FastEddieB - 03 December 2011 07:19 AM

Write4U - 03 December 2011 07:10 AM

The recent crop of republican candidates are in the class of Beavis and Butthead.

And our current president is in the class of…

...no, I won’t go there.

Do some study on what he has done, and you might be surprised. Listening to the shrill lies and soundbites from people who vowed to bring him down from day one is not critical analysis of his performance.
Trust me on this, please. 

See here and make sure you check out what he has accomplished in spite of opposition which borders on sedition.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/

and make sure you also check this from his opposition

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/rulings/pants-fire/

While he has not been able to accomplish all his stated goals, it seems to me that on the whole he has done extremely well under the circumstance.  Please be fair.

A president does not create jobs, that is done by the private sector. But his current plan for stimulating job creation and the resulting stimulus to the economy is being stonewalled by the republicans for all the wrong reasons.

I am a bit behind on my PoI podcasts and am catching up and just got around to this one. I agree with those who are troubled with the left wing bent of this and many other episodes of recent. I am a live and let live agnostic and a libertarian and agree with the right and left frequently as well as disagree with them.
I found this episode particularly troubling due to the loose use of the word “fear.” Here “fear” is used as a general term, but fear is pretty much always a reaction to something (as opposed to anxiety as a psychological disorder); it has a cause. Fear of terrorism, fear of homosexuals, fear of government intervention, these are all specific fears that tend to manifest themselves on the right politically. However to state these fears specifically makes the argument that the right is motivated by fear—as a general way of solving problems—harder to maintain. I could just as easily come up with a list of fears that the left uses politically: fear of climate change, fear of the 1%, even fear of those practicing “the politics of fear.” However, I am sure that many of those on the left would caveat them as “justified” fears. As such it’s simply just a matter of competing worldviews.
I think that the left has come up with a narrative that those on the right are practicing the politics of fear and it helps them comfort themselves and justify their own beliefs as the product of rationality. It allows them to explain away other viewpoints without ever having to confront them on facts. But it ignores the fact that even they are mere human beings driven by emotions and with a limited amount of knowledge about the world around them.
Often when Chris talks about his interest in the right it comes across as condescending. In this Chris presupposes their wrongness. He tries to figure out why anyone would want to hold a wrong viewpoint rather than trying to figure out how different people can come to different conclusions and having a respect for that process. It is entirely possible to hold a set of views and try to convince others of your views while still having respect for those who hold different views. I do not pick that up from Chris.
To me, what’s most troubling about these types of podcasts is the lack of introspection. They’re aimed at explaining away the behavior of opponents, but without using the same tools to examine those on the same side. It’s as if the point of these podcasts is to avoid giving the listeners tools to come to better conclusions, but instead give them arguments to dig their heels in on their correctness of their existing arguments. They are anti-introspective.
The Point of Inquiry podcasts that I enjoy are the ones that give an explanation of all human behavior (or even specific applications of our behavior) or giving critiques of specific pseudioscientific and religious movements. Some of the episodes I think exemplify this are the Scott Atran episode on terrorism and the Jonathan Kay episode on truthers. I hope to see fewer right bashing episodes and more of the type I mentioned.

Old Hoplite - 26 November 2011 07:35 AM

Well guys.  The Left in this country has passed the most authorian set of laws to ever be concieved.

Do you mean the Alien And Sedition Acts?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_sedition_act

While I’m at it, this thread seems to be a good example of a bunch of people flinging the terms “right” and “left” around like they’re easy real estate.

Please.

Let’s throw out these bigoted terms and talk about what matters: what is correct and what is not correct. Complaining about left-wing bias and right-wing bias doesn’t really get anyone any closer to understanding what the hell is good and bad about anything we’re talking about; it just confuses the issue. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about whether any argument is right or left biased, as long as it is correct.

This thread is about an episode that talks about left and right and many of the complaints of the bias center around whether or not said bias gives an accurate portrayal of the truth.

Jim Lippard - 01 December 2011 10:38 AM

If communists in the former Soviet Union counted as right-wing authoritarians to Altemeyer, what did communists in the United States of an authoritarian mindset, supporting the Soviet Union, count as?  Both right-wing with respect to the Soviet Union and left-wing with respect to the U.S.?

Altemeyer’s right/left distinction is with respect to the individual’s “in-group” and “power/authority group.” For Altemeyer, people are right-wing if these “followers have personalities featuring:
1) a high degree of submission to the established, legitimate authorities in
their society;
2) high levels of aggression in the name of their authorities; and
3) a high level of conventionalism.
Because the submission occurs to traditional authority, I call these followers right-wing authoritarians.” - “The Authoritarians” p. 9.

Left-wingers are members of the group that’s against the establishment. So, in the US, a (politically) left-wing authoritarian would be a member of the SLA, the SDS, the Weathermen, etc. In the Soviet Union a (politically) left-wing authoritarian would be someone who was a member of a group which was trying to usurp the power of the Communist Party. Right-wing authoritarians were those people who spied on their neighbors and reported “subversive activities.”

So, for Altemeyer, hard-core communists in the Soviet Union were right-wing authoritarians.

” But someone who lived in a country long ruled by Communists and who ardently supported the Communist Party would also be one of my psychological right-wing authoritarians even though we would also say he was a political left-winger. So a right-wing authoritarian follower doesn’t necessarily have conservative political views. Instead he’s someone who readily submits to the established authorities in society, attacks others in their name, and is highly conventional. It’s an aspect of his personality, not a description of his politics.”  - “The Authoritarians” p. 9

As usual they can’t wait to call conservatives racist, which is ironic since liberals are the ones who divide people by race. The fantasy that the republican party is the party of old white men is fading fast.

KenMacMillan - 04 September 2012 07:54 PM

As usual they can’t wait to call conservatives racist, which is ironic since liberals are the ones who divide people by race. The fantasy that the republican party is the party of old white men is fading fast.

Not for Joe Biden…

Biden was addressing a rally crowd in Danville, Va., on Tuesday that included hundreds of black people. He said Romney wants to get rid of new Wall Street regulations Obama signed into law after the financial collapse of 2008.

Said Biden: “Unchain Wall Street. They’re going to put y’all back in chains.”

Wait…

....I’ve been informed he meant “economic chains”.

My bad.

I don’t know how I possibly could have jumped to this…