No sense betting tho, as you won’t be around to pay me, and I won’t be around to collect.
That depends on how you bet. Ever heard of rapture insurance? They offer care for your pets in the case of your rapture. The sweet thing is that after the rapture they won't even be around do sue you for not actually following through!
I have also seen for sale zombie-proof fortresses with a 100% money back guarantee. If a single zombie ever gets in you get a full refund. So, yeah, you can take a bet on that if you just come at it from the right angle.
It does not even compute with my nature to seriously consider trying to exploit “intelligence-challenged” people, even if most of them would probably be MAGAheads and Evangelicals.
Maybe those middle class white folks need to get over their sense of superiority and memories of being the great white slave Masters of the world and start getting along with the rest of humanity?
This is like a parody of far left inanity. Middle class White Americans are “slave masters of the universe”? No they’re not — they are in fact very similar to you and Lausten. Interchangeable even.
dead guy, you toss this stuff out there, then run off. I wonder if you can explain any of this shit?
How do the rights spelled out in our Constitution make the press redundant?
Can you explain with any coherence?
Of course I can explain it, but your Germanic idealism would prevent you from understanding.
For anyone else who is interested: In a nation based on rule of law like the US, the constitution serves as a guidebook on how this government can function. The bill of rights — which guarantees our rights as Americans — are part of the constitution. This means our rights exist as long as the constitution exists.
These rights can be violated and have been, but we still have the right to due process if that occurs. Checks and balances built into the government (as ordered by the constitution) make this so.
Because of this the media isn’t really necessary to protect us from tyranny. At best it can help identify when violations of these rights happen. Can is the key word here.
Interesting how you got from “free” to “hostile”. What segment are they hostile toward? People setting fire to buildings maybe?
“Flyover”Americans obviously.
You’re right, since they are “free”, they are free to be dishonest and get bought off. But that only works if there is one “they”. As long as government doesn’t favor or censor one media company over another , each is free to report not only what they see is true, but also what they see other media companies doing. Since it would be bad for business to be too direct about that, some of this commentary is done via comedy.
One guy, someone riled you up. I was shocked by your playing the “I’m less white than you are card”.
Anyway, I think you are way too confident, in our checks and balances, in the light of T rump’s presidential power grab, and his blasting away of any sort of pre-existing mores, traditions, ethical practices, etc.
Also, the press was pretty necessary in getting Nixon out of office, as I recall.
Now, unless T rump is removed from office, he will continue to be able to avoid being answerable to any crimes that he commits. And guess what, he probably will keep committing crimes and using federal resources to promote his campaign.
This could quite possibly get him re-elected. If he maintains a Senate with a Repub majority, he has another 4 years to build on his progress towards becoming an Autocrat. Where’s your checks and balances then?
OneGuy seems to think that a system that I only pay a few pennies a day for is the equivalent of hiring a lawyer to protect me against a corporation with a team of lawyers. I was disabused of the notion a long time ago that because I have the right I can expect my rights to be protected automatically by some kind of institutionalized system.
I’ve lived in flyover country all my life. I’ve watched the process of polarization that led to Trump.
This is a great analysis of that. I’m a bit rusty on my stats, but it’s explained in the text. Basically, it’s saying racism and class warfare are just easy issues to manipulate, but really it’s the economics. The coasts and big cities do ignore the middle of the country, that’s true. For the average person it’s not malicious, they aren’t aware of the problems for the most part. For people who should be aware of it, either they aren’t good at economics or they aren’t selling their plans very well.
Eek! That analysis is scary (ironically so, since it mentions how the flyover ppl, who voted in T rump, to a great degree because they fear a loss of status, since whites will eventually become a minority.
But the most striking correlate of the Trump swing is growth in deaths due to drug overdose. The fixed-effect of this variable is a remarkable +3.4%. That’s higher than the fixed-effect of college graduation rate, population growth rate, and net migration rate.
Indeed, in a three-factor model, growth in deaths due to overdose emerges as the strongest predictor of the Trump swing…
These results should disabuse us of the notion that Trump’s election had little to do with people getting left behind—I drop the quotation marks on purpose. Trump is in the White House because large parts of the country are in serious trouble. People can see the decline of their communities with their own eyes. What is pissing them off is that coastal elites keep ignoring their trauma and focus their attention on creating a more inclusive country…
… people in Trump country regard Boasian antiracism as the hegemonic ideology of coastal elites—as indeed it is. Of course, they don’t call it that; they call it political correctness instead. Resentment of coastal elites, although driven by all-too-real decline of situated communities, is thus expressed as a wholesale rejection of the hated elites’ self-congratulatory worldview.
And then:
Google’s algorithm appears to have been manipulated to deliver a racist, anti-Semitic top result on searches for the term “Boasian anthropology” — a reference to the work of Franz Boas, a German-American anthropologist whose theory of relativism argued against the belief that Western civilization was superior to other cultures.
Because of this the media isn’t really necessary to protect us from tyranny. At best it can help identify when violations of these rights happen. Can is the key word here.
WTF? The media isn't necessary to protect us because we have laws that do that? Because nobody could ever break a law, right? It's not like the government has ever violated somebody's rights and gotten away with it until the media uncovered it, right? And Nixon didn't really exist, hs is just a ghost story Democrats tell to their libtard children to teach them the horrors of being Republican, I guess? And Reagan wasn't really working to secretly kill the regulation to remove lead from gasoline until the media uncovered it and not only forced that work to end, but sped up the removal of lead from gasoline, which, by that time, was KNOWN to be causing serious health issues to people around the entire world. No, that never happened. And the Iran-Contra scandal wasn't discovered by the statements made by a pilot in a press conference or anything. No, the system is absolutely perfect and works as intended by the Founding Fathers (hallowed be their names), as they predicted it would be using their super powers while they shat gold and freedom. No, I can't think of a single instance where the media uncovered corruption that corrupt government officials tried very hard to hide.
Seriously. Just with this administration, there are probably dozens of incidents that the press responded, getting the word out quickly enough, that social reactions could prevent T rump from bulldozing ahead with some of his most potentially destructive whims.
WTF? The media isn’t necessary to protect us because we have laws that do that? Because nobody could ever break a law, right? It’s not like the government has ever violated somebody’s rights and gotten away with it until the media uncovered it, right? And Nixon didn’t really exist, hs is just a ghost story Democrats tell to their libtard children to teach them the horrors of being Republican, I guess? And Reagan wasn’t really working to secretly kill the regulation to remove lead from gasoline until the media uncovered it and not only forced that work to end, but sped up the removal of lead from gasoline, which, by that time, was KNOWN to be causing serious health issues to people around the entire world. No, that never happened. And the Iran-Contra scandal wasn’t discovered by the statements made by a pilot in a press conference or anything. No, the system is absolutely perfect and works as intended by the Founding Fathers (hallowed be their names), as they predicted it would be using their super powers while they shat gold and freedom. No, I can’t think of a single instance where the media uncovered corruption that corrupt government officials tried very hard to hide.
I stated in previous posts that the system is not perfect. Your examples of government wrongdoing which the media did highlight show how media can function as a “watchdog” against the powerful, however with the exception of watergate they were pretty mild and were not going to bring down the country or even infringe on citizen’s rights.
My point still stands that the fourth estate’s role in preventing tyranny is over exaggerated. The constitution itself provides the most solid guarantee of our rights.
Since you are sure that the power of the media, to prevent or confront tyranny, is overexaggerated, do you also think that the autocratic leaders of the world, are just being over-exaggerated when they kill off members of the media?
One guy, someone riled you up. I was shocked by your playing the “I’m less white than you are card”.
I’ve been around here for a couple of years. CC has mentioned quite a few times that he’s a German immigrant. I would stand out a lot in Germany.
Anyway, I think you are way too confident, in our checks and balances, in the light of T rump’s presidential power grab, and his blasting away of any sort of pre-existing mores, traditions, ethical practices, etc.
Also, the press was pretty necessary in getting Nixon out of office, as I recall.
Now, unless T rump is removed from office, he will continue to be able to avoid being answerable to any crimes that he commits. And guess what, he probably will keep committing crimes and using federal resources to promote his campaign.
This could quite possibly get him re-elected. If he maintains a Senate with a Repub majority, he has another 4 years to build on his progress towards becoming an Autocrat. Where’s your checks and balances then?
Well, not following traditional practices isn’t a crime. And how the hell do you think Trump can become an autocrat?
You honestly don’t see the checks and balances of our system of govt, being bulldozed out of the way by this administration?
Soon we will see whether T rump is going to abide by a Court’s decision that a congressional subpoena must be obeyed. If T rump doesn’t obey the Court ruling, what then? (Just the fact that this is a legitimate question, should have you sweating.) If the executive branch does not recognize the powers of the other 2 branches, we no longer have a checks and balances system of govt. The Dept of Justice will be no help, as they are just T rumps personal legal team paid for by our taxes.
I’ve lived in flyover country all my life. I’ve watched the process of polarization that led to Trump.
This is a great analysis of that. I’m a bit rusty on my stats, but it’s explained in the text. Basically, it’s saying racism and class warfare are just easy issues to manipulate, but really it’s the economics. The coasts and big cities do ignore the middle of the country, that’s true. For the average person it’s not malicious, they aren’t aware of the problems for the most part. For people who should be aware of it, either they aren’t good at economics or they aren’t selling their plans very well.
My point still stands that the fourth estate’s role in preventing tyranny is over exaggerated. The constitution itself provides the most solid guarantee of our rights.
