The All Things Political Topic - new edition

[Zoraptor]

2 hours ago, HoonDing said:

If everyone had access to that book, there'd be far fewer (extreme) right-wingers. It's so well written it makes R.A. Salvatore look like Goethe.

Dunno, I have seen plenty of objectivists like Sword of Truth; and the writing in that really does make Salvatore look like Goethe.

[Pidesco]

7 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Dunno, I have seen plenty of objectivists like Sword of Truth; and the writing in that really does make Salvatore look like Goethe.

It's not like Atlas Shrugged is any better.

[Gromnir]

5 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Remember who Guy Montag worked for after all.

deserves a second post, 'cause have mentioned previous how you misread ray bradbury's fahrenheit 451.

repeat for emphasis:

It didn't come from the Government down.
There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no!
Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick,
thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you
are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.

the wrong identified by bradbury were what led to books becoming illegal in his dystopian near future. book bans and burnings happened 'cause too many embraced wrong. happened 'cause just as many ignored or laughed off a wrong. they are all bad and is all propaganda anyways so it don't make a difference, right? obviously the solution is more guns, yes?

is a tragedy so few read fahrenheit 451 nowadays. is no less terrible when people read bradbury and then fail to learn.

HA! Good Fun!

ps in gd's defense, am gonna admit F 451 is one o' the most misrepresented and poor taught books o' the 20th century. is ez to embrace a message that book burning is bad and censorship is wrong. to delve further rare happens with 451. as a nuanced critique o' populism, mass media and the costs o' trying to make people safe, 451 has too frequent failed to resonate even amongst those who have read the work.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Gromnir

[Gorth]

Since book burning was fashionable in the 20th century... is internet burning going to be a thing in the 21th century?

 

[uuuhhii]

from madison square to kkk rally a few years ago

yes nazi exist and is the problem

[Gromnir]

4 hours ago, Gorth said:

Since book burning was fashionable in the 20th century... is internet burning going to be a thing in the 21th century?

 

could be wishful thinking. is more than a few historical examples o' opiate of the masses or bread and circus and predictable the 21st century has its novel addition with the internet becoming a source o' monolithic mind numbing infotainment which woulda' made nietzsche reassess his observation that god is dead. unfortunate, the new god o' the 21st century is a chimeric beast offering none o' the benefits which made fredrich lament the passing o' the previous western Deity o' All. late 20th century prophets o' doom were afeared o' tv. fools. they didn't realize just how trivial were their nightmares when compared to the possibilities created by a 21st century internet.

we listened to Congressmen discussing a tik tok ban in the US and sure enough a few legislators were comical ill informed or they were using their platform to promote tangential issues. even so, the collective angst from the multitudes at the thought o' the possibility o' a tik tok ban were amusing one one level but also kinda spooky. tik tok?

am not seeing any real possibility o' some kinda mass rejection o' the internet. 

would be swell if we were wrong. to see the people rise up and decide their new god needs to end in flames wouldn't be the worst thing we could imagine, but am thinking is too late for most o' the west.

HA! Good Fun!

[BruceVC]

12 hours ago, Pidesco said:

Used to be that the extreme left were organised clandestine groups who advocated for violent insurgence, with assassinations and bombings.

 

These days the extreme left appears to be people who describe as fascists groups who used to be neo nazis but discovered the suit and tie and haircuts.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

 

 

Lets try to keep  this debate about facts and historical  realities  and not big words like " overton window " that just add degrees of unnecessary confusion 

There are historical and current examples of left-wing extremist groups but they were more  prevalent in the Cold War and they include  communism/socialism/Marxism groups and anarchist groups 

This link discusses this in the US @Lexx you will find this link relevant to understand what are examples of left wing extremism 

https://www.counterextremism.com/content/far-left-extremist-groups-united-states

Antifa is also considered  a left-wing extremist group because they believe violence is acceptable

But the radical left that I often mention is not necessarily an example of left-wing extremism but they espouse radical left leanings views like defund the police and revisionist and selective history like " take down Winston Churchill's statue in the UK because he was racist " 

 But I do agree there is a current and obvious difference between right-wing extremism and left-wing extremism. The former is more violent and organised in the sense there are militia groups in the US that are aligned to right-wing extremism like KKK or Neo-Nazi

But that doesnt mean the radical left doesnt exist and it does have a pernicious and insidious influence within our various countries 

 

[BruceVC]

7 hours ago, Gorth said:

Since book burning was fashionable in the 20th century... is internet burning going to be a thing in the 21th century?

 

Isnt that already happening in China where certain websites and views are blocked within the country?

[Lexx]

8 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

 @Lexx you will find this link relevant to understand what are examples of left wing extremism 

https://www.counterextremism.com/content/far-left-extremist-groups-united-states

Antifa is also considered  a left-wing extremist group because they believe violence is acceptable

But the radical left that I often mention is not necessarily an example of left-wing extremism but they espouse radical left leanings views like defund the police and revisionist and selective history like " take down Winston Churchill's statue in the UK because he was racist " 

 But I do agree there is a current and obvious difference between right-wing extremism and left-wing extremism. The former is more violent and organised in the sense there are militia groups in the US that are aligned to right-wing extremism like KKK or Neo-Nazi

But that doesnt mean the radical left doesnt exist and it does have a pernicious and insidious influence within our various countries 

 

I just took a quick look at the link, but can't find anything really outlandish or that I would consider on par with what right-wing extremists are doing? Sure there can be violent protests, but the right is literally murdering people. All you do with this "both sides"-bs is to strengthen the right side.

PS: Defund the police is especially funny right now, since now that Trump is being hold by the balls, suddenly the right wants to defund the police.

[BruceVC]

1 minute ago, Lexx said:

I just took a quick look at the link, but can't find anything really outlandish or that I would consider on par with what right-wing extremists are doing? Sure there can be violent protests, but the right is literally murdering people. All you do with this "both sides"-bs is to strengthen the right side.

PS: Defund the police is especially funny right now, since now that Trump is being hold by the balls, suddenly the right wants to defund the police.

Yes but I have acknowledged that right-wing extremism is more established and has more resources

But thats no reason to ignore left-wing extremism like Antifa or think the radical left dont exist. We should be concerned with both types of extremism. And its not  BS to point out the reality of any group on the left or right that believes violence is acceptable

[Gorth]

"Defund the police"... all the myths and urban legends around it

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2021/05/19/7-myths-about-defunding-the-police-debunked/

Edit: For those who wants more pictures and less text, the paragraph headers. If you believe in any of these, find the matching paragraph in the site linked to

Myth #1: Defund Means Abolish
Myth #2: Defunding Will Lead to Disorder
Myth #3: Police Protect the Public From Violence
Myth #4: Community Programs Won’t Work
Myth #5: Most Police Work is Focused on Crime Prevention
Myth #6: Police Officers Do Not Need College Degrees
Myth #7: Defunding the Police is a Knee-Jerk Reaction With No Research

 

[BruceVC]

39 minutes ago, Gorth said:

"Defund the police"... all the myths and urban legends around it

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2021/05/19/7-myths-about-defunding-the-police-debunked/

Edit: For those who wants more pictures and less text, the paragraph headers. If you believe in any of these, find the matching paragraph in the site linked to

Myth #1: Defund Means Abolish
Myth #2: Defunding Will Lead to Disorder
Myth #3: Police Protect the Public From Violence
Myth #4: Community Programs Won’t Work
Myth #5: Most Police Work is Focused on Crime Prevention
Myth #6: Police Officers Do Not Need College Degrees
Myth #7: Defunding the Police is a Knee-Jerk Reaction With No Research

 

Have you researched how many states in the US have successfully implemented defund the police?
We know it was an  objective in many Democrat states and cities but its not a raised or primary  objective anymore 

Why do you think that is? I appreciate that link but its from May 2021. But now in the year 2023 how successful was that objective?

[xzar_monty]

11 hours ago, Pidesco said:

It's not like Atlas Shrugged is any better.

I agree that Atlas Shrugged is a poor book indeed but the writing is much, much better than what you see with Salvatore & co. They are not even in the same league, and I would argue that you don't even need to be erudite to recognize this.

I think Ayn Rand's best book, by far, is The Fountainhead, but even that is marred by the faults she could never get rid of, i.e. presenting her heroes and villains in such black-and-white terms that they transform from believable characters into laughable caricatures, complete lack of humour, her rather strange penchant for conceptualizing close human relations in terms of subjugation and submission, etc. I think Stephen King was exactly right in saying that although she was a "wooden-prose" writer, her strength of conviction does make her interesting, at least to a degree. The same applies to someone like Theodore Dreiser.

Salvatore, on the other hand, is just hopeless, even at the level of language. Salvatore makes writers like James Patterson and Mary Higgins Clark look decent, which is really saying something. I actually groaned when Salvatore described someone in the Icewind Dale Trilogy as "fascist". That's definitely a word you want to use in a fantasy setting, yep. Doesn't, like, exclusively allude to this real world of ours in the slightest, not even a bit.

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

Have you researched how many states in the US have successfully implemented defund the police?
We know it was an  objective in many Democrat states and cities but its not a raised or primary  objective anymore 

Why do you think that is? I appreciate that link but its from May 2021. But now in the year 2023 how successful was that objective?

Not a lot. Just enough to know that, if you want to compare results, you need something to compare it to. I found very little information from the US other than than the opposite, most communities invested more  in their police than in alternatives and crime prevention (October 16, 2022). Because having more para-military forces around just sells better on election day it seems.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/defunding-claims-police-funding-increased-us-cities/story?id=91511971

"Overwhelmingly, cities, counties, police departments across the country are not being defunded in any way," Ray said. "In fact, many of them have increased their budgets. Part of the reason why the 'defund the police' narrative has stayed around is because police officers say it and elected officials say it."

I.e. it never happened, so you can't really prove if it had or would have any effect...

I checked some Canadian results, but not a single noteworthy community even attempted alternatives (i.e. prevention, counseling, community projects etc.). Don't get me started on my own little corner of the world, where it's hard to shake the feeling, that the federal police are the Sturmtruppen of the conservative party (the Australian Liberal Party). There is a decade of other, more pressing mess(es) that needs cleaning up before getting anywhere even near some much needed police reforms

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commission_into_Aboriginal_Deaths_in_Custody

(yes, that's almost 500 people dying in their cells)

 

Edit: It's not really a surprise, that one of the last two conservative state PM's got kicked out of NSW in the last election. Some gratifying humiliations too in some local NSW by-elections, flipping colours in areas that had been staunchly conservative for like half a century. Only one conservative state PM left in Tasmania. Let's see if it lasts.

[xzar_monty]

5 minutes ago, Gorth said:

I found very little information from the US other than than the opposite, most communities invested more  in their police than in alternatives and crime prevention (October 16, 2022). Because having more para-military forces around just sells better on election day it seems.

Essentially the same goes for the War on Drugs: there is overwhelming evidence that it is extremely counterproductive and that an awful lot of misery, crime and waste of human resources could be avoided simply by spending all those huge sums of money in a more humane way, but it just doesn't happen, quite possibly because being punitive "sells better on election day it seems".

The Canadian doctor Gabor Maté has a book called In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction. It's good, but the view it gives you of the North American approach is really quite depressing.

[BruceVC]

13 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Not a lot. Just enough to know that, if you want to compare results, you need something to compare it to. I found very little information from the US other than than the opposite, most communities invested more  in their police than in alternatives and crime prevention (October 16, 2022). Because having more para-military forces around just sells better on election day it seems.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/defunding-claims-police-funding-increased-us-cities/story?id=91511971

"Overwhelmingly, cities, counties, police departments across the country are not being defunded in any way," Ray said. "In fact, many of them have increased their budgets. Part of the reason why the 'defund the police' narrative has stayed around is because police officers say it and elected officials say it."

I.e. it never happened, so you can't really prove if it had or would have any effect...

I checked some Canadian results, but not a single noteworthy community even attempted alternatives (i.e. prevention, counseling, community projects etc.). Don't get me started on my own little corner of the world, where it's hard to shake the feeling, that the federal police are the Sturmtruppen of the conservative party (the Australian Liberal Party). There is a decade of other, more pressing mess(es) that needs cleaning up before getting anywhere even near some much needed police reforms

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commission_into_Aboriginal_Deaths_in_Custody

(yes, that's almost 500 people dying in their cells)

 

Edit: It's not really a surprise, that one of the last two conservative state PM's got kicked out of NSW in the last election. Some gratifying humiliations too in some local NSW by-elections, flipping colours in areas that had been staunchly conservative for like half a century. Only one conservative state PM left in Tasmania. Let's see if it lasts.

Yes, you make some good points here and my research and every interview I have ever listened to reveals the same outcome. Defund the police was never implemented properly or it has been abandoned but there is reason it has been abandoned 

It created real problems with police budgets being cut and police were retrenched in certain Democratic controlled cities. For some advocates of Defund the police I believe they were genuinely well meaning with the objective that budgets cut could be allocated to other city projects that could help with crime prevention 

But that wasnt the outcome and crime  increased in the US in most of  these cities that tried to implement these changes  so irrespective of the reasons it failed because citizens felt less unsafe. So its not just politicians saying " defund the police is bad " it had  real consequence on levels of crime that were attributed towards it 

Here is a last link about this, it highlights many of the systemic failures with the overall program

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/07/20/democratic-mayors-defunded-their-police-while-spending-millions-on-their-own-police-protection/?sh=4fd3018d86b4

And I know we wont agree on this but its unfair to call the US police a paramilitary force. But I am not  suggesting that police shouldn't be held accountable around there actions and illegal police activity must obviously be prosecuted 

[Zoraptor]

50 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

I agree that Atlas Shrugged is a poor book indeed but the writing is much, much better than what you see with Salvatore & co. They are not even in the same league, and I would argue that you don't even need to be erudite to recognize this.

Yeah, Ayn Rand is technically a decent enough writer, her problem is that she was writing, basically, religious texts for her personal philosophy ie Objectivism. If you love Objectivism you tend to think her writing is fabulous because you like the content and excuse any technical limitations, if you don't like objectivism it's the reverse and you think it's rubbish written terribly.

Quote

 

Salvatore, on the other hand, is just hopeless, even at the level of language. Salvatore makes writers like James Patterson and Mary Higgins Clark look decent, which is really saying something. I actually groaned when Salvatore described someone in the Icewind Dale Trilogy as "fascist". That's definitely a word you want to use in a fantasy setting, yep. Doesn't, like, exclusively allude to this real world of ours in the slightest, not even a bit.

 

There's a lot of language in fantasy writing which is inevitably, um, anachronistic Any wording based on real world figures like odyssey, herculean*, sadism, caesarian or idioms based on real world things that doesn't exist in that fantasy world. It'd be pretty difficult to write any novel of length wholly without using such terms, even if you were careful.

*kind of weird really, they're both Greek but we use the latinised Hercules/ Ulysses in general for the people, but while an arduous task is herculean a long trip is an odyssey rather than a ulyssey...

[xzar_monty]

20 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

There's a lot of language in fantasy writing which is inevitably, um, anachronistic Any wording based on real world figures like odyssey, herculean*, sadism, caesarian or idioms based on real world things that doesn't exist in that fantasy world. It'd be pretty difficult to write any novel of length wholly without using such terms, even if you were careful.

This is true, no question. However, I wonder if you agree that there are definite degrees to how much words like this tend to jar in fantasy settings. (And if not, fine.) I find "fascist" particularly jarring, probably because it's so recent, unlike the words you list (except sadism). It's also a question of application, i.e. placement and context matter. For me, Salvatore was groan-inducingly Salvatorean in his usage of the word "fascist", it just made me think that he doesn't know what he's doing, especially because pretty much all the rest of the book also made me think he doesn't know what he's doing.

Just for comparison, I haven't found anything in Tolkien that would bother me in this particular sense. Not a word, literally.

Edited April 18, 2023 by xzar_monty

[Gorth]

58 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Essentially the same goes for the War on Drugs: there is overwhelming evidence that it is extremely counterproductive and that an awful lot of misery, crime and waste of human resources could be avoided simply by spending all those huge sums of money in a more humane way, but it just doesn't happen, quite possibly because being punitive "sells better on election day it seems".

The Canadian doctor Gabor Maté has a book called In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction. It's good, but the view it gives you of the North American approach is really quite depressing.

My first "real life" encounter with drugs was rather personal. Two relatives I grew up with (technically my mothers half-uncles, don't ask, complicated) who were 2-4 years older than me were for years my de facto older brothers. One died from a heroin overdose and the other got killed in a drug deal gone bad. My first encounter with drama/media on the subject was an old German movie (an auto-biography) called "Christiane F - Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo". It may not be shocking today, as viewers are likely desensitized by todays entertainment, but as a drama-documentary it sure was in 1981. It was mandatory viewing in one of the classes in highschool. I'm (or was, it's 40 years ago) unfortunately quite familiar with the seedier side of society, as a result never really felt any desire to read up more on the subject....

[xzar_monty]

16 minutes ago, Gorth said:

I'm (or was, it's 40 years ago) unfortunately quite familiar with the seedier side of society, as a result never really felt any desire to read up more on the subject....

I understand. One of the problems with the War on Drugs is that many of the policy choices are made by people who prefer to remain unaware of the kind of circumstances some people have to deal with on the seedier side of society. I mean, if your childhood experience contains plenty of fatherly rape and spitting upon (this example directly from Maté's book), then you're likely to enter young adulthood in a state of constant and serious suffering, which means that your capacity for sound judgement is seriously impaired, which means that if there's a strong bodymind anaesthetic available, your chances of trying it and becoming addicted to it are going to be quite high. As you well know, a vast proportion of people with drug problems are people who were dealt an awful hand long before they had a drug problem, but as things like this would require multi-level intervention, the punitive approach is a lot easier, even if it ends up wasting more resources and producing more suffering than the alternative.

All in all, I think it's heartbreaking. It's yet another sad example of the Matthew principle in action.

Edited April 18, 2023 by xzar_monty

[Gfted1]

Causes of Crime - Explaining Crime, Physical Abnormalities, Psychological Disorders, Social And Economic Factors, Broken Windows, Income And Education - JRank Articles

The desire for material gain (money or expensive belongings) leads to property crimes such as robberies, burglaries, white-collar crimes, and auto thefts.

Some social factors pose an especially strong influence over a person's ability to make choices. Drug and alcohol abuse is one such factor. The urge to commit crime to support a drug habit definitely influences the decision process.

SEE! If we gave everyone UBI and UFD we could greatly reduce crimes and the prison population.

[BruceVC]

17 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Causes of Crime - Explaining Crime, Physical Abnormalities, Psychological Disorders, Social And Economic Factors, Broken Windows, Income And Education - JRank Articles

 

 

 

 

SEE! If we gave everyone UBI and UFD we could greatly reduce crimes and the prison population.

Whats UFD, Universal Free Drugs?

[Gfted1]

27 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Whats UFD, Universal Free Drugs?

Yep exactly.

[BruceVC]

13 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Yep exactly.

So you talking about crack cocaine being free then people wouldnt commit crimes to feed there habit? There is an argument to that logic 

[Malcador]

Downside to lots of armed people, I guess. 

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/18/1170593395/kaylin-gillis-new-york-driveway-kevin-monahan

https://www.kcur.org/live-updates/ralph-yarl-kansas-city-shooting-protest