The tone of political debate on major controversial issues these days

pvtnum 11: What applies to talk radio hosts also applies to Hollywood actors. In other words, your point that they should also watch their speech is completely valid.

^^ Pfft well not YOU obviously, you're not a talking head on TV! But seriously, there seems to be a thing that people associate media with authority. If someone is on TV/radio/writes a book, he MUST know what he's talking about. Even if he has no education in the subject hes talking about.

edited 11th Jan '11 12:32:55 PM by SilentStranger

Be it coming from one voice or one million, from the left or the right, from Hollywood or talk radio, can we agree that violent rhetoric is a bad thing in of itself?

If we can, then I'll retire from this conversation a satisfied kitty.

SS: Basically, yes. It's just a bit irritating that they seem to gain that credibility in the first place - that people will extend their agreement to the actor's opinion based on little else than 'Ooo, he played in that awesome movie I saw last week!'

It seems to cater to the LCD.

Not that all hollywood-expressed opinions are bad or invalid, mind you.

^ Sadly, its unavoidable, due to how pop culture has a way of worming their way into peoples subconscious. The LCD are more likely to listen to people from Jersey Shore about political ideas than make up their own minds through study and thought.

And that makes me facepalm.

But yeah, I think we all can say that violent rhetoric is pretty much bad, when other means of expressing a viewpoint would work just as well.

Unless it's violent rhetoric about violence...?

No, I don't think that, for example, a violent anti-war protest, is a good idea, in general.

And listening to authority is basic psychology. Asch conformity, Milgram, etc.

edited 11th Jan '11 12:42:58 PM by Tzetze

Violent protests overall are a bad idea. All you do is give the goverment a reason to beat the shit out of you and vilify your cause in the eyes of the public.

True dat.

Unless, of course, you're actually be oppressed to the point that you have to fight. I imagine that most people in violent protests think themselves to be so.

Violent protests are only good for Yellow Journalism value. Violent anti-war protests are just a gigantic crock of irony.

Oscar Wildecat: Yes, indeed. Violent rhetoric is almost always a bad idea. What I was saying is that those people who get more attention from society should be more conscious and mindful of the effects their words have.

I won't dispute you on that, except to add that we all need to be mindful of the effects our words have.

edited 11th Jan '11 1:00:41 PM by OscarWildecat

So you support Contractual Purity?

I don't think it's quite that binary. How about practicing tact and common sense.

Lol, I'll have to explain what I meant by that...

In the military, you don't mince words on what you're going to do. You use terms like 'violence of action" to describe, in brief, that you will move quickly, engage the enemy, and destroy them with overwhelming use of firepower, and things of that nature.

Hard to say that in a way that doesn't invoke images of violence, as it in and of itself, is a violent act.

Bayonet training is violent. What is the spirit of the bayonet? It isn't "to perform a surgical incision on the guy who happens to be wearing the wrong uniform", it is TO KILL!

...not that what I said has much to do with violent rhetoric.

No, it's not about Contractual Purity, but rather old fashioned Horse Sense.

What's old fashioned about common sense? If anything the past had less common sense than the present "I am sure this lead based paint is delicious" and "DDT sounds like a cool thing to have on MY crops" or even "You know what Australia really needs? Cane toads!".

It is too often a symptom of modernity that we place the people of the past as having more common sense and less intellegence, when both were at about the same level they are now.

Life is always better in a different place, time, and socioeconomic standing.

Especially if the phrase "golden age" is uttered.

Hey! Cane Toads can be delicious if prepared properly! At any rate, I said Horse Sense, which was replaced by Automobile Sense as the preferred mode of transport by Common Sense.

edited 11th Jan '11 1:40:22 PM by OscarWildecat

Thread hop

Because classing an entire nonhomogenous political party as violent nutjobs and making threads trying to blame them for every fringe act that's ever happened doesn't exacerbate things at all.

They use gun imagery because a huge chunk of the party is country boys with guns. But to use the typical quote for perspective, 65 million gun owners killed absolutely nobody yesterday, so I doubt that particular upbringing is the problem with violence and random wackos shooting people.

Also, I'd consider crazy left side to not be disillusioned idiots who move to Canada, but the ELF.

edited 11th Jan '11 1:38:36 PM by Pykrete

Eh, anarcho-primitivists are in their own little world, I think. Not that I want to get into finding militant leftists again, that was a dumb conversation on my part.

Country boys with guns love to talk about how their political enemies should be shot. Got it.

People don't tend to shoot at people they don't actually see as threatening in some way. Like it or not, this kind of crap comes off as threatening to fringe elements, and you're feeding the fire even more by constantly demonizing the right.

Look, I think the whole metaphor is needlessly antagonistic and asking for trouble too, but don't think for a second the left hasn't been exacerbating things.

edited 11th Jan '11 2:06:43 PM by Pykrete

They demonize themselves.

Demonization?

...

I am sorry but what these O'Reilly and Coulter and such people say is unthinkable. In Spain, the Black Shirt dudes of the far right don't dare speak like this. This is... this should be criminalized as incitation to violence! In France, what the dudes in Spain do, all that outright lying and shit is unthinkable (the French like to spin the truth, use half-truths, fallacies, but they avoid lying outright, because electors there don't forgive that) This is wrong.

This Is Sick And Wrong.

Baseball bats? "Just Joking" Justification doesn't justify all this... and I thought Internet Tough Guy was threatening...