that being said I don't really think bowling alone is that relevant to what we were discussing; if ethnic diversity is leading to less 'formation of social capital,' do we think that trend would reverse or slow if only we had access to less media?
Yes, because if there's only the local newspaper for news then people have a shared source of information. If there's more sources that lean towards someone's particular politics, then it's possible to only view media that supports your point of view. The Internet is really bad for this- someone who gets their news solely from FireDogLake or Daily Kos is just as much of a problem as the guy that reads Drudge or Breitbart exclusively.
In what way?
0
Options
Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
If you get your news from just one side of the political debate you're getting a skewed view of the world, and you start thinking of the opposition as inhuman monsters rather than fellow citizens who can be compromised with. Ideally you'd have citizens that partake of both right and left wing news and then make their own decisions.
Bringing back the Fairness Doctrine would help a lot with tv/cable news, and it would also do a number on right-wing radio hosts so that's a bonus for you guys.
First, the problems aren't equal in either quantity or scope. The idea that, for example, FireDogLake is as bad as Fox News when it comes to misrepresentation of facts (or, more importantly, specifically volunteering to act as a propaganda puppet for one specific political party) is just incorrect.
Second, the idea that contracting news to exclude small press / blogs will fix polarization is demonstrably wrong. Go back to the Cold War. Go further back to WWII. Go yet further back to WWI. Each step back, printed news is more contracted, and the public is either equally polarized or more polarized, and certainly far more regressive. Even if we magically made the Internet go away and we returned to Ye Olde Glory Days of White Nuclear Families, the very premise that everyone would be getting their news from a common source is false - go check out the number of papers that were in print for a given city in (say) 1960. Go check the (often fairly clear) political biases of these papers, and see if you can guess which were popular among conservatives vs which were popular among socialists vs which were popular among liberals.
The newspaper he sourced specifically points out the left leaning bias of the paper's author while singing the praises of it's apparent findings that racially diverse neighborhoods are bad (the clear intent being to say, "See? Even this progressive academic has discovered that racial diversity doesn't work!"). Nowhere does it mention the scope of the study (which was narrow) or Putnam's caveats about the findings.
Yes, popular press reports of social science findings pretty much never mention the caveats. This is often as much the fault of the researchers, who write press releases omitting those facts, as the popular press authors who don't stand to gain anything from reporting them.
This seems particularly relevant when Putnam's work is being put to use by Neo-Conservatives in an attempt to block race-conscious screening processes at post secondary educational institutes.
Really? To me this seems totally irrelevant to anything Marcus or anyone else has said.
So, what, yourself and @Captain Marcus apparently know the study better than it's own Goddamn author? And what's this crap about 'a relic of our hunter-gatherer days'? What part of the study is that from?
You're flailing mightily at a straw man and working yourself into a really disproportionate rage in the process. Neither of us have disagreed with anything the author said about his own study. As for Marcus's view of hunter-gatherer instincts, that's his explanation. It's as good as any other.
Account not recoverable. So long.
0
Options
Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
First, the problems aren't equal in either quantity or scope. The idea that, for example, FireDogLake is as bad as Fox News when it comes to misrepresentation of facts (or, more importantly, specifically volunteering to act as a propaganda puppet for one specific political party) is just incorrect.
Oh what, and The Baffler doesn't carry water for the Left? Unless you're getting your news straight from wire services, everything and everyone has a bias. It's good to expose yourself to different ideas that challenge your worldview, if only to know how to refute them in a better way than calling me a racist all the time.
Ye Olde Glory Days of White Nuclear Families
Like this. You're the one bringing race into this, man.
Look, nothing I'm calling for is that controversial. We can all agree that American society is far too polarized, right? And that polarization is partially responsible for the current Congress thinking that the other side is Hitler, the Anti-Christ, and Snidely Whiplash all rolled into one. What I'm saying is that part of that polarization is due to fear of strangers (which can be alleviated) as well as everyone withdrawing into a media bubble where their thinking doesn't get challenged. Hence my newspapers proposal.
If you think you've got better ideas (ones that involve adult citizens and not children) I'm all ears.
First, the problems aren't equal in either quantity or scope. The idea that, for example, FireDogLake is as bad as Fox News when it comes to misrepresentation of facts (or, more importantly, specifically volunteering to act as a propaganda puppet for one specific political party) is just incorrect.
Oh what, and The Baffler doesn't carry water for the Left? Unless you're getting your news straight from wire services, everything and everyone has a bias. It's good to expose yourself to different ideas that challenge your worldview, if only to know how to refute them in a better way than calling me a racist all the time.
Ye Olde Glory Days of White Nuclear Families
Like this. You're the one bringing race into this, man.
Look, nothing I'm calling for is that controversial. We can all agree that American society is far too polarized, right? And that polarization is partially responsible for the current Congress thinking that the other side is Hitler, the Anti-Christ, and Snidely Whiplash all rolled into one. What I'm saying is that part of that polarization is due to fear of strangers (which can be alleviated) as well as everyone withdrawing into a media bubble where their thinking doesn't get challenged. Hence my newspapers proposal.
If you think you've got better ideas (ones that involve adult citizens and not children) I'm all ears.
There is a difference between bias and falsehood. I routinely read The American Conservative because they have writers who have a conservative bias, but at the same time actually live in reality. In comparison, a lot of the organizations in the right wing Wurlitzer trade in out and out falsehoods. And for all the bias on the left, you don't see that sort of fabrication going on.
There is a difference between bias and falsehood. I routinely read The American Conservative because they have writers who have a conservative bias, but at the same time actually live in reality. In comparison, a lot of the organizations in the right wing Wurlitzer trade in out and out falsehoods. And for all the bias on the left, you don't see that sort of fabrication going on.
I do too, though I could live without Dreher going on and on about Dante all the time. I'd say that you do see a lot of the same misleading spin, especially on anything involving Our Friends The Israelis. And Edward Snowden/Wikileaks, of course. Granted it's not as disgustingly obvious as Fox News but it's there.
You have any ideas on fixing the system in Canada's Beard?
Ok, what is comparable is falsehood and influence to Fox News on the other side?
New York Times is an Israeli mouthpiece, Jezebel on anything, Greenpeace, PETA, etc. A lot of little groups rather than one big one, much like how most conservatives get their news from one big source and liberals get theirs from a bunch (Oliver, Stewart, Maddow, etc).
If you're going to put in groups like Greenpeace and PETA in the "librul lies" column, then you have a bunch of conservative mouthpiece organizations like the NRA to add to the GOP side.
Ok, what is comparable is falsehood and influence to Fox News on the other side?
New York Times is an Israeli mouthpiece, Jezebel on anything, Greenpeace, PETA, etc. A lot of little groups rather than one big one, much like how most conservatives get their news from one big source and liberals get theirs from a bunch (Oliver, Stewart, Maddow, etc).
Only 3 of those are even news sources and none are anything on the level of Fox News when it comes to outright lies. Even the comedians you mention are more accurate. And for some reason you mention them in the same breath as an actual news program too.
This is just such a silly attempt at false equivalency. When you have to start pretending PETA is a news provider, you are reaching.
FOX News isn't just FOX News, it's a fraction of Rupert Murdoch's political machine. It has no meaningful rival, considering his empire tops charts even after being split into two separately-tracked companies.
Ok, what is comparable is falsehood and influence to Fox News on the other side?
New York Times is an Israeli mouthpiece, Jezebel on anything, Greenpeace, PETA, etc. A lot of little groups rather than one big one, much like how most conservatives get their news from one big source and liberals get theirs from a bunch (Oliver, Stewart, Maddow, etc).
So... you're claiming the Times has a liberal bias... for supporting Israel? I'm pretty sure blind unconditional support for the Israeli government is the GOP position.
Ok, what is comparable is falsehood and influence to Fox News on the other side?
New York Times is an Israeli mouthpiece, Jezebel on anything, Greenpeace, PETA, etc. A lot of little groups rather than one big one, much like how most conservatives get their news from one big source and liberals get theirs from a bunch (Oliver, Stewart, Maddow, etc).
you left out The Onion.
redx on
They moistly come out at night, moistly.
+6
Options
Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
So... you're claiming the Times has a liberal bias... for supporting Israel? I'm pretty sure blind unconditional support for the Israeli government is the GOP position.
For that and a bunch of other things, yeah. The New York Times Magazine had an obscene interview with someone who was into bestiality a few months back, and at no time informed the police of his felonious actions or called him out for the monster he is. They're not "the judging type" over at the New York Times. And it's the official position of both parties, or did you not see the Hillary Clinton piece that I posted over in the Clinton thread where she praises Netanyahu to the skies?
Oooh yeah, ya got me. You have individual shows and organizations that lie, not a tv channel.
Ragging on my examples aside, do any of you have ideas on how to lessen our degree of national polarization? Preferably within the next five years so the whole "brainwash our children" thing isn't allowed.
The New York Times Magazine had an obscene interview with someone who was into bestiality a few months back, and at no time informed the police of his felonious actions or called him out for the monster he is.
Was it the editorial page? Because if not, it's their job to report, not to editorialize.
So... you're claiming the Times has a liberal bias... for supporting Israel? I'm pretty sure blind unconditional support for the Israeli government is the GOP position.
For that and a bunch of other things, yeah. The New York Times Magazine had an obscene interview with someone who was into bestiality a few months back, and at no time informed the police of his felonious actions or called him out for the monster he is. They're not "the judging type" over at the New York Times. And it's the official position of both parties, or did you not see the Hillary Clinton piece that I posted over in the Clinton thread where she praises Netanyahu to the skies?
Oooh yeah, ya got me. You have individual shows and organizations that lie, not a tv channel.
Ragging on my examples aside, do any of you have ideas on how to lessen our degree of national polarization? Preferably within the next five years so the whole "brainwash our children" thing isn't allowed.
Neither of those first positions is really a liberal bias, though? If Israel is an issue that's supported on both sides of the isle, then it hardly proves the Times is a comparable "other side" to the Fox News empire. The horse story is clearly about a skeevy dude but it's not exactly the NYT's place to organize an extradition (the dude in the story was Canadian).
Again, there is nothing comparable to Murdoch media empire and right wing radio shows. There are clearly news organizations with biases for the left, but none that are as large, none that are as directly tied to the party, and none that directly lie or distort the truth as often or with as much malice.
How to lessen the polarization: First, stop saying "both sides are doing it," since that is an incredibly flimsy excuse. If either side is allowed to use that excuse, then they both could go as far as conservative talk radio without admitting any fault. If people were less inclined to defend their side by saying "you guys do it, too" then people could be more critical of their own positions and more understanding of others.
Second, and similar: Stop presenting "both sides" on an issue. That inherently frames everything as a polar issue, and gives legitimacy to whatever side is crazy. Present both sides if there actually are good reasons to do so, but don't give legitimacy to things like "what if Obama is a secret muslim" or "What if vaccines cause autism" since that gives legitimacy to the insanity. If completely insane ideas are not given equal weight then it is a lot harder to hold incredibly polarized opinions, or at least harder to bring them out.
Third: Change human nature fundamentally. People are tribal. It's gonna happen, and every new way to connect to other people both lets some people get a broad view of differing opinions and lets other people form an even more insulated community around a specific belief.
Fourth: Maybe make it harder to lie on news broadcasts? I mean obviously this will never happen due to freedom of speech, but it would probably be a lot harder to maintain an energized base of angry, polarized people if e.g. radio talk show hosts could be taken off the air for repeated falsehoods, since those angry listeners would no longer have arguments that are impossible to refute due to being unconnected to reality.
How to lessen the polarization: First, stop saying "both sides are doing it," since that is an incredibly flimsy excuse. If either side is allowed to use that excuse, then they both could go as far as conservative talk radio without admitting any fault. If people were less inclined to defend their side by saying "you guys do it, too" then people could be more critical of their own positions and more understanding of others.
Second, and similar: Stop presenting "both sides" on an issue. That inherently frames everything as a polar issue, and gives legitimacy to whatever side is crazy. Present both sides if there actually are good reasons to do so, but don't give legitimacy to things like "what if Obama is a secret muslim" or "What if vaccines cause autism" since that gives legitimacy to the insanity. If completely insane ideas are not given equal weight then it is a lot harder to hold incredibly polarized opinions, or at least harder to bring them out.
Just wanted to emphasize this part. To decrease polarization you have to force the side that's crazy to be not that. By placing a pox on both houses, you fail to do so.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
+20
Options
Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
So... you're claiming the Times has a liberal bias... for supporting Israel? I'm pretty sure blind unconditional support for the Israeli government is the GOP position.
For that and a bunch of other things, yeah. The New York Times Magazine had an obscene interview with someone who was into bestiality a few months back, and at no time informed the police of his felonious actions or called him out for the monster he is. They're not "the judging type" over at the New York Times. And it's the official position of both parties, or did you not see the Hillary Clinton piece that I posted over in the Clinton thread where she praises Netanyahu to the skies?
Oooh yeah, ya got me. You have individual shows and organizations that lie, not a tv channel.
Ragging on my examples aside, do any of you have ideas on how to lessen our degree of national polarization? Preferably within the next five years so the whole "brainwash our children" thing isn't allowed.
Fourth: Maybe make it harder to lie on news broadcasts? I mean obviously this will never happen due to freedom of speech, but it would probably be a lot harder to maintain an energized base of angry, polarized people if e.g. radio talk show hosts could be taken off the air for repeated falsehoods, since those angry listeners would no longer have arguments that are impossible to refute due to being unconnected to reality.
I don't think it's unreasonable to assert that deliberate lies which aren't later retracted with equal volume are a public hazard and therefore susceptible to legal restriction
I've always maintained that if you are found to have lied on anything purporting to be factual, your retraction should be made at least as prominent. Bang on about something completely wrong for two hours on the radio? Spend two hours the next day explaining that you were wrong. Get 1000 faves or stars or whatever the fuck they are now on Twitter for an inflammatory tweet that's an obvious lie? You have to PM every single person who favourited you explaining that you were wrong. Newspaper has a headline about gypsy Muslims stealing your bins? Next edition there's a retraction taking up the exact same column inches in the exact same position.
[Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
+14
Options
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Kentucky's outgoing governor signed an executive order to restore voting rights to 100,000 disenfranchised former felons. Granted, next governor will probably take that back away immediately (Bevin kinda wishy-washy says he's for restoring rights, but he's also for taking back people's insurance and having his own constituents die in the streets so I'm taking that with the entire salt shaker) but at least it brings attention to the injustice for short time.
Iowa continues to suck.
And as I suspected, Bevin has taken it back. As a Christmas gift to Kentucky, he re-disenfranchised them all again. Also lowered the minimum wage for state workers and changed the marriage certificate laws just so Kim Davis can feel better.
I'm wondering if someone can challenge his re-disenfranchising BS in court. As for the other shit, only way that gets undone is if people get off their fucking asses and vote. Seriously, I can't stress the following enough
-Both sides aren't not the same and any whine about is fucking lazy at best. We wouldn't have two different major parties, that strive to implement different policies on another of issues, if there was any truth to that bullshit statement.
-Withholding one's vote because none of the candidates are exiting is really fucking immature. There's going to be plenty of times where one has to make a choice and none of the options are exiting. It's also fucking terrible to bring such a mindset into picking leaders. They don't need to be exiting, they just need to be competent (I'll take the most boring, but competent, candidate over the exciting, but horribly incompetent, candidate any day of the week).
-Stop whining about how 'voting against a terrible candidate isn't a enough," and start making a list of the stuff that makes a candidate the better option, if one needs find motivation to vote.
-Stop letting perfect be the enemy of better. (aka if one can't get their unicorn, they shouldn't be an idiot that turns down a pony right and opt to get stuck with a rancid shit sandwich).
-Every vote matters. Not voting because one's vote doesn't matter, is akin to the fools that drops a single piece of trash on the beach with the mindset "of it doesn't matter, it's just on piece of trash." It's not just one person making a foolish decision and it can quickly add up.
Districts in NC had been heavily gerrymandered to pack black voters into a couple of districts so that the GOP could overwhelmingly win big. Today is a very bad day for NC Republicans because the districts now look like this:
MSNBC is the closest thing to fox news because there is pressure from the top to support the DNC, however they've lightened up on it a bit and Maddow is a national treasure who doesn't care and is too popular for them to do anything about (maddow is definitely team liberal and not team democrat, which is an important distinction)
Haha oh man the old 12th district and 4th districts. If that isn't blatant gerrymandering, then nothing is.
Considering this is North Carolina, I wonder what effect it will end up having on the congressional delegation. It's currently 10 Republican vs 3 Democrat I believe, and it wouldn't surprise me if two of the incumbent Democrats ended up in the same district afterwards.
-edit- Heck even the 9th district is pretty silly.
I don't get how it's a bad day for NC Republicans considering the people who drew up the new maps explicitly said they were organizing the districts to keep Republican seats and incumbents in power.
I mean sure they're no longer districting by race, but the end result is still the same in that they're drowning out any opposition with this bullshit.
The rewrite did not consider the race of voters; instead, it focused on keeping the Republicans’ 10-3 advantage in U.S. House seats, protecting congressional incumbents, keeping districts compact and keeping counties within those districts as whole as possible, said Rep. David Lewis, the chief redistricting leader in the state House.
I'm not in the least surprised that their goal was to protect their 10-3 advantage, I'm just a little bit surprised that they came right out and said it. What sort of rules govern these redistricting plans anyway? Is blatantly stating that you are districting for your own advantage permissible?
I'm not in the least surprised that their goal was to protect their 10-3 advantage, I'm just a little bit surprised that they came right out and said it. What sort of rules govern these redistricting plans anyway? Is blatantly stating that you are districting for your own advantage permissible?
State legislature draws them with basically only restriction being they cannot blatantly disenfranchise upon racial lines.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
The thing is the voters that brought the suit could still push for the courts to weigh in on the new proposed lines and the courts tell the NC GOP to soundly fuck off because the new districts are still unacceptable.
I'm not in the least surprised that their goal was to protect their 10-3 advantage, I'm just a little bit surprised that they came right out and said it. What sort of rules govern these redistricting plans anyway? Is blatantly stating that you are districting for your own advantage permissible?
State legislature draws them with basically only restriction being they cannot blatantly disenfranchise upon racial lines.
Well, racial lines are one of the easier to prove. But when they come out and say they're doing to rig the election...
The underlying principle is still one person one vote - the courts could still throw this out on that, since if the people drawing up the maps are advertising they're trying to rig the vote... well, why not give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it will?
It's not possible to get perfect parity in vote weight between districts... but really the whole process is fucked up, I don't know who first referred to it as the "politicians choosing their voters", but that's basically the core issue with it. Ideally districts would all be laid out as much as possible on administrative borders (e.g. county lines), with an eye to grouping similar counties (that is, city vs. rural primarily).
For comparison:
You can see just how bad NC's districts were compared to the rest of the country (Louisiana looks pretty bad too, and some of the really dense metro regions are hard to see on that). Like, there's lots of kinks in lines all over, but not to the same degree.
Illinois is known for being the Dem equivalent of that. If you could zoom in on Chicago, their districts are awkwardly shaped to try to get inner-city populations out to dominate select suburbs. Texas looks a bit bizarre, but only down south. North-central Florida and most of PA also look pretty bad. North Carolina's 12th still takes the cake, though. You could tell me that was a river on that map, and i'd believe it.
I have no problem with increased GOP representation in Democratic states if it means partisan gerrymandering gets declared unconstitutional. That's because I believe the only path back to national sanity lies in getting rid of this kind of blatantly hypocritical bullshit.
Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are just as bad as NC, you just can't tell as obviously. All Obama states, I think 70% represented by Republicans.
Oh in PA's case our State legislature is designed in such a way that you'd probably have to spend a year figuring out which corrupt ass is affecting your life.
Also Voter ID laws that they went on tv and publicly admitted were meant to decrease Dem voters.
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
I have no problem with increased GOP representation in Democratic states if it means partisan gerrymandering gets declared unconstitutional. That's because I believe the only path back to national sanity lies in getting rid of this kind of blatantly hypocritical bullshit.
Yep. I'm sympathetic to the argument that allowing the GOP to pack black people into one district has a side effect of vastly increasing the chances that those black people will have someone who definitely represents their interests. Redistricting everything would take away that good thing. However, it would also be a net benefit to Democrats across the board, which would eventually result in actual progress being made on those constituents' behalf. Having a representative that is 100% in it for black people doesn't really help them when the GOP controls Congress in general.
It's a band-aid. It's going to hurt when we rip it off, but only for a moment.
I have no problem with increased GOP representation in Democratic states if it means partisan gerrymandering gets declared unconstitutional. That's because I believe the only path back to national sanity lies in getting rid of this kind of blatantly hypocritical bullshit.
Yep. I'm sympathetic to the argument that allowing the GOP to pack black people into one district has a side effect of vastly increasing the chances that those black people will have someone who definitely represents their interests. Redistricting everything would take away that good thing. However, it would also be a net benefit to Democrats across the board, which would eventually result in actual progress being made on those constituents' behalf. Having a representative that is 100% in it for black people doesn't really help them when the GOP controls Congress in general.
It's a band-aid. It's going to hurt when we rip it off, but only for a moment.
One of the perverse ironies of redistricting for minority representation is that, especially in places like North Carolina, it has served to weaken the ability of people in their district to address base-level civic issues in their districts.
Look at the old North Carolina map. The district the courts struck represent a three-hour trip on the Interstate, passing through multiple cities and smaller communities with their own issues and needs for representative action and cooperation with local leaders. But because of the extreme gerrymander, the citizens of District 12 and District 4 represent only a small percentage of local voters in the major cities the districts pass through. In the small towns, decisions on larger regional concerns are dominated by the voters in the surrounding counties. The partisan nature of state politics means that the residents in these districts have little to no say in the issues effecting their immediate communities. It's representation in policy, but a handful of lone voices screaming into the wind in practice. This is exactly what the people who drew the districts wanted.
It's compliance as a middle finger, and it is the way states have been allowed to get right with federal law all across the country. Genuine nonpartisan compactness - and not the bullshit "looks like it on the surface, but we actually shaded the fuck out of the numbers" proposal from the North Carolina GOP - really would be an improvement of the kind of malicious gamesmanship that makes up our current redistricting efforts.
Phillishere on
+2
Options
jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
I want to know what left-wing source has put out anything close to the current right-wing talk radio piece about Scalia being taken out by Obama so he could put a liberal in SCOTUS.
There's no comparison. The right-wing news media talking points are being echoed by the National Enquirer and Globe. By the tabloids who talk about bat children and discovering Noah's Ark intact.
As someone who lives in NC, that new District 4 is still bullshit.
It contains Orange County - the location of UNC and perhaps the most liberal county in the state. Then it snakes along I-40 to grab central Raleigh, with the areas largest black population.
It evades the northern and southern parts of Wake county (where I live) that mostly consists of the upper-middle class white tech workers who commute to RTP. That district is the one where Clay Aiken ran last election and lost to Renee Ellmers.
Posts
In what way?
Bringing back the Fairness Doctrine would help a lot with tv/cable news, and it would also do a number on right-wing radio hosts so that's a bonus for you guys.
Second, the idea that contracting news to exclude small press / blogs will fix polarization is demonstrably wrong. Go back to the Cold War. Go further back to WWII. Go yet further back to WWI. Each step back, printed news is more contracted, and the public is either equally polarized or more polarized, and certainly far more regressive. Even if we magically made the Internet go away and we returned to Ye Olde Glory Days of White Nuclear Families, the very premise that everyone would be getting their news from a common source is false - go check out the number of papers that were in print for a given city in (say) 1960. Go check the (often fairly clear) political biases of these papers, and see if you can guess which were popular among conservatives vs which were popular among socialists vs which were popular among liberals.
Yes, popular press reports of social science findings pretty much never mention the caveats. This is often as much the fault of the researchers, who write press releases omitting those facts, as the popular press authors who don't stand to gain anything from reporting them.
Really? To me this seems totally irrelevant to anything Marcus or anyone else has said.
You're flailing mightily at a straw man and working yourself into a really disproportionate rage in the process. Neither of us have disagreed with anything the author said about his own study. As for Marcus's view of hunter-gatherer instincts, that's his explanation. It's as good as any other.
Like this. You're the one bringing race into this, man.
Look, nothing I'm calling for is that controversial. We can all agree that American society is far too polarized, right? And that polarization is partially responsible for the current Congress thinking that the other side is Hitler, the Anti-Christ, and Snidely Whiplash all rolled into one. What I'm saying is that part of that polarization is due to fear of strangers (which can be alleviated) as well as everyone withdrawing into a media bubble where their thinking doesn't get challenged. Hence my newspapers proposal.
If you think you've got better ideas (ones that involve adult citizens and not children) I'm all ears.
There is a difference between bias and falsehood. I routinely read The American Conservative because they have writers who have a conservative bias, but at the same time actually live in reality. In comparison, a lot of the organizations in the right wing Wurlitzer trade in out and out falsehoods. And for all the bias on the left, you don't see that sort of fabrication going on.
You have any ideas on fixing the system in Canada's Beard?
Ok, what is comparable is falsehood and influence to Fox News on the other side?
Jezebel is now a gossip column
The New York Times is regarded the world over as one of the best news publications in existence.
Only 3 of those are even news sources and none are anything on the level of Fox News when it comes to outright lies. Even the comedians you mention are more accurate. And for some reason you mention them in the same breath as an actual news program too.
This is just such a silly attempt at false equivalency. When you have to start pretending PETA is a news provider, you are reaching.
So... you're claiming the Times has a liberal bias... for supporting Israel? I'm pretty sure blind unconditional support for the Israeli government is the GOP position.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
you left out The Onion.
Oooh yeah, ya got me. You have individual shows and organizations that lie, not a tv channel.
Ragging on my examples aside, do any of you have ideas on how to lessen our degree of national polarization? Preferably within the next five years so the whole "brainwash our children" thing isn't allowed.
Was it the editorial page? Because if not, it's their job to report, not to editorialize.
Neither of those first positions is really a liberal bias, though? If Israel is an issue that's supported on both sides of the isle, then it hardly proves the Times is a comparable "other side" to the Fox News empire. The horse story is clearly about a skeevy dude but it's not exactly the NYT's place to organize an extradition (the dude in the story was Canadian).
Again, there is nothing comparable to Murdoch media empire and right wing radio shows. There are clearly news organizations with biases for the left, but none that are as large, none that are as directly tied to the party, and none that directly lie or distort the truth as often or with as much malice.
How to lessen the polarization: First, stop saying "both sides are doing it," since that is an incredibly flimsy excuse. If either side is allowed to use that excuse, then they both could go as far as conservative talk radio without admitting any fault. If people were less inclined to defend their side by saying "you guys do it, too" then people could be more critical of their own positions and more understanding of others.
Second, and similar: Stop presenting "both sides" on an issue. That inherently frames everything as a polar issue, and gives legitimacy to whatever side is crazy. Present both sides if there actually are good reasons to do so, but don't give legitimacy to things like "what if Obama is a secret muslim" or "What if vaccines cause autism" since that gives legitimacy to the insanity. If completely insane ideas are not given equal weight then it is a lot harder to hold incredibly polarized opinions, or at least harder to bring them out.
Third: Change human nature fundamentally. People are tribal. It's gonna happen, and every new way to connect to other people both lets some people get a broad view of differing opinions and lets other people form an even more insulated community around a specific belief.
Fourth: Maybe make it harder to lie on news broadcasts? I mean obviously this will never happen due to freedom of speech, but it would probably be a lot harder to maintain an energized base of angry, polarized people if e.g. radio talk show hosts could be taken off the air for repeated falsehoods, since those angry listeners would no longer have arguments that are impossible to refute due to being unconnected to reality.
Just wanted to emphasize this part. To decrease polarization you have to force the side that's crazy to be not that. By placing a pox on both houses, you fail to do so.
I don't think it's unreasonable to assert that deliberate lies which aren't later retracted with equal volume are a public hazard and therefore susceptible to legal restriction
And as I suspected, Bevin has taken it back. As a Christmas gift to Kentucky, he re-disenfranchised them all again. Also lowered the minimum wage for state workers and changed the marriage certificate laws just so Kim Davis can feel better.
This is what happens when you don't vote.
-Both sides aren't not the same and any whine about is fucking lazy at best. We wouldn't have two different major parties, that strive to implement different policies on another of issues, if there was any truth to that bullshit statement.
-Withholding one's vote because none of the candidates are exiting is really fucking immature. There's going to be plenty of times where one has to make a choice and none of the options are exiting. It's also fucking terrible to bring such a mindset into picking leaders. They don't need to be exiting, they just need to be competent (I'll take the most boring, but competent, candidate over the exciting, but horribly incompetent, candidate any day of the week).
-Stop whining about how 'voting against a terrible candidate isn't a enough," and start making a list of the stuff that makes a candidate the better option, if one needs find motivation to vote.
-Stop letting perfect be the enemy of better. (aka if one can't get their unicorn, they shouldn't be an idiot that turns down a pony right and opt to get stuck with a rancid shit sandwich).
-Every vote matters. Not voting because one's vote doesn't matter, is akin to the fools that drops a single piece of trash on the beach with the mindset "of it doesn't matter, it's just on piece of trash." It's not just one person making a foolish decision and it can quickly add up.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Districts in NC had been heavily gerrymandered to pack black voters into a couple of districts so that the GOP could overwhelmingly win big. Today is a very bad day for NC Republicans because the districts now look like this:
Much better.
Considering this is North Carolina, I wonder what effect it will end up having on the congressional delegation. It's currently 10 Republican vs 3 Democrat I believe, and it wouldn't surprise me if two of the incumbent Democrats ended up in the same district afterwards.
-edit- Heck even the 9th district is pretty silly.
I mean sure they're no longer districting by race, but the end result is still the same in that they're drowning out any opposition with this bullshit.
http://www.journalnow.com/news/elections/state/north-carolina-legislators-complete-congressional-map-redraw-u-s-supreme/article_625208c9-154f-5c33-bda5-0725ba0481ec.html
State legislature draws them with basically only restriction being they cannot blatantly disenfranchise upon racial lines.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Well, racial lines are one of the easier to prove. But when they come out and say they're doing to rig the election...
The underlying principle is still one person one vote - the courts could still throw this out on that, since if the people drawing up the maps are advertising they're trying to rig the vote... well, why not give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it will?
It's not possible to get perfect parity in vote weight between districts... but really the whole process is fucked up, I don't know who first referred to it as the "politicians choosing their voters", but that's basically the core issue with it. Ideally districts would all be laid out as much as possible on administrative borders (e.g. county lines), with an eye to grouping similar counties (that is, city vs. rural primarily).
For comparison:
You can see just how bad NC's districts were compared to the rest of the country (Louisiana looks pretty bad too, and some of the really dense metro regions are hard to see on that). Like, there's lots of kinks in lines all over, but not to the same degree.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Oh in PA's case our State legislature is designed in such a way that you'd probably have to spend a year figuring out which corrupt ass is affecting your life.
Also Voter ID laws that they went on tv and publicly admitted were meant to decrease Dem voters.
Yep. I'm sympathetic to the argument that allowing the GOP to pack black people into one district has a side effect of vastly increasing the chances that those black people will have someone who definitely represents their interests. Redistricting everything would take away that good thing. However, it would also be a net benefit to Democrats across the board, which would eventually result in actual progress being made on those constituents' behalf. Having a representative that is 100% in it for black people doesn't really help them when the GOP controls Congress in general.
It's a band-aid. It's going to hurt when we rip it off, but only for a moment.
One of the perverse ironies of redistricting for minority representation is that, especially in places like North Carolina, it has served to weaken the ability of people in their district to address base-level civic issues in their districts.
Look at the old North Carolina map. The district the courts struck represent a three-hour trip on the Interstate, passing through multiple cities and smaller communities with their own issues and needs for representative action and cooperation with local leaders. But because of the extreme gerrymander, the citizens of District 12 and District 4 represent only a small percentage of local voters in the major cities the districts pass through. In the small towns, decisions on larger regional concerns are dominated by the voters in the surrounding counties. The partisan nature of state politics means that the residents in these districts have little to no say in the issues effecting their immediate communities. It's representation in policy, but a handful of lone voices screaming into the wind in practice. This is exactly what the people who drew the districts wanted.
It's compliance as a middle finger, and it is the way states have been allowed to get right with federal law all across the country. Genuine nonpartisan compactness - and not the bullshit "looks like it on the surface, but we actually shaded the fuck out of the numbers" proposal from the North Carolina GOP - really would be an improvement of the kind of malicious gamesmanship that makes up our current redistricting efforts.
There's no comparison. The right-wing news media talking points are being echoed by the National Enquirer and Globe. By the tabloids who talk about bat children and discovering Noah's Ark intact.
It contains Orange County - the location of UNC and perhaps the most liberal county in the state. Then it snakes along I-40 to grab central Raleigh, with the areas largest black population.
It evades the northern and southern parts of Wake county (where I live) that mostly consists of the upper-middle class white tech workers who commute to RTP. That district is the one where Clay Aiken ran last election and lost to Renee Ellmers.