Current or modern politics in the United States

[winebeavis]

Brother Scoundrel.

I'd like to say that what you are witnessing in your example is the blurring of the lines between entertainment and politics. It's been happening in all sorts of ways possible in the U.S. since print. Some people start out trying to make a buck or two disguising entertainment as news. It's really not much different from professional wrestling.

The problem with pro wrestling is that sometimes the audience forgets it fake and gets too charged up about the bad guy. Pretty much the same thing, except changing the channel is more difficult process.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by begos

I mean, it's not as though the entire Faux News organization, from the most recently hired mail room clerk right up to former Nixon associate Roger Ailes, are a buncha lying right-wing assholes, right?

Are you personally acquainted with every single employee of Fox News, Begos? If you are not, then I think this is a tad unfair.

• If you are struggling to find work and keep the wolf from the door, would you be too proud to work in the mail room a Fox News? If that was the only job I could get, I'd do it.
• Every single employee of Fox News is a liar and an asshole?

Maybe "fair and balanced" is not such a bad standard for the rest of us to apply, if we want to criticise Fox News for not applying it.

[DTravel]

Originally Posted by knobby109

Marriage was originally instituted to provide a framework for the children which naturally evolve from a heterosexual relationship.It wasn't restricted to couples of child bearing age of course.

And with modern medical capabilities, a homosexual couple is as capable of having children as a heterosexual couple, so again I ask, What is the difference?

[DTravel]

Originally Posted by HugoHackenbush

DTravel, this is halfway correct. Wills are tossed out, but only upon proof that something was wrong with the person making the will, such as they were incompetent at the time the will was executed, or psychologically browbeaten by a 3rd party into changing their will in favor of the 3rd party.

Courts do not rewrite wills due to simple inequality.

There was a case recently of a reclusive heir to a massive copper fortune who had her will thrown out because she specifically stated that she did not want any of her relatives to receive anything. Those same relatives challenged the will because she left her fortune to friends, health care workers and the hospital she had lived in for the last twenty years of her life. (She had lived there of her own volition despite the doctors telling her could and should go home.) No one presented any evidence that any of the beneficiaries had done anything to deliberately influence her and evidence was presented that several had asked her not to include them in her will.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by DTravel

And with modern medical capabilities, a homosexual couple is as capable of having children as a heterosexual couple

What???

[9876543210]

palo5,

Originally Posted by palo5

What???

Sure, happens quite often nowadays. Lesbian couples can have sperm donated put into one of the women. One, or both, of a male couple could donate their sperm and have it placed into a woman willing to carry the baby. The sperm donor (in the case of the lesbians) is usually paid or the women go to a clinic if they want an anonymous donor. In the case of a woman carrying to term a baby for a male couple, the woman is usually also paid (it used to be around $10,000 but is probably more nowadays.)

[knobby109]

Originally Posted by 9876543210

palo5,



Sure, happens quite often nowadays. Lesbian couples can have sperm donated put into one of the women. One, or both, of a male couple could donate their sperm and have it placed into a woman willing to carry the baby. The sperm donor (in the case of the lesbians) is usually paid or the women go to a clinic if they want an anonymous donor. In the case of a woman carrying to term a baby for a male couple, the woman is usually also paid (it used to be around $10,000 but is probably more nowadays.)

Not quite the same thing as what happens spontaneously when a heterosexual couple live together. What sort of world are we living in I wonder?

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by begos

So, does that mean you'd work for Goebbels as well, if money was tight and his news organization loudly proclaimed it was "fair and balanced"??? Or might you pull your belt in another notch and retain some self respect???

And if you want to protest that the organizations are substantially different, perhaps you'd care to explain in what meaningful ways. Other than the fact that one spewed forth hate and lies and was the de jure arm of a vile political party while the other spews forth hate and lies and is the de facto (or default, if you prefer) arm of a vile political party.

Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

I think it is time we all took a reality check. There is no ethical equivalence between the Republican movement, even in its Tea Party manifestation, and the Nazi Party. Neither is there an ethical equivalence between Fox News and the Reich's Propaganda Ministry. For one thing, Fox News and the Republican Party and not actively engaged in conspiracy to commit genocide. That is a meaningful way in which the two parties are different, and you are smart enough that you should't need me to tell you this. You really do not have to agree with anything Fox News and /or the Republican Party does or says in order to see that this analogy is irrational and objectionable. I am disappointed.

I have several times now asked for greater respect to be shown to the opposing point of view. We have a lot of Democrats and Democrat-sympathisers talking here (myself included) and no Republicans. This post is a strong clue why. By all means cite the wrong doings and unfair tactics of the Republican Party and Fox News, using facts and hard evidence. But cut the crap, gentlemen. People are allowed to disagree with your views. You are not allowed to demonise them if and when they do.

[9876543210]

scoundrel,

Its rare that we disagree but here I will have to:

Originally Posted by scoundrel

There is no ethical equivalence between the Republican movement, even in its Tea Party manifestation, and the Nazi Party. Neither is there an ethical equivalence between Fox News and the Reich's Propaganda Ministry.

I'm no expert on Nazi propaganda but I wonder if it didn't start out (in the early 1930s) as something much milder than it wound up in the late 30s and 40s? I would think they didn't make some of the blatant claims early on that they did later on.

Is this what we're now seeing with Faux Noise? Yes, every once in a while they'll throw in something regarded as an indisputable fact but, way more often, they'll spew things which are totally false (and can be proven to be false). So maybe Faux Noise is equivalent. Just equivalent to the early 30s Propaganda Ministry, not the 40's Ministry.

For one thing, Fox News and the Republican Party and not actively engaged in conspiracy to commit genocide.

Maybe. But they are certainly supporting efforts which could lead to genocide. Dehumanizing latin americans and blacks, supporting efforts to disenfranchise women and minorities from voting, denyjing math and science, etc., etc. I could go on and on. Shoot, so could you! So maybe at this moment they aren't supporting genocide but, if they continue on their present course, thats where they're headed. If we don't point that out then we're guilty, by omission, of supporting it.

I have several times now asked for greater respect to be shown to the opposing point of view. We have a lot of Democrats and Democrat-sympathisers talking here (myself included) and no Republicans. This post is a strong clue why. By all means cite the wrong doings and unfair tactics of the Republican Party and Fox News, using facts and hard evidence. But cut the crap, gentlemen. People are allowed to disagree with your views. You are not allowed to demonise them if and when they do.

I don't remember who said this (I'm sure there are others here that do) but some German after WW 2 said (something to the effect); "First they came for the Jews, then they came for the Gypsies and we did nothing about it..." Well, I don't want to be that German after the war and I feel that it is important that fallacies be pointed out and the people perpetuating those untruths be also be pointed out.

Yes, people are allowed to disagree. I have no problem with that. But people are not allowed their own facts. And the right, today, are relying on assumptions and opinion as "fact". Maybe that is the heart of the problem.

[scoundrel]

Comparing Fox News and the Republican Party that now is with Goebbels and the Nazis, on the strength of what you think that Fox News and the Republican movement could one day turn into is (excuse me for saying this) pretty paranoid. I see no legitimacy in judging someone or something now, today, on what you think they might turn into at some unspecified future time. Apart from anything else, you might not be correct, and they might turn out better than you expected. Besides, its a game others can play and do play, noteably Ms Coulter in her wild and extravagent panic mongering about how terrible America will turn out under an Obama presidency. Here (again, excuse me for saying this) I certainly do see equivalence beween her debating tactics and the debating tactics employed on this thread comparing Fox News with the Reichs Propaganda Ministry.

I am going to insist on this. We will treat Republican posters, if any are brave enough to appear after all this shit, with courtesy and restraint. We will engage constructively with their arguments, even if they are regurgitated Fox News fodder, and we will attack the arguments and not the person. In particular, there will be no more accusing people of being equivalent to Nazis. That is out of bounds.