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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#136751: Aug 29th 2016 at 8:54:56 PM

The anti-vaxx movement scares me far more than any terrorist.

edited 29th Aug '16 8:55:11 PM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#136752: Aug 29th 2016 at 9:06:18 PM

[up]How so? I mean, I'm pretty darn pissed off, sure, but I don't see any reason to be afraid of it.

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#136753: Aug 29th 2016 at 9:19:12 PM

If it spreads too far, people are going to die from completely preventable diseases. And the most vulnerable will pay the price. People have already been sickened in cases linked to people who haven't had to their shots.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#136754: Aug 29th 2016 at 9:35:37 PM

So, Hunks for Hillary is a thing...and um..wow. [1]

fans self

edited 29th Aug '16 9:37:17 PM by TacticalFox88

New Survey coming this weekend!
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#136755: Aug 29th 2016 at 10:02:04 PM

[up][up][up]Look up herd immunity. Not getting vaccinated has a domino effect. Pockets of antivaxxers lead to a resurgence in diseases thought to be a thing of the past like measles and so on.

Classic Definition of Conservatism: A general preference for the existing order of society, and an opposition to efforts to bring about sharp change.

New Definition of Conservatism: A general preference for a previously existing order of society, and a opposition to any sort of change, sharp or otherwise, that has been made to that order, even if said opposition is batshit insane.

New definition is probably more accurately described as reactionaryism. Rational Insanity is right that "proper" conservatism has basically been subsumed by modern-day centrists and moderates. There's absolutely nothing wrong with conservatism in principle when it takes the form of an opposition philosophy to radicalism.

Ironically a lot of the modern US right reactionaries who call themselves conservative are actually pretty politically radical, and therefore the opposite of conservative. They don't want to maintain the status quo, they want to create a seismic shift in current-day society towards their particular ideal.

edited 29th Aug '16 10:29:40 PM by AlleyOop

Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#136756: Aug 30th 2016 at 12:11:04 AM

In their mind, they want to go back to a version of America that is half immagined, half made of a mix of the worst of the pre civil-rights 50s and the Nixon era.

vandro Shop Owner from The little shop that wasn't Since: Jul, 2009
Shop Owner
#136757: Aug 30th 2016 at 1:14:37 AM

The Man In High Castle would be more apt comparison.

Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#136758: Aug 30th 2016 at 5:21:54 AM

If Anthony Weiner had run for president, i wonder whether the troll votes to try to get a man named "Weiner" into office would have outweighed the morally outraged votes against a man named Weiner running for office.

Both probably statistically insignificant, but still.

DrunkenNordmann from Exile Since: May, 2015
#136759: Aug 30th 2016 at 5:27:38 AM

[up] Uh, isn't the slang word actually "wiener" and not "weiner"? Or am I missing something here?

We learn from history that we do not learn from history
Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#136760: Aug 30th 2016 at 5:28:26 AM

Pronounced the same.

TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#136761: Aug 30th 2016 at 5:52:52 AM

Hillary Clinton, and how things are reported differently when the press assumes that you're guilty

In 1997, after a distinguished career in military service that culminated with stints as national security adviser under Ronald Reagan and chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Colin Powell launched a charity. Named America’s Promise, it’s built around the theme of Five Promises to America’s children. And while I’ve never heard it praised as a particularly cost-effective way to help humanity by effective altruists, it was surely a reasonably good cause for a famous and politically popular man to dedicate himself to.

Needless to say, however, Powell continued to be involved in American political life. His sky-high poll numbers ensured he’d be buzzed about as a possible presidential or vice presidential nominee, either as a moderate Republican or as an independent. Realistically, that wasn’t in the cards, and Powell was smart enough to know it. But his support for George W. Bush during the 2000 campaign lent him valuable credibility, and his recruitment to serve as Bush’s first secretary of state was considered an important political and substantive coup by Bush.

So what about the charity? Well, Powell’s wife, Alma Powell, took it over. And it kept raking in donations from corporate America. Ken Lay, the chair of Enron, was a big donor. He also backed a literacy-related charity that was founded by the then-president’s mother. The US Department of State, at the time Powell was secretary, went to bat for Enron in a dispute the company was having with the Indian government.

Did Lay or any other Enron official attempt to use their connections with Alma Powell (or Barbara Bush, for that matter) to help secure access to State Department personnel in order to voice these concerns? Did any other donors to America’s Promise? I have no idea, because to the best of my knowledge nobody in the media ever launched an extensive investigation into these matters. That’s the value of the presumption of innocence, something Hillary Clinton has never been able to enjoy during her time in the national spotlight.

The value of the presumption of innocence

Because Colin Powell did not have the reputation in the mid- to late ’90s of being a corrupt or shady character, his decision to launch a charity in 1997 was considered laudable. Nobody would deny that the purpose of the charity was, in part, to keep his name in the spotlight and keep his options open for future political office. Nor would anybody deny that this wasn’t exactly a case of Powell having super-relevant expertise. What he had to offer was basically celebrity and his good name. By supporting Powell’s charity, your company could participate in Powell’s halo.

But when the press thinks of you as a good guy, leveraging your good reputation in this way is considered a good thing to do. And since the charity was considered a good thing to do, keeping the charity going when Powell was in office as secretary of state was also considered a good thing to do. And since Powell was presumed to be innocent — and since Democrats did not make attacks on Powell part of their partisan strategy — his charity was never the subject of a lengthy investigation.

Which is lucky for him, because as Clinton could tell you, once you are the subject of a lengthy investigation, the press doesn’t like to report, “Well, we looked into it and we didn’t find anything interesting.”

Instead we get things like:

An Associated Press investigation whose big reveal is that Clinton once tried to help out a Nobel Peace Prize winner who was in hot water with the ruling party of his home country.

An LA Times story headlined “Billionaire’s Clinton Ties Face Scrutiny,” about a rich Lebanese-Nigerian man who appears to be genuinely somewhat shady, gave money to the Clinton Foundation, and received nothing in exchange.

A Wall Street Journal story about how the crown prince of Bahrain scored a meeting with Hillary Clinton years after having donated to the Clinton Foundation. The story somehow forgets to mention that Rice, Powell, Madeleine Albright, and Warren Christopher had all also met with him during their tenures as secretary of state

An ABC investigation that concluded a donor had used a foundation connection to get a better seating assignment at State Department function.

Three of these stories, in other words, found no wrongdoing whatsoever but chose to insinuate that they had found wrongdoing in order to make the stories seem more interesting. The AP even teased its story with a flagrantly inaccurate tweet, which it now concedes was inaccurate but won’t take down or correct. The final investigation into the seat assignments at least came up with something, but it’s got to be just about the most trivial piece of donor special treatment you can think of.

Did one of Alma Powell’s donors ever ask for a better seat at a Powell-era function? Nobody knows, because nobody would think to ask.

Hillary’s problem is people “know” she’s corrupt

The perception that Clinton is corrupt is one of her most profound handicaps as a politician. And what’s particularly crippling about it is that evidence of her corruption is so widespread exactly because everyone knows she’s corrupt.

Because people “know” that she is corrupt, every decision she makes and every relationship she has is cast in the most negative possible light. When she doesn’t allow her policy decisions to be driven by donors, she’s greeted by headlines like “Hillary Blasts For-Profit Colleges, But Bill Took Millions From One.”

AT&T is one of the very biggest donors to America’s Promise, and for much of the Bush administration, Colin and Alma’s son Michael was chair of the Federal Communications Commission, which, among other things, regulates AT&T. I never saw anyone write a story investigating whether AT&T’s donations improperly influenced Powell’s pro-telecom regulatory stances. But it’s genuinely unimaginable that if Powell had chosen not to help AT&T with regulatory matters the press would have blasted him as a hypocrite. That would have been ridiculous.

But once you “know” that a putative charity is really just a nexus of corruption, then even the failure to be swayed by contributions becomes a news story. And of course once your decision-making is put under that kind of scrutiny, your impulse is to shut down and try to keep information close to your chest. But when you “know” that a person is corrupt, her lack of transparency is further evidence of corruption. And any minor information that does slip out is defined as news, even if the information does not actually contain evidence of anything all that interesting.

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#136762: Aug 30th 2016 at 5:56:59 AM

[up][up]They shouldn't be: "ei" = The i-sound in "ice" and "wine", "ie" = closer to the sound in "is" or "win" with a little more "eh/œ" to it. Note the distinct difference. <_<

edited 30th Aug '16 6:12:57 AM by Euodiachloris

blkwhtrbbt The Dragon of the Eastern Sea from Doesn't take orders from Vladimir Putin Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
The Dragon of the Eastern Sea
#136763: Aug 30th 2016 at 6:11:47 AM

Nope. "ei" makes a long A sound, like in rein, reign, etc. In names, like Stein, sure, it sounds like a long I sound.

Think of the the two vowels as a dipthong. "e" sounds like "eh" and "i" sounds like "yee".

"ehyee". Long A sound.

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you
Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#136764: Aug 30th 2016 at 6:14:15 AM

[up]Not in the Deutches, no. "Weiner" is a German name, not English... so German rules. smile A literal sound-for-sound transcription would be an almost spot-on "Viner". wink "Wiener" would be "Veener" or "Vena" — kind of. Some English dialects actually do have the right sounds, but not all. tongue

edited 30th Aug '16 6:28:36 AM by Euodiachloris

speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#136765: Aug 30th 2016 at 7:07:56 AM

Anyone following the Colin Kaepernick story? He's a 49ers player who refuses to stand during the national anthem, out of protest of the racial problems (putting it lightly) in the U.S. Predictably, he's gotten a slew of racist insults on social media, and a bunch more calling him unpatriotic.

Anyway, I bring this up in the politics thread because good old Trump gave his two cents on the story: "Maybe he should find a country that works better for him." ...Yeah, I got nothing.

Deadbeatloser22 from Disappeared by Space Magic (Great Old One) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
#136766: Aug 30th 2016 at 7:20:29 AM

I really don't understand all the crap over that and whoever made Facebook explode during the Olympics by not holding their hand over their heart.

"Yup. That tasted purple."
DrunkenNordmann from Exile Since: May, 2015
#136767: Aug 30th 2016 at 7:21:44 AM

[up][up][up] Or in other words, they should pronounce his name like "whiner". Not that this would make it any better. tongue

edited 30th Aug '16 7:21:54 AM by DrunkenNordmann

We learn from history that we do not learn from history
Julep Since: Jul, 2010
#136768: Aug 30th 2016 at 7:23:28 AM

[up][up][up] Since when is it wrong to be un-Patriot-ic in American Football? I thought it was the only way to be?

Instead of a swift exit on this lame joke, I'll leave this article about the difficult negotiations over the TTIP and the fact that France demands that the negotiations stop.

edited 30th Aug '16 7:24:53 AM by Julep

smokeycut Since: Mar, 2013
#136769: Aug 30th 2016 at 8:11:03 AM

The Olympics example was especially stupid, since the girl came from a military family, and veterans don't put their hand over their heart. I got yelled at by people when I was younger for the exact same thing.

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#136770: Aug 30th 2016 at 8:12:16 AM

Wait, why don't vets put their hand over their heart?

Mio Since: Jan, 2001
#136771: Aug 30th 2016 at 8:14:36 AM

Presumably because they are supposed to salute the flag instead.

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#136772: Aug 30th 2016 at 8:26:41 AM

And the hand over heart thing isn't even official protocol, is it?

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#136773: Aug 30th 2016 at 8:34:01 AM

Hand over the heart is what's taught in school for the Pledge of Allegiance but I think the only protocol for civilians and the national anthem is to be standing.

Which is not to say I take much stock in protocol for symbolic gestures. Especially when they're used by people to lord how much more patriotic they are over others.

megarockman from The Sixth Borough (Experienced Trainee)
#136774: Aug 30th 2016 at 8:35:56 AM

It is, actually - it's just not enforced all that much since the penalty is supposed to be up to a year in prison but the Supreme Court ruled flag-burning to be protected free speech (United States v. Eichman, 1990 for the federal government; Texas v. Johnson, 1989 for the states).

Fun side fact - the hand-over-heart thing was a replacement for the original Bellamy gesture (which got ditched in 1942 because it looks like the Nazi salute).

edited 30th Aug '16 8:40:31 AM by megarockman

The damned queen and the relentless knight.
Deadbeatloser22 from Disappeared by Space Magic (Great Old One) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
#136775: Aug 30th 2016 at 8:59:43 AM

Meanwhile it's now Missouri state law that schoolchildren must recite it daily.

Apparently West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) doesn't apply there or something.

edited 30th Aug '16 9:01:36 AM by Deadbeatloser22

"Yup. That tasted purple."

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