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zk
ParticipantOur president is unfortunately one of the fools falling for the propaganda on right-wing media:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/trump-fake-news/526704/
What a pathetic loser.
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi]I think it’s a combination of manipulation and personal responsibility.
Some people are more suceptible to social influences just like some people are more susceptible me to addictions and cravings. It’s a “weakness” or “disease” of the brain.
When we want to show compassion, we don’t blame people directly for their actions. We could show compassion and understanding to Trump supporters by rationalizing that growing up in the decaying rust belt must deeply affect people.
But when we want to vilify and punish people, we overlook social factors and make them wholly responsible for their situations.
The same thing can be said when taking credit for good things. Trump loves to take credit for good things and blame others for anything bad.
Notice that Trump is the same as his supporters. They suffer excessive pride and they all love to hear that they are the greatest. They take offense very easily, yet they love to be anti-PC so they can “tell it like it is” to other people. Mental weakness or social manipulation?[/quote]
You make good points. I disagree, for the most part, but I will concede that there’s a decent chance that you are correct to a significant degree. Possibly more than I am. I mean who really knows, right? Again, we’ll agree to disagree.
ParticipantIt keeps getting worse.
Threatening North Korea:
He’s just a flat out moron. He should be trying to sound firm and reasonable. Instead he’s trying to sound like a tough guy. And then he can’t even do that right. He just comes off like a 12-year-old, and a not-very-bright one at that.
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi] Where is free will and personal responsibility? … Were Nazis manipulated? Are Islamic terrorists manipulated or are they inherently evil? Are KKK klan members manipulated, or they evil?[/quote]
Those are excellent and fascinating questions. I don’t know the answers.
Consider this:
The people at Jonestown in South America who killed themselves. The branch davidians. The manson family. Or any other cult. I believe the general consensus is that those people were brainwashed. Which is just a stronger version of manipulated. I think it’s easier for us to accept that people do terrible things due to brainwashing (or manipulation) if it’s a smaller group with a clear leader. We can see exactly what happened. Well, maybe not exactly, but we can see that these people were brainwashed by this one super-charismatic leader and that that’s why they did those things. But if you have a larger and more diffuse group of brainwashed/manipulated people- fans of con man don, islamic terrorists, nazis – with a larger and more diffuse group of manipulators – right-wing media, radical imams, the nazi party and its propagandists – it seems like it’s a bit harder for us to accept that people do bad things because they’ve been manipulated. Maybe it’s hard for us to accept because it’s scary that such large groups of people can be tricked into doing terrible things. But maybe that scary possibility doesn’t make it any less likely.
(FTR, I’m not comparing the transgressions of con man don fans with those of islamic terrorists or nazis).
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi]
There has to be psychological weakness or knowledge deficiency for one to let oneself be manipulated.
[/quote]I disagree. I think that 90+% of humans are easily manipulated. Maybe you had to start out agreeing with some basic conservative ideas to be manipulated by fox et al. That’s not a weakness or knowledge deficiency. It’s just where you stand. But, if you start there, it’s not that hard to lead you toward less realistic/normal/centrist positions. And, once you’re on the bandwagon, next thing you know, you’re lapping up sean hannity’s nonsense. Just like it wouldn’t be hard to take somebody who starts on the left and make them lap up nonsense from (insert influential, prominent, nonsense-talking left-wing media figure here, if you know of one).
[quote=FlyerInHi]
Like some people are more easily manipulated by their parents, spouses or friends.[/quote]Sure, some people are even more easily manipulated than your average joe. And maybe that’s who you’re talking about above. But your average joe is pretty easily manipulated.
ParticipantJennifer Rubin, a conservative columnist, thinks that “A large segment of Republican voters” possess “abject ignorance.”
Let that sink in.
This is not how a democracy is supposed to work.
That abject ignorance doesn’t come from not watching the “news.” It comes from watching right-wing media. Right-wing media are turning our democracy into a charade where facts don’t matter and manipulation wins the day.
When I say they’re destroying our country, note the tense I use. I’m not saying they’ve destroyed it. I’m saying they’re destroying it. If the ignoratti keep voting based on the disinformation they’re receiving, we’ll continue to lose our standing in the world, we’ll continue to lose the things this country stands for, populist economic policies will make us all poorer, and, if all of this lasts long enough, we’ll go from being the greatest country in the world to being a third-rate country.
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi]Zk, why do you think the Trump base considers facts optional and truth unknowable?
1. Religion which is the suspension of critical thinking. Lots of practice right there.
2. Low IQ
3. White privilege which is basically the thinking that they are entitled to superior social and economic status no matter what.[/quote]
None of the above. I think it’s because they’ve been emotionally manipulated over the past 30 years by right-wing media (an effect amplified by sharing on social media) to think that way.
ParticipantBack to the subject at hand:
[quote=livinincali]
The study takes people that view themselves in 5 distinct categories. Very left, moderate left, middle, moderate right, and far right. It asks them what their view is of each news network. Those on on the far left had a untrustworthy view of Fox and like far right programming. The far right distrusted most news outlets to the far left. Those in the moderate categories and middle took exception with far right and far left media but most of the mainstream media was fine including regular old Fox news. If that’s not a measure of how the general public perception of bias I don’t know what is.
[/quote]
Cali, you’re the only one here debating “the general public perception of bias.” Everybody else is talking about reporting. Not perception. This has been pointed out to you several times. I’m not sure why you keep ignoring it and changing the subject back to perception.[quote=livinincali]
The fact that you take so much exception with news media on the right probably means you really probably are in the far left category. You might not view yourself as far left but relative to the general US population you probably are. That’s probably why you and some of the other posters see this asymmetrical bias you like to claim. You see yourself as the middle but don’t realize that you’re actually on the far left compared to the general population.
[/quote]You’re making a basic assumption here that is incorrect. And that assumption is that conservatives and liberals distrust the media on the “other side” for the same reason.
Let’s call this a hypothetical, just for the purposes if disproving your arguments. (For the record, to me, this is not hypothetical. This is what’s actually happening.):
What if the reporting at the NYT and WAPO are basically in the center (unbiased)? What if the reporting on most mainstream media clusters around the center? And, in this hypothetical, reporting on Fox (and, of course, Drudge, Limbaugh, etc) are heavily biased to the right. And what if liberals distrust right-wing media because it’s actually heavily biased? And what if conservatives distrust mainstream media because that’s what fox has been telling them to do for decades (a process which con man don has intensified and accelerated)?
If all of that is true, then that pew study would look exactly like it does. And mainstream media are not biased and right-wing media are. And it should be clear to you that your (completely illogical to begin with) claim that this study sheds any light on actual reporting is invalid. And it should also show you that there’s another possibility as to why I distrust right-wing media. And that is because it is actually biased, and not because of my political views.
ParticipantAnd Rubin’s comment “making differences impossible to bridge and reasoned debate nearly impossible” is very important.
It’s impossible to debate someone who is starting with a different set of “facts.” God, remember when we didn’t have to put “facts” in quotes? Con man don’s administration has taken fox’s work over the last several decades and run with it. Fox viewers were truth-challenged before, and it’s only gotten worse. How do you use logic, reason, evidence, and facts to debate someone when they’re starting with different “facts”?
ParticipantHere’s a fantastic article from Jennifer Rubin:
The whole article really is worth reading. She starts right off with:
A large segment of Republican voters should try turning off Fox News and allowing reality to permeate the shell they’ve constructed to keep out ideas that interfere with their prejudices and abject ignorance. Unfair? Take a look at the latest poll to suggest that Trump voters like their cult hero feel compelled to label inconvenient facts “fake news.” Morning Consult reporters: “A plurality of Republicans say President Donald Trump received more of the popular vote in 2016 than his Democratic rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. According to a new Morning Consult/POLITICO poll, 47 percent of Republican voters said Trump outpaced Clinton — despite her nearly 2.9 million-vote advantage after all the states certified their election results.”
Later she says:
If these voters do not know or cannot accept something as simple as vote totals, do we really expect they will be amenable to reason on immigration (sorry, but illegal immigrants aren’t causing a crime wave), global warning (sorry, it’s not a hoax) or uncontroverted evidence of Russian meddling in the election? I’m sure all this makes the Trump staff and surrogates laugh uproariously as they admire their handiwork in bamboozling the angry mob. But they and the network of right-wing enablers have done real damage to our society and politics, making differences impossible to bridge and reasoned debate nearly impossible.
Real damage to our society and politics. It’s good to see that someone agrees with me to some extent, especially an intelligent conservative.
And she’s not even counting the damage that con man don and the other cowards that the ignoratti have elected have done and will continue to do.
Participant[quote=flu]
…you would know that if you were to lower the standard, eventually those otherwise ill-prepared people would wash out/flunk out anyway, because they would be ill-prepared for the real world that demands qualified candidates. And then, you would be a in a predicament that you would have to extend that double standard beyond just college, to the workforce and on and on, creating in even more double standards.
[/quote]That is the main reason I’m against affirmative action.
[quote=flu]
…the only real way to solve this problem, is to catch the disadvantaged when they are young, and give them the necessary support for a good education, when their parents and their environment can’t. [/quote]And I totally agree that this is what we should do instead. Well put, flu.
Participant[quote=livinincali]
If you maybe read the first page of the study you’d understand how it was performed, but instead you didn’t. The funny thing is it specific talks about how those on classify themselves as far left/liberal are more likely to block or ban someone with an opposing view point.
[/quote]
Damn, cali, every time we do this, your logic fails. Regardless of the subject. Nevertheless, you persist. Good on ya.
You assume I didn’t read the study based on your erroneous conclusion that if I’d read it, I would somehow come to the same (erroneous) conclusion that you did about what the study means.
There is not a single word in that study that says anything about whether the reporting on those outlets is biased one way or the other. The entire study is about how the audiences of those outlets behave. My response to your previous post was that the study had exactly zero to do with the actual reporting by those outlets. If you can show me otherwise, bring it.
[quote=livinincali]
Pretty much exactly what you are trying to do here. Let’s ban fox news because they disagree with my view point.
[/quote]Another fail, cali. Show me where I said, discussed, implied, or hinted that I want to ban fox news.
[quote=livinincali]It talks about how people who describe themselves as liberal get information from more sources while the conservatives tend to get there news from Fox. There’s some graphs for people in the middle of the spectrum and they seem to go Fox about as much as MSNBC.
You see Fox as having some sort of oversized impact because all the hard core conservatives/right go there while the hard liberal/left spreads it around the left leaning sites. I agree that there isn’t a dominate left leaning new network that the left all gathers around but it is what it is. Just because the left doesn’t have a fox news equivalent for their view point doesn’t mean Fox is destroying the country. They just seized on an opportunity of people consuming media with a selection bias. Conservatives wanted a news channel that agreed with their view point and Fox came along and gave it too them.
[/quote]
All of that is based on your opinion that media outlets that this study says liberals watch are liberally biased. But if your evidence of that is this study, or that fox news told you so, you fail yet again.
Participant[quote=livinincali]Here’s a pew research study from 2014 that goes really in depth to the topic of how people consume media.
Seems like Fox News in general is about as far right as as liberal outlets like Huff Post, Washington Post, etc. but some of the individual programs on Fox News are extremely to the right so maybe it’s not regular old Fox news that’s so extreme in it’s bias. It’s The Sean Hannity show on Fox News and that being equated to all of Fox news.
According the the study it seemed like The Wall Street Journal is viewed as the least biased.[/quote]
You missed one thing which entirely discredits your claims of bias in the reporting of the Washington Post et. al.
That spectrum indicates the ideological profile of the audience of those outlets. It has exactly zero to do with the reporting on those outlets.
Participant[quote=sdduuuude]
Your and Harvey’s responses are disturbing. Really you aren’t arguing, just calling me out as a liar because I said I don’t watch the news but have an opinion on the bias in the media. Kind of annoying.[/quote]
I believe that you don’t watch fox news (anymore). I’m not pointing out that you claim not to watch fox news while simultaneously opining as to fox’s bias as it relates to other stations’ bias to call you out as a liar. I’m pointing it out to discredit your opinion that fox is no more nor less biased than other stations. If you don’t watch it, how can your opinion be valid?
[quote=sdduuuude]
You are just as blind to the bias of the stations that spew what you want to hear as the Fox watchers, methinks.[/quote]
If you don’t watch tv news, then how do you know what any stations are “spewing?”
I only very rarely watch tv news, and then only for the specific purpose of monitoring its bias. There is so much emotion thrown at you (even when there’s no bias), and I can’t stand that. I get virtually all my news online, and most of that from the New York Times and the Washington Post. Peerless reporting that tries to get to the bottom of things without the clear agenda of outlets like fox.
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