Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Philotomy Jurament wrote:

Dwayanu wrote:Bloomberg, Newsmax ... are there no more real journalists?

When that's what passes for reporting, when it's what people cite as a basis for discussing public policy, we are really up the creek!

That's not a special knock against one brand of propaganda. Democratic, Green, Presbyterian, Poultry Processing Association, whatever -- all have an agenda that sets "the Truth" above the facts.

::scratches head::

I thought that article was a lot better than most, in that it actually linked to a copy of the legislation in question and cited page numbers that you can refer to. That goes WAY beyond most reporting and opinion pieces that I come across. Even if you disagree with the opinions, or you question the presentation of the facts, at least the article makes it very easy to take a look at the source material, yourself.

I thought it was well written too... and rather surprising considering the lowbrow attitude to reporting the news that happens these days.

jgbrowning wrote:

Semaj Khan wrote:Yeah, Joe... unfortunately I do, and I don't enter into such a mindset lightly.

Well, I'm sorry to hear it. Everyone's got a point where they think letting it all fail is better than trying to fix it, but as I haven't got to that point in this matter, I can't help but think it unpleasant.

joe b.

You will. You're too intelligent not to.

Semaj Khan wrote:

jgbrowning wrote:

Semaj Khan wrote:Yeah, Joe... unfortunately I do, and I don't enter into such a mindset lightly.

Well, I'm sorry to hear it. Everyone's got a point where they think letting it all fail is better than trying to fix it, but as I haven't got to that point in this matter, I can't help but think it unpleasant.

joe b.

You will. You're too intelligent not to.

Perhaps eventually. I'll probably leave the country then, if I have enough forewarning.

joe b.

"It actually linked to a copy of the legislation in question and cited page numbers that you can refer to."

Not this "it" from NewsMax! The Bloomberg organization is IMO actually a pretty decent news outfit -- but citing an opinion column as an "article" is not so good. I'll bet Molly Ivins has an opinion or three, too, for one.

"Better than most," especially "considering the lowbrow attitude to reporting the news that happens these days," was not the standard I had in mind.

I can't accept this race to the bottom in almost every endeavor as the Great Good Thing it's billed.

Ah, I was looking at the Bloomberg article. The Newsmax one is more like the stuff I commonly see (i.e. no links, footnotes, etc), but it doesn't strike me as being especially terrible journalism.

That it is by intent propaganda (explicitly "conservative") is not enough?

There are but two sources: a Heritage Foundation spokesman and a Republican politician best known for misrepresenting the Clinton health-care plan. That they offer no more than opinions in agreement with those the Managing Editor of NewsMax wants to present is not surprising ...

... but it's also not proper journalism.

Headline News: Some guy from Wizards of the Coast says Labyrinth Lord sucks, and so does some other guy from WotC!

Semaj Khan wrote:The best we can hope for is governmental collapse in DC followed by a couple of years of near-anarchy followed by a more sensible system more like the one that started fading away after Jackson left office.

Fortunately, I think the fifty states are in relatively good situations if the federal government were to collapse. The vast majority of governmental edicts, personnel, services, etc. that I encounter are state or local. The only two major exceptions are the post office and the mint.

Everything else in the governmental sphere is already done either by state or local government (whether directly or indirectly). For example, the feds do not send people from Washington D. C. here to Colorado to do fed gov stuff. Instead, Coloradoans do it.

In short, I think that chaotic anarchy would last only days or perhaps weeks, if at all. After all, the state and local governments would still exist, and that's the level of government most of us encounter in our real lives, anyway. (Ironically, I think that any chaotic anarchy would occur in big cities. I think that rural areas wouldn't suffer any such anarchy at all.)

Any essential services that the fed gov provides (assuming there are any) would quickly start being provided by the states, by city governments, and/or privately.

What I'm really hoping for is a courageous state to secede from the U. S. and essentially say, "We're not paying for your multi-trillion dollar bailouts and foreign wars any more." Then a second state, and then a third, etc. The whole thing could be peacefully accomplished within a month.

(I am of course assuming that the public relations nightmare of ordering the U. S. military to bomb and invade a seceding state would be too much for any U. S. president to contemplate. I further assume that a majority of U. S. military personnel would refuse to carry out any orders to drop bombs on or invade cities such as Denver and Colorado Springs.)

Here's a good book that posits that secession is the only way to preserve what remains of our American liberties, and to reclaim those liberties already lost to Leviathan:
http://www.amazon.com/Secession-Vermont ... 276&sr=1-1

I think it is unrealistic to suppose that the fed gov can be fixed.

I think that secession is the only active thing we can do to protect and reclaim our liberties.

I think the only passive thing Americans can do to help hasten the collapse of the fed gov is passive tax resistance. I don't mean headline-grabbing, hole-yourself-up-in-your-house-and-fire type resistance. I mean people quietly and unobtrusively engaging in more and more buying, selling, working, and hiring that flies under the IRS's radar. As taxes get ever more onerous, that is what happens. Eventually the relatively small risks of passive noncompliance will be preferable to paying ever more money to engage in empire-building and bailing-out billionaires. Over time, the federal gov will collect less taxes in the face of this passive resistance. The fed gov will then brilliantly raise taxes, which will drive more people into the black market, which will cause the fed gov to raise taxes, which will drive even more people into the black market, etc. Eventually the whole thing will collapse.

I don't know which will happen (secession or passive tax resistance), but I think one or the other will inevitably bring down the fed gov within the next 40 or so years.

Nine states have passed declarations asserting their Tenth Amendment rights: Hawaii, Arizona, Washington, New Hampshire, Montana, Missouri, Michigan and Oklahoma. Next best thing.

But you're right... except for maybe California, individual states can ease the transition just fine, IMO2.

Incidentally, polls among returning US troops concerning whether or not they would fire on American citizens in case of insurrection or civil disobedience show that the majority would, in fact, not do so.

You guys are teh funney. Do we have to look forward to a couple of these "ZOMG the sky is falling!!!1!" every week for the next four/eight years?

Semaj Khan wrote:Incidentally, polls among returning US troops concerning whether or not they would fire on American citizens in case of insurrection or civil disobedience show that the majority would, in fact, not do so.

Great to hear!

Not only that, but I'm sure that some military personnel would go farther than refusing to fire on American citizenry. They would say to those who would, "Hey, *******. I'll blow you away if you start shooting Americans."

I don't mind an article telling me "such-and-such expert says this about that," especially if the article *also* provides footnotes, sources, and links that allow me to follow-up and form my own judgments.

That said, I agree that the headline and the way the first paragraph of the Newsmax article is written smacks of propaganda (e.g. putting "experts tell Newsmax" at the very end like that). I think it walks up to the line, but doesn't quite cross it. I think the Bloomberg article was much better.

(I don't have a hand on the rope in the liberal vs. conservative tug-o-war. At least not how it exists in the present U.S.)

D, I never claimed it was a nuetral article, only that it was interesting. It draws some conclusions apparently you disagree with (1. that doctors will be "guided" in their treatments (and it won't be healthy for them to disagree) and 2. the elderly will get the brunt of it (as they require much more expensive drug treatments, treatments that will be too expensive in the near future (hell there too expensive today). Even if these aren't at all whats going on (or the intention of the drafters), its healthy to question it just in case (where is the harm in that?). I never had a problem with liberal press drawing conclusions, if there is even a hint to the threat of civil liberty or the environment it should be discussed. Given that this was snuck into a stimulas bill (rather then individually presented and discussed in congress as Clintons Health care bill was), I think the questions are warrented. I certainly don't trust anyone in Washington. If it takes a propogandist headline (either liberal or conservative) to grab the publics attention, I don't see the harm. People are smart enough to read this and realize it for what it is.

Semaj, it didn't take long to confiscate guns in England or Australia. First they'll make it illegal to own fire arms not registered (most will if there's the chance of going to prison, I certainly would) then once there registered they'll order you drop them off at your local police station (or some other place). Then they'll lay them out on some long asphault driveway and run them over with one of those flattener trucks just for the photo op.

A couple school or mall shootings and this could happen in a heart beat. The public right now is that bewitched by this guy.

What I disagree with is the BS of calling something what it's not and treating it as a proper replacement.

If you really don't know the difference, then maybe you won't notice that we don't have a paddle. "Isn't that what we use to play Nintendo?"

Dwayanu wrote:What I disagree with is the BS of calling something what it's not and treating it as a proper replacement.

Specifically what are you talking about?

T. Foster wrote:You guys are teh funney. Do we have to look forward to a couple of these "ZOMG the sky is falling!!!1!" every week for the next four/eight years?

Only if you choose to walk into the thread.