bleeding heart

Still not quite over the experience of watching A Serbian Film, maybe the ugliest, filthiest, most distressing thing ever made by anybody. So as a painkiller, I watched Silver Linings Playbook. I'm not a big fan of romantic movies, but I liked this a lot. Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper are excellent, and excellent together.

It appears that the word "conservative" has undergone a rather radical transformation.

Exactly. If it's an issue, it should be seen as a non-partisan one. Though that sounds like a pipe dream, I know.

I suppose the term "broken" can be taken as a benign metaphor...but it usually isn't. It has connotations. For better than half of all family units. Hell, my divorce was one of the best things to ever happen to me...and my children grew up just fine. If that's broken, don't nobody fix it!

Hear, hear.

I see you're still using the internet, paid for by American tax dollars and then gifted to the private sector in the usual formulation. So you love (bottom-up) socialism. The point being, gunrutz, that we all have to live in this world as it is, whatever our principles, and so such sanctimonious cries of "hypocrisy" refer to--literally, with zero exceptions--every single one of us. If we choose to view each other this way, that is.

No, eco-systems are for wussies and commies.

All good points. A related issue, though currently getting little publicity (it's an issue that seems to wax and wane repeatedly) is the notion of cancelling "odious debts." so a country that, say, incurred debt under a foreign occupation or a dictatorship can apply to have its debt erased, under the notion that the debt "is not the country's, but the specific borrower him or herself. (well, ok....Himself, always, so why be coy about the gender language? ) Equador, for example, managed to decrease its debt considerably (though not totally eliminate it) by precisely this argument, which is a strong one. Haiti is, to my knowledge, still under discussion...but they should be an obvious candidate, especially given that the corrupt and greedy dictators were cherished US clients. I believe the US itself had a debt cancelled under this policy, arguing that they shouldn't have to pay Cuba's debt incurred under the Spanish colonialists. Quite rightly, too.

I was just joking anyway. Ignore my remark and carry on.

Why don't you support the troops?

Well, Army Guy, we aren't going to be putting more behind bars, because the Obama administration has determined that drone killings are a lot better than detention....even for "suspected" terrorists.

Squid, I'm assuming it was "broken families" to which jacee objected.

Carepov, No, I don't think people generally factor in government policy, consciously, in terms of having children and so on. That doesn't mean that governments don't apply tax rules out of ideological concerns and beliefs....which IS "political expediency," as you aptly put it. Look at it this way: I have little doubt that any number of Conservative politicians have never taken issue with same sex marriage....but they have nevertheless tended to talk and act on the pretence....out of political expediency. Similarly, there are doubtless some more left-leaning politicans who didn't much like the idea...but voiced public support, because of the same expediency.

Certainly. I should have at least added another set of quotation marks.

Maybe so.

If the offending comments exist, there should be no problem citing them. If already cited, a quick link to it is all that is being asked for. What's the problem?

Perhaps so...I'd go further, and say that a flat tax is also a type of social engineering.

Of course the scholars had "an agenda," in that they believed the media act often (and not always) as a propaganda vehicle in support of powerful interests. In other words, their thesis was that the media does indeed have a bias....as you yourself point out, as it's made up of human beings, how could it not? But their "agenda" was not to disprove a rightwing bias in the media (as their personal biases, one might suppose, would wish to find)....why would they be go in this direction...at all? Again, I'm not discounting biases in people conducting the work; nor are the authors. Nor is anybody. I am discounting the self-serving claim, frequently made but avoiding tried and true research methods...that the media is soaked in a :left-wing bias." The "agenda" of Chomsky-Herman's propaganda model is this: the major news media will allow, even encourage robust debate and present differing points of view; but within pretty severe restraints, fairly strict parameters. So when the "leftish" NYTimes or Washington Post (Canadian media are no different, but I'm talking about the model itself) reports on, say, state terrorism or mass murder, the authors' hypothesis (that is, their "agenda") is that reporting will vary sharply depending upon who is the victim....but moreso on who is the offending agent. That is a crucial part of their model...and anyone who, say, reads the news will be unsurprised by the hypothesis. So they set up a theoretical framework of how and why mostly honest and professional journalists will behave as propagandists, positing five "filters"; to paraphrase: 1. Ownership/control 2. Advertising and its influence on content 3. Flak 4. Sourcing 5. Ideological commitment to "fear of the enemy," originally "anti-communism" but updated since. They then go on to show case examples using comparative methods, number and tenor or reporting. So of course the state terrorism of Indonesia against the East Timorese is going to be mostly ignored, while the mass murder of the KR in Cambodia in the same era will be cause of great media self-congratulatory consternation. Legitimate consternation, but lacking even a cursory examination of concurrent atrocities (and major ones) in which Western nations shared direct and intentional culpability. This has nothing to do with "liberals vs. conservatives" (much less the L and C Parties themselves)...because both are tied to the same extremist behavior, and both are rewarded by a compliant media. We see it again in 1999, with much (more often liberal than not) self-stroking over our "new military humanism" and our "responsibility to protect" and stop genocide...in Serbia. While at precisely the same moment, the chief allied forces--the US and UK--were busily arming the Indonesian Generals, arming them with full knowledge and approval of their mass killings, which of course dwarfed anything committed by the Serbs. Which tells you just how horrific the West-supported attempted genocide was. Now, this is a serious, strictly researched and strongly-argued model....and you think public opinion surveys are preferable? The former uses tried-and-true scholarly methods, relies on the subject inditing or exonerating itself as per proper observational methods....and remains open to critiques, counter-arguments, and room for debate. Unlike asking a bunch of people" do you think the media is left-wing, right-wing, or neither"...and proposing that the answer supplies us with, well, knowledge, aside from "knowledge" of what a certain number of people believe about something. Hell, the reason that polled people might say "yeah, leftwing bias" OR "rightwing" is precisely because BOTH liberal and conservative leaders and a compliant media have managed to avoid talking too much about such enormous stories.

Yes, the Liberals are leaking stories about Liberal behavior knowing that the media will blame the Conservatives. That doesn't sound far-fetched or conspiratorial at all. It seems my little bit about conservative victimization culture in another thread understated the case. And do you have any citations of "the media....trying it's best to turn this on harper"?

Oh, by the way, Betsy, didn't you forget part of the subject in the last line of your last post? It sounds pretty sanctimonious to remark that it's "up to you all to make a conscious effort" to improve this place...rather than using the more conventional "up to us."

Betsy, I agree with you completely that most posters sometimes engage in behavior that constitutes "trolling." But that's not what people really mean when they speak of "trolls." they're speaking of consistent trolls; people who behave as trolls more often than not; and most of all, people who are consciously, intentionally behaving as trolls, because it amuses them or because they are dickheads. Of course it can get extremely subjective, you're right about that. But some cases are obvious enough. I have been, personally, explicitly informed by a poster that his purpose here is to try to upset and antagonize people, because it's fun, and that this is, in his view, the very purpose of these discussion boards. That's obviously and unequivocally a troll. And I support their right to talk as they wish, but that doesn't mean I agree with their style, nor think it's fine. Now, I also agree that the best way to deal with this is to not bother responding if one doesn't wish to engage. That's fine, and that's true. But the idea that it's all completely subjective, or that "we're all trolls"....that is not really accurate.

Tim, I'm not claiming that there are no biases, or that perfect objectivity is going to be achieved. But your argument was, to paraphrase, that "a right-winger conducting a media study will discover leftwing bias; and a leftwinger will discover right-wing bias." This is not obviously the case. It is your claim, so you should prove it. I DID offer an example of a pair of scholars--obvious left-wingers--who undertake a major, expansive study of media, bias, and propaganda....and did not conclude that there was a "right-wing bias." And your idea that a good way to determine bias in media would be to conduct an opinion poll is, frankly, useless. That doesn't indicate bias, but impression, and in the majority of cases by people who have never thought much about the matter and are speaking off the cuff. Conduct an opinion poll of Canadians asking them if Canada or the United States is a superior place to live. You know, Tim, exactly what the results would be...and that they don't give us an idea of which place is better to live in. Not helpful. Ask if there is a God. Ask them if they have good or bad views on "corporations." Again, you keep ignoring the idea of institutional analysis, using robust methods of research, comparative examples, and a willingness to suspend preconceived biases in favour of letting the information--based on non-partisan methodological approaches-speak for itself. It's not that zero bias of the authors will assert themselves...it's that it's the best we have to approach a look at how institutions work....and you prefer opinion polls (which you elsewhere have disparaged, let's not forget). Further, what would a question about "liberal" vs "conservative" bias even mean? To some respondents, it would have to do with (their personal impression, based on zero actual work or study) on "which party leaders are criticized the most"; for others it would be matters of how homosexuality is reported or discussed; for others it would be about reporting on the economy; or religion; or war. Etc. The majority of Canadians believe in God. That doesn't tell us there's a God; nor does it mean, all things being equal, that the odds of his existence are greater than for his non-existence. Indeed, it carries exactly zero information, beyond what people think. (And, again, most people actually don't spend much time, energy or effort thinking about this...nor about "media bias."

The profound difficulty of being a sensible Conservative in our loopy-lefty world of partisan Marxist lunacy is that they are always being victimized. I mean, yes, good conservatives despise "victim culture," except when it is real: ie the victimization of conservatives. That is a serious problem, because, first of all, Opposition parties remain oppositional, which is truly unfair to the political Right. The victimization comes not only from the pinkos who comprise all non-conservative political parties; they are also victimized by the left-wing media, the left-wing professors who have destroyed the Academy, scientists, teachers, immigrants, women, and the working poor...that is, the majority of the population, who are morons by inclination, and fifth-columnists by effect. The true mystery is the way that, the more powerful and influential a conservative becomes...the more he is being victimized.

My concession to carepov's point aside, Bonam has made a very interesting point. It's not that, necessarily, it is bad to tax individuals at a higher rate than families. But it is certainly arguable as to whether this is the way things should go, and whether a totally free and open social choice is to be a rewarding factor. Something doesn't smell right. It really can be argued that it is a form of social engineering. I suppose the same can be argued for any number of tax rules, breaks, and incentives...but that argument doesn't matter so much, because I think each discrete case should be looked at, well, discretely, as far as possible. Further, does "family" include broken families....which are fast becoming not only normal, but an actual majority? And in these cases, how does alimony and child support work into the equation? At any rate, as Bonam says--assuming we desire an open, honest, transparent system in which things are done for the reasons stated--if social engineering is the incentive for proposed differences in tax rates, shouldn't that be openly asserted?

Your third sentence answers my question....and I concede it is a strong point.