Starker on 28/6/2019 at 21:12
If it was merely about religious freedom, I would be on the other side of the debate, but this is not just about sharing religious views. Religion here is used both as a weapon and as a shield. As a weapon to demonise gay people and as a shield to try to protect the demonisers from consequences that they would face for their actions even if they were not religious. That guy in QandA characterising this as an attempt to help gay people is a bit rich, considering that said "help" consists of telling people they are evil and immoral for something they can't help, equating them with thieves and adulterers. Religious freedom cannot be a licence to discriminate against others. That's the paradox of tolerance I've mentioned here before.
Sulphur on 28/6/2019 at 21:31
Quote Posted by heywood
Essentially, you guys are asking Christians to stay in the closet. They can have their religious views, but only express them in private. If they air them publicly, then it's fair game to ostracize them, attempt to censor them, and discriminate against them, including denying them employment opportunities and access to services that are available to everyone else. It's ironic that ~40 years ago, society did the same thing to gay people. Now it's flipped around. It wasn't right then and it isn't now.
I appreciate that you're coming at this from a reasonable angle, but this smacks a bit of slippery slopeism. Folau isn't being made destitute by the world at large, not when his church just made 2 million in the bank for him. The issue is he broke the rules he'd agreed to abide by, and the institution he signed on with severed their ties in response - the same as most institutions would if he'd incited hate speech against a race or creed, because what he's saying boils down to being hateful. It's pretty much the same situation Mel Gibson put himself in: you can defend his right to say whatever he wanted about Jews and his ex-wife, however stomach-churning it might be, and I'd even say that you'd be right to do so; but that doesn't mean that you or me or the world at large has an obligation to a) look out for him or b) associate with him after he's said his piece and exposed how rotted-through his soul is.
It's also a false equivalence to say that bible-thumping Christians like Folau are getting the same treatment that gay people did 40 years ago. For one thing, straight people weren't and aren't being marginalised or discriminated by gay people because they have the temerity to
exist. For another thing, gay people don't really care what anyone does behind closed doors as long as no one's getting hurt -- yet somehow, the reverse isn't true. Folau's post kicked this mess off unprovoked, but he's hardly a minority or defenseless, so to say that he's being ostracised or censored for his views is a bit like saying you want to reward the schoolyard bully for abusive behaviour instead of suspending him.
Actually, no. This is not, in fact, a bit like it - that's
exactly what it is. It can't be live and let live if the other side refuses to let live or let be; and we have to acknowledge that unprovoked ire has almost always been the province of the fundamentalists.
Tony_Tarantula on 30/6/2019 at 00:18
Quote:
For another thing, gay people don't really care what anyone does behind closed doors as long as no one's getting hurt -- yet somehow, the reverse isn't true.
That may be true at the individual level, but it sure as hell isn't true of the politicized movement as a whole. Here's one drop in the bucket studying that you're damaging Trans people unless you participate by dating Trans people, but there's a shitload of drops in the buckets these days. We live in an environment where even the slightest disapproval of the politicized LGBT movement will get you removed from whatever position you have and rendered permanently unemployable.
(
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inclusive-insight/201906/are-trans-people-excluded-the-world-dating)
*****
To the free speech point, here's why it matters:
(
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/03/my-life-as-a-new-york-times-reporter-in-the-shadow-of-the-war-on-terror/)
TLDR: Ex-New York Timers reporter admits he would submit stories to the government for approval before publishing. (disclaimer for the "but you're sources are unreliable!" crowd: The Intercept is a very far left publication).
There's numerous other times information to that effect has come out, whether it's when the NYT was caught exchanging emails with CIA officials to publish the message, Chelsea Manning's leaks, the Hillary email leaks where it turned out they were working directly with the campaign, and so on.
Unlike most of you I've been in areas and events that got some news coverage back home such as when they were having "riots" over a Quran burning.
The reason I am extremely skeptical of the media is that almost every single sentence that I saw published about the war was either completely false or a truth that was so badly twisted as to be a pale caricature of reality, and this was largely a bipartisan phenomena from all corporate news outlets. At the time the only reporters who I recall accurately describe the futility of the war and the US leadership's complete incompetence in managing it were alt-reporters like Hastings, Greenwald, and Taibbi. Most of the rest just mindlessly and uncritically parroted the attitudes and talking points of the generals, who in turn formed their opinions from obtuse PowerPoint presentations that had been filtered through a countless layers of shameless ass-kissing sycophancy before ever hitting the general's desk.
Since then for those paying attention I struggle to think of any major issue where "the adults in the room", "experts", "senior officials", and various other people who fall under the vague terminology we use to designate the purveyors of approved thought have been correct. They've largely failed to bring in a real economic recovery (aside from the incredibly boom I've witnessed when traveling to D.C. on client engagements), failed to predict the disastrous consequences of foreign policy decisions in Syria and other places, failed to identify any of the issues associated with settling a massive number of immigrants into Europe into racial ghettos (the surge being a direct consequences of the last thing mentioned), failed to notice the explosion in populist sentiment, failed to stimulate the European economy.....
The list goes on and on...yet instead of being reviled as the war criminals and kleptomaniacs they are these people's failures have only propelled them to ever greater positions of esteem and revelry.
Starker on 30/6/2019 at 13:58
Quote:
Ultimately, each individual has the freedom to decide whom they date or are interested in dating, and thus this research does not attempt to make any statements concerning whom an individual should date or consider dating.
OMG, those damn liberals, shoving freedom down people's throats.
*****
As for the rest, you're just as confused as ever and we've been over this. Nobody here is saying that journalists are perfect and nobody is trusting the government implicitly. Sure, journalists sometimes get things wrong. Sometimes sources lie. Sometimes publications worry about national security and buckle under government pressure. But you are also missing a larger point in the article: these stories did come out and in some cases merely the press having the information was enough for the government to back off or reverse course entirely. This only shows that a free and independent press is more important than ever. In the case of that NSA story, the editors did change their minds after they realised they had been misled by the government and they publicly disclosed that the story had been held for a year at the government's request. That's the very same press that you attempt to throw shade on and characterise as inherently untrustworthy. And yet you unquestioningly promote sources that
are inherently untrustworthy and/or biased.
And the conclusion of the story:
Quote:
But overall, I do believe that the fight inside the Times over the NSA story helped usher in a new era of more aggressive national security reporting at the paper. Since then, the Times has been much more willing to stand up to the government and refuse to go along with White House demands to hold or kill stories.
Tony_Tarantula on 1/7/2019 at 03:12
Quote:
And yet you unquestioningly promote sources that are inherently untrustworthy and/or biased.
Says the person who holds up Rachel Maddow as the modern paragon of journalism.
Quote:
But overall, I do believe that the fight inside the Times over the NSA story helped usher in a new era of more aggressive national security reporting at the paper. Since then, the Times has been much more willing to stand up to the government and refuse to go along with White House demands to hold or kill stories.
An alcoholic saying they've been drinking less does not mean they actually drink less.
Quote:
these stories did come out and in some cases merely the press having the information was enough for the government to back off or reverse course entirely.
These stories came out
in spite of major news outlets, not because of them. I challenge you to name one major scandal outside of Trump ones (which get covered because the journalists rabidly hate Trump) that was broken by a major media organization.
In the case of the NSA story, we were warned multiple times by officials prior that the NSA was conduction mass surveillance. The major news outlets ignored the stories. (
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/356141-reporter-says-nyt-killed-her-2004-expose-on-weinstein-after-he-visited-editors) In the case of Harvey Weinstein, The New York Times killed the story to protect Harvey.. Regarding Russia there have been (
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/20/beyond-buzzfeed-the-10-worst-most-embarrassing-u-s-media-failures-on-the-trumprussia-story/) Numerous false stories that all just "coincidentally" were mistakes in the direction of fearmongering. The NSA story, the truth about how the war in Iraq was going, and the weaponization of the IMF were all broken by Wikileaks.
For the NSA story CNN lied and(
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161019/07004935835/cnn-tells-viewers-illegal-them-to-read-wikileaks-document-dumps-cnn-is-wrong.shtml) falsely told viewers it was illegal to view the Wikileaks cables..
(
https://www.journalism.org/2010/01/11/how-news-happens/)
It's even been quantitatively proven that Government drives most news reporting in some major events.
Quote:
As the press scales back on original reporting and dissemination, reproducing other people's work becomes a bigger part of the news media system. Government, at least in this study, initiates most of the news. In the detailed examination of six major storylines, 63% of the stories were initiated by government officials, led first of all by the police. Another 14% came from the press. Interest group figures made up most of the rest.
Notice that what they describe about press coverage of Baltimore is almost a verbatim copy of what I witnessed in Afghanistan: American journalists in almost all cases I saw uncritically reported the Army's official PR narrative citing endless "progress" in Afghanistan with zero credulity or skepticism. This narrative was completely disconnected from the reality of a war where the American forces and the Karzai regime had no control outside of major cities and the Karzai regime was corrupt and incompetent to a level that is almost impossible for any Westerner to even comprehend.
The most significant takeaway from that article:
The press only initiated 14% of stories.In that instance that meant that the Press's own investigative reporting accounted for less than 1 out of 6 stories.
*****
Here's the question I have for you.
You don't contest that these news agencies have been consistently caught lying about major issues and working to protect the rich and powerful. So why is it that the moment a reporter writes a "we will try to do better!" comment you are willing to take that at face value while placing zero burden of proof on them to back up that statement?
Quote Posted by Renzatic
I dunno. I'm on a pretty big ghost story kick right now.
Kudos to a very passive aggressive, yet ostensibly polite of saying "I'm not interested in learning facts".
Starker on 1/7/2019 at 04:52
Quote:
Says the person who holds up Rachel Maddow as the modern paragon of journalism.
And when have I done that? Quote me. For the umpteenth time, Rachel Maddow is not a journalist. She's a news commentator.
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
An alcoholic saying they've been drinking less does not mean they actually drink less.
When a Pulizer prize winning journalist says it, I'm inclined to give him the benefit of a doubt. Especially with all the government scandals that have come out.
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
I challenge you to name one major scandal outside of Trump ones (which get covered because the journalists rabidly hate Trump) that was broken by a major media organization.
Here, take your pick:
(
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories) The Weinstein scandal reported by The New Yorker. And this is a story where even police investigations were successfully suppressed, let alone news stories. That means the press was more successful in uncovering it than the police was.
(
https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/20160403-panama-papers-global-overview/) The Panama Papers.
(
https://outline.com/aw5zqt) The Washington Post uncovering Roy Moore's dirty past.
(
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-usc-doctor-misconduct-complaints-20180515-story.html) The LA Times uncovering sexual abuse of hundreds of young women.
(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Secret_America) Top Secret America, about the growth and mismanagement of secret organisations in the US.
And there are loads and loads more. There have been journalists uncovering the forces behind the opioid epidemic in the face of intense pressure from a powerful opposition. Uncovering the abuse in mental hospitals. Uncovering lobbyists slanting justice. Uncovering corporate bribery on a massive scale. Uncovering rogue police squads. And so on and so forth.
Do you not read newspapers or did you just let it all pass you by? Also, whether or not the press hates Lord Dampnut, there's no denying that he's blatantly corrupt and incompetent. He just offers up the scandals on a silver plate.
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
The most significant takeaway from that article:
The press only initiated 14% of stories.In that instance that meant that the Press's own investigative reporting accounted for less than 1 out of 6 stories.
Quote:
And of the stories that did contain new information nearly all, 95%, came from traditional media—most of them newspapers.Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
You don't contest that these news agencies have been consistently caught lying about major issues and working to protect the rich and powerful. So why is it that the moment a reporter writes a "we will try to do better!" comment you are willing to take that at face value while placing zero burden of proof on them to back up that statement?
I do contest that. You should work on your reading comprehension. When I said that journalists are not infallible that's what I meant. It happens in every field of life. Hospitals misdiagnose people. The police botch investigations. Courts sentence innocent people to jail or worse. No system is free from errors and in today's environment where stories have to be rushed out without delay, it's perfectly understandable that mistakes happen. And yes, sometimes newspapers buckle under pressure or are influenced by the powerful. But you still fail to acknowledge that in all those instances it was the very same media that uncovered and reported on these mistakes. When a newspaper botches a story or fails to pick it up, for whatever reason, there are competitors waiting on the sidelines ready to pounce.
Renzatic on 1/7/2019 at 17:02
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
Kudos to a very passive aggressive, yet ostensibly polite of saying "I'm not interested in learning facts".
You're kind of a high strung fuckwit, aren't you?
Tony_Tarantula on 2/7/2019 at 14:11
Quote Posted by Starker
And when have I done that? Quote me. For the umpteenth time, Rachel Maddow is not a journalist. She's a news commentator.
When a Pulizer prize winning journalist says it, I'm inclined to give him the benefit of a doubt. Especially with all the government scandals that have come out.
I've linked you Pullitzer prize winning journalists before and you were extremely skeptical even after evidence was provided. Specifically, the evidence in question was NSA documents proving that they have backdoor access to every major tech server.
Aside from the Top Secret America one (which was from a right wing news organization and more or less proves that the "Deep State" concept isn't a right wing conspiracy theory) al of these stories follow a pattern.
Overall though most people think you're wrong. Trust in the press is extremely low across the board (from polls taken before Trump ever announced his candidacy, so don't blame "attacks on the press") and the accuracy of American media outlets is lower than Al Jazeera and BBC. US media are literally less factual than state sponsored propaganda.
*****
To the earlier point about "private companies".
Here's one question I don't have the answer to. Here's a relevant headline first: (
https://ussanews.com/News1/2019/06/30/report-liz-warren-urges-tech-companies-to-nix-racist-and-ugly-posts-about-kamala-harris/)
Quote:
Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren suggested Saturday that tech companies have an obligation to ding tweets and other social media posts that call into question one of her presidential opponent's American lineage.
“The attacks against @KamalaHarris are racist and ugly. We all have an obligation to speak out and say so. And it's within the power and obligation of tech companies to stop these vile lies dead in their tracks,” Warren said in a tweet, following a post Donald Trump Jr. retweeted that asked if Sen. Kamala Harris is an “American black.”
If a tech company censors political statements at the behest of a government official, does the "it's a private company" logic still apply? There's a sane case to be argued either way.
*disclaimer: the talking point in question was one that originated with a Daily Show (I believe) clip that mocked her "blackness".
Starker on 2/7/2019 at 19:02
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
I've linked you Pullitzer prize winning journalists before and you were extremely skeptical even after evidence was provided. Specifically, the evidence in question was NSA documents proving that they have backdoor access to every major tech server.
I very much doubt this happened the way you claim it did. Quote me where I did that. Go ahead. Given your track record, either the article didn't actually say what you thought it did or you argued against an imaginary opponent as you are wont to do or it actually didn't happen at all.
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
Aside from the Top Secret America one (which was from a right wing news organization and more or less proves that the "Deep State" concept isn't a right wing conspiracy theory) al of these stories follow a pattern.
How do things as different as the Panama Papers, the Weinstein scandal, the opioid epidemic, and rogue police squads follow a pattern? And since when is The Washington Post a right-wing news organisation? You asked me for an example, I gave you ten, even going as far as to provide links to five of them. And there's more where that came from.
And Top Secret America in no way proves the right-wing deep state conspiracy theory. Alone the simple fact that the FBI counterintelligence investigation into Lord Dampnut was kept under wraps during the election and wasn't leaked to the public disproves it.
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
Overall though most people think you're wrong. Trust in the press is extremely low across the board (from polls taken before Trump ever announced his candidacy, so don't blame "attacks on the press") and the accuracy of American media outlets is lower than Al Jazeera and BBC. US media are literally less factual than state sponsored propaganda.
It doesn't matter what most people think. People believing something doesn't make it true. What matters is that the press is doing an invaluable service and has done some excellent reporting over the years.
In any case, as usual, you're wrong: (
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bnyhan/media-trust-report-2018.pdf)
It explains your willingness to believe blatant propaganda, though.
Tony_Tarantula on 4/7/2019 at 13:54
I'm Dude that study you linked me shows trust in the press at 30%.
Way to prove me right. That's At the high end of the general ballpark which is between 20-30%
Columbia Journalism covered that and their conclusion was “Trust in media was down. Again.”
(
https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/trust-in-media-down.php)
“For journalists do good work”. You're deliberately and dishonestly conflating journalism with large, corporate backed, American outlets and implying that it's synonymous with left leaning corporate journalism.
It is not. You're attacking a straw man. Nobody said journalism is worthless. I am saying that independent investigative reporters are more valuable because they are less impacted by the social and “access” incentives that cause corporate outlets to bury stories. One example I can think of was when a regional paper pulled an editorial that was critical of John Deere because John Deere was an advertiser who complained about the column.
As for me “Believing in Propaganda” well...I'm not the person who upholds news organizations teeming with “former” CIA and DoD officials as bastions of amazing journalism.
The Pulliter Prize winning Journalist in Question was Glenn Greenwald, who incidentally had been extremely critical of recent reporting and has documented numerous blatant lies on the part of establishment press.
You also don't seem to understand what “Deep state” means. The term existed before Trump and is just a catch all phrase referring to the bevy of unelected and unaccountable agencies in the government. It doesn't mean “People who are out to get Trump”. You don't need to worry that you're a kook for believing that: roughly 80% of Americans agree that a deep state exists so long as you don't call it a “deep state”, and instead just ask them whether the definition is an accurate description of affairs
Anyways...DNC Congressman says “People making fun of congress should be prosecuted”.
Video (
https://mobile.twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1146143587811258370)