1954, at the height of McCarthyism. The discovery and transmission of knowledge is severely hindered under these conditions.”
Where’s the outcry from legacy media that isn’t Faux News?
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I’ve been really busy of late, haven’t had time to come in here and clean up what frankly looks more like troll droppings every day.
You know, there are some who might could use a little bit of canceling. Kids aren’t stupid these days, they sniff out assholes with agendas pretty quickly.
Nazi sympathizers, or any white supremacy types, or supporters of such. Evangelical fundy types lying for jeebus. Anti abortion backers. Outed racists hiding undere the guise of academia. I have no symapathy for any of these cancelations.
In fact I say more power to them!
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
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The difference is, free speech allows this revelation to happen. That’s why it’s important. Today, all one needs to do is accuse to be considered virtuous and be accused to be considered deserving/evil. Case closed. Why are good with that? I thought you were an atheist.
Why don’t you recognize yourself committing the tactic of assuming the conclusion, that people accused of being a Nazi must be Nazi because someone accused them of being one! Come on SD; your mental faculties are better than this tripe. As for ‘sniffing out’, look at how little sniffing there has been for, say, JK Rowling before widespread defamation; not only have millions of these kids who have read and loved the Potter series not recognized themselves becoming Death Eaters, but simply wave away reality about Rowling in place of believing what the accusers say. And you want to trust these people who disregard reality, people who are identical in rationalizing as any other faith-based believers? How were you ever able to question the religious with such a willing mindset to be so gullible to the point of denying reality and satisfied to do so? You know better than this. Good things, good results, do not come from denying reality or supporting a fiction in its place. Never has. Never will.
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Legacy media that is not Faux News warps what’s true to fit a narrative that competes with this. This is then what most people consume without recognizing the distortion at source. Here’s a typical list regarding just gender ideology (h/t to Lisa Selin Davis):
Media phrase: Medical treatment of transgender adolescents
Revision: Medical treatment for gender dysphoria.
Media phrase: Gender-affirming care
Revision: Adolescent sex changes, or medical changes to secondary sex characteristics.
Media phrase: Parents who oppose transgender care for minors.
Revision: Parents who advocate for better research and better care for kids with gender distress.
Media claim: Major medical organizations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society, endorse [blockers, hormones and surgeries as] best practices in the treatment of transgender youth
Revision: In countries like Finland, England and Sweden, which have nonpartisan governmental agencies to conduct systematic reviews of evidence, those groups found the evidence to be of such low quality that they worried risks outweighed benefits, and revised guidelines to be much more cautious than those endorsed in the States by partisan advocacy groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society. Those groups have not conducted systematic evidence reviews or revised guidelines based on the growing numbers of detransitioners or the shifting cohorts of children seeking secondary sex characteristic changes.
Media claim: Gender identity is unrelated to sexual orientation. They are “distinct aspects of being a person,” according to the American Psychological Association.
Revision: Gender identity is a theory from the 1960s about why some people with intersex conditions or gender dysphoria felt like they were or wanted to be the opposite sex. It is not a scientifically proven theory, and many people reject the notion; others believe in it deeply. Some research shows deep overlap between childhood-onset gender dysphoria and later homosexuality.
Media claim: Puberty blockers are fully reversible.
Revision: “Puberty blockers,” a drug designed to treat prostate cancer, may halt the development of secondary sex characteristics in young people when used off-label. It’s thought that puberty will resume as normal if a child goes off them, but there may be permanent damage to bones, brain development and height. Little is known about the long term affects. Some younger children who used the drugs for precocious puberty have gone on to sue for permanent bodily harm.
And so on. This is why I always go back to the importance of being truthful, trying one’s best to speak truthfully. This is neither partisan nor hate speech but a lost aspect that should apply to all media if we want to trust them over and above any other media source.
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Steve Krakauer has just released a book – Uncovered – that talks about exactly this issue, whether Faux News is the problem or if it is industry wide. Certainly, with levels of trust at historic lows in legacy media (that Steve calls ‘corporate’ media), old school journalism is very hard to find in this venue… old school as in unbiased reporting of facts allowing audiences to form their own opinions. But there is now a rise of independent media that offers an opportunity for people to find real diversity of thought on single sites. I have found that the widespread condemnation of corporate media by old school journalists is based on the fact that most now produce narratives that they then justify with plain sight confirmation bias and then double down on this intentional distortion and misrepresentation and omission by vilifying critics. But it is jaw dropping to see exactly which ‘critics’ are being vilified, namely, only the most widely respected old school journalists! And the people vilifying them? Basically young, woke ideologues who think freedom of speech and freedom of thought are about the worst vices imaginable!
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