Kenny Pierce continues from his ATB post on The Black Pleasure Of Hatred And Cultural Provincialism:
"From debate on the Senate floor about interrogation tactics at Guantanamo:
When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here -- I almost hesitate to put them in the record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report: On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold....On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor. If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners. -- Senator Dick Durbin
I recently wrote a post expressing my concern about the prevalence of hate-speech and hate-rhetoric in modern American politics, in which I used Senator Durbin's demonization of the Guantanamo interrogators as an example of objectionable rhetoric. And a good friend of mine, who happens, like Durbin, to detest Dubya and to consider Guantanamo to be an indelible stain on our national honor, had a response that interested me very much. She couldn't understand why I would have a problem with Durbin's rhetoric; well, okay. But then, even more interestingly, she in the very same conversation complained about conservatives' referring to liberals as "unpatriotic" and as "aiding and abetting the enemy." That is to say, she thinks that sometimes it's okay to demonize, and sometimes it isn't, though she's vague as to how one is supposed to tell what is good demonization and what is bad demonization.
Fairly deep into the conversation she got somewhat plaintive in her frustration over my (to her) incomprehensible take on Durbin's rant:
Why must [Durbin's contention] be put nicely? Why is not this remark evaluated on the basis of the truth that underlies and causes the occasion? Why, Kenny.... why, why, why? :)
The conversation petered out shortly thereafter and we've since moved on to other topics. But the more I think about her question, the more I think it's a question worth a careful and detailed answer. The problem is, there are several reasons to say that responsible people do not, except under exceptional circumstances (if ever), resort to that particular rhetorical tactic. So I think what's called for is a series of posts, each one examining in detail a single reason that demonization is a bad thing, something which we as individuals should not engage in and which we as a culture should not deem socially tolerable. My time constraints being what they are, I may not be able to finish the series (I usually don't manage to finish long series of this nature, because the family-of-eleven things, and the job-that's-demanding-enough-for-me-to-be-paid-enough-to-support-a-family-of-eleven things, tend to rise up and derail me). But I can at least make a start, beginning with what I think is most important; and perhaps other people can pick up the baton when I wind up dropping it.
Now, the very first thing to observe, is that my friend gets upset when demonization is aimed at the people she agrees with and likes, but not when it's aimed at the people she disagrees with and dislikes. This would seem to imply that she objects to demonization because she wants to protect the people who are targeted thereby. But this, I think, means that between her perspective and mine there is a great gulf fixed, right from the first step. For by far my biggest reason to urge people not to indulge in demonization, is the damage I believe it does to the person who is doing the demonizing. When I urge Senator Durbin or Paul Krugman not to demonize President Bush, that's not because I'm worried about Dubya's reputation or feelings. It's first and foremost because I am worried about Durbin and Krugman.
In order to understand why I'm concerned on their behalf, we have to make sure we understand exactly what demonization is. It isn't just calling somebody evil, because the whole implication is that you're rhetorically making the person out to be worse than he really is. For example, it isn't demonization to say, "Satan is the devil." That's just the literal truth. Nor is it demonization to say, "Hitler was Hitler," or, "Stalin was Stalin," or, "Pol Pot was Pol Pot," or, "Dubya is Dubya," or, "Teddy Kennedy is Teddy Kennedy."
In other words, demonization involves some form of exaggeration. It is a subspecies of hyperbole, which is exaggeration for rhetorical effect.
Furthermore, demonization has a particular rhetorical effect in mind. I recently criticized Dubya's stubborn refusal to alter tactics in Iraq until long after it should have been obvious that the tactics required changing (as tactics, in wars, always do). And I expressed the basic idea of, "Dubya stubbornly insisted on trying to win the war on the cheap," by accusing him, tongue-in-cheek, of having thought that he could establish a stable and just society in Iraq with "six Marines, a K-9 unit, and some high-tech weapons," or something to that effect.
Now, that's actually not demonization, for two reasons:
1. It's intended for comic effect, i.e., it's intended to amuse, even though I was in the middle of making a serious point.
2. It's meant to be impossible to be taken literally -- nobody with an I.Q. higher than an oxygen-deprived cocker spaniel would really think that the U.S. has fewer than ten military personnel stationed in Iraq.
Demonization, on the other hand, is intended to evoke or to rationalize outrage (which of course the demonizer and his partisans will describe as "righteous" anger); and it is intended to be something that at least a great many people will think can be taken literally or almost so. The two are related because if the exaggeration is so over-the-top as to be absurd, the initial reaction is likely to be laughter rather than anger, and laughter is most certainly not the reaction the demonizer intends to evoke. Indeed, most of the time demonization isn't just intended to evoke anger -- it's usually intended to inculcate hatred.
Now, let's look again at Senator Durbin's outburst on the Senate floor. Unless we want to consider the Senator a liar, we must presume that he is not trying to convince people of anything that isn't true. Furthermore, unless we want to consider him a complete idiot, we must presume that he is aware of several facts:
1. Honest people can disagree with the Senator about whether the actions of the United States at Guantanamo are unethical. Honest people can further disagree about whether those actions are a wise and acceptable means of protecting the American people. It is therefore entirely possible that the President means well and is trying to protect the country against terrorists, acting perhaps foolishly, but with the best and most honorable of intentions.
2. If what the Guantanamo detainees have undergone qualifies as "torture," then the bar that constitutes torture has been lowered very far indeed, as their treatment is only by the most expansive definitions comparable to the actions that most English-speakers imagine when you pronounce the word "torture." Indeed, nothing Durbin describes is as severe as what our armed forces commonly put our soldiers through in training exercises; and you would not be able to find a prison anywhere in Europe or in America in which the inmates are cared for as well. Great care is taken to ensure that no permanent physical harm is incurred (even when the inmates are trying to hurt themselves); nor are there "mock executions;" nor anything that produces pain remotely comparable to that caused by the rack, or by branding with hot irons, or by suspending somebody from handcuffs until their arms pull out of their sockets, or by starving them to the point at which they eat the grass in the prison yard out of sheer desperation, or by yanking out their fingernails with pliars, or by lashing them with a cat-o'-nine-tails, or by forcing them to work an eight-hour day ditch-digging in waist-deep water in winter. It would, I think, be very difficult for Senator Durbin to explain how forcing somebody to listen to loud rap music can qualify as "torture" unless the imposition of pretty much any degree of physical discomfort whatsoever is now to be defined as "torture." So, if we take out the buzz-word "torture" and replace it with an accurate description of the behavior to which Durbin objects, I think the worst description we can honestly manage is "significant but purely temporary physical discomfort."
3. No country in which the putative "despot" can be vilified in the nation's leading newspapers with the venom and frequency with which Dubya is vilified, is remotely a "despotic" nation. No nation whose "concentration camps" involve the extreme measures for ensuring the health and religious freedom of the inmates that is evident at Guantanamo, is remotely a nation that denies the humanity of its enemies.
Yet Durbin thinks that Stalin and Pol Pot are somehow relevant to discussions of Guantanamo. I can't read his mind, but my best guess is that he wants to posit a sort of slippery slope: if we allow "torture," we put ourselves on a path that will ultimately lead to our being no better than the worst and most inhumane regimes of the twentieth century, even if we step onto that path out of the best of intentions.
Therefore, unless Durbin is a fool or a liar, what he intended to say was something like this: "I know the President means well and is trying to protect the country against terrorists, but his policies are foolish, because if we allow our interrogators to cause significant but purely temporary physical discomfort to their interrogees, this will set in motion a chain of events that ultimately will cause the United States to be engaging in deliberate genocide and operating slave labor camps and death camps that will result in the deaths of millions. Therefore the President should change his policies and cease causing physical discomfort to the prisoners at Guantanamo."
But instead of saying this, the Senator chose, for purely rhetorical purposes, to say that if you were to show an observer a prisoner under interrogation at Guantanamo and another prisoner under interrogation in Stalin's Lubyanka Prison, the observer wouldn't be able to tell which interrogation was which.
So now let us ask ourselves whether the Senator's rhetoric was intended to stir up anger (at the very least) against the President. What do we see when we examine the possibilities?
1. As Senator Durbin well knew, a great many people both in the United States and out were already either enraged about, or predisposed to be enraged about, the subject of Guantanamo; and furthermore, he knew perfectly well that the majority of the enraged were people who had a well-established, settled tendency to hate the President, and specifically to identify Bush (in all grim seriousness) with Hitler.
2. Nothing in the Senator's tone of voice, nor in his phrasing, even hints at any humorous intent.
3. The Senator could not possibly have phrased his accusation in a way that would have made it sound more as though he believed his accusation was literally true. If someone were silly enough to found a belief on the word of a politician, and that someone were to lack the antecedent knowledge of Nazi and Stalinist interrogation techniques necessary to see for himself the absurdity of the comparison, then the Senator would have every opportunity to convince Mr. Gullible that the U.S. guards at Guantanamo really are quite literally equivalent to the K.G.B. interregators at Lubyanka -- and the Senator's audience was an American people whose history knowledge is overwhelmingly gained from the notoriously disastrous American public education system.
4. The Senator's rhetoric and line of attack could be nothing but counterproductive if it were intended to change the mind of the President's supporters, or to win the good will and good opinion of persons who were well-educated, well-informed, and undecided as to the which of the two sides had a better case. Therefore whatever else the rhetoric might have accomplished, it most certainly would not persuade anybody not already predisposed to hate Dubya -- which is to say, it would not persuade anybody who didn't already agree that Guantanamo was an American gulag. If persuasion was the Senator's intent, then the Senator is quite possibly the stupidest person in Washington, D.C., which is saying quite a lot indeed.
5. The Senator's use of demonization does not clarify the issue; it clouds it. Imagine a straightforward explanation of what the detainees were experiencing, one that avoids special pleading by including information (such as the detainees' average weight gain while in Gauntanamo) that the Senator leaves out because it would interfere with his attempt to portray Dubya as a monster, and one that does not implicitly or explicitly impute malicious motives to Bush. (I already imagined one and suggested it, of course, but mine probably doesn't capture exactly what he would say if he were not trying to demonize.) Without knowing for sure exactly what such an explanation would look like, we can at least be confident that it would have laid out the reasons Durbin felt the policy was wrong without attempting to distort the facts by exaggeration. It would, in fact, have made Durbin's point quite a bit more clearly and accurately than Durbin did himself -- and then we wouldn't be sitting here trying to imagine a straightforward version of what Durbin really (on the assumption that he is neither a liar nor a fool) intended to say.
My liberal friend says that "rhetoric such as this is intended to make ideas politically understandable in a less-nuanced way." Now, I don't know exactly what she means by "politically" understandable. If what she means is that the rhetoric was intended to make people feel agreement with Durbin's politics by clouding their understanding, then I think she's quite right, though I think it does a certain amount of violence to the English language to describe someone who is deliberately distorting the facts in order to cloud judgment with emotion as "making ideas understandable." But if she means that Durbin's intent in turning to demonization was to see to it that his hearers had a clearer, more accurate understanding of the behavior he was criticizing and the principles involved, then clearly she is wrong. Rhetoric such as this does not clarify; it muddies.
In other words, the only effect any sensible person could expect the Senator's rhetoric to have, was to take the people who were already convinced that our interrogation techniques were bad, and whip up their anger and hatred against Bush on that account. And I submit to the candid reader that this is always the primary function of demonization as a rhetorical technique.
So either the Senator was doing this on purpose, or else the Senator is an extremely stupid man with no idea of how voters are affected by rhetoric. Now, you may wish to believe that an extremely stupid man who does not understand even the most elementary dynamics of rhetoric upon voters' emotions, could nevertheless manage to campaign effectively enough to win repeated election to the U.S. Senate. If so, why then you may adopt the charitable view that Senator Durbin had no idea that his rhetoric would cause people to be angrier with Dubya than they already were and to hate Dubya more ferociously and unappeasably than they already did. Personally I think such a premise very much strains the boundaries of the believable, but you may see it differently. Alternatively, you may think that Durbin was himself sufficiently ignorant of the actual details of Nazi and Stalinist and Khmer Rouge atrocities, or sufficiently blinded by his own presettled disposition to think the worst of Bush, to have actually talked himself into believing that his statement was practically true on a literal level. This, like my former suggestion, is a way of saying basically that Durbin said what he said because he was a fool.
But if you don't think Durbin was pretty much an idiot, then I think you have to accept that Durbin's rhetorical purpose was to encourage as many people as possible to feel anger and hatred toward Republicans in general and Dubya in particular.
In order to save space, I will proceed with the rest of the post under the assumption that Durbin was not just being an idiot. Frankly, I think idiocy is the most likely explanation. But my friend who wishes to defend him rejects the idiot hypothesis, yet wishes to justify his tactics; and besides the point of the present post is to explore the deliberate use of demonization and whether, and when, it is justifiable. So let's proceed with the assumption, for the purposes of illustration, that Durbin knew exactly what he was doing and did it anyway, and to save space and tedious repetition, I won't keep saying that I myself am not actually prepared to level that accusation in literal fact.
Okay, so Durbin's presumable purpose was to stir up outrage, anger and hatred; and I think we also will assume that he knew that his intended audience would think that his statement was almost literally true. Those two characteristics of demonization are thus both present, leaving us with the question of whether Durbin's speech involved any exaggeration.
Now, there are several different kinds of exaggeration that you can make use of if you wish to demonize. The first, and least objectionable, is to exaggerate in degree only, on a topic in which the question of whether some particular behavior is bad, is not itself a question of degree. Thus, let us say that a person has "lied" to his wife, in that he has told her, "I think you're the most beautiful woman in the world," when in fact he thinks Halle Berry is prettier. If you say that the man ought not be given a position of responsibility at work because, "I happen to know that he has repeatedly lied to his wife," this creates a false impression, even though you could argue that it is literally true.
With such exaggeration we are looking at a fuzzy-logic kind of thing: that is, if there is only a little bit of exaggeration, we might say that demonization was involved, but only mild demonization. If the exaggeration is a whoppin' ol' blue whale of an exaggeration, then we have extreme demonization. One might argue that when Clarence Thomas accused his accusers of attempting a "high-tech lynching," he was indulging in a relatively minor degree of demonization (he wasn't in the least danger of winding up dangling from a tree, though one sees what he was getting at). When Rush Limbaugh refers to "feminazis," we might consider the denomization to be more extreme. And when a teenager complains that his parents' home is "a police state," then he is...well, actually, he's just being a teenager. So, um, bad example. Moving right along...
Slightly more serious is exaggerating the degree of an offense in order to pretend that the target has crossed a critical moral threshold that he did not in fact cross. If you happen to know that a man has fantasized about Halle Berry, and you then say he ought not to be given a position of responsibility because, "I happen to know he's committed adultery," then this is an exaggeration that reaches into the realm of outright falsehood.
Now, the Democrats' view would presumably be that Durbin committed the first type of exaggeration -- that is, that American soldiers have been, strictly speaking, torturing Guantanamo detainees, but that admittedly they weren't torturing them quite as badly as the KGB and the Gestapo and the Khmer Rouge tortured their victims. (Considering that statistics so far would seem to show that it is infinitely less dangerous to be interrogated at Guantanamo than it is to be driven home by Teddy Kennedy; considering that literally millions of people starved to death under both Stalin and Hitler while the average weight change for Guantanamo prisoners, last I heard, was a gain of eighteen pounds; considering that when it comes to inflicting pain and suffering the Guantanamo "inquisitors" strike me as being rather farther from Spanish Inquisition Version 1.0 than they are from Spanish Inquisition Version Monty Python...well, the exaggeration involved here is spectacularly extreme. But the Democrats' premise is that while the degree may be extreme, all the same the exaggeration is still only a matter of degree, not essence.)
Trouble is, you have to be pretty much insane to think that to inflict any physical or emotional distress at all upon another human being counts as "torture," because otherwise you wouldn't even be able to put your child in time out without being a "torturer." Therefore the question of whether a person is a torturer or not may very well be a matter of degree, which means that a person who exaggerates in degree without first having been very careful indeed to address the question of the ethical boundary conditions, is very much in danger of committing the second, and more objectionable, type of exaggeration. There are probably a hundred million people in America who, if they knew exactly what sorts of interrogation techniques had been used at Guantanamo, would say, "Wait a minute, that's not torture." So at the very least, Durbin's technique is meant to make something that is grey look pitch-black.
But let's assume that Durbin (in emulation of Dubya) hasn't bothered to listen to the people who disagree with him, and therefore the Senator thinks that no reasonable person could doubt that what has gone on at Guantanamo is properly described as "torture." In that case, he would not intentionally be committing the second form of exaggeration -- though we could certainly make a case that he was committing the second form of exaggeration and was just too much of an ass to realize it.
This brings us to the third form of exaggeration, which is by far the most commonly used, and by far the most slanderous, destructive, and -- in my opinion -- evil and contemptible. This is the form of exaggeration in which you project upon your target motives that are not in fact the motives that are truly in his heart. The essence of the exaggeration is to take something that you believe he is doing, but that he does not think that he is doing, and implicitly or explicitly accuse him of doing it on purpose.
I pause here to point out, by the way, that if you were to go back over the last several years through all the utterances of the Daily Kos and the Democratic Underground and remove everything they have said that imputes to Bush, without remotely good evidence, evil motives, what you would mostly hear in the aftermath would be the sound of silence. So if this form of exaggeration is bad, then there are a whole bunch of Bush-haters who have a whole lot to repent of. (Not, I hasten to add, that there aren't similar haters on the conservative side as well.)
Now, the most common way to say something like, "Bush is doing all this on purpose," is not to do a Paul Krugman and come right out and accuse Bush of being an evil man who loves evil for its own sake. (The link is to a comment in which my liberal friend quotes Krugman approvingly; as I think Krugman's comment went way beyond the line I refuse to increase his traffic by linking to it myself.) By far the most common way to work this slander in rhetorically is by the following tactic:
1. Find a notoriously evil person who did something that you can claim is in the same class as what you say your target was doing, but who knew exactly what he was doing and did it on purpose. For example, I am a Libertarian who is very clearly aware that everything the government accomplished by law, the government accomplishes by means of violent coercion. So I in all sincerity believe that the use of government coercion to make people think twice before uttering in public sincerely held but politically incorrect beliefs (by, for example, defining "sexual harassment" to include "saying publicly that homosexual behavior is a sin" and then making "sexual harassment" a tort in law), is the same class of behavior as using government force to make people afraid publicly to teach a variant of Christianity other than the officially approved one. Now, if I wanted to inflame passions against persons who were promoting the idea that people ought to be sued if they engage in sexual harassment at work, I might not want to remind people that a lot of the people who support sexual harassment laws are people who mean well but who -- like most Americans -- simply haven't thought through all the implications of their position. So I could use the tactic of demonization and say, "If you didn't know you were in America, you could imagine that you were back in the days of the Spanish Inquisition and its war on heresy."
Do you see what I mean? Torquemada knew absolutely clearly that he was out to use fire and sword and brutal force to drive the people who disagree with him out of Spain, into hiding, or down to the grave. But many people who vaguely support laws about "sexual harassment" because they think people ought to be nice to each other, aren't consciously aware of the fact that what they are really doing is trying to use the government's power to hurt people in order to frighten into silence people whose views they personally find objectionable. For me, then, rhetorically to identify them with the Spanish Inquisition, is a slander and a lie -- for while I might be able to say that their actions resemble, in certain significant aspects, the actions of the Inquisitors, it is pretty much a lie for me to say that their conscious motives are the same as the conscious motives of the Inquisitors. But the whole rhetoric of association is intended to access the emotions that people feel toward the Inquisitors based on what we popularly presume to have been the motives of the Inquisitors and encourage the gullible to feel those same emotions toward other people who do not act from those evil motives.
Let me put it this way: Neville Chamberlain did a lot more to allow Hitler to overrun Europe than did the Duke of Windsor (formerly Edward VIII). But the Duke was an actual Nazi sympathiser; Chamberlain was not. You could call the Duke a "Nazi," and while you would be exaggerating, it wouldn't be a grotesque exaggeration. But if Churchill had attacked Chamberlain as a "Nazi" on the grounds that Chamberlain's policies were likely to lead to Nazi control of Europe, that would have been an appalling slander.
Or again, you may believe that, objectively speaking, abortion is a form of murder. But that doesn't make it right to refer to women who have gotten abortions as "murderers." For the overwhelming majority of those women (at least in America) have honestly not believed themselves to be arranging for another human being to be killed, and are therefore not on remotely the same moral plane as a mother who in cold blood kills a two-month-old baby. They are at most on the moral level of a clueless and careless deer hunter who shoots what he thinks is a deer and then discovers that he has killed his buddy by mistake. There is a big difference between being a fool and being a deliberately evil person; and when a demonizer equates a well-intentioned person with somebody who willfully and deliberately engaged in evil, the demonizer is himself committing an evil act.
That this is what Durbin was in fact doing is, I think, quite clear. I see no good reason to believe that Bush or the Guantanamo interrogators believe that what they are doing is torturing people in the relevant sense of the word; they do not believe that they are doing anything wrong, and they take all sorts of measures at Guantanamo that demonstrate that they do not, in fact, "have no concern for" the human beings under detention. When you feed your torture subjects better than you feed your own soldiers, and when you go to extraordinary measures to respect their religious sensibilities even though it's in the name of that very religion that a significant number of those detained intend, if given the chance, to kill your innocent countrymen, then clearly nobody involved in the chain of command has toward the prisoners an attitude that denies their humanity, or that demonstrates a Stalinesque or Hitleresque utter absence of conscience. I realize that it is very difficult for most Democrats to accept that a person of good conscience might disagree with the Democratic party line about what is moral and what isn't, but the fact that Democrats are notoriously narrow-minded and self-righteous, doesn't change the fact that nobody in the Guantanamo chain of command from Dubya on down is in fact engaging in the sort of willful evil that the Nazis and the Communists and the Khmer Rouge engaged in. (Okay, I admit I'm amusing myself with a little chain-yanking there.)
But people just don't hate the well-intentioned but confused, with the enthusiastic hatred they are willing to direct at the willfully, knowingly evil. So the demonizer, whose point is to stir up anger (at a minimum) and hatred (more often than not), will whenever possible imply that his target's motives are evil. And the easiest and most common way to do this is to slap on his target a label taken from persons whose motives are known to be evil, rather than to try to give any actual reason to think that the target's motives are anything but well-intentioned.
We know how truly vicious this tactic is by simple experience: how does it feel when other people do it to us? Do we like to have our motives misrepresented? Do we like to be painted as thoroughly black at heart when we know that our intentions at least were good? Of course not.
In fact we like it so little that, when even ordinary, simple descriptive words start to take on negative connotations, we start objecting to being called those words. I originally wrote that it is no demonization to say, "Teddy Kennedy is a liberal Massachusettes Democrat;" but then I remembered that, since a lot of Americans now have negative connotations with the term "liberal," liberals appear to be trying to rebrand themselves as "progressives." So I went the safe version.
Take, for example, the fact that (much to the fury of old-school feminists) young women are notoriously reluctant to call themselves "feminists," even when they support gender-based affirmative action, Title IX, abortion on demand throughout pregnancy, and the Equal Rights Amendment. But this is easily explained: the term "feminist" now conjures up, for most people, not a list of political goals, but a kind of person -- among other things, a person who not only hates men, but even hates other women who choose not to hate men. Therefore young women who support the feminist agenda, but do not hate men, reject the label "feminist," because they reject the implications that term has about their motives rather than about the political policies they support.
Here is where the real power of demonization lies. Human beings are notoriously bad at figuring out other people's motives, and if there's anything that experience teaches us, it's that when people try to ascribe motives to people they don't like, they almost always ascribe to them motives that (a) aren't at all what the real motives were and (b) are much worse than the real motives were. You see it in estranged husbands and wives and parents and children: once you get angry with somebody you get very bad at figuring out what their motives are, and once your anger settles into permanent hatred you can be all but guaranteed to get it wrong. If, therefore, I were to attempt to spell out what I thought were the motives of the person I wished to demonize, I would be likely to come up with something as patently absurd as Krugman's utterly-bereft-of-sanity wild-assed speculation about the near-Satanic motives of The Evil That Is Dubya:
Torture, I believe, appeals to the president and the vice president precisely because itís a violation of both law and tradition. By making an illegal and immoral practice a key element of U.S. policy, theyíre asserting their right to do whatever they claim is necessary.
Now anybody who is not himself blinded by hatred of Dubya will, upon reading that, simply say, "My God, Krugman has lost it," and go on about his business. The danger of specificity, you see, is that the more specific you make a charge, the easier it is for your opponents -- or, in Krugman's case, your readers' simple common sense -- to show the absurdity of your charge, thus destroying its effectiveness: instead of hating your target, people merely laugh at you. So you see, it is far more effective simply to slap on some label that drags in the connotation of evil motives, without ever providing an explicit accusation of evil motives against which your target could defend himself. Specifics can be refuted. Vague connotations cannot.
You could, for example, call Republicans "fascists." Not one Democrat in a hundred could tell you what makes a particular system of government "fascist," nor would those hundred Democrats really care. In modern American language, "You fascist," means, "You're a Republican, plus I hate you." Similarly, to call someone a "fundamentalist Christian" now means nothing much more than, "You think that there's a single moral code that applies to everybody and in particular to me, even if I happen to dislike its requirements, plus you are uneducated and probably toothless and at most a short walk from the trailer park...plus I hate you." "Liberal" is rapidly coming to mean something similar on the other side, and of course I've already pointed out what has happened to the term "feminist."
That's the beauty (from the demagoguic standpoint) of labels. And that's the power of demonization. ---
Okay, but that still leaves us with our original question: " Why is this a problem?"
You have no idea what demonization is, let alone what it is like to be tortured. Your entire post is smoke and mirrors and complete oblivion to the real world. Your world is the world of O'Reillys and Coulters who are also full of themselves. You're good with words; too bad you waste your time on this.
Posted by: R. Lector | Wednesday, November 14, 2007 at 08:54 AM
Stephanie,
Just pointing out something you may have missed in a previous comment: you keep referring implicitly to the Red Lion SCOTUS decision, but not to subsequent SCOTUS comments that seem to most people, at least, to represent some significant backtracking on the part of SCOTUS. If the Fairness Doctrine were to be resurrected and appealed, I think the chances are excellent that SCOTUS would take the case. Whether it would throw the resurrected FD out or not...well, this is a court capable of Kelo; so one never knows. But Red Lion is not only not SCOTUS's last word; it is not even SCOTUS's latest word.
I imagine you know that, but just in case I thought I'd mention it again so that you can factor that into your reasoning, or at least your arguing.
Posted by: Kenny | Monday, July 16, 2007 at 11:41 PM
from Stephanie
Gringoman,
"Kenny stepped in and offered such a lucid, cogent, and possibly irrefutable answer to your question, that we are both in his debt (at least I am. How 'bout you, Stephanie?)"
Well, I wouldn't say "irrefutable," but I'm definitely in his debt.
;-)
I encourage to respond to my counter-points as well as Kenny.
"They just can't stand the fact that Talk Radio is the one medium that conservatives dominate."
Again, that the conservatives allow them to dominate the other mediums is just as much the fault of conservatives as it is liberals. The availability is there; it's just a matter of harnessing.
Respond, please -- and, also, please remember that this contention is not meant personally. I do not necessarily disagree with you; I just do not yet agree. The difference is less semantic than it sounds.
Posted by: Stephanie | Saturday, July 07, 2007 at 10:51 PM
from gringoman (Better later than never, let us presume.)
Stephanie,
with your leave, I will cede to Kenny the Capable the role yet again of incisive elaborator, and you should feel free, of course, to call me on anything you feel was not rightly said or not said with enough ample clarification. Although a great admirer of great books, and even some which are merely "brilliant" and "outstanding," I find myself increasingly in search of the True and the Pithy. Or maybe I'm just getting all Webbed up. (By the way it appears that both you and Kenny are in agreement with my adjectiving of Kenny, wherein I preceded "irrefutable" with "possibly."
As far as blaming conservatives for not getting "their share" of lib-dominated media, I tend to side with Kenny here. I see this as pretty obvious both in Newspapers and TV. The NY Times, for example,(and Kenny touched on this) dominates the US newspaper industry to a large extent. It often sets the editorial tone and story selection of smaller papers all over the country. Press workers hope to work themselves up the media ladder by following the Times "sophisticated" lead. Little "Pinch" Sulzberger is in some ways their Big Brother. And what is the Times? It's an institution of the Sulzberger family that's now fallen into the hands of 60's Baby Boomer "Pinch" Sulzberger and clearly reflects his progressive Trust Fund Baby 60's ideology. No one could possibly start a print competitor to that. Added to this virtually impregnable fortress, is the fact that newspapers may be in their death throes now. Most youth don't go near them. Even the NY Times is feeling the (pun intended) pinch. To expect conservatives to "seize the day" now in newspapers is the kind of pipe dream that not even Pinch Sulzberger, I suspect, was enjoying in the 60's when he admittedly rooted for the North Vietnamese Army against the U.S.
As for TV, maybe I missed something. I don't see where you dealt with the question of why should the (sic) Fairness Doctrine apply only to radio and not to TV (aside from the fact that liberals have long enjoyed a deeply entrenched dominance in TV---which used to be considered the Medium That Mattered, you know, until Talk Radio came along and bit them so unceremeniously in the seat of their sanctimony. Surely you're not resting your case on the fact that SCOTUS left TV off scot free, and not yet subject to the pc police that many are now hoping to inflict on the The People's Choice in the free market, which as everyone can see is still Talk Radio? Tell me you're not, Stephanie. Tell me you think that what's good for the radio goose is good for the TV gander.
Posted by: gringoman | Monday, July 16, 2007 at 03:44 PM
Stephanie,
Hey, I understand about the school thing...folks here are used to my going suddenly quiet for a few days when the family responsibilities plus work responsibilities get too high.
[chuckling] I'm actually posting from a rest area on U.S. Highway 77 between Kingsville and Harlingen -- I didn't realize the State of Texas was installing free wi-fi at its rest areas, but what a great idea. At any rate, my family went off to a family reunion down at South Padre and I didn't think I could go because of work; but I got enough done yesterday to where I was willing to say, "Screw it, I'm gonna go spend some time with the wife and kids." So although they don't know it yet, I'm on the way down to Padre; I'll just drive back sometime late tonight so that I can be at work Monday morning.
My point being, I understand that commenting on blogs is something you do when real life is giving you a temporary break; so no worries.
I'll be interested to see how you fill in the content of "bias" and "injustice." There's a certain irony in the fact that you consider fairness to include the absence of bias, while I think the primary function of the term in American discourse is precisely to enshrine bias and self-justify it -- that it is used by persons who are behaving unfairly in order to convince themselves that their very unfairness is proof of their moral superiority to those who don't happen to share their biases. I suppose you could say that I don't see any place in the American conversation in which the term "fairness" is used honestly and without bias and in a manner that does not lead directly to the rationalization of injustice.
No hurries on your elucidation; take all the time you need.
Posted by: Kenny | Sunday, July 15, 2007 at 08:38 AM
I will address the issue of your puzzle (which I have not yet read, so as I can account for the time accurately) on your blog when I get the chance.
As far as defining fairness, I will have to delay that (school's started up again, and that has to be my first priority) but ask for specific clarifications in the meantime:
1) I assume your are asking for a conceptual definition and real applicability, versus the a linguistic definition of the word. Is that correct?
2) "You do realize that I am not saying that "fairness" is meaningless because it can't be perfectly achieved, right?" Yes, but it was a matter of exaggeration as well -- your use of "define" is problematic, I think, because the definition is rather static, if overly varied. You say fairness is not defined, but it is. Misusage of the word is not for lack of concrete definition: "free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice" is the definition to which I refer, thus an injust application of fairness is inherently unfair no matter what word they use.
3) "Or perhaps it isn't equality that defines fairness for you at all. In that case, what is it?" The concept of fairness and the concept of equality are compatible, but not synonymous. Granted, I recognize that this is not how our society uses the word -- and I will address my opinions on that particular usage and its failings -- but fairness is both more than and different from equality.
4) "I'm genuinely curious as to how you would define the term." I'm genuinely interested in satisfying your curousity, but I'm not sure exactly when I'll have that chance. Perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow, but I'll promise you an answer by Tuesday.
Posted by: Stephanie | Sunday, July 15, 2007 at 01:05 AM
By the way, Stephanie, I meant to say that I appreciate the clarification on your line about justice, morality and ethics. I had understood you (obviously) to be saying that justice, morality and ethics could have no meaning if fairness had no meaning; but in fact you were saying that if the inability to achieve perfect fairness were to make "fairness" meaningless, that same inability with respect to justice, morality and ethics would vitiate those terms as well.
You do realize that I am not saying that "fairness" is meaningless because it can't be perfectly achieved, right? I'm saying that it is meaningless (as used in America) because nobody seems to be able to define it in any way that is free from arbitrary and personal loyalties, which arbitrary and personal loyalties must themselves be "unfair" if the term means anything.
I'd be very interested to hear your definition of the term "fairness." In what, in your mind, does "fairness" primarily inhere? Is it equality? If so, are we talking equality of outcome or equality of opportunity? Are we talking equal outcomes for persons of equal moral worth, equal outcomes for persons who work equally hard, equal outcomes for persons who work equally intelligently, equal outcomes for persons who provide the most benefit to those around them (in which case, how do you manage the measurement of something as intractably non-fungible as "benefits to those around them"?), equal outcomes for people who are equally nice people? Is it "unfair" for some people to be luckier than others, and if so, is that a problem we're supposed to solve somehow?
Or perhaps it isn't equality that defines fairness for you at all. In that case, what is it?
You could, in the interests of conceptual blockbusting ;-), take a different tack: try definition by differentiation. What is fairness not really about, in your opinion?
Or yet another tack: how would you differentiate the fairness you seek from the perfect equality of "Harrison Bergeron"? (Yes, I know it's an exaggeration, a reductio ad absurdum. But you should still be able to explain what is the difference, in essentiality -- not in the accidentality of the tactics used, you understand -- between the fairness you pursue and the fairness created by the H-G men.)
I'm not trying to set you up to be refuted; I'm genuinely curious as to how you would define the term.
Posted by: Kenny | Saturday, July 14, 2007 at 08:04 PM
A first-rate book, by a gentleman named James L. Adams. I highly recommend it.
It starts with the following puzzle. See if you can solve it, and, if you do solve it, tell us how long it took to solve it and how you did it.
Posted by: Kenny | Saturday, July 14, 2007 at 07:40 PM
No, I haven't; hadn't even heard of it before.
Posted by: Stephanie | Saturday, July 14, 2007 at 04:06 AM
Stephanie,
[chuckling] If you think I believe the structures of government should be established by appeal to the example of Christ, or that of Israel, then you really don't understand my take on government.
I think I may have to write a Peril post on this whole issue of mis-specification of problems...have you, by any chance, read Conceptual Blockbusting?
Posted by: Kenny | Friday, July 13, 2007 at 08:53 PM
Kenny,
I think we'll have to agree to disagree on whether or not the connotations of "fairness" should be abandoned to partisan hacks.
You fight your battles your way; I'll fight mine my own way.
As for justice, morality and ethics -- my point was that they, too, are abused and misused, not that they relied on fairness.
Christ's example of love is, of course, profound. However, until Christ comes back to rule, believing ourselves able to found a government on His example is, imo, a mistake. Look at history -- what government that used Christ's example as their standard did so honestly? Christ did not teach fairness, nor justice, but we cannot live as He lived. Our government cannot be ruled by His example. We are incapable of it -- or else, we would not have needed Him to descend to the depths for us.
Fairness and justice, even in their most honest uncorrupted form, pale in comparison to Christ's example -- however, they are much more attainable, though still not in perfect form.
Posted by: Stephanie | Thursday, July 12, 2007 at 03:39 AM
Besides, Stephanie, don't you realize that the term "fairness" is an intrinsically racist term, of exactly the same derivation as is the use of the term "fair" to mean "beautiful," by those who glorify blonde hair and melanin-challenged skin? You might just as well go around telling everybody who behaves responsibly, "Hey, that's awfully white of you."
[I'm teasing you, of course.]
Posted by: Kenny | Wednesday, July 11, 2007 at 09:49 PM
Stephanie,
That the term "fair" could be defined in a meaningful way, I cheerfully grant. But it would be foolish in the extreme to use the term in American political discourse, because it doesn't matter how you define it -- 99% of your audience will place their own interpretation on it and utterly miss your point, no matter how carefully you attempt to define it. Whatever it is that you want to communicate by talking about "fairness," you can communicate much more precisely, and with much less likelihood of perverse understanding on the part of your hearers, by using some other term. Whatever rigorous and careful philosophy you may wish to communicate, will not be communicated as you desire it to be if you use the language of "fairness" to communicate it, because your definition will be ignored by the overwhelming majority of those who listen to you. Unless your goal is demagoguery, the use of the language of fairness is a rhetorical misstep of the first magnitude.
My contention is that the term "fair" is, in American political discourse, a word that is entirely connotation unmoored by denotation; and the connotation is informed entirely by partisan loyalties, albeit not necessarily recognized as such. The word "fair" is no longer used except in contexts dominated by the dynamics of envy. That's just the way the term is used, much as the term "fascist" no longer has any useful meaning as a description of political philosophy but simply means now, "You're a conservative plus I hate you."
I think pretty much every sentence in that passage is deeply misconceived, alas. In the first sentence, the dynamic of human relationships in which people worry about fairness is actually very destructive -- because, human nature being what it is, people who try to adjust their relationships to "fairness" each wind up thinking that their own contribution is unfairly disproportionate. This is why the New Testament never, not once, not under any circumstances, tells Christians to treat each other "fairly." On the contrary, each Christian is told to make himself the slave of the others -- a slave being the absolutely paradigmatic example of the person whose contribution to society is grotesquely unfairly burdensome and without equality or recompense. A person who says, "Yeah well, I'll lose if I do this, but it is fair to do so," is a person who is still attempting to adjust his relationships to some sort of level of equality, and thus is still light-years from the attitude of Christ, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality even with God to be something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking on the nature of a slave.
And the idea that the concepts of justice, morality and ethics would lose all meaning if the concept of fairness were to be rejected...how in heaven's name would you expect to set about proving that? Morality is not about fairness; it is about obedience to the commands of God, which are notoriously unfair in their disproportionate impact on persons in varying personal circumstances. You do not say, "Well, it's not fair that I, as a heterosexual, have an avenue for morally permissible sexual gratification, but my neighbor who through no fault of his own is attracted only to persons of his own gender has no choice but chastity" -- at least, some people do say that, and that is precisely how they come to resort to the most desperate rationalizations to avoid accepting the uncompromising -- and, they are quite correct in observing, entirely unfair -- prohibition of Scripture against homosexual gratification. It is not fair that there are people who cannot taste wine without losing control while I can enjoy it without similar consequences; but if I therefore pretend that alcoholic self-indulgence is not a sin because I don't wish to be unfair, I am myself in rebellion against the commands of God, which commands are the true ground of all morality. The question of what is moral never comes down to, "What is fair?" What does God command, and what does our neighbor need from us, and how can we muster enough love for God and our neighbor to accept the self-sacrifice necessary to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves -- those are the questions that determine what is moral.
Again, unless you wish to establish a theocracy (for which Christians have no justification at all so far as I can tell), every attempt I have seen to define civic justice in terms of "fairness" has been disastrous. But you don't need the term at all to define justice. You can define justice entirely in terms of the three modes of human common action, namely willing cooperation, violent compulsion, or fraudulent deception; and you can define justice in terms of the behavior that maximizes the sphere of willing cooperation and minimizes the spheres of violence and fraud...and for that approach to the definition of justice, "fairness" is utterly unnecessary. Indeed, it becomes rapidly obvious that every time somebody starts talking about having the government impose "fairness," it is precisely because they cannot convince other people willingly to cooperate with the personal goals of the "fairness" advocate -- which people are practicing neither violence nor fraud, since if they were you could attack them straightforwardly on the grounds of the violence or the fraud without having to resort to an appeal to "fairness" -- and therefore they are asking the government to direct violent force against those vile persons who dare to pursue their own goals and wishes and dreams and life priorities rather than those that the "fairness" advocate has decreed they should adopt. I have yet to meet an advocate of "fairness" who is not at bottom saying that he thinks everybody else should be free to shape their lives by his agenda and preferences and tastes rather than by their own. In other words, "fairness" is consistently used as an excuse to abandon the mode of willing cooperation and to replace it with the mode of violence and compulsion. Most enforced "fairness" is in fact injustice.
You may not like that definition of "justice," but it is a thoroughly coherent definition, and one far less shot through with self-contradiction and far less dependent on variation in private connotation -- and therefore far more strictly meaningful -- than are the definitions of justice that attempt to begin from a starting point of "fairness." It is simply wrong to maintain that justice has no meaning if fairness is a pure connotation-term unsuitable for use in political reasoning.
Again, how do ethics depend on fairness? The first book that pops into my head when you do a word-assocation with "ethics" is Bonhoeffer's Life Together. I hardly think it's likely that anybody is going to close that book and say, "Ah, now I understand -- Bonhoeffer thinks the secret to Christian ethics is making sure that everybody gets his fair share."
Every culture has its characteristic delusions, the beliefs that it programs its children to believe are "self-evident." Among the four or five most characteristically American delusions, and most deceptively self-destructive, is the idea that human beings are wise to direct their efforts at establishing "fairness."
Now, this of course doesn't mean that you, Stephanie, can't devise your own idiosyncratic definition of "fairness" that can be of use, though I have trouble seeing how you would be able to establish a rigorously useful and non-partisan definition that would not simply encapsulate a concept for which other and better terms already exist in the language. But it doesn't matter how you define it; in trying to establish a responsible usage of the word in the American discourse you are trying to swim up Niagara Falls. Any effort you spend trying to salvage the term is effort you could spend far more usefully by abandoning the ruined term to those who have irrevocably destroyed its usefulness, and adopting other terms that have not yet been corrupted beyond redemption.
I once engaged in a very long treatment of the whole question of theodicy against a gentleman whose primary objection to Christianity was that God was so unfair -- and remember, the only thing that makes an atheist think that proving that God is unfair is the same thing as proving that God is unjust, is the foolish value Americans place on "fairness." I won't inflict the full fifty single-spaced pages on you, but here is one passage that doesn't suffer too terribly much from being pulled out of its place in the entire line of argument:
If you want to define "fairness" in a way that differs radically from the way in which American culture uses it, Stephanie, then I suppose I can go along with it when talking to you, in that I can probably accept some of the doctrines you would want to promote as what you personally mean by "fairness." But I will continue to assert that it is tremendously foolish of you to use that term when others that have not been so devastatingly corrupted are available to you.
Posted by: Kenny | Wednesday, July 11, 2007 at 09:41 PM
Kenny,
I assure you I spent significantly more than five minutes formulating, writing and supporting my response.
"Stephanie, you have, I think, pretty thoroughly missed my point about fairness."
I didn't miss it. I disagreed with the basis of your argument. The premise that life is unfair, thus pursuit of fairness is futile cycles right back to life is unfair. The question of what is and is not fair is not meaningless, unless you assume fairness itself is meaningless. That's where begging the question comes into play, because you start with a given concerning fairness that makes your point for you but is not readily given, since there are methods of fairness that is not reliant on partisanship. That those methods were not used in formulating the Fairness Doctrine is probable, as those methods are not used overly much in politics at all. But, that is not the point you made with your throw-away comment deriding any effort at fairness.
"As you're a business student, perhaps it will help if I draw an analogy to price modeling"
:-)
I'm only in my second year as a student of business; I have not taken the marketing classes that would discuss price modeling at this time. My knowledge of that is from independent study and does not include anything on "jump-diffusion" or "mean-reverting stochastic process," therefore your analogy is lost on me.
But, I do understand your point. I simply disagree with your analysis of the meaning of fair.
"I might add that from a theological perspective I see no reason to believe that God cares in the slightest about "fairness" in the American sense."
To that I would agree wholeheartedly. God does not care about fairness, because if fairness -- or even justice -- were the final basis of His judgement, then we'd all be doomed. He does not want that, so he gave us his Son. All have sinned and all have fallen short of the glory of God, after all. However, human beings -- being the fallen creatures we are -- are incapable of God's all-consuming mercy or His perfect justice. We can strive, we can stretch, but we can never achieve perfection in this life. If we can achieve it upon resurrection is a matter of theological debate, but in essence whether we can or cannot it would not be us achieving it, but instead God gracing us with the gift.
However, this does not mean we should not try to make our little world, with all its imperfections, as good as it can be. It's about trying and fairness is part of that effort. Not fairness in the partisan sense, but fairness in the sense that one would say, "Yeah well, I'll lose if I do this, but it is fair to do so." We cannot attain perfection, but the word does not lose its value because of that. If it did, then justice, ethics, and morality would be meaningless as well.
"...not to make fun of your youth, but have you considered that FDR's "Day of Infamy" speech was broadcast over radio, precisely because there was no other way for all of the nation to hear it?"
No, I had not included that at in my formulations, nor do I find it particularly relevant. Before there was radio, there was national discourse -- if there wasn't we'd never have been able to pull off the Revolution. It simply took longer. As accessing information via radio or television now takes longer than the Internet does.
"The government was regulating those channels precisely because the alternative was perceived to be a chaos of conflicting and mutually-jamming stations..."
And, that is, imo, the crux of the argument and that still exists. Radio is regulated by the FCC, because radio is a finite resource that wouldn't be much good to anyone if it wasn't regulated. Whether the FCC should have any control over content is a matter of opinion, but that the SCOTUS upheld their control over content on the basis of the finite nature of radio still stands. Radio is still finite, whether there are other methods of accessing information or not.
"...but that's precisely because they had no other source of information."
Yes, and no. People find a way, they always find a way. Back to the Revolution, by your standard the people who wanted to challenge had no method of communicating their positions, and yet they did so. They didn't succeed because the nation was smaller; they succeeded because they were determined to do so, and were willing to take the risks necessary to communicate their thoughts.
"Do you really want to maintain that viewers and listeners have a right to receive their information over the radio broadcast waves specifically?"
While radio is a finite resource under governmental control, yes I do. Whether or not the Fairness Doctrine accomplishes this or not is a different matter. When I think of that particular right, I think more about the radio station's regularly scheduled programming getting bumped because there is a tornado, or because our nation was just attacked, or because of something else that needs immediate attention and is of reasonable interest to everyone. I think of it as something that can be applied to all radio stations, not just talk radio. I think this is necessary, not just because of "fairness," but also because it justifies the federal expenditures to moderate the medium in the first place. IMO, radio -- like Interstates -- should be considered a public resource that can, when necessary, be co-opted for public purposes. It should be rare enough, but it should be available -- a not-so-secret ace in the hole, so to speak.
But, again, that has nothing much to do with the Fairness Doctrine.
As for your various analogies -- PBS, VA hospitals, Opus Dei, and food preparation -- they are effective in conveying your Libertarian streak. However, to me those problems mean solutions should be devised to address the problems, not that we should obliterate the situation in which the problems arose -- except perhaps the Opus Dei thing, that I know nothing about and still the very name has a distasteful choking feel to it. Corporatism, as Ghost cited it, is a long-term problem that we cannot dismantle in a fell-swoop sort of manner without drastic consequences that would be likely to out-weigh the benefits. Not that we shouldn't dismantle it, but that it will most likely take us longer to slow it and make it shrink instead of grow than it did for it to grow to its current massive [choking vine analogies coming to mind] state. In the meantime, the short-term solution would be, imo, to make the current mass as corruption-free as we can -- for example, by challenging the FCC in the control over television.
"So, my apologies for the comment as it stands but I don't have time to tighten it up or even make sure it makes marginal sense...."
No problem. Even in a hurried, untidy fashion you express yourself clearly. And while I do not necessarily agree, I do applaud your hurried cohesion, which was nonetheless cohesive.
Posted by: Stephanie | Wednesday, July 11, 2007 at 12:27 AM
Holy cow, my laptop goes down for a couple of days, I finally get the new one up and running...and in the meantime Niagara Falls has descended. I can't possible respond to all of this, plus Alexandra has a new post up as well.
Gringo, I appreciate the compliment, but as my comments on the Fairness Doctrine were dashed off in about five minutes and were meant merely to indicate the lines in which I would argue if I had time rather than to be fully-fleshed out arguments, I'd be astonished to find them irrefutable.
Stephanie, you have, I think, pretty thoroughly missed my point about fairness. My point was not to settle the question in favor of "unfairness." My point was to point out that the question as phrased ("Is this fair or not?") is a meaningless question...it can't even be begged, because the proposition you would have to be begging is a meaningless question, making both the affirmative and negative hypotheses equally meaningless and thus equally impossible to beg. As you're a business student, perhaps it will help if I draw an analogy to price modeling: you can spend years trying to figure out how to parameterize a jump-diffusion, mean-reverting stochastic process for modeling power prices and never solve the parameterization problems, but that isn't due to lack of sufficient data or to any other problem you can solve through parameterisation. Your problem is actually what economists call "mis-specification" -- power process aren't in real life driven by a jump-diffusion, mean-reverting stochastic process, and so you can't find the right answer because there is no right answer to the wrong question.
Try asking me what policies are just, what policies are ethically valid, what policies are economically optimal, what policies are most likely to lead in the long run to human happiness for the widest spectrum of human beings -- ask me any of those questions and we can have a rational discussion about them. But if you come asking me to write laws based on what is "fair," then I will tell you, "Bring me your legal code based on your having found the correct answer to the question, 'What is ten divided by zero?' and I will give you a legal code based on my having found the correct answer to the question, 'What is fair?'"
Or, to put it another way, any appeal to "fairness" reduces to a mere appeal to personal preference, because there is no workable definition of "fair" that does not depend on an a priori partisan commitment.
I might add that from a theological perspective I see no reason to believe that God cares in the slightest about "fairness" in the American sense. He certainly is not "fair" in that sense, though he is just and loving and righteous; nor is the world He created a "fair" world; nor are we called as Christians to behave "fairly." The heart of the Christian mystery may be found in the remarkable verse from Romans, "For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ." The principle C. S. Lewis calls "Vicariousness" can sometimes work "unfairly" to our benefit (as in our justification through the merits of Christ, who, though Himself innocent, bore the punishment for our sins, which was pretty bloody unfair) and sometimes "unfairly" to our severe inconvenience (as in the punishment of sins to the fourth generation of descendants), but it is never "fair."
Practically every atheist who thinks he (or she) has disproved God resorts in the end (like, most recently, Heather Macdonald) to an argument that ends up, "God engages in behavior that I in my infallible and omniscient wisdom and untainted moral purity find personally distasteful; but if there really were a God, He would have the good taste to behave always in accordance with my own infallible personal opinion; and therefore God does not exist, quod erat demonstrandum." Macdonald is particularly hilarious because she is convinced that she is an "empiricist," and yet her entire case against God is driven by her labeling His behavior "evil" -- the standard by which He is being judged "evil" being drawn all the while from Ms. Macdonald's own personal prejudices, which can no more be empirically verified than the sun can be cooled off by bags of ice from Wal-Mart.
Now, when you dig into the complaints of people who have decreed something or other to be "unfair," what you always find at the bottom of their complaint (at least in my experience) is precisely this sort of narcissistic claim that their own personal loyalties and cultural presuppositions are an infallible standard by which all behavior engaged in by others is to be weighed.
And that is no basis for an honest political philosophy.
Ghost, if you haven't yet learned, from my repeated remonstrances about the fallacy of hypostasization, that I won't be impressed by references to "the People" as decision-makers, then there's no point in my trying to explain to you yet again why "the People" always means "some of the People, having gained temporarilly an ascendancy over others that they are willing to exploit by force or the credible threat thereof."
Stephanie, I know perfectly well the distinction SCOTUS made based on limited availability of the airwaves; that is precisely the point of my line about how "none of the arguments I've seen proposed justifying the Fairness Doctrine hold the slightest bit of water now that the available sources of information have exploded far beyond the limits that originally made the Fairness Doctrine plausible." Insofar as the State has any interest in seeing different points of views "fairly" represented -- and that in itself is a premise that I think is dead wrong, but we'll grant it purely for the sake of argument -- that interest would be in making sure that all relevant information was widely and readily acceptable to interested persons. In 1949, when the doctrine was first created...not to make fun of your youth, but have you considered that FDR's "Day of Infamy" speech was broadcast over radio, precisely because there was no other way for all of the nation to hear it? Radio was the only form of mass media that existed -- you couldn't get the New York Times at your local Starbucks in Houston, you realize -- and there were only a limited number of channels. The government was regulating those channels precisely because the alternative was perceived to be a chaos of conflicting and mutually-jamming stations...but that meant that the mass media was under the control of politicians, who had the right to decide whether or not a station's license could be renewed. Obviously if the sole mass media of its day were to be coopted entirely by a single dominant party, the consequences for the people would be dire -- but that's precisely because they had no other source of information. Even in 1969, when SCOTUS originally upheld the Fairness Doctrine (and if you're going to appeal to Red Lion then you have to take cognizance of Herald/Tornillo, by the way), its justification was explicitly a justification in terms of "the right of the viewers and listeners."
But what is that right? Do you really want to maintain that viewers and listeners have a right to receive their information over the radio broadcast waves specifically? Isn't it clear that the right is the right to have reasonable access to the information they seek -- and that now, decades into the Information Revolution, American citizens need have very little fear of having information effectively suppressed unless it is the government who acts to suppress it, or their own laziness or gullibility or partisanship that causes them not to bother to go find it for themselves? The rationale for the doctrine was obsolete long ago; the reasoning in Red Lion has already been largely rejected by later court decisions; and if any viewer or listener is doing without important information, its his own damned indolent fault, not the fault of imbalanced radio programming.
In the meantime, I think a case can be made that the Fairness Doctrine is likely to be applied -- in line with "fairness" in general -- as a way to censor one set of views while allowing another to run riot. I think a case for this can be made historically (the Fairness Doctrine was never in danger of keeping Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite from presenting deeply and dishonestly partisan "news," but Rush Limbaugh would never have been allowed to enjoy the success he has enjoyed if the Fairness Doctrine had still been available as a means to head him off). But I also think it can be shown that so long as government bureaucrats are given the opportunity to enforce a "Fairness Doctrine," they will consistently enforce it against conservative/libertarian views but not against liberal views. This is a simple matter of self-interest: the Ghost is eager to complain at every turn that "conservatives" wish to limit the role of government. But government jobs are disproportionately filled by people whose jobs only exist because the dominant political ideas of the day say, "If there's a problem -- like, say, people aren't hearing both sides of all political issues -- then we need to give politicians and government bureaucrats -- like, say, the careerists at the FCC -- budget and manpower to go solve those problems." As long as government lifers have a discretionary tool that they can use to force the pro-government-lifers case to be heard, and that they can quietly choose not to use to force the anti-government-lifers case to be heard...well, human nature has stayed pretty bloody consistent over the centuries.
Put it this way: whom are you more likely to hear on a government-funded PBS or NPR broadcast -- Rush Limbaugh, or Garrison Keillor? The government has one branch of the broadcast industry that it already has control over and therefore should already be ensuring remains politically impartial; and if you want to decide that it's the government (rather than the marketplace) that ought to ensure a fair hearing for both sides, then the first thing you should do is go listen to PBS and NPR and decide whether or not they are consistently and carefully non-partisan. (A hint: this is like saying that people who want the government to take over all health care should first go down to their local VA hospital and decide whether or not it is well-run, well-staffed, and generally speaking a paragon of medical competence and diligence.) In point of fact, of course, PBS and NPR are biased toward the liberal point of view to the point of absurdity (a very excellent reason, to my mind, to say that conservatives ought not be forced to subsidize those entities through coercively collected taxes, any more than Mac ought to be forced by the government to contribute to the "Opus Dei Project for the Conversion of the Christ-Killers to the One True Catholic Faith"). Asking the government to ensure "fairness" across the entire broadcast spectrum, in light of their record in their own house, is like...simile fails me...I suppose it's rather as if a person who had frequently eaten the food I have cooked for my own kids over the last few years, were to announce that I should be put in charge of food preparation for all the schoolchildren in Katy.
A largely rambling and incoherent comment, I'm sure, but I don't even have time for a second reading to sniff out typos because as of this morning I have a new niece or nephew (being a guy I have just realized I'm not sure which gender the new rugrat is) and my wife wants to go to the hospital now. So, my apologies for the comment as it stands but I don't have time to tighten it up or even make sure it makes marginal sense....will check back in a couple of days from now, probably, when some madness has calmed back down.
Posted by: Kenny | Tuesday, July 10, 2007 at 06:28 PM
Ghost,
At this point, I think I'm going to take Kenny's advice and not debate the differences between a "Liberal Democracy" and a "democratic Republic" with you. If you are interested in my ideas on the matter, I could direct you to a specific link. Since the link would be to my old blog, there would not be space for debate as I do not check that blog, but you'd get a concept of what it is that I believe and how I formed my opinions. If you would desire this, let me know. Otherwise, I suggest we amicably agree to let this matter lie betwixt us -- at least, until next time.
Posted by: Stephanie | Tuesday, July 10, 2007 at 01:01 AM
The concepts of "big" government, "small" government, "big" business, "small" business are vacuous unless one comes to grips with a few things.
1. What is the function of government? In a Liberal Democracy that question is answered by the People.
2. We know what business is..... What is the relationship of government to business?
You will see in this Wikipedia article that corporatism has had a few different manifestations..... However, I would point out that one way or another, whether it is the State taking control of the Corporations, or Corporations insinuating themselves into the State, Corporatism IS ALWAYS, when the interests of the State, and the interests of Corporations become indistinguishable.
There is a difference between that condition of Corporatism, and partnership between Government and Business to address certain social issues that are not being addressed spontaneously in the free market.
What I have said here, on a number of occasions, is that the assumption (essentially laissez faire capitalist/ Classical Liberal Economics) that free markets and laissez faire bring ALL good to the People that the People deserve to have, or want, or whatever, is an extremist position that logically negates the function of Government, or otherwise reduces that function to one of pandering to and enabling the private sector. In other words, it negates a role for government which then defaults to governance by Corporate Plutocracy.
This is the rightest polarity at which modern Republicanism resides..... and with additional longevity, that condition breaks Liberal governance by denying its purpose, undermining its structure and process, with reversal to be had only by revolution.
My proposition is that there are some Social ills and inequities and betterments that can be had through the free-form conduct of profit-driven business activities.... and there are some that cannot, but require broad-scale management of collective funding placed against intractable problems, many of which are existential in nature, such as those addressed by Social Security and SSD and SSI.
Additionally, Government has a role in which the natural course of the capitalistic economic engine, which has within it no internal save for those associated with bottom-line profit and the hope for enlightened management, is regulated to provide the bounds and context in the service of the People in which business properly operates.
Government in a Liberal Democracy is accountable to ALL the People, buisness is accountable only to the people to whom its generation of profit is a concern.
Speaking of "right sizing" government only makes sense when the idea of governmental function is clarified...... modern Republicanism's answer is that government has no function.... and interestingly, that hasn't lead to "smaller" government. The reason for that might be obvious, however I can discuss that at length at some other time along with the implications of modern Repubican political philosophy as it relates to transnational corporations and globalism.
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Monday, July 09, 2007 at 05:21 AM
Ghost,
I read the article you provided.
Corporatism is an interesting concept with which I was not familiar. However, this article provides only the mere bones, or a fine gloss, for the concept and does not provide cause to support the claims made. You cannot, quite simply, cover the American economy in 8 pages and expect to make a sound argument. Pretty, yes; but, not sound -- at least, not with sound support. Whether or not his position is supportable would take extensive research, and it's not something I'm going to endeavor to do right now.
However, as for my position in its most ideal state, I do not believe that either big business or big government is beneficial to this country in the long-term. Big business and big government are necessary together, if you have one you must have the other, because they feed off of each other. Whether they do that in a corporatist, socialist, or communist design is, for the most point, irrelevant -- because they by necessity feed off each other. The problem with the corporatist model (assuming, for the sake of this argument, that this is what we have -- and assuming that the premise that big business/big government could not succeed in a pure capitalist fashion), is that big government and big business must both grow in order to survive. That is why Republicans, no matter what they'd like, cannot make government shrink without substantial changes, but the can make it grow more slowly. Both big business and big government must grow to keep things stable. If either fails to grow, or in fact shrinks, there are problems and disruptions, which the system (as he claims) is designed to avoid.
This growth is a problem, not because growth is bad, but because this growth assumes there is infinite room for growth. This is, for example, the purpose of fiat money. With a fiat money system, big business and big government assume their growth potential is infinite, because the money can grow with them and they can feed off of each other. While fiat money as a concept in infinite, fiat money still is always directly related to finite resources, whether that resource is labor, natural resources, or products and services that are the result of the combination of labor & natural resources the foundation of fiat money is still, inevitably, finite. Thus, it is a logical impossibility for infinite growth, yet since both big business and big government rely on continued growth for stable existence, eventually the whole system is going to collapse and the waste of those resources which fed the monstrosity is going to substantial.
Therefore, while it is currently convenient and easy to have big business and big government, and while they are inevitably intertwined with each other and with both major political parties, the situation is untenable in the long-term. The system will collapse, and the only question then is whether or not the revolution will be a peaceful one. To prevent that, we would have to dismantle both big business and big government. Since most people are far too comfortable to do that, we must try to mitigate the damage as best we can and ensure that big business and big government work together to benefit the people as best as possible. Though, when I say "we" I do mean people who understand what I'm saying, see the big picture, and care -- which does not, necessarily, include you, Ghost. Only you can decide that.
In that sense, when I say I am a capitalist, I do mean capitalist and not corporatist -- which is, I think, what you were trying to insinuate. Yes, no, maybe? But, no, I'm not a corporatist, because corporatism (assuming Mr. Locke's position is actually supportable) is not sustainable. The big government/big business marriage is not sustainable; and the liberal dream of divorcing them and keeping big government as the "parent" of choice is impossible. Then again, the conservative dream of divorcing them and keeping big business as the "parent" of choice is equally impossible, as big business and big government both need each other to survive.
As for solutions that are not painful -- I have none. Any solution to a problem that's been not only ignored but encouraged for this long is going to be painful.
Posted by: Stephanie | Monday, July 09, 2007 at 12:57 AM
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Sunday, July 08, 2007 at 08:30 PM
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Sunday, July 08, 2007 at 08:25 PM
Ah, but Ghost, they have. I have the article marked and will read it, but not quite yet. As a business student, it's certainly an interesting start, but I'll have to see how he makes his case.
Posted by: Stephanie | Sunday, July 08, 2007 at 03:18 PM
Corporatists governance..... Bill Clinton, contrary to popular rhetoric suggesting that he is/was some kind of Communist, governed center-right with most his policies benefiting large corporations. He is also a globalist..... something like NAFTA should never have been supported by a Democratic administration.
I agree with about 80% of this article, however, be advised the author is attempting a "pox on both their houses" approach to the Democrats and Republicans as the American People tire of governmental servitude toward large corporations.... but it does a good job of characterizing corporatism. I would point out that (here's were one's definitions come into play) that corporatism in no way evolved from a "leftest" pole, and FDR was a Liberal, not a leftest.
What is American Corporatism?
The article shows why corporatism is attractive to both parties, however, I would suggest that modern Republicanism has raised it to a fine art (K-Street, Abramoff, solution to Medicare Pharmaceuticals for elderly) whereas ALL social solutions required of government MUST include a line for corporate profits, even if that type of solution does not fulfill the requirements..... for example, private sector health insurance solutions cannot fulfill the requirement for a universal baseline of health insurance for ALL American Citizens, regardless how well it is subsidized, because subsidies go more toward corporate profits, and the business model is one of exclusion and strictly rationing the actual delivery of services.
The only non-Corporatist solution that I know of that was proferred during the Clinton administration was the universal health care attempt.... and that was trashed......
I suspect Hillary would be very similar to Bill in governance.... center-right, corporatist, globalist. I would still vote for Hillary over any Republican, because even as a corporatist/globalist her politics would have a gravitational pull from those interested in fair trade, labor issues, environmental issues, social welfare issues, and even issues revolving around the integrity and sovereignty of the State over transnational interests. These are all legitimate issues for Liberal Democratic Government to balance and weigh.
Also, keep in mind in the 2000 election, after 7 Years of Clinton, the candidates were talking about how they would use an Economic surplus. So whatever economic stew was implemented, it could not have been all that bad.
Modern Republicanism has no such gravitational pull..... it has left the moderating orbit of Liberalism, and is careening toward rightest positions in all affairs.
Logic is a subspecies of human mentation (I like your word), the usefullness of which is largely determined by the set of propostions and operational definitions..... implying superordinate thought processes. Mastery of the Calculus is different from the ability required to create it..... writing a program is categorically different from execution a routine, whether the execution it is by human or machine.Hitler and the Nazis employed emotional techniques to win support, however their ideology was rooted in scientific theories of race, and their fundamental proposition was that the State would manufacture a superior human being scientifically..... the "final solution" was for them a compelling end-point from a logical sequence.
I'm not ignoring anything..... the issue of Liberalism is about a committment to structures and process of government.
The Democrats, as a matter of Party policy, have never sought to deliberately undermine and/or change the conditions of Liberal Democratic governance in its American manifestation as established by the Constitution.
This Republican administration is repleat with examples where they have attempted to do just that (see Rove, Cheney, Gonzales..... in all their positions).... all predictable on the basis of modern Republican political philosophy..... and more.....much much more. The Republican Party needs to be reeled-in and centered.
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Sunday, July 08, 2007 at 10:43 AM
Ghost,
"But I do think that in 2008 the Republican face is going to look much more moderate, and much more like the Clintons, who of course run the Republican branch of the Democratic Party."
Okay, you are the second self-proclaimed liberal who has claimed that Clinton (there was no 's' in the first claim) was a Republican-like Democrat (different wording, but you get the idea). There first one didn't respond to my question. As you are more prolific in your writing, I hope you will. So, here it is: What do you mean by affiliating the Clintons with Republicanism?
Keep in mind, I'm 27 -- so Pres. Clinton is the most notable Democrat in my life-time. Comparing him to past presidents with a Democrat persuasion doesn't transfer so well, because there's that sense of immersion in the times that is lost. Anywho, can I assume you dislike Hillary for that reason, or do you support her because she's on the Democrat pedestal at the moment?
"Only Vulcans and machines do logic Kenny...."
Um. Both Vulcans and machines are a product of human imagination; if humans could not do logic, then neither could Vulcans or machines.
"...the logical requirement to exterminate the Jews was compelling..."
Based on the use of extensive logical fallacies, perhaps; but, actually, Hitler's speeches were rather emotive in nature, not logical. They played on greed and pride, not logic.
" I've defined my terms for Liberalism quite clearly, constantly, and with ample reference for a number of years.... "
So, does that mean you're willing to admit that Democrats do not fit your painstaking definition? Or, are you ignoring that?
Posted by: Stephanie | Saturday, July 07, 2007 at 11:05 PM
Gringoman,
"Kenny stepped in and offered such a lucid, cogent, and possibly irrefutable answer to your question, that we are both in his debt (at least I am. How 'bout you, Stephanie?)"
Well, I wouldn't say "irrefutable," but I'm definitely in his debt.
;-)
I encourage to respond to my counter-points as well as Kenny.
"They just can't stand the fact that Talk Radio is the one medium that conservatives dominate."
Again, that the conservatives allow them to dominate the other mediums is just as much the fault of conservatives as it is liberals. The availability is there; it's just a matter of harnessing.
Respond, please -- and, also, please remember that this contention is not meant personally. I do not necessarily disagree with you; I just do not yet agree. The difference is less semantic than it sounds.
Posted by: Stephanie | Saturday, July 07, 2007 at 10:51 PM
Kenny,
"...but I think it's time to suggest you save your breath (though you've probably already concluded that)."
Yes, I'm getting there. However, I've found that it's useful to jab other people's positions once in a while. It's rare, but staunch supporters do change their positions once the see something they cannot tolerate/excuse. Then, all the other problems they turned a blind eye to become ever-so-clear. I've seen both Democrats and Republicans make this transition, and have done so myself, so it is possible.
Though, in all fairness, I couldn't prove Fermat's Last Theorem either, and had to look it up to know what it is. I have taken College Algebra (and aced it), but I cannot judge how remarkable my ignorance on this matter may be. Perhaps the theorem is not so very important; perhaps my education is lacking -- no, actually, I already take that last part for granted based on other comparisons.
*shrugs*
On another tangent, have you ever considered the relevance "begging the question" has to statistics-based psychology? It makes for an interesting discussion, but I don't recommend making the point to the psychology professor during class. No matter how much they say they encourage critical thinking, it is not recommended when applied to course material. Tsk, tsk.
"...but that's okay as long as you don't come in with the wrong set of expectations."
Hm. I still come in with the expectation of meaningful debate, which is difficult with people who use logical fallacies not in error.
"Which is a long-winded way to say that I find the Ghost's emotional outbursts enlightening, though very unconvincing."
Gotcha. I still -- whether it's youth, naivety, or character flaw -- get stuck on what I think the issue should be; which also tends to get in my own way of seeing clearly through partisan politics. But, I have that trouble more in local/state politics than in national politics. For instance: The Governor of Wisconsin (D) took a lot of bribe money from gambling casinos and created an un-ending, un-equitable contract as "payment." Now, for some, the argument is whether gambling should be legal at all -- not the contract, not the bribes, gambling casinos itself are the problem? Anyway...
"You raise a subject that she doesn't know about and she charges off to educate herself..."
I do the same. Equivocation I was familiar with, but there is a vast amount of information that I do not know -- and if I could ever learn it all, I would, but that's not possible.
"Gringo, I'm on your side about the Fairness Doctrine."
At this point, I do not have a side. Because I'm undecided, I play devil's advocate with whomever I have the discussion -- trying to decipher what position, if any, has a solid argument with which I can agree. I can and do give proponents of the Fairness Doctrine just as much trouble, because their arguments tend to specious and amount to "I want it, I want it." Yet, I have not found a solid argument for or against. I've yet to find a clear, unpartisan definition of what problem this doctrine is meant to solve. That, in and of itself, is worrisome. Yet, those opposed to it seem to be defending an equally untenable position. "My side will lose something," is no better argument than "My side will gain something." Yet, that seems to be the crux of either argument.
To me, that seems to mean one of three things:
1) The Fairness Doctrine is, itself, hogwash not worthy of consideration (which would be a position that sides with the Republican/conservative push without having to agree with their reasoning).
2) Neither side is being honest about the reasons for their push for or against.
3) I have yet to discuss the matter with anyone who has an honest understanding of the matter that transcend the partisan sound-bytes.
Each is possible. Yet, until I can determine which is the truth to my own satisfaction, it would be foolhardy to decide which side I'm on. Due to the level of intellectual engagement, and the present representation, I hope to have a discussion capable of laying that decision to rest right here, at least in my own mind.
So, back to devilish advocacy:
;-)
Kenny says:
I have yet to see a source of history that did not have an opinion on the matter, so I cannot dispute or contradict you here. Whether it's true or not...I'm lean to trusting you on that point. However, is that because conservatives' already had the speech open to them, or because of political bias? Gringoman's argument suggest that the power of speech on talk radio has been predominantly in the hands of conservatives, and therefore they need no protection as they're already covered. Thus, that it has not been used against conservatives may just be that conservatives already dominated the industry.
Kenny says:
I will agree that no proponent that I've debated with could put forth a sound argument; but, again, neither could any opponent. As for the number of mediums now available, that is irrelevant. The SCOTUS decision compared the medium to others, and differentiated the medium of broadcast radio for reasons that are still valid (III). In those venues where the matter is no longer valid (podcasts & satellite radio, for example) the Fairness Doctrine would not be applicable (unless the FCC were given a longer arm which they, of course, want) and thus your argument that there are other mediums could be used for or against the Fairness Doctrine itself.
Kenny says:
This is an argument against regulation that is both valid and invalid. Sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not. Distinguishing how this is true in this instance would be necessary for the argument to stick -- doing so without falling back on partisanship is difficult, but if the grounds are there it would not be impossible. More than once have conservatives used a power the liberals had meant for only themselves (and vice versa), if the power is wrong the abuse would be available to either side and would almost certainly (statistically likely) have been used/abused by both sides. That no example of such abuse has been forthcoming seems telling of a problem with the assumption of abuse.
Kenny says:
While I share your contempt for the New York Times (oh, sorry, that's not what you said -- my bad), there is a difference inherent in the mediums that you don't seem to realize.
The argument that the newspapers should be under the same restrictions as radio stations is facetious, especially when the electronic medium of the Internet is available and being used. The SCOTUS decision was based on evaluating the broadcast medium as a finite resource that was not available to "everybody else." Thus, the reguluation and the limited number of users/liscensees. Whereas, anyone can create a newspaper; it's getting the readership that's the problem. I could print up my own newspaper, right now, without anyone stopping me. I could give it away free, or try to sell it. Nobody could do a darned thing. I could make it as conservatively biased as I want. Nobody could say I couldn't. But I couldn't make my own radio station. That's the difference. The closest thing that comes to an independent radio station is a podcast -- though only real similarity that I see is it is voice, not print.
Radio stations and television stations are as strictly regulated as they are (whereas cable and satellite radio are not), because they are finite public resources which are liscensed out to users. Fair representation is important, because people cannot simply create their own radio or television show and have that same availability. It's not about money, it's about air wave space -- or, er, whatever the scientific terminology would be. Newspapers do not have the restriction of space, nor does the Internet. That's why these mediums are exempt from such restrictions.
This difference is so substantial that it was, in part, the basis of the SCOTUS decision to uphold the Fairness Doctrine.
So, I ask again, what is the problem the Fairness Doctrine intended to solve? It seems like it is trying to ensure balanced access, which imo is a good thing. Is this the truth? I've yet to get an honest non-partisan answer.
What problem is it likely to cause? Apparently, it's going to hinder the conservative talk radio hosts -- somehow, but not quite sure how. Unfortunately, since the SCOTUS decision pretty much forbade (too strong of a word, but close) the Fairness Doctrine use as a silencing tool this fear is unrealistic. This makes it sound very much like a slippery slope argument, "They can't now, but they will -- oh, you just watch, they will." Legally it cannot be used to silence conservative talk radio. And, I sincerely doubt the current SCOTUS is going to change its that and suddenly say its okay -- though, with them, you never really know.
As for your last argument (very much simplified to make it apparent): Life is unfair. Those who want to make it fair, want to be unfair to someone else. Therefore, we shouldn't try to make it fair, because it's unfair.
I mean, c'mon Kenny! Talk about begging the question!
"What I believe you're overlooking is that liberals who want to get involved in the news media don't have to go to radio -- they have all the rest of the news media wide open to them."
I'm not ignorant of that fact, but I think you fail to realize -- so do conservatives. Print mediums are open; radio mediums are not. Thus, they are not comparable. Many conservative print mediums do exist. That conservatives do not invest in them more readily is a matter that is, essentially, their own problem. However, the fact that they are not as popular as the liberal mediums has the same justification as the fact that liberal talk radio hosts are not as popular as conservative ones. It's the same argument in the reverse. I'm not saying I'm buying the argument (I prefer to keep that opinion close to the chest, otherwise it makes it difficult to play devil's advocate), but it's the argument currently in play.
However, I'm not assuming it's true. Nor am I assuming it's false. I have not the experience to hold an opinion one way or the other. Gringoman is assuming that liberal radio hosts do not succeed because the market isn't there. I'm contending that there could be other explanations for the failure of liberal radio shows.
Just... Look back on the argument as presented. Conservatives can't compete in other mediums, because the other mediums don't want them. Liberals can't compete in radio, because liberals talent is consumed elsewhere. Yet, Gringoman's argument was that liberals suck at radio. There is a certain contention here that doesn't hold up.
1) Liberals are well-enough organized that if they felt talk radio was a threat and talk radio was open to liberals, then liberals would get an entertaining liberal host on talk radio. The DNC is perfectly capable of doing this if it was worth the effort to do so.
2) Conservatives are excluded; but liberals can't cut it. These arguments invalidate each other in the assumptions made. If you make the assumption that conservatives are excluded, it's quite appropriate to assume that liberals in turn are excluded. If you assume liberals can't cut it in talk radio, then it would be appropriate to assume that conservatives can't cut it in the other.
I'm not sure if I explained that clearly. The boys are getting distracting.
*sigh*
Let's try a different tact. I agree that the media has a peculiar, near-pervasive liberal bias. This is obvious and apparent based on content. However, it is only near-pervasive, as there are more conservative outlets than just FoxNews. Also, blaming liberals for this and calling is censorship is, pardon me for saying it, rather ridiculous. Print mediums are not finite. There are opportunities out there for conservative bias if conservatives invest in it. Since conservative top-dogs are not any more short of wealth than liberal top-dogs, one can easily assume that they'd rather gripe about the liberal bias in the media than put their money where their mouth is and offer balance. No censorship across the print medium is necessary, and it does not happen. That liberal papers are more marketable than their conservative counter-parts is another issue entirely. The New York Times liberal bias does not prevent a conservative paper from sprouting up next door, whether or not the conservative paper can get a similar readership is its own problem.
Conservatives are equally capable of creating newspapers. They've obviously created a television station with which to rival their liberal counter-parts, and could create others on cable stations (if they haven't already) without too much difficulty. Talk radio indicates there is an audience. Censorship is not stopping them; investment dollars is what's stopping them. Lack of investment dollars does not excuse the possibility of censorship of a finite resource such as talk radio.
Posted by: Stephanie | Saturday, July 07, 2007 at 10:35 PM
Pretzel Logic
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Saturday, July 07, 2007 at 10:01 PM
The Ghost's goal in commenting here seems mostly to be to prove that the people she detests, deserve to be detested. If Alexandra is ever able to get the rest of this demonization series up, you'll be able to see why I think that's disastrous -- for the Ghost herself. But in the meantime, of course she's all over the place logically, and of course she doesn't understand what the fallacy of equivocation is...but that's okay as long as you don't come in with the wrong set of expectations.
Woof Woof Woof! :)
Hey.... my bigger concern is why Kenny doesn't detest the Republican Party since they used Libertarians like so many chumps for the last decade or so.
And Kenny is a Liberal..... he espouses classic Liberal economics (albeit an old form of Liberalism) and admits that the Government has at least some small role and purpose in the economic realm. He is a minarchist, like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Jefferson was a Liberal.
And he's an OK guy.... but that really doesn't have to do with being Liberal. Also, as I've mentioned, I think the RepublicansWERE Liberals at one time, however that Party has been hijacked by rightests..... But I do think that in 2008 the Republican face is going to look much more moderate, and much more like the Clintons, who of course run the Republican branch of the Democratic Party.
Only Vulcans and machines do logic Kenny.... and logic is highly context dependent, requiring a set of external postulations to trully produce good..... or evil for that matter.
The Nazis.... (I love using theNazis as an example), thought given their core beliefs and postulations that the logical requirement to exterminate the Jews was compelling.... they actually based a lot of their ideas on 19th and early 20th century scientific thinking. Quite the little scientists they.....
The crucial concept of form is central to discussions of the nature of logic, and it complicates exposition that 'formal' in "formal logic" is commonly used in an ambiguous manner. Symbolic language is actually a species of formal logic, and is distinguished from another class of formal logic, traditional Aristotelian syllogistic logic, which deals solely with categorical propositions.
Informal logic is the study of natural language arguments. The study of fallacies is an especially important branch of informal logic. The dialogues of Plato are a major example of informal logic.
Formal logic is the study of inference with purely formal content, where that content is made explicit. (An inference possesses a purely formal content if it can be expressed as a particular application of a wholly abstract rule, that is, a rule that is not about any particular thing or property. The first rules of formal logic that have come down to us were written by Aristotle. We will see later that in many definitions of logic, logical inference and inference with purely formal content are the same thing. This does not render the notion of informal logic vacuous, since one may wish to investigate logic without committing to a particular formal analysis.)
Symbolic logic is the study of symbolic abstractions that capture the formal features of logical inference.
"Formal logic" is very often used with the alternate meaning of symbolic logic whereas informal logic is any logical investigation that does not involve symbolic abstraction; it is this sense of 'formal' that is parallel to the received usages coming from "formal languages" or "formal theory".
Logic
Equivocation and Amphibology
I don't think I'm guility of equivocation fallacy, by the way.... I've defined my terms for Liberalism quite clearly, constantly, and with ample reference for a number of years.... I owe no apologies for not accepting the banal defintions for the terms I've used since specifically it is the corruption of rigorous understanding and lack of appropriate definitions that has lead to this partisan food-fight that Stephanie and Kenny so detest.
Instead of solid thought, we get this kind of nonsense:
Why it's not even correct..... modern Republicanism (aka movement conservativism) captured the talk show format because it accessed the type of people they wanted to capture as voters. Most Liberals shy away from the superficial treatment, bellicosity and showmanship of talk radio and it is quite the effort to even have something like "Air America", simply because most Liberals research issues far more comprehensively..... and can do so in other venues.
It was quite interesting that the fairness doctrine was the law of the land from 1949 until the Reagan administration..... was that when the Republicans realized they could spread partisan political propaganda through unregulated corporate media? Too much of a coincidence?
Why was the fairness doctrine put in place in the first place? For evil? What was the perceived issue then? What was the issue with the Red Lion challenge in the 60's.... the Supreme Court's decision? What's different now? Is there really a Liberal bias in media, or is it the habit of being able to see both sides of an argument in the Liberal media that is the real problem for rightests? How is insisting on counter-points to political positions "controlling" the media?
All that gets pretty slim treatment..... It is just "evil"..... right.
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Saturday, July 07, 2007 at 08:16 PM
StephanieSo, let's try again, how exactly does the Fairness Doctrine itself do so much damage? Don't harp about how liberals can't cut it on radio. Demonstrate what is inherently wrong with the Fairness Doctrine, please.
gringoman Kenny stepped in and offered such a lucid, cogent, and possibly irrefutable answer to your question, that we are both in his debt (at least I am. How 'bout you, Stephanie?)
Relief pitchers are valuable.
The ones who can come in and strike out the side are exceptionally valuable. Kenny also took time to elaborate a response to your "Don't harp about how liberals can't cut it on radio." The gringo condensation of his elaboration: It's not necessarily that libs can't cut it on radio. They don't need to cut it on radio,(even though Al Franken tried) since they are able to muscle out conservatives on most of the rest of the media. They just can't stand the fact that Talk Radio is the one medium that conservatives dominate. That is why it's so "unfair" to them. That, you see, is why the PC Police State wants a (sic) Fairness Doctrine.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Hey, Kenny: In my dreamy anti-imperialist puppyhood,(back when I might not even scroll past the paste pots of a GD, had there been a Web) "Life is unfair" was always attributed to JFK. I remember it well, and even thought it was true JFK. But I don't know if your father and he ever met. In my current volume of Voltaire, including the letters, I haven't seen it. Yet.
Posted by: gringoman | Saturday, July 07, 2007 at 07:40 PM
Stephanie,
I've been staying on the sidelines, having already been over this ground with the Ghost, but I think it's time to suggest you save your breath (though you've probably already concluded that).
Here is the Ghost's political philosophy, as far as I've been able to piece it together over the last year:
1. Democrats are wonderful people, because they are Democrats.
2. Republicans are evil people, because their motives are vile and evil, which we know because they decline to share the Democrats' subcultural prejudices, and only vile and despicable motives could possibly induce a person to choose not to be Democrat.
3. The Founding Fathers were good (except for that slavery thing, which is convenient because we can appeal to their authority right up until somebody proves they actually disagree with us, and then say, "Well, why would you want to be like them anyway -- they tolerated slavery", letting us have it both ways as we choose). And the country is supposed to be governed by the Constitution.
4. But all truly good people are Democrats, and the country ought to be governed in accordance with the Democratic Party platform.
5. Therefore the Founding Fathers must have agreed with us, and the true meaning of the Constitution must be whatever the current Democratic Party platform is preaching at the moment.
6. The word "Liberal" has incantatory force. When it's convenient for the Ghost, the word "Liberal" just means "nice, good person of good intention," which is why despite the fact that I hold the Democratic Party in contempt and reject practically everything it preaches, the Ghost can say that I am "Liberal." I recognize that for the compliment it is, by the way, and I genuinely appreciate it. But having defined "Liberal" to mean "good," and thus having appropriated all goodness for "Liberalism" in that sense, she flips at will, equivocally, back to the standard political definition of "liberal" as "person who votes the straight Democratic Party ticket." And with all this she imagines that she has thereby proved that all goodness is found in Democrats and that Republicans are only good insofar as they fail to be pure Republicans and slip despite themselves into acting occasionally like a Democrat.
But of course she's just using the term "Liberal" in a hopelessly equivocal and incoherent fashion, and the only reason her "proof" seems rigorous and conclusive to her is that it proves her prejudices #1 and #2, of which she starts out passionately convinced as soon as the sun comes up each day.
This doesn't particularly bother me because I grew up amongst lots of yellow-dog Democrats (a description the Ghost has applied to herself), and although they could no more make it all the way through a political argument with clear and univocal terms and tightly rigorous logic than they could prove Fermat's Last Theorem, they were still very nice people who meant well. People don't think clearly unless they care very much more about becoming right than they care about proving that they already are right, and that's especially true now that the American un-educational system has seen to it that not one American in a thousand can use the term "begging the question" properly. But I still think people are generally likable, all the same.
The Ghost's goal in commenting here seems mostly to be to prove that the people she detests, deserve to be detested. If Alexandra is ever able to get the rest of this demonization series up, you'll be able to see why I think that's disastrous -- for the Ghost herself. But in the meantime, of course she's all over the place logically, and of course she doesn't understand what the fallacy of equivocation is...but that's okay as long as you don't come in with the wrong set of expectations.
Meanwhile among the things I like about the Ghost are:
1. She's a good indicator of what it is that Democrats see as the issues. (Emotions do not establish truth -- indeed, the more emotionally involved one is in a controversy the less likely one is to be able to see the truth. But they absolutely do establish issues. If you don't start by finding out what it is that people feel, then you'll usually go to a lot of trouble to prove that you're correct on what you think the issue is, only to have the other person stare at you and say, "But that's not the point!" So a wise person starts off by diving into the emotions and trying to get the full blast from both sides, so that he knows what the issues are...and then he tries to disengage emotionally from partisanship in order to think clearly enough to figure out what the truth is. Which is a long-winded way to say that I find the Ghost's emotional outbursts enlightening, though very unconvincing. I hope that makes sense.)
2. She doesn't get mad when I tease her or take shots at her.
3. And [grinning] right this very moment she's looking up "fallacy of equivocation" on Google to figure out what it is. Which I find just delightful. You raise a subject that she doesn't know about and she charges off to educate herself -- you should go back and find the discussion on Austrian economics in an earlier comment section, at the beginning of which she was saying the most astonishingly ignorant things about laissez-faire economics, but by the end of which it was obvious that she had learned a surprising amount on the topic during the discussion. Alas, she is not always wise about the sources she chooses to trust in her self-education, and her self-education comes to an abrupt halt at any point where it might threaten her non-negotiable yellow-dog Democrat loyalties -- but, still, you gotta love the general attitude. At least, I do.
May I say again that I'm very much enjoying your contribution to the discussion here, Stephanie.
Gringo, I'm on your side about the Fairness Doctrine. This is both a matter of historical perspective (the "Fairness Doctrine" has always been used in this country to force stations that had conservative voices to restrict the conservatives' speech, but never the other way around, a fact quite obvious to those of us who grew up within the signal range of KLBJ radio), as a matter of logic (none of the arguments I've seen proposed justifying the Fairness Doctrine hold the slightest bit of water now that the available sources of information have exploded far beyond the limits that originally made the Fairness Doctrine plausible), as a matter of general philosophy (government can always be counted on to abuse its power far more than the market is likely to behave perversely on its own), as a matter of being able to see shameless hypocrisy when people hit me over the head with it (anybody who wants to apply the Fairness Doctrine to radio broadcasting but doesn't also want to apply it to the New York Times tempts me strongly to contempt)...
And for one other reason, which is simply this: whenever you hear an American use the term "fair" in a political context, you know that that person has ceased to exercise the faculty of thought. "Unfair" doesn't mean anything other than "people I don't like have something that the people I do like don't." I've never met a person who claimed to care about "fairness," whom I couldn't within a few minutes of discussion force to admit that there were things that were patently "unfair" that didn't bother them at all -- because in those cases it was people they didn't like who were getting screwed. And that's okay, you see; that's not "unfair," because it's perfectly "fair" for nice people (my friends and those who agree with me and with whom I identify) to be better off than jerks (my enemies and those who disagree with me and with whom I feel no sympathy or fellowship).
Life isn't fair. (Or, as my father used to say to me, "Life isn't fair. Get over it." I thought he made that up himself but apparently Charles Sykes's father used to say pretty much the same thing.) When you try to make it fair, all you do is take one kind of unfairness and replace it with a different kind that you like better. But in such a case, to pretend that what you're trying to do is to make life "fair" is absurd. Whenever you see a government out to establish "fairness," you know instantly that that government has been hijacked by some sort of special interest.
So screw the Fairness Doctrine. The last thing I want the government doing is giving some bureaucrat a license to declare that political views he dislikes are getting an "unfair" amount of air time.
By the way, Stephanie, I think you're making a mistake to assume, as you seem to (forgive if I'm wrong about this) that the reason liberal talk radio has failed abysmally, is that the people who run radio aren't really looking for liberal talent. I think you're quite wrong about that. I think last time I checked KL[yndon]BJ[ohnson] was running Rush; I have no doubt that if Jim Hightower could keep an audience, they'd be running him instead. What I believe you're overlooking is that liberals who want to get involved in the news media don't have to go to radio -- they have all the rest of the news media wide open to them. A radio producer who wants to find a smart, savvy, entertaining, ambitious liberal, has to compete with pretty much the entire print and television media except for Fox News, all of which are in the market for the same type of talent. But given the limited opportunities for conservatives in the fanatically (to the point of being self-destructive) liberal news media other than talk radio, talk radio gets its pick of the conservative talent.
Nor is it only a supply issue; it's also a demand issue. Why should the Ghost bother to listen to talk radio? She can get her own views comfortingly reinforced, her facts reassuringly filtered and sanitized, by CBS and NBC and the New York Times (whose editorial pages she treats here with the same reverential attidude that fundamentalist Baptists afford to the King James Version) and CNN and Newsweek and Time...if you're a liberal trying to get liberals to listen to your radio show, the only thing you have to attract them is your entertainment value. But on the conservative side, conservatives have known for decades that their views were being censored (in part by willful distortion by the media, but also famously by the Fairness Doctrine) out of the media, and that facts that would tend to show that their views were correct, were being suppressed. When Reagan struck down the Fairness Doctrine and the Democrats lost their ability to keep Republicans off the airwaves, people like Rush Limbaugh burst on the conservative scene like the sun rising after a decades-long Arctic night. Conservative talk show originally exploded because conservatives felt it was the only avenue by which they could learn the truth about what was going on, not because of its comic or entertainment value. And the big-time long-running hosts like Limbaugh still reap the benefits of a deep loyalty and gratitude from conservatives, who continue to listen to talk radio because they think conservative talk radio is the only source of information they can truly trust.
There is no analogous liberal audience for liberal talk radio. Liberals think they can trust every "news" media in the world except for Fox television and conservative talk radio.
Therefore the service that talk radio provides to conservatives is qualitatively different from the service it can offer liberals.
And this is why the Fairness Doctrine is pretty much evil. Talk radio is overwhelmingly conservative not because radio barons are suppressing liberal views, but because talk radio is practically the only place most conservatives think conservative views are given a fair hearing. The fact that talk radio is overwhelmingly conservative is a result of, and helps offset the consequences of, the overwhelming dominance of intolerantly liberal viewpoints in the rest of the media. Right now if you want to get the liberal take, you can go readily to CNN and the New York Times; and if you want to get the conservative take, you can turn on practically any talk radio station in the country. What is unfair about that? But you'll notice that the people who want to use government violence to force talk radio to air as much liberalism as it does conservatism -- which absolutely must have the effect of depriving millions of conservatives of something they desperately want to hear so that liberals can have the opportunity to listen to something they don't care about all that much in the first place -- you'll notice that those people have no intention whatsoever of forcing a similar "fairness" on the parts of the media that are dominated by liberalism.
Which mean it isn't "fairness" they're interested in at all.
But then, it never is.
Posted by: Kenny | Saturday, July 07, 2007 at 06:31 PM
Better?
Posted by: Stephanie | Saturday, July 07, 2007 at 05:37 PM
Dang it!
Posted by: Stephanie | Saturday, July 07, 2007 at 05:37 PM
gringoman,
"So why do they need the pc police to step in for them as they do what the successful talk jocks have to do every day---go straight to The People? I don't get it."
I get your point, but I don't think you get mine. You say radios would jump on the chance of a marketable liberal, but I'm not convinced of that. There are plenty of liberals who can hold their own rationally and convincingly without resorting to the behavior you described. Whether those I've met can do radio or not, I don't know. I don't know what it takes to be a radio host. However, from what you're describing, these are not the people they give a chance -- if radios are seeking out "moonbats" who can't do anything more than whine, then they're obviously not trying to recruit a liberal voice that can hold it's own. "Fairness doctrine" would force them to do this.
"Abstractions about "fairness" and "regulations" sound good, as in the lawyer's and professor's universe. Bringing them down to Planet Earth tends to change everything. Real life is like that."
Granted, any regulation -- no matter how well designed (which isn't to say that I know this to be well designed -- can be abused in the wrong hands. However, the way you're painting liberals on radio does not seem like an honest attempt on the parts of the radio companies to provide listeners with an effective liberal voice.
"Why do the liberals want their pc police to oversee only radio? They want Fairness to be really fair, universally fair, don't they?"
And if Republicans were so concerned about giving people a voice in other mediums, why don't they do their own thing? Conservative news mediums are rare, but popular. They could be more successful, if they bothered. Instead, people like to bemoan the disparity without doing anything to solve it.
It works both ways.
So, let's try again, how exactly does the Fairness Doctrine itself do so much damage? Don't harp about how liberals can't cut it on radio. Demonstrate what is inherently wrong with the Fairness Doctrine, please.
Posted by: Stephanie | Saturday, July 07, 2007 at 05:36 PM
Sorry about the un-ending italics!
Posted by: Stephanie | Saturday, July 07, 2007 at 05:25 PM
Ghost,
"Liberalism as a political philosophy that gave you your form of government."
Historically speaking, yes; but not in its current practice. The liberalism of then is not the same as now, so the liberalism of now cannot expect to be protected by the respect for the liberalism of then. The change in associated meanings is what brings about the change in attitudes. Why is that so difficult for you to understand?
"There are two totalitarian forms that have both had as their enemy Liberalism and Liberal Democracy."
Actually, there are more. There are quite a few more. This type of simplification doesn't make your argument any more substantial. However, the Republican part is neither fascist nor communist. So, even under your own simplifications, the standard doesn't work.
"This is pretty straight-forward stuff.... the intention is that government neither sponsor nor repress religious practice."
Yes, and since those with affiliations with the DNC actively repress religious practice because they get special interest donations to do so they are just as much at fault as the RNC who actively sponsors religious practice because they get special interest donations to do so. They are both acting in an anti-liberal manner, in light of the definition of liberal you are using at the moment. The only balance we the people get out of this is that they're so busy fighting each other that neither completely succeeds, yet that balance is a time-bomb, since they are both actively working against the interests of our Constitution.
"...sucked into the demonization of Liberalism..."
When people can't openly practice their religion because of the actions of the DNC and their affiliates, then "liberalism" is demonized by their affiliation with the DNC. It's a matter of choice; if you affiliate yourself with those who repress religious freedom, then your "label" is going to be besmirched by it.
I endeavor to use truth and fact to make my case, not demonizing tactics. Let's take a look:
Legally speaking:
However, because of the pressures placed on them by special interests groups which are affiliated with the DNC through their political contributions, some schools over-react to these legal restrictions:
To protect themselves from lawsuits initiated by DNC supporters, schools try to make themselves religion-free (i.e., freedom from,/em> religion). But, this is not what our rights include. We have the freedom from enforce religion, but we do not have the freedom from religious exposure; nor can we have this right, because others have the freedom to practice their religion, which includes exposing others to this religion. In this sense, the government cannot enforce a particular religious persuasion, but individuals can openly practice their religion, including exposing others to this religion.
Religious tolerance is the buzz word (contemporary political) liberals use to try to create religion-free zones in public areas. However, religious tolerance is not "tolerant" if it is used to suppress the rights of the majority.
There is not freedom from religion, there is a freedom from government enforced religion. Those are two completely different things. However, there is a freedom of religion. This the (contemporary political) liberals like to ignore, despite it's importance to our (olden political) liberal Founding Fathers.
These differences and others are why contemporary political liberals cannot cloak themselves in the respectability of our Founding Fathers and say, "Hey, we're just like them." You're not just like them. And you cannot change them so that you are; if you want to up-hold that ideal, then you have to change. Re-writing such a well-known history is only effective with the ignorant.
"The so called "Christian Right" regularly claims that America is a “Christian Nation” and was founded on Christian principles."
There is both truth and fallacy to this. The "Religious Right," as I've often heard them called (Jews and Muslims are also part of the 'Religious Right,' oddly enough), are correct in the fact that the colonies themselves were organized into religious sects. The colonies were predominantly Christian, and they were each individually predominantly of a particular Christian sect. Like Christian sects of that era, they did not always get along very well. They often came from a place (in Europe, most frequently) of religious repression and fought tooth and nail for their religious freedoms, clinging jealously to their beliefs. This is the stock from which our country was formed. That's a fact.
However, you are correct to the extent that our nation was not formed in this mold. Our nation was formed to be united, uniting these same feuding factions was a difficult task and they had to go out of their way to ensure that the religious oppresion that happened on the other side of the waters did not happen here. (To a certain extent, they failed in that, but that's another story.) In this sense, though the colonies that made up our nation and became "states" were formed with Christian religious sects as their foundation (you can see that in the historical documents of their system of laws), the nation itself was formed under secular law to give all religious sects a level of protection from each other -- thus a staunch believer in one Christian sect could not, through the Presidency or the Congress, enforce his particular brand of religious beliefs on those of different sects, or otherwise exclude those of other religious sects from governance.
Since the truth does not fit the political purposes of either side, the truth gets muddied and buried and forgotten by those who do not seek it out. Both sides are trying to manipulate the facts to suit their own agendas, and both sides are made up of minority groups who've gained influence by swaying the majority of ignorants who believe "their" side because they do not know better.
That these sides exist does not surprise me; that they have so much power does, however, surprise me a great deal. This conflict is something that our Founding Fathers actively sought to prevent. They didn't discuss it as much as other issues, because it was something they could readily agree on as necessary for the health and welfare of our nation. And, somewhere along the way, we lost that.
"At no point does the Constitution exhibit anything less than a fully secular, godless character."
Um, that's not true. As you might recognize in the Preamble, "...and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..." the word "Blessings" is a word with strong religious connotations reflecting the relgious (though, un-unified,) beliefs of our Founding Fathers. In the end, "...by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names..." again, the "Year of our Lord" is another acknowledgement of their religious beliefs, written right into the Constitution. Therefore, your claim that it has a "godless character" is completely erroneous. It is secular, but it is not godless.
"One also simply gets sucked into the hot-button "wedge issues" that are political hooks rather than substantive engagement on issues of Public Policy and Law; sucked into the demonization of Liberalism."
I did not put forth those issues to debate them with you; while they can be used to demonize liberalism, that was not my purpose. You claimed that I mis-labeled myself as a conservative-leaning independent; you claimed I was a liberal. I demonstrated that I am not.
"Abortion as a medical procedure is regulated by government and most believe it is adequately regulated."
You see abortion as a medical procedure that has to do with a woman's womb, I see it as the murder of an innocent life. There is the fundamental disagreement that is not going to be changed by discussion. That contemporary political liberals tend to believe that the fetus is nothing more than a collection of cells not worth valuing over the decision-making power of women, while contemporary political conservatives tend to believe that the fetus is an innocent child who should not be destroyed for the convenience of the mother makes for an issue of diametric opposition that is unbridgeable by compromise. Since compromise is necessary, people fight to keep abortions as rare as possible, while retaining the legality. And, of course, some individuals of each side hold positions that are in contradiction with the majority of those who share their political persuasion, i.e. some liberals are pro-life and some conservatives are pro-choice. However, your contention that the majority are satisfied does not fit. If the majority were satisfied, then the issue of abortion wouldn't sway elections because the majority would not be swayed by the issue. Some want more restrictions, some want less restrictions, but neither side is satisfied.
"Nobody supports "wanton destruction of live for the convenience of the 'mother' except maybe a Satanist."
Let's try a definiton. A woman who gets pregnant, because she has unprotected sex, and yet doesn't want the baby currently has the 'right' to choose abortion of the sake of her own convenience. This is a 'right' which people on the left fight for on a near-constant basis. When she gets the baby, it is not being sacrificed for her health, it is being sacrificed because she doesn't want it. That is "wanton destruction of life for the convenience of the 'mother'." And this is what Roe vs. Wade gave women the freedom to do. This is what so many fight against. And this is why "choice" becomes "murder" to many.
" Islamic Facists hate us because we are Liberal"
Yes, and they hate Democrats and Republicans alike. Yet, there are Democrats who want to sit down with them over tea and talk. There are Democrats who think war with Jihadis is completely unnecessary. Not all, but some -- so many, in fact, that those who don't clarify their position so as not to be associated with those who do. Thus, the ideological difference.
"It is not a matter of government being superior to business...."
When Democrats push for the government to assume complete control over private industries, they do so under the assumption that the government could run it better than the industry can run itself. Thus, the notion is formed that they believe that government is superior to business. For instance, phone companies used to be controlled monopolies enforced by the government, an act of socialism, then, people pushed to free phone companies to compete (partially because technology expanded to make it possible, though it had been possible before this move was made). Now, because of that competition, people get better phone service for less. This is business showing itself to be superior in industry; yet, power companies are not allowed to compete. Power companies compete for government interest, not for client interest. This is the difference in economic philosophies. Liberals tend to believe that the power industry should be controlled and suppressed -- the government restricting the monopoly -- however, conservatives tend to believe that the power industry should be opened up to competition.
" it has a wholly different function and in Liberal Democracy is at the service of the people..... "
With that I agree, and thus I do not believe, as contemporary political liberals tend to do, that the government should hold an iron fist over businesses. That is not the government's purpose. Furthermore, the government's purpose is to serve the people not the special interest groups that donate significant amounts of money to both the DNC and the RNC, not to the lobbyists who advocate laws and regulations to suit their own agendas, and not to foreign nations that want us to open our borders to their citizens because their citizens want to come here. The government is supposed to serve the people, but neither the Democrats nor the Republicans do serve the people.
"however there are some responsiblities required business be regulated for reasons within contexts other than profit motives"
Admittedly, but that's the middle-ground. The contemporary political liberals tend not to fight for the middle-ground; they tug one way, the contemporary political conservatives tug the other way, and if the people end up with middle-ground it's chance, more often we lose the middle-ground one way or the other until the next tug-o-war.
"though Liberal and Conservative are not antonyms"
In contemporary political context (most especially in the US, though in other places as well), they are indeed antonyms. Liberal/Conservative; Democrat/Republican; Pro/Con. That is the way contemporary politics work, with each side fighting for those independents who make their decisions outside this paradigm.
"however modern Republicanism is not Conservative"
Modern Republicans are neither more nor less conservative than modern Democrats are liberal. I will agree that modern Republicans are not conservative, but neither are modern Democrats liberal. Give and take, one or the other. Either you use the ideal definition, or the contemporary definition. You cannot pick and choose and expect me to debate with you on your own terms. If you expect to use your peculiar definition of Liberalism, then you have to admit that Democrats are not liberals. You cannot have it both ways and expect me to swallow it; it makes you look better, perhaps, but it is dishonest. If that dishonesty makes you feel better, that's on your conscience, but I will not bow to your preferences on this matter.
"Where's the "those who are not with us are against us".... "bring 'em on".... "go f*** yourself" attitude of modern Republicanism..... I'm not seeing where Stephanie would embrace that."
On that, you are completely, 100% correct. I do NOT embrace that, which is why I'm not a Republican. However, I have gotten the same exact attitude from Democrats... The issues they fight over are different, the manner in which the fight are the same. I can agree with neither, because their attitude is one of desired control not desired benefit for this nation. Such an attitude is distasteful (and, dare I say, unAmerican?) no matter what issue you are fighting over.
Trust me, I realize that is what you see, however, just because you see it does not make it reality. The Democrats are just as expert at manipulation as the Republicans, the difference is you feel sympathetic to the Democrats' causes and thus do not see the manipulation.
"If you haven't been seening a lot of that in EVERY category of endeavor in the last wonderous years of Republican hegemony, you, like many, have been turning not one, but two blind eyes."
I have seen that, which is why I stopped offering any support to Republicans. However, I have also seen it in my own state -- as done at the hands of Democrats. I will readily admit that Republicans are guilty as sin, but so are Democrats. That is why I'm independent.
"I used Thomas Jefferson's real words, and real categories with real definitions. He really was a Liberal, he really was a Revolutionary, and he really was a minarchist, by definition."
Yes, and Thomas Jefferson was also really unique as far as the Founding Fathers go, and you have no idea whether or not Thomas Jefferson would agree with your positions now.
Posted by: Stephanie | Saturday, July 07, 2007 at 05:24 PM
StephanieIf Talk Radio cannot survive regulation, that doesn't mean the regulation is wrong, it means there's something wrong with Talk Radio.
gringoman Yes, it could mean something's wrong with Talk Radio. It could also mean something is wrong with the regulation. The regulation, obviously designed to stymie the successful and popular via "fairness" doled out to the less competitive (a perfect socialist or Welfare State gesture which I thought Libertarians frowned on, but what do I know?)can also be seen as transparently disingenuous.
This is especially obvious with a glance at the radio "environment" USA, which is hardly Stalinist, or even neatly controlled and subsidized Euro socialist. It's actually free---well, compared to everything else. If you know of any libs you think can hack it with the top talk jocks today, you should advise them to get a demo ASAP to management. Radio would love to have some lefties who can make money for them, who are not crippled without the Beltway or Soros hand-out. Radio will not appreciate anyone destroying its money makers. But it will welcome any Lefty who can also make money besides preach. It's amazing. These lefties or "progressives" or whatever you call them keep insisting they are such goody-goodies, for "The People" and against, what, the "imperialists" and cannibal capitalists and "the baddies"? They can even tell us how rotten George Bush is and why Haliburton is evil etc etc.
Okay. Wonderful. So why do they need the pc police to step in for them as they do what the successful talk jocks have to do every day---go straight to The People? I don't get it. If they've got the answers, and they're not babbling rocket science, what's their problem? The doors are wide open if they can hack it. Why this cry for Mommy? Where's the self-respect? Abstractions about "fairness" and "regulations" sound good, as in the lawyer's and professor's universe. Bringing them down to Planet Earth tends to change everything. Real life is like that.
At any rate, if the (sic) Fairness proponents are principled,and not just hustling an agenda for Big Brother and the Progressive Plutocrats, why isn't such a so-called "Fairness" Doctrine being proposed for the rest of the media, the 80% beyond the Talk Radio National Town Hall, such as the MSM, where Bernard Goldberg who knew it for decades from the inside at CBS has written compellingly about its shameless political bias? By the way, this is the same MSM in which recent polls or studies found that 80% donate to Democrats. (Surprise?) Why do the liberals want their pc police to oversee only radio? They want Fairness to be really fair, universally fair, don't they?
Posted by: gringoman | Friday, July 06, 2007 at 11:10 PM
Liberalism as a political philosophy that gave you your form of government. To have demonized the terms "Liberal" and "liberal" is a victory for rightest propaganda that has been in place for decades and has the net effect of moving the discourse to rightest positions.
The Repubican Party WAS Liberal..... it is not only un-liberal in the banal sense, it has become the enemy of Liberalism..... There are two totalitarian forms that have both had as their enemy Liberalism and Liberal Democracy. Communism, and the various manifestations of righest Fascism. There are also two totalitarian systems for which party loyalty was the sine quo non of virtue..... the same two.....modern Republicanism slouches toward righest fascism and having been in the majority now for a good many years has undermined Liberal government at every turn and in political practice bears the hallmarks of authoritarian/totalitarian ideology. Modern Republicanism is un-American.
I will also add that Modern Republicanism achieved its zenith with Dubya's Republican administration..... in 2008..... and it has also self-destructed at apogee. 2008 will see a new, moderate Republican Party, or it won't have a snowflake's chance in hell of competing.
The Liberal American Constitution provides for freedom of AND from religion(s). No redefinition of the Constitution necessary to come to that.
This is pretty straight-forward stuff.... the intention is that government neither sponsor nor repress religious practice. For those who like to do literal interpretation..... here is pretty much your opportunity.
One also simply gets sucked into the hot-button "wedge issues" that are political hooks rather than substantive engagement on issues of Public Policy and Law; sucked into the demonization of Liberalism.
Here we have the biggest irony.... we don't want government to regulate Corporations..... we really want to have Government manage women's wombs..... now there's a solution with no conflicts (sarcasm). Abortion as a medical procedure is regulated by government and most believe it is adequately regulated. Women seeking abortions is an intractable aspect of the human condition. You are not going to eliminate abortions by outlawing them.... you will most likely drive abortions into a black market which is a repitition of history.... been there, done that..... it just made things worse.... that's why there are legal medical abortions regulated by the State.
History of Abortion
I guess we don't really want to acknowledge or celebrate diversity..... indoctrinate multi-culturalism indeed. America isn't so much a melting pot as it is a stew with the carrots, potatos and chunks of beefy beef clearly discernable.
I'm talking about the structure and purpose of the American government established by the Constitution. It is Liberal.
Yes really.... redistricting to ensure adequate representation for minorities is different from gerrymandering districts to disenfranchise minorities and lock Republicans in power. The first has a higher-order egalitarian principle, the second is, well.... it's modern Republicanism and is more similar to a simple pseudo-democratic kleptocracy like Mexico than to the American ideal.
You are screaming for Liberal values to be re-established in American political discourse. Democrats are as well.
You are not then "Pro-Life"..... The Supreme Court just upheld a ruling against "partial birth/late-term" abortion without even asking for caveat with respect to the mother's health. The goal of "Pro-Life" is a legal ban on all abortions in America.... like Italy.... go check out Italy to see what great successes the Pope is having. Actually, I believe Catholics are not to use contraceptives either.... that would be an interesting extension to the Abortion issue.
Nobody supports "wanton destruction of live for the convenience of the 'mother' except maybe a Satanist. One might find some whack-jobs that would state that kind of daffy position as a desire for Public Policy and Law, however I suspect them to be somewhat in the minority.
Furthermore, to suggest that is some sort of tenet for Liberalism or even the banal definition for liberal is..... well I won't say stupid, because I'm a nice Liberal.
Oh contrare.... Freedom of AND from Religion.
The so called "Christian Right" regularly claims that America is a “Christian Nation” and was founded on Christian principles. If this is the case, then those principles should be identifiable in America’s founding legal document, the Constitution. If the Constitution explicitly reflects Christian principles and doctrines, then the Christian Right is correct that America was founded on Christianity; otherwise, their claims are wishful thinking at best. So where are God and religion in the Constitution?
This is a fundamental characteristic of the Liberal philosophy of governance:
The Ameican Constitution begins with the phrase "We the People," and its significance cannot be overlooked. This establishes that sovereign power rests with the people and that all government power and authority derives from the consent of the people. It's a repudiation of older Eurpean ideas that governments are established by God and derive their power or authority from God (for example, the divine right of kings). It's also thus a repudiation of the Christian Right's arguments today.
No matter how hard conservative apologists for the Christian Right try, they cannot locate endorsements of religion, God, theism, or Christianity in the Constitution. At no point does the Constitution exhibit anything less than a fully secular, godless character. The American Constitution was a novel experiment in the creation of a secular government on the basis of popular sovereignty and democratic principles. All of this would be undermined by the Christian Right.
It is trully an attack on Liberalism.... the real definition as opposed to the banal. The so called "Christian Right" (I call them heretics) are trully political rightests that found their home quite comfortably in modern Republicanism.
I don't even know what this means..... Islamic Facists hate us because we are Liberal.... Nazis hated Liberalism, Communists hated Liberalism..... Liberalism has always had to fight for its existence, and the founding fathers established a system of Liberal Democracy in which the Liberal revolution is constantly renewed, peacefully.
It is not a matter of government being superior to business.... it has a wholly different function and in Liberal Democracy is at the service of the people..... some of that service is enabling good business and profit-making.... however there are some responsiblities required business be regulated for reasons within contexts other than profit motives.
I guess.... though Liberal and Conservative are not antonyms..... however modern Republicanism is not Conservative.
Liberalism is the political philosophy that established the American form of government. That would be a very good starting place..... mainly because it is true.
I suspect you are confusing Liberalism with libertine attitudes..... comment about pornography..... sex is a hallmark of modern American marketing..... at any rate I hear screaming once again for Liberalism in the arena of American Political Discourse. Where's the "those who are not with us are against us".... "bring 'em on".... "go f*** yourself" attitude of modern Republicanism..... I'm not seeing where Stephanie would embrace that.
I see the Democrats as representing a wide rainbow of political constituencies, causes and policies..... full spectrum on environment, health, defense, you name it. I see the modern Republicanism as having deteriorated to the point in which governance is merely a corrupt facilitation of corporate greed and the only expertise or skill required of a republican politician is propaganda and manipulation. If you haven't been seening a lot of that in EVERY category of endeavor in the last wonderous years of Republican hegemony, you, like many, have been turning not one, but two blind eyes.
I used Thomas Jefferson's real words, and real categories with real definitions. He really was a Liberal, he really was a Revolutionary, and he really was a minarchist, by definition.
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Friday, July 06, 2007 at 08:57 PM
Ghost,
"Or are you simply a victim of rightest propaganda that has demonized the term "Liberal" and "liberal" to the point that nobody wants to use it."
People have demonized and continue to demonize the word "liberal," and I do work to counter-act that. Some have transfer that particular slant to "moonbat," which while not being any more friendly does exclude the non-mootbatty liberals from the slur. However, that was not the point I was making. I was trying to demonstrate the difference between a "liberal" then and a "liberal" now. Your average contemporary liberal (though, not all), for instance, advocates pornography as free "speech" or, the more educated, freedom of the press. Whereas, in the founding of our country, it was still rather typical for that sort of thing to be forbidden. There are many such differences, and they make for a very different mean. The connotations of 'liberal' then and now are very, very different. Clothing yourself in the 'then' as if it's the same as the 'now' is not very convincing.
"Liberalism isn't about any cluster of wedge issues..... its about embracing certain values, forms and structures of government."
That is one particular take on the meaning of the word. And, in that sense, Republicans are liberals, too -- whether you like it or not. Again, it depends on what you use as your comparison.
"If you have a government that says it wants to amend the Constitution to restrict the rights of individual or group of individuals, you know that governement is not Liberal and is slouching toward repressive extremism, rightest or leftest."
And if you have a government that redefines the Constitution to mean that you have the freedom from religion instead of the freedom of religion, you have a repressive regime as well. Or the 'freedom' to kill (abortion). Or the 'freedom' to indoctrinate (multiculturalism). Neither Republicans or Democrats are purely "liberal" in that sense, because both want to control the American people in an invasion of their rights.
"You will notice that Liberalism strives toward a high ideal.... "
If you are talking about philosophy, certainly; if you're talking about politics, than definitely not.
"however there is a big difference between gerrymandering and redistricting that strengthens minority voting districts that are otherwise drowned-out by majority districts"
No, not really. Manipulating the voting districts to get votes is, well, manipulating the voting districts to get votes. In my area, it's Democrats who do the gerrymandering. It's about control. There's no "higher ideal" at work.
"You want very very badly NOT to be labeled a Liberal, Stephanie....."
That is because, politically, I'm not a liberal. The closest contemporary description is "bleeding-hearted conservative." Mostly, I prefer the term "independent." I have no party affiliation. I think partisan politics is a great destructive force in our society. Aside from that, I straddle the fence, choosing which "side" I'm on based on the merits of that "side" as per the particular issue and nothing more. Sometimes liberals are right, sometimes conservatives are right, sometimes neither are right, sometimes both are right to different degrees -- and sometimes there is no "right" or "wrong," but merely shades of perspective.
On the issues, I lean strongly conservative. This is based on issues where there is no middle ground, or very little middle ground to work with. Examples:
Abortion -- I'm pro-life, with questionable middle-ground for rape and health-cases. Wanton destructive of life for the convenience of the "mother" is something I cannot and will not ever support.
Religion -- This country was founded on a belief of freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. "Separation of church and state" was not law and was never intended to be law; instead it was the belief of one of the Founding Fathers, a belief which his contemporaries (as a whole) did not share.
War -- War is ugly, it should be avoided, yet it is sometimes necessary because people have not yet attained a peaceful, corrupt-free core. War can be just. Many liberals would agree, but as whole contemporary liberalism belies this notion of justice through war.
Economics -- I am a capitalist. I believe that the government should help the people (welfare is right in the Constitution), but that the economics of our country should be capitalism -- but not in its purest, most unstable form. I'm a business student; business is not 'evil' as many liberals claim. Government is not superior to business; socialism is not superior to capitalism.
These are the types of issues where political ideologies become incompatible. To use the structure of logic, the people from different "sides" assume different givens and thus cannot reach a mutually satisfying conclusion even though they may use the same facts. In this sense, in the sense of the "givens" I assume, I am a political conservative in contemporary terms.
"given that the very inception of our Nation is rooted in Liberalism"
Philosophically, yes; but not in the terms of contemporary political practice. Those are two separate matters with separate connotations involved in the words. Understanding language, and how it is used, is tantamount to understanding the difference here. I'm not a etymologist, but I have a love for words and have studied linguistics on my own. It's a rather enlightening pastime to look at how words evolve and change and come to mean different things in different contexts.
In order to debate an issue wisely, people should make sure they are using the same meaning or else the debate is senseless. This is one of those instances when people do not use the same meaning. Liberalism as a philosophy is one thing, liberalism in contemporary politics is a totally different thing and depends on country, region, and other factors to nail down specifics. There are areas that overlap, but they are fundamentally separate topics.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans are wholly liberal -- philosophically speaking -- and yet, both have elements of liberalism in that sense. But, again, even there, it depends on who you use as your model. Liberalism, and like it conservatism, are not words easily pinned down to mean one thing or the other. In the context of American political debate, however, they do have specific meanings and specific affiliations. You can choose to contradict that, but you're fighting a losing battle. Words do not have a static denotation or connotation; they evolve and it is in the hands of the majority that they are shaped and re-formed. If most everyone else understands a word to mean one thing, and you insist on using it to mean something else, than you are either going to have to constantly give the word your particular definition or you are going to be constantly misunderstood.
You can choose to see Democrats through your own definition and twist what they do to fit that definition, however expecting us to agree with your vision is too much to ask. They are not how you describe them, and your description does not change what they are.
"I believe Thomas Jefferson to be a Liberal "minarchist"....."
It is interesting how self-described liberals cling to their vision of what Thomas Jefferson was or was not, but use nobody else to support their claims that their description of Thomas Jefferson should be equated with "the Founding Fathers." But, I throw that out there as an aside.
Posted by: Stephanie | Friday, July 06, 2007 at 06:27 PM
Do you have a problem with the Liberal American Constitution and form of government as well..... like this Republican administration and its supporters? Or are you simply a victim of rightest propaganda that has demonized the term "Liberal" and "liberal" to the point that nobody wants to use it.
Liberalism isn't about any cluster of wedge issues..... its about embracing certain values, forms and structures of government.
If you have a government that says it wants to amend the Constitution to restrict the rights of individual or group of individuals, you know that governement is not Liberal and is slouching toward repressive extremism, rightest or leftest. In America, the tendency, contrary to popular belief, is rightest..... not leftest.
You will notice that Liberalism strives toward a high ideal.... it is always progressive toward that ideal. You can see it in Thomas Jefferson's attempt to address the emancipation of slaves in the pre-Revolutionary Colonial legislature:
You will also notice that the Bill of Rights and amendments to the Constitution are always expansive, more Liberal interpretations..... not truncations or attempts to limit the rights and liberties of any individual or group.
Another area where you can see whether or not a government is Liberal or not is in the area of gerrymandering voting districts. Tom Delay was indicted for involvement in an elaborate and effective attempt to gerrymander in Texas..... he apparently violated Texas State law, of all things.... one would wonder why he didn't violate Federal Law.
Republican apologists say, well the Democrats do it too..... however there is a big difference between gerrymandering and redistricting that strengthens minority voting districts that are otherwise drowned-out by majority districts. Gerrymandering is intended to solidify a hold on government by powerful majorities..... essentially throwing a monkey-wrench into the Liberal structure of government by deliberately excluding the voice of the weak and vulnerable..... you know, the people who need governmental help.
You want very very badly NOT to be labeled a Liberal, Stephanie..... given that the very inception of our Nation is rooted in Liberalism, one would wonder why that is? I think I know the answer.
Interestingly, Kenny can be labled Liberal as well..... unfortunately for him, his is a 19th Century brand of Liberalism that does not concede a necessary evolution in time.
I believe Thomas Jefferson to be a Liberal "minarchist"..... I would say Kenny is too....
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Friday, July 06, 2007 at 06:57 AM
Ghost,
"you sound like one of those Yankee Liberals"
I was raised in the Midwest and the East Coast. I've spent very little time down south. However, once again, I'm not a liberal.
Posted by: Stephanie | Friday, July 06, 2007 at 12:46 AM
.... Hey.... you sound like one of those Yankee Liberals..... you ain't from 'round here are ya? :)
Yankee Bayonet
But when the sun breaks
To no more bulletin battle-cry
Then will you make a grave
For I will be home then
I will be home then
War of Northern Aggression: This term emphasizes the belief by partisans of the Lost Cause version of history that the North unjustly invaded the South. The term has never been widely adopted.
The Lost Cause is the name commonly given to a literary movement that sought to reconcile the traditional society of the Southern United States to the defeat of the Confederate States of America in the Civil War of 1861–1865. Those who contributed to the movement tended to portray the Confederacy's cause as noble and most of the Confederacy's leaders as examplars of old-fashioned chivalry, defeated by the Union armies not through superior military skill, but by overwhelming force.
The South was devastated both economically and psychologically by its defeat in 1865. Many Southerners sought consolation in attributing their loss to factors beyond their control and to betrayals of their heroes and cause. 'Southerners', in this sense, does not include the large number of former slaves in the Southern States, who of course overwhelmingly welcomed the defeat of the Confederacy and their resulting emancipation (see for example Juneteenth).
Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, is an annual holiday in fourteen states of the United States. Celebrated on June 19, it commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas. The holiday originated in Galveston, Texas; for more than a century, the state of Texas was the primary home of Juneteenth celebrations.
Though the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued on September 22, 1862, with an effective date of January 1, 1863, it had little immediate effect on most slaves’ day-to-day lives, particularly in Texas, which was almost entirely under Confederate control. Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day Union General Gordon Granger and 2,000 federal troops arrived on Galveston Island to take possession of the state and enforce the emancipation of its slaves. Standing on the balcony of Galveston’s Ashton Villa, Granger read the contents of “General Order No. 3”:
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Thursday, July 05, 2007 at 09:37 PM
Ghost,
"...the spirit of the Founding Fathers who were Liberals..."
The Founding Fathers were a very different type of 'Liberal' than you are -- unless you believe slavery is legitimate, women shouldn't vote, and only land-owners have the right to make national decisions? The label liberal has to be taken in the context of the surrounding environment to which it is applied. Liberal could be applied to our Founding Fathers, in which the contrast is that England was conservative; however, that has not application to our contemporary situation.
" I was just trying to relate to you....."
Well, you failed miserably, which relates back to your supposed ability to interpret other peoples motives. I'm not a Southern, and I'm certainly not a racist. I believe balance is the best method of governance, and an equitable balance between states rights and federal control is part of that. However, I do not think any state has the right to step away from the Union just because it doesn't like the president that was duly elected; any more than I believe that illegal immigrants have the right to take back our south western states in the name of Reconquista.
As for the Civil War -- both sides did despicable things before, during and after the war; that's the nature of war.
"I was just trying to help you feel more comfortable talking to me about your position by using reminiscent rhetoric."
Excuse me, but I prefer to look at history from the perspective of what actually happened and what actually led up to it, not through the lens of political rancor. I don't suggest you project your own base motives off on me; it won't work.
Posted by: Stephanie | Thursday, July 05, 2007 at 08:20 PM
gringoman,
"The libs maybe are "too intelligent" for the medium?"
Maybe they need to look at a different kind of liberal to get the goods they're looking for. Have you ever checked out GTL? While I wouldn't call the writers on that board "unintelligent," they certainly aren't part of the established intelligentsia that runs so many liberal organizations. I suspect that kind of liberal would be more attractive to the rough-n-tumble crowd you described.
But, more to the point of the Fairness Doctrine, many businesses survive under much more strict regulation than that being proposed. Businesses are adaptable, and if the people who are managing radio businesses are not adaptable to such regulations than the fault lies with their incompetence, not the medium or the doctrine. If Talk Radio cannot survive regulation, that doesn't mean the regulation is wrong, it means there's something wrong with Talk Radio.
In that sense, arguing that the Fairness Doctrine is wrong because it would be a challenge to run a business with restrictions... It doesn't hold much weight with me, because I'm well aware that businesses are designed to be adaptable to government requirements and regulations -- and, indeed, that have to be to survive at all.
The biggest risk I see, is that to make equal time some otherwise successful conservative talk radio hosts will have to give room to liberals. Thus, they lose their jobs. However, if the liberals can't hack it, then they're going to have their own problems. More stations are likely to pick up the medium, and will play those conservatives (the ones who lost their jobs) on the same time-slot, which now belongs to liberals. It will grow and the pressure mounts.
Just think about the night shows (Jay Leno, David Letterman, and who knows who all else now); they play off of each other. Think about morning shows, and you see the same sort of thing. Competition expands entertainment businesses; it does not eliminate it. It will offer people more options and it will drive both liberals and conservatives to be more marketable.
Whether it happens or not, businesses will adapt. The dire downfall of Talk Radio doesn't seem at all realistic.
Posted by: Stephanie | Thursday, July 05, 2007 at 07:58 PM
I have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility against all forms of tyranny over the mind of man.
At the age of 77, I began to make some memoranda and state some recollections of dates and facts concerning myself, for my own ready reference and for the information of my family.
I was married on New Year's Day of 1772, and Mrs. Jefferson died in the autumn of 1782.
I was educated at William and Mary College in Williamsburg. I read Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish and English, of course. I became a member of the legislature of Virginia in 1769 and continued in that until it was closed by the revolution. I made one effort in that body for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected; and indeed, during the regal government, nothing liberal could expect success. I served with General Washington in the legislature of Virginia before the revolution, and, during it, with Doctor Franklin in Congress. I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point which was to decide the question. If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour? That 150 lawyers would do business together is not to be expected.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all.
I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.....
II. Native America
Brother, I am very much pleased with the visit you have made us. I have joined with you sincerely in smoking the pipe of peace; it is a good old custom handed down by your ancestors, and as such I respect and join in it with reverence. I hope we shall long continue to smoke in friendship together. I hope it will please the Great Being above to continue you long in life, in health and in friendship to us; and that your son will afterwards succeed you in wisdom, in good disposition, and in power over your people. We do not wish you to take up the hatchet. We love you and esteem you. We wish you to multiply and be strong. This, brother, is what I had to say to you. Repeat it from me to all your people, and to our friends, the Kickapous, Piorias, Piankeshaws and Wyattanons. Hold fast to the chain of friendship which binds us together, keep it bright as the sun, and let them, you and us, live together in perpetual love.....
IV. Slavery
There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. Our children see this and learn to imitate it; permitting one-half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other. If a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labour for another; no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave, rising from the dust for a total emancipation.....
VI. Religious Freedom
We, the General Assembly of Virginia, enact that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, plan, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall suffer on account of his religious belief. All man shall be free to profess their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities. But I have ever thought religion a concern purely between our God and our consciences, for which we were accountable to him. I never told my own religion, nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert nor wished to change another's creed. For it is in our lives that our religion must be read.....
IX. Newspapers
To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted so as to be most useful, I should answer, by restraining it to true facts and sound principles only. Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehood and errors. Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them. I am convinced that those societies as the Indians - which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under European governments.....
X. The Declaration of Independence....
.... We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
TEXT OF A LITTLE REBELLION: THOMAS JEFFERSON
it would seem she's a rebel
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Thursday, July 05, 2007 at 07:55 PM
Yes I thought about it, and yes I agree with how Commerce and Regulation have been interpreted and I think it is in the spirit of the Founding Fathers who were Liberals, and understood the need for Liberal Democratic government.
You were making a comment that made me feel like you would be more comfortable with the moniker "War of Northern Aggression"..... those who felt/feel the South was the victim of Northern economic and cultural oppression, had a Constitutional right to leave the Union and form its own federation. I was just trying to relate to you..... they didn't feel the North's military reaction forcing them to remain in the Union was in the spirit of the Constitution..... that is why the South and member States of the Confederacy as a whole became associated with and advocates of "State's Rights"..... which became a buzz-word later during the Civil Rights era. I was just trying to help you feel more comfortable talking to me about your position by using reminiscent rhetoric.
As far as the appropriateness of the nomenclature, I am a Liberal, after all, and see some validity to the Confederate perspective, though if I was then who I am now ("am" is such a nebulous word for a disembodied cyberspirit) I would have been an abolitionist and Union sympathizer. As you pointed out, the Civil War was fought for an array of economic reasons.... the more spiritual reasons were relevant and associated with the slave-based economics, however the latter became more of the long-lived "winner-writes-history" rhetoric about the war to justify its "rightness".
However, in a fundamental sense, from the Confederate perspective, the war was a socioeconomic and cultural war..... totally unjustified. Remember they had their own Christian preachers and learned individuals who justified to them the moral correctness and necessity of slavery, and believed themselves to be very civilized and righteous in their ways. So the moral, religious and spiritual arguments were by-and-large lost on that population. All that formed the deepest root of resentments tapped by modern Republicanism in its "Southern Strategy", and by the Democratic Party prior to the 1960's Civil Rights movement.
New York Times, 5 July 2007
Modern Republicanism is not a conservative movement at all.... it is a radical regressionist movement featuring the ideas represented by the finest minds of the 19th Century.
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Thursday, July 05, 2007 at 05:07 AM
from Stephanie Besides, from what you said, what's going to stop the radio station from playing the less profitable people at less profitable times -- like when everyone's sleeping?
from gringoman This used to be the way (and maybe still is) that the biggies would do it. But CBS/NBC used to make so much money from TV it was nothing to "donate" some radio time to "public service" programs, as it didn't matter that nobody listened. This "fairness" was in effect charity which they could easily afford, probably as a tax write-off too.
Radio, being a business, is intensely competitive with the goal of maximizing profit. It does do charity, e.g. raising scholarship money for children who've lost a parent fighting in Iraq. Apparently, like any business, it does not see the logic of diminishing its returns in order to satisfy political agendas. In fact, it sees this as rather strange, even loony in today's media environment of thousands of radio and TV outlets, and millions more on the Internet. From what I can see, they are more than willing to hire lib hosts and retain them IF the lib can produce. They've tried, many times. The Soros types are still looking for THEIR Rush Limbaugh. Their Great Al Franken Hope flopped, period. The libs maybe are "too intelligent" for the medium? They cough up lots of information too, as we know. College kids, sheltered from real life, seem to dig it. And just look at GD, as a case of what they can offer. ( Or is she not the right example to illustrate the nature of the lib crisis on Talk Radio?)
Loud? The talk jocks are loud? Yes, some are too damn loud. But you could never say that about one of my old faves, Monica Crowley, who I've described as "living proof that brains can be blonde" (Ph.D from Columbia.) Laura Ingraham will get screechy sometimes, but she's determined to be a Yalie lawyer who can have fun and entertain and flash a light on the "dark corridors" of the Washington she knows first hand. She seems to be going very strong now on radio, and even my perfectly modulated good Republican girl Monica finally called Bush a "jerk" recently, over his Shamnesty. I was amazed to hear it from her, not to mention delighted. (Monicamemo.com)
Posted by: gringoman | Thursday, July 05, 2007 at 12:09 AM
Yes, Ghost, I've heard the argument before...but does it comply with the intentions of our Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution, does it comply with the spirit of the Constitution? Ever think about that?
BTW, ya' never explained why you would use such an inappropriate label for the Civil War, you just claimed that others used it before you.
Posted by: Stephanie | Wednesday, July 04, 2007 at 10:06 PM
Happy Fourth Of July to All My Friends at ATB..... Coney Island Hotdogs are good :)
This Land is Your Land
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Wednesday, July 04, 2007 at 03:28 PM
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Arcticle I.....
Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;.....
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.....
Commerce .--The etymology of the word ''commerce'' 579 carries the primary meaning of traffic, of transporting goods across state lines for sale. This possibly narrow constitutional conception was rejected by Chief Justice Marshall in Gibbons v. Ogden, 580 which remains one of the seminal cases dealing with the Constitution. The case arose because of a monopoly granted by the New York legislature on the operation of steam-propelled vessels on its waters, a monopoly challenged by Gibbons who transported passengers from New Jersey to New York pursuant to privileges granted by an act of Congress. 581 The New York monopoly was not in conflict with the congressional regulation of commerce, argued the monopolists, because the vessels carried only passengers between the two States and were thus not engaged in traffic, in ''commerce'' in the constitutional sense.
''The subject to be regulated is commerce,'' the Chief Justice wrote. ''The counsel for the appellee would limit it to traffic, to buying and selling, or the interchange of commodities, and do not admit that it comprehends navigation. This would restrict a general term, applicable to many objects, to one of its significations. Commerce, undoubtedly, is traffic, but it is something more--it is intercourse.'' 582 The term, therefore, included navigation, a conclusion that Marshall also supported by appeal to general understanding, to the prohibition in Article I, Sec. 9, against any preference being given ''by any regulation of commerce or revenue, to the ports of one State over those of another,'' and to the admitted and demonstrated power of Congress to impose embargoes. 583
Marshall qualified the word ''intercourse'' with the word ''commercial,'' thus retaining the element of monetary transactions. 584 But, today, ''commerce'' in the constitutional sense, and hence ''interstate commerce,'' covers every species of movement of persons and things, whether for profit or not, across state lines, 585 every species of communication, every species of transmission of intelligence, whether for commercial purposes or otherwise, 586 every species of commercial negotiation which will involve sooner or later an act of transportation of persons or things, or the flow of services or power, across state lines. 587
There was a long period in the Court's history when a majority of the Justices, seeking to curb the regulatory powers of the Federal Government by various means, held that certain things were not encompassed by the commerce clause because they were either not interstate commerce or bore no sufficient nexus to interstate commerce. Thus, at one time, the Court held that mining or manufacturing, even when the product would move in interstate commerce, was not reachable under the commerce clause; 588 it held insurance transactions carried on across state lines not commerce, 589 and that exhibitions of baseball between professional teams that travel from State to State were not in commerce, 590 and that similarly the commerce clause was not applicable to the making of contracts for the insertion of advertisements in periodicals in another State 591 or to the making of contracts for personal services to be rendered in another State. 592 Later decisions either have overturned or have undermined all of these holdings. The gathering of news by a press association and its transmission to client newspapers are interstate commerce. 593 The activities of a Group Health Association, which serves only its own members, are ''trade'' and capable of becoming interstate commerce; 594 the business of insurance when transacted between an insurer and an insured in different States is interstate commerce. 595 But most important of all there was the development of, or more accurately the return to, 596 the rationales by which manufacturing, 597 mining, 598 business transactions, 599 and the like, which are antecedent to or subsequent to a move across state lines, are conceived to be part of an integrated commercial whole and therefore subject to the reach of the commerce power....
Regulate .--''We are now arrived at the inquiry--'' continued the Chief Justice, ''What is this power? It is the power to regulate; that is, to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed. This power, like all others vested in congress, is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations, other than are prescribed in the constitution . . . If, as has always been understood, the sovereignty of congress, though lim ited to specified objects, is plenary as to those objects, the power over commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, is vested in congress as absolutely as it would be in a single government, having in its constitution the same restrictions on the exercise of the power as are found in the constitution of the United States.'' 607
Of course, the power to regulate commerce is the power to prescribe conditions and rules for the carrying-on of commercial transactions, the keeping-free of channels of commerce, the regulating of prices and terms of sale. Even if the clause granted only this power, the scope would be wide, but it extends to include many more purposes than these. ''Congress can certainly regulate interstate commerce to the extent of forbidding and punishing the use of such commerce as an agency to promote immorality, dishonesty, or the spread of any evil or harm to the people of other states from the state of origin. In doing this, it is merely exercising the police power, for the benefit of the public, within the field of interstate commerce.'' 608 Thus, in upholding a federal statute prohibiting the shipment in interstate commerce of goods made with child labor, not because the goods were intrinsically harmful but in order to extirpate child labor, the Court said: ''It is no objection to the assertion of the power to regulate commerce that its exercise is attended by the same incidents which attend the exercise of the police power of the states.'' 609
The power has been exercised to enforce majority conceptions of morality, 610 to ban racial discrimination in public accommodations, 611 and to protect the public against evils both natural and contrived by people. 612 The power to regulate interstate commerce is, therefore, rightly regarded as the most potent grant of authority in Sec. 8....
Thus, Stephanie..... Contitutionally based Governmental power to mitgate Corporate /Private excess and dangers to the citizenry.
Link
The shenanigans of ENRON, for example are a failure of governmental oversight and regulation exacerbated by the sitting Republican administration that doesn't believe in regulation, or oversight, and would not even intervene when one of the largest States in the Union, California, claimed it was being defrauded by an Energy Coporation (ENRON).... an allegation that later proved to be true. Dubya didn't even investigate.....
Here is an interesting article that foreshadows an ENRON-type situation in the Financial industry....
Link
Hedge Funds Mystify Markets, Regulators Deeply Powerful, Largely UncheckedBy David Cho Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 4, 2007; Page A01
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Wednesday, July 04, 2007 at 08:39 AM
The name War of Northern is used by some to refer to at least two wars commonly known by other names.
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Wednesday, July 04, 2007 at 07:49 AM
gringoman,
1. "If you know anything about the history of (sic) Air America, I needn't say another word on this."
I have been educated about Air America in my pursuit of understanding the argument against the Fairness Doctrine; however that seems to end the discussion, as if Air America's fate is somehow self-evident as to the wrongness of the Fairness Doctrine itself. I thank you for being the exception on that.
2. "...but a radio station is ordered by the DC Nanny to pay for an Amnesty-friendly broadcaster who can only command 1/4 the listenership (and by extension ad revenue) of the anti-Amnesty broadcaster..."
I do see what you are saying, but here's my contention: When I hear about what Ann Coulter says, it's not from my Republican/Conservative friends, it's from my Democrat/Liberal friends. And the same is true in the reverse. Whatever pundit talks out, some people on the other side are going to listen for the sole purpose of refuting their arguments.
Besides, from what you said, what's going to stop the radio station from playing the less profitable people at less profitable times -- like when everyone's sleeping?
3. "If you don't listen to Talk Radio, you may not realize that "the other side" does get covered, both extensively and intensively, although, granted, generally from the viewpoint of the host who's able to command an audience..."
And, for me, that would be enough; assuming that the host doesn't pick the most insane, irrational representative to be "the other side." I don't watch television either (a big part of why I blog for news), but I hear Hannity and Colmes (sp?) is a good example of balanced-bias. They're both entertaining, they're both reasonably intelligent and well-informed, and you know when they agree the "other side" is probably dead-wrong. But, of course, I would not suggest we legislate Hannity and Colmes as our model for information.
"No, if you mean the genre itself, talk radio per se."
What I mean, is that the little talk radio I've heard that's been in my area has been very loud, very rude, and very one-sided. Loud = actually coming out louder than music at the same volume. Rude = people showing each other absolutely no respect and thus losing mine for their poor behavior. One-sided = the most insane, unintelligent people being used as straw-men for the host to knock down. I was not my intention to suggest that is true of the entire genre; however, it is true of my own experience with the genre.
"Like it or hate it, it's far more of what TV can't possibly be: a national forum."
See, that's why I blog. Though, in comparison, I'm more of a visual/written learner than an auditorial one; and I write significantly better than I speak. I call in to request a song, and the jockey can barely hear me because I don't actually like to talk to strangers. Amazingly enough, I'm actually really soft-spoken in person, until I get comfortable with someone. It took me nearly seven years before I could participate in a debate with my brother-in-law, because he shouts at people. Call it a quirk of mine.
Thank you for actually discussing the matter with me. I think it will/would require a few more go-rounds before I would be convinced (depending on how the rounds go), but you definitely win points for having a more sound reason than "Democrats suck at radio," which has been the typical response I've gotten.
Posted by: Stephanie | Wednesday, July 04, 2007 at 01:48 AM
Ghost,
"Oh, you must be referring to the War of Northern Aggression."
Okay, what!?! You might want to read up on history if you honestly believe that is a descriptive title. Since you're so fond of source quotes:
Now, tell me again, who was the aggressor?
"...the strength of the Federal Government has always, at root, been about Blacks and other minorities, hasn't it Stephanie?"
Is this your point of view, or are you suggesting it is mine? If you are suggesting it is my position, you are dead-on WRONG. If it is your view, then no I do not agree with you.
"The Republican Party has tapped sentiments of resentment ..."
Oh. So, it's all the Republicans' fault. Democrats had no power, whatsoever, to re-define their own image. Yeah, uh-huh, sure.
*rolls eyes*
So, if you think the Democrats are so weak-willed, why do you support them?
"Personnally, I think it is specifically the role of a Liberal Democracy TO BE a "nanny" in both the "conservative/libertarian" AND "Liberal" sense above."
And, see, that's where I guess we must disagree; the Constitution is not a "nannying" document. The Constitution was designed to protect the people from the government. That's it's purpose. It wasn't designed to protect the people from corporations. Your definition of "Liberal" does not fit the government's limits as posed in the Constitution.
Posted by: Stephanie | Wednesday, July 04, 2007 at 01:24 AM