Liberal Hypocrisy

Oba-mao · 2 days

Macros qua the concept of macros are indeed a meme. But that second definition is a bastardization of the word created through improper use. Image macros convey memes, the concept of image macros is a meme, but any given image with new text on it is not a meme. Emailing it to someone does not make it a meme, no matter what Google says. Google is wrong on this one.

Oba-mao · 2 days

It's called picking one's battles. Some people feel that institutional bigotry is a bigger problem than taxes. Some people feel that fixing institutional bigotry is easier than fixing the IRS. There's a number of reasons that have nothing to do with hypocrisy.

Oba-mao · 2 days

A military that can kill them where they stand without trial?

Oba-mao · 2 days

I also don't understand why it had to be a meme.

Ugh. Pet peeve time. This is not a meme. Putting text on an image is not a meme. This is an Image Macro, or "macro" for short. It is a macro because it is a single element (a url/an image) that accomplishes a goal otherwise achieved by typing out many elements (all the words).

So yea, don't understand why it had to be a MACRO.

Treating rich people different from poor people is the entire basis of modern liberal economic policy. That's the point.

Rich people are different than poor people. Rich people have more money, which translates to rich people control more of the sum total of the wealth of the entire nation than poor people do.

There's nothing hypocritical about collectivism. It applies different rules based on an economic criteria. Have the ability to help the collective? Help the collective? Need help? The collective will help you. One doesn't have to be a collectivist to recognize the standard. It's far from hypocritical.

flettz · 5 days

Some people were never theists.

Then they never became atheists.

mikeash · 6 days

I think
1) we know so little about the brain it's tough to really say right now, so we should recognize that we're just speculating
2) mental/emotional changes have physical counterparts (some might claim that they're identical to them) so a mental/emotional change is a minor physical change and that minor physical change can lead to others. For example, some choices may lead to more stressful situations, or a more stressful emotional existence, or more isolation or perceived isolation from society and loved ones, etc, etc.

planesforstars · 7 days

if power is distributed randomly throughout the citizenry, then it is necessarily distributed evenly.

You clearly don't understand probability. If power is distributed randomly throughout the citizenry, more often than not it will NOT be distributed evenly. Over time, a randomizer could select 90% sociopaths, just like a random number generator has no law against it creating the sequence 4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4 during its lifetime.

mikeash · 7 days

Having congenital structure is certainly not a choice, and I have little doubt that sexuality is so important that it's probably given a significant development head start before birth. Also, as the brain is still developing post-birth, I have little doubt that sexuality is somewhat impacted by environment.

But I was more addressing your accusation of dishonesty for suggesting that brains can't be significantly modified by choices.

mikeash · 7 days

Yeah, I'm not sure you've gotten anywhere here. Why would there ever be a one-way causal link? Are you an epiphenomenalist?

mikeash · 7 days

I'm sure I'll get no argument saying that people choose to have gay sex. But that's not the same as saying that they choose to be gay.

The "gay" label is a relatively modern one. It was commonplace during the middle ages for men to sleep with both men and women, and men exclusively, without getting a new label. It was more fluid. Is it possible that by applying labels and pigeon-holing people were making things worse?

mikeash · 7 days

Not sure why. Reddit is full of strict physical reductionists who claim that everything mental is reducible to the physical brain, so why wouldn't decisions be evidence of changes in the brain, with longer term decisions and more life altering decisions resulting in more brain change, not just from making the decision but also from the results of those decisions like scanning a crowd for attractive mates, modeling how to behave attractively to a new target audience, becoming defensive and protective or even secretive about one's sexuality with attendant severe repression. It doesn't seem implausible at all that decisions and their long-term effects could change the physical brain.

mikeash · 7 days

I don't see how a choice could have any effect on brain structure.

Why not?

go1dfish · 8 days

So are you saying articles in The Hill are in and of themselves logical non-rhetorical discourse or are you saying that things the articles are about, like Rep. John Garamendi saying “This is a political move,” are logical and non-rhetorical? Because I'm starting to think you might not understand how strict logic is and how wide rhetoric is.

go1dfish · 8 days

I disagree with choosing the lesser evil. War and slightly different war is not a choice. If those are the only choices, then despair is the appropriate answer. However, there aren't two choices. We must rebuild our society ourselves, starting in our own communities, and we must break the political machine that has dominated us so heavily for so long. The two-party/one-direction system must be dismantled or we will never make progress. Choosing the lesser of two evils is not a baby step in the right directions, it's a false choice.

go1dfish · 8 days

The time for logic is never long-gone, unless you're restricting yourself to cable TV.

Or talking to the press secretary, or listening to the president's speeches, or listening to the vast majority of Congressional speech, or listening to the most influential thought leaders in the country (who just happen to be on cable TV). It's sad, but Bill O is more influential in shaping what people think than pretty much anyone in Congress. All of the above is rhetoric. It's not logical discourse. Most of the logical discourse happens off-camera, usually out of the public eye, and outside of public influence, because it happens in the arguments between people with the actual power to get things done, in whatever offices that happen to be in. The best chance we have to see logical discourse is whatever hearings Congress is having.

I would love for you to show me where the logical non-rhetorical discourse is happening that Chomsky just isn't playing a part of. Show me what you're talking about.

go1dfish · 9 days

"Oh, please! Please come into our country and kill our civilians in your misguided attempt at eradicating an ideology! We need your protection and we'll let you rape us and burn us alive if only you'll protect us from our neighboring but oddly familiar regressive dictator that totally wasn't installed by you and/or armed by you."

go1dfish · 9 days

It just doesn't make sense to have policy discussions about serious things (like killing) with rhetoric.

Tell that to everyone having policy discussions? The time for logic appears to be long gone. Politicians only use rhetoric, then they kill people without due process. I think some hyperbole is well within the bounds of acceptability.

go1dfish · 9 days

Of course they're inclined to let us help them

Such euphemisms

go1dfish · 9 days

Actually, I think the point is that it's not more complicated than that. The president has taken the power to kill people without checks and balances, without review or audit, without any burden of proof. What's complicated is what administration lawyers are doing to justify murder by decree. But in the end, it's simply murder by decree, which is a lot closer to "because I don't like you" than I'm comfortable with.

go1dfish · 9 days

I feel more responsible for supporting the war on terror by not voting for Gore, more than I feel like a supporter by voting for Obama.

You're delusional if you think Gore would not have gone to war. Both parties are war parties. We have been at war nearly continuously since we formed the country. The longest we have ever been at peace was 5 years during the Great Depression.

It's easy to hate Obama when you are a priveleged white college male who's life doesn't seem that different when a Republican or Democrat are in power, its another when you're gay, or a public sector employee or hispanic or Black or female.

These are called diversionary issues. They are arguments that get everyone whipped into a frenzy constantly and are used to sway a majority of the population. They are emotional hot-button issues and in no way truly impact the mission of our leaders to accumulate more power.

go1dfish · 9 days

When you compare drones strikes to troops on the ground with little or no knowledge of the culture or language who are afraid of being blown up at any given moment and as such tend to react violently to any suspicious activity I personally think the choice is pretty clear.

Yes, false dichotomies are characterized by the relative clarity of the choice preferred by the presenter.

go1dfish · 9 days

Do you even want to consider the consequences of not giving permission to the US to conduct military operations that kill your civilians as well as their targets who have not been tried and found guilty? That's like saying "but Billy gave Johnny his lunch money". That's because Billy's a 12-year-old nomadic sheep herder and Johnny is a 20-year-old Marine carrying enough fire power to kill 10 people in under 30 seconds.

go1dfish · 9 days

the US killed ONE American-born al Queda member

You aren't allowed to know about the things our government and our military do. You have to be a fool to think they've told us everything they've done. If the executive branch is claiming the power to execute extra-judicial killings, you have zero assurance as to how that power has and will be used. You only have what is declassified and put on the news wire.

I don't understand how people can take anything the military says as the whole truth or even a part truth. They have zero incentive to be honest with anyone. Their incentive is to win the game by any means necessary, and it appears they have decided that this includes fabricating evidence, destroying evidence, obstructing justice, torture, murder without trial, 5 decades of non-stop war, zero accountability on spending, privatization of para-military forces, nation building, nuclear buildup, domestic propaganda, reduction of posse comitatus, the creation of a new legal status for individuals (enemy combatants)....

go1dfish · 9 days

I think the big problem has been the amount of lawyering involved in the last 2 decades to skirt the rule of law and establish new law, effectively by fiat.

FaustTheBird

TROPHY CASE

FaustTheBird

TROPHY CASE

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