Annoying (not Big) Media Bias

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Did you notice every time a Republican wins, it's all about anger, irrationality, getting-back-at so-and-so, etc. -- but when a Democrat wins, it's all about peace 'n' love 'n' hope 'n' change?

No

 

[Skeptic]

The thing that really bothers me is the pervasive class of ever-present political talking heads (every damn network has them now) who insist upon telling us, constantly and loudly, that the next election is THE BIG ONE!!! THE ONE ELECTION TO RULE THEM ALL!!!11!1

... "or the terrorists win!"

... "or American will become socialist forever!"

... "or the Bush criminal gang will cancel all elections and declare a dictatorship!"

... "or..."

 

[quixotecoyote]

... "or the terrorists win!"

... "or American will become socialist forever!"

... "or the Bush criminal gang will cancel all elections and declare a dictatorship!"

... "or..."

I've heard two of those on network tv. One I've only read on fringe websites. Guess which.

 

[elbe]

Free speech? Nope, they've got the hate speech thing going.

I didn't know the ACLU is a republican leaning organization.

 

[Skeptic]

(Shrug) then replace the last one with "or American will become hated and isolated in the world forever!" or "Or American has declared war on the Islamic world!" or "America will be involved in a horrific crusade against innocents for years!", etc.

 

[Ziggurat]

I didn't know the ACLU is a republican leaning organization.

Oh, I get it. You're conflating liberal and Democrat. Silly elbe.

 

[elbe]

Oh, I get it. You're conflating liberal and Democrat. Silly elbe.

I was making a rather flippant response since your post seems wholly biased.

From my experience Dems tend to have more interest in free speech rights than Reps, not that I really think either party, as a whole, is really that interested in damaging that particular right.

 

[Ziggurat]

I was making a rather flippant response since your post seems wholly biased.

Funny, you didn't seem to mind that about tyr's post.

 

[elbe]

Funny, you didn't seem to mind that about tyr's post.

I honestly don't recall commenting on anyone else's post. I quoted yours because I honestly have a hard time imagining the republicans as the champions of free speech.

 

[Ziggurat]

I honestly don't recall commenting on anyone else's post.

That's kind of my point.

 

[332nd]

(Shrug) then replace the last one with "or American will become hated and isolated in the world forever!" or "Or American has declared war on the Islamic world!" or "America will be involved in a horrific crusade against innocents for years!", etc.

Or replace the last one with "They want to kill grandma" or "They hate America"... Oh, wait...

 

[tyr_13]

You seem to be having some trouble reading. Let me help you.

In response to YOUR post, I listed a number of issues regarding democrats and republicans, along with my opinion on how their positions on those issues matched your description. You have not provided any counterargument to my argument.

In Magyar's previous post, he listed no issues at all, but only negative qualities he felt conservatives had. He then defended that post by saying he talked about issues when he had not.

Now, with that little bit of Cliff notes, can you spot a difference? Look, I'm not asking that you agree with my evaluation of Republican and Democrat positions, but if you honestly can't see a difference between my post and Magyar's, well... actually, you're smart enough that the only way you wouldn't spot the difference is if you're not trying.

Well let's try this again...

The only issue that Democrats promote freedom more than Republicans is sexual freedoms (abortion, gay marriage). Free speech? Nope, they've got the hate speech thing going. Right to bear arms - do I even need to comment? Financial freedoms - who is the party of lower taxes and less regulation?

I put 'freedom' in ironic quotes because the idea that this side of one issue is the 'freedom' side is silly as different freedoms, like different rights, often conflict. I find it a fallacious point to begin with. So your assertions that Republicans are on the side of 'freedom' for the issues you listed is just a silly bias you have about liberals (which doesn't equal Democrats obviously, but we both know that) really being against freedom. It's the exact same thing I'd criticize them for, and it doesn't become less fallacious when it's switched to being a 'point for' Republicans.

 

[Regnad Kcin]

Not a big thing. But an annoying one, in the wake of the Brown election.

Did you notice every time a Republican wins, it's all about anger, irrationality, getting-back-at so-and-so, etc. -- but when a Democrat wins, it's all about peace 'n' love 'n' hope 'n' change?

Do you notice that every time you use a phrase like "every time," it's a generalization (like my usage, sure). Confirmation bias is not your friend.

 

[Skeptic]

Folks -- I know I have confirmation bias here, but for the record, I didn't mean "every time" literally -- I just meant that it seems to me to happen a lot. I agree that this can be checked objectively. Given that most of the media is liberal (as numerous polls confirm), I predict that the objective result would say there is such bias, but less than I thought. But again, it's not a big thing.

 

[Magyar]

Folks -- I know I have confirmation bias here, but for the record, I didn't mean "every time" literally -- I just meant that it seems to me to happen a lot. I agree that this can be checked objectively. Given that most of the media is liberal (as numerous polls confirm), I predict that the objective result would say there is such bias, but less than I thought. But again, it's not a big thing.

Yes, I agree with you that I don't LITERALLY mean EVERY Repugnican either,

But TODAY is just another example of the lovely compassionate republican philosophy at it's FINEST and a fine example of

anger, irrationality, getting-back-at so-and-so

Just wondering HOW MANY of these morons will it take before the expected BBBBBBut that's jsut the fringe becomes a totally stupid excuse?


http://chattahbox.com/us/2010/01/24/sc-lt-gov-poor-like-stray-animals-dont-feed-them-or-they-breed/ and a perfect example of

anger, irrationality, getting-back-at so-and-so

Sound very familiar in there doesn't it! I can just picture grand ma
knitting for the family

 

[Ziggurat]

You think that's a uniquely republican problem, Magyar? I don't think so.

 

[Skeptic]

Well, here is an example of the kind of "you people are just so stupid and having a temper tantrum for disagreeing with Obama!" shtick I'm talking about. Certainly examples from the right can be found as well, but still -- not in such central papers, or so it seems to me.

Here is Joe Klein, of Time magazine, "explaining" why people don't think the stimulus worked for some reason, just because unemployment keeps going up:

Absolutely amazing poll results from CNN today about the $787 [sic] stimulus package: nearly three out of four Americans think the money has been wasted. On second thought, they may be right: it's been wasted on them. . . .

Can you imagine Klein saying, say, "most Americans are not sure what Bush did made America safer, but on second though, they may be right: Bush wasted his time making them safer, not more deserving people"?

Of course not.

Then again, this is Time magazine, which, like its clone Newsweek, had been in effect an Obama election pamphlet for the last two years.

 

[MikeMangum]

From my experience Dems tend to have more interest in free speech rights than Reps, not that I really think either party, as a whole, is really that interested in damaging that particular right.

Someone has clearly not been paying attention.

It is overwhelmingly Democrats who introduce and vote for hate crimes bills, which are used to attack freedom of speech.

As a Republican (presciently) stated in arguing against hate crimes legislation

“Violence produced by hate is already outlawed. Why would we as a nation want to divide our American citizens into various categories of ‘more worthy’ or ‘less worthy’ of whatever protection the law can give them? What happened to the great ideal this nation was founded on of equal protection under law?

“The hate-crimes bill will chill the First Amendment rights of religious groups. This hate-crimes bill will chill the First Amendment rights of religious groups, and the government will be required to prove the suspect’s thoughts as a category of the victim involved in the crime.

“Religious groups may become the subject of criminal investigations in order to determine the suspect’s religious beliefs, membership in religious organizations or past statements about person’s associated with specific categories. Religious leaders will be chilled from expressing their religious views for fear of involvement in the criminal justice system.

“This hate-crimes bill will result in unequal justice for all and the restriction of one of our ideals that has made our nation great, free speech.”

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/artic...ity-Hate-Crimes-Law-Is-Bad-For-You-Part-3.php

I cited the example of two teenage girls being prosecuted for sexual orientation “hate speech” under Illinois law. Another example occurred in Philadelphia a few years ago. District Attorney Lynne Abraham prosecuted a small group of Christians who were peacefully demonstrating at a homosexual parade in Philadelphia in 2004 (go here for video). The group comprised eleven persons from an organization called “Repent America,” including two grandmothers and a 17-year-old girl. All eleven spent 21 hours in jail. After a preliminary hearing Judge William Meehan ordered four of the eleven to stand trial on three felony charges and five misdemeanor charges (a fifth person, the teenage girl, was required to stand trial in juvenile court). The three felony charges were “ethnic intimidation” (proclaiming that homosexual practice was a sin), possession of instruments of crime (a bullhorn), and inciting a riot (reading from the Bible passages dealing with homosexual practice). These four Christian defendants faced up to 47 years in prison and fines of $90,000 each.

Although Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe subsequently dismissed the criminal charges (after comparing the Repent America group to Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan), had the prosecutor Lynne Abraham been the judge (or perhaps had Judge Meehan been the judge instead of Dembe), the verdict would have been quite different. That the prosecution was undertaken at all indicates that some legal authorities already believe that peaceful speech against homosexual practice is prosecutable. Expect judges to side with city prosecutors as the homosexualist agenda gains greater ascendancy through the passage of national “sexual orientation” legislation. Of note is the fact that in 2007 U.S. District Judge Lawrence Stengel ruled that the city of Philadelphia had a right to “exclude persons expressing contrary messages” from the vicinity of the “Outfest” parade even though the event was a admittedly a “public forum” conducted in a “public place” (namely city-owned streets and sidewalks; go here).

It is liberals who implement speech codes on college campuses.

Generally, the only conservative attacks against free speech have been for things they consider obscene (which is not core political speech) and the burning of the flag (which is core political speech).

Liberals have attempted to curtail core political speech in many ways, including prosecution or the threat of such.

A St. Louis television station reports — their words — "The Barack Obama campaign is asking Missouri law enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading TV ad during the presidential campaign."

Prosecutors and sheriffs from across Missouri are joining "The Barack Obama Truth Squad."

They mention Jennifer Joyce, St. Louis Circuit Attorney and Bob McCullough, prosecutor for St. Louis County in Missouri.

The reporter says, "They will be reminding voters that Barack Obama is a Christian who wants to cut taxes for anyone making less than $250,000 a year."

While the report never quite comes out and says that anyone running an ad saying those things would be subject to prosecution, that certainly is the message implied.

 

[MikeMangum]

Sound very familiar in there doesn't it! I can just picture grand ma
knitting for the family

[qimg]http://www.odditycentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/klan.jpg[/qimg]

If grandma was knitting a clan outfit, almost certainly she was a Democrat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan

The clan was founded by Democrats fighting back against the Republican implementation of Reconstruction. The KKK was inherently a political organization and an arm of the Democratic party.

The first Klan was founded in 1865 by Tennessee veterans of the Confederate Army. Klan groups spread throughout the South. The Klan's purpose was to restore white supremacy in the aftermath of the American Civil War. The Klan resisted Reconstruction by assaulting, murdering and intimidating freedmen and white Republicans. In 1870 and 1871 the federal government passed the Force Acts, which were used to prosecute Klan crimes. Prosecution of Klan crimes and enforcement of the Force Acts suppressed Klan activity. In 1874 and later, however, newly organized and openly active paramilitary organizations such as the White League and the Red Shirts started a fresh round of violence aimed at suppressing Republican voting and running Republicans out of office. These contributed to white Democrats regaining political power in the Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

...

Historian Elaine Frantz Parsons commented on the make up of the membership:

Lifting the Klan mask revealed a chaotic multitude of antiblack vigilante groups, disgruntled poor white farmers, wartime guerrilla bands, displaced Democratic politicians, illegal whiskey distillers, coercive moral reformers, sadists, rapists, white workmen fearful of black competition, employers trying to enforce labor discipline, common thieves, neighbors with decades-old grudges, and even a few freedmen and white Republicans who allied with Democratic whites or had criminal agendas of their own. Indeed, all they had in common, besides being overwhelmingly white, southern, and Democratic, was that they called themselves, or were called, Klansmen

Historian Eric Foner observed:

In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the planter class, and all those who desired restoration of white supremacy. Its purposes were political, but political in the broadest sense, for it sought to affect power relations, both public and private, throughout Southern society. It aimed to reverse the interlocking changes sweeping over the South during Reconstruction: to destroy the Republican party's infrastructure, undermine the Reconstruction state, reestablish control of the black labor force, and restore racial subordination in every aspect of Southern life.[24]

To that end they worked to curb the education, economic advancement, voting rights, and right to keep and bear arms of blacks.[24] The Ku Klux Klan soon spread into nearly every southern state, launching a "reign of terror" against Republican leaders both black and white. Those political leaders assassinated during the campaign included Arkansas Congressman James M. Hinds, three members of the South Carolina legislature, and several men who served in constitutional conventions."[25]

I'm not sure how you would explain the Dixiecrats either.

 

[Skeptic]

(Sigh) Look, folks, this is what I'm talking about:

"All Democrats are evil" = stupid, racist nonsense (which it is)
"All Republicans are evil" = deep analysis of the root causes of America's awful decline.