MSNBC Has Gone Off Of The Reservation

[ICantSpellDawg]

They have lost their minds and have become as bad as Fox. What the heck is going on over there? CNBC and CNN are the only cable channels that we can watch now?

[Lemur]

My advice: Don't watch cable news. Maybe the occasional viral clip on YouTube, but that should be it.

[ICantSpellDawg]

My advice: Don't watch cable news. Maybe the occasional viral clip on YouTube, but that should be it.

I find that CNN at least attempts to get varied opinion on. To be honest, establishment is establishment because they have a track record of polling and working in administrations. I want to hear those voices in real time. Of course I go online for polling and to international sites in order to get a bigger picture of narrative, but CNN seems to do an ok job of making the primary like an interesting football game. For someone who doesn't follow sports, these are my playoffs. I remember nailing out like 100 pushups after watching the second FL debate.

[Lemur]

I don't know if [CNN] used to be better or if I'm just jaded, because I used to think they were alright.
Back when they had no competition for the 24-hour news cycle, they were pretty good. They weren't in a constant dogfight for ratings, as they are now, so they did a lot of straight-up news, and that was okay.

Now it's all about personalities and faces and the outrage of the day. Cable news has gone from Americanized BBC to more of a talk/shock radio format, and I can't stomach it. Give me my weekly Economist and a few blogs, a social news site or two and I'm good.

When I am God-Emperor of America, I will make a law that one radio station in every market must broadcast BBC World News 24/7, or suffer my wrath.

[Lemur]

It's a lot cheaper to have some faces bloviating in a studio than it is to pay people to go out and do the dirty, difficult and dangerous job of reporting world news. Moreover, the screaming heads get the ratings, so why bother with reporters? Beyond, say, a bare minimum necessary to follow politicians around the country, waiting to pounce on a gaffe.

Meh. If the cable news channels want to make themselves irrelevant, they're doing a fine job. CNN is sad, because they were once pretty good, but that was a different decade.

[PanzerJaeger]

Not even the venerable BBC is above reproach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC). Media organizations tend to attract like minded people who then often gravitate towards groupthink. Even if that groupthink emphasizes unbiased coverage, that is a form of bias. News organizations - whether they be papers, tv channels, or websites - should be viewed like polls. Taken by themselves, their stories can be biased a bit (or a lot) in one direction or the other, but if they are all saying the same thing it is probably accurate.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

The news is at its best when it is showing you something, when it's just presenting it to you. The editorializing or added insight is generally bad and unpredictably good. Of course even when it is just presentation it can be misleading...but often the silly editorializing is a clue in that regard.

[CountArach]

Eh. CNN's okay, but they don't ask the big questions. Aside from the occasional investigative special (usually on something everyone agrees about) they just outright refuse to ask the hard questions. I don't know if they used to be better or if I'm just jaded, because I used to think they were alright.
This pretty much sums up my views on CNN. I didn't mind watching some Anderson Cooper once upon a time, but the whole channel is just so bleh now.

MSNBC and Fox both make the same mistake of attempting to provide a narrative, one way or the other. I like to think that I'm intelligent enough to do without needing to hear other people's narratives. No news reporting can e narrative free, but I just wish they wouldn't insult my intelligence by being so blatant about their narratives.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Chris Matthews has a lot of flaws, but I do respect the man for his knowledge of american history. Most times when a candidate misrepresents the past, I only see Matthews calling the person out on it.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Also I imagine ICantSpellDawg is complaining about what Chris says here because he is too brainwashed by Romney propaganda.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOhE5e6p9Q4

[PanzerJaeger]

Also I imagine ICantSpellDawg is complaining about what Chris says here because he is too brainwashed by Romney propaganda.



I don't think you have to be blinded by propaganda to see that MSNBC has become just as ridiculous as Fox in its slant. I switched over tonight to watch some of the re-run of MSNBC's Florida coverage after reading this thread and was subjected to an enlightening conversation about how Newt Gingrich making fun of the president for singing was somehow a racist plot.

Matthews is fun to watch because of his knowledge and history in politics. His show is very inside baseball, which is great for the politcal junky. He does have a very clear agenda though, and that is to fight for the president (which means tearing Romney down); hence the personal, subjective attacks on Romney's character that seem so odd looking in from the non-lefty world. It's all about how rich he is and how bad that must make him and/or how terrible his personality is. :shrug:

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Oy. This is true. Its perfectly possible to watch nothing but American 24-hour Cable News and get a balanced viewpoint simply by being aware of the bias and watching more than one network. I don't believe most people are aware that the news is generally untrustworthy, though.

The difference with the Beeb is that while they can slant their reporting (and do, but not in a simplistic "Left Wing" way) it is illegal for reporters or anchors to offer opinions and present it as "news". Fox couldn't do what it does in the US here, it would be forced off air.

Murdoch tried to get the law changed, he was roundly told to take a jump off a cliff.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I've noticed in the last couple of years that they've gone out of their way to be more politically correct, but they've done it by offering more stuff to read and more opinions instead of just dumbing it down like they do here. I've got a CNN app and a BBC app on my phone, and its sometimes pretty funny to read both versions of the same story.

The major way the Beeb adds bias is by selecting the guests on News Night etc, or the way they question interviewees. This has changed noticably over the last year as Auntie has tacked to the Right for the simple reason that, well, the Right has been vindicated on a few issues - notably Euroscepticism.

[Vladimir]

PJ has it right, again, with his first post.

MSNBC has been home of the moonbat left wingers for quite a while; it is not a recent phenomenon. CNN has always been good but they've never been great. What they've been great at is giving you half the story. CNN would send up a story like "U.S. soldiers killed eight women and children" but would leave out the "after they fired RPGs at a convoy." What Fox offered, that CNN didn't, was providing details that other news organizations would leave out because it is, and always has been, about ratings. There is only so much airtime and have to choose their content.

Those people who praise BBC so much are amusing. A real case of the grass is greener. That may be true in Ireland but they're far from a paragon of journalistic integrity.

[Lemur]

Not even the venerable BBC is above reproach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC).
I don't remember saying anywhere that they were perfect and "beyond reproach." But their news organization does more-or-less what I imagine a group that has the word "news" in their name should do. I can listen to an hour of BBC radio and not hear a blessed word about celebrities or THE OUTRAGE OF THE DAY. To equate a genuine news outfit with the shock-jock radio on cable news here in the USA is pure sophistry.


What Fox offered, that CNN didn't, was providing details that other news organizations would leave out
So you are arguing, with a straight face, that what sets Fox News apart is its attention to detail? Fascinating.


Those people who praise BBC so much are amusing. A real case of the grass is greener.
Implying that we don't know about the "real" BBC? Or something else? Your arguments aren't really arguments. For what it's worth, I listen to the BBC World Service while driving. When it comes on the local NPR station it's the news highlight of my day. They have actual reporters in places reporting on actual things that are actually happening. It's an expensive line of work, one which outfits like MSNBC and Fox seem to be getting out of.

[Vladimir]

So you are arguing, with a straight face, that what sets Fox News apart is its attention to detail? Fascinating.

Where did I include anything about attention to detail?



Implying that we don't know about the "real" BBC? Or something else? Your arguments aren't really arguments. For what it's worth, I listen to the BBC World Service while driving. When it comes on the local NPR station it's the news highlight of my day. They have actual reporters in places reporting on actual things that are actually happening. It's an expensive line of work, one which outfits like MSNBC and Fox seem to be getting out of.

My arguments aren't arguments at all. You're using supposition and filling in the gaps with nonsense. Most of BBC news, isn't news in the sense they're just reporting things reported elsewhere; like this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16797075. Great, good, fascinating, but not really news at all.

I really miss BBCA evening news. You got a little bit of information with a hundredweight of condescension and arrogance. Great for motivating people like me but somewhat lacking on insight.

But what do I know? I also consider Top Gear a source of news and information: Cultural and technical.

[PanzerJaeger]

I don't remember saying anywhere that they were perfect and "beyond reproach." But their news organization does more-or-less what I imagine a group that has the word "news" in their name should do. I can listen to an hour of BBC radio and not hear a blessed word about celebrities or THE OUTRAGE OF THE DAY. To equate a genuine news outfit with the shock-jock radio on cable news here in the USA is pure sophistry.

And I don't remember equating the BBC with American cable news. My only points were that no single source is infallible given the groupthink tendencies present in all organizations, and that multiple, reputable sources usually give a more accurate picture of any given story.

[Lemur]

Where did I include anything about attention to detail?

What Fox offered, that CNN didn't, was providing details that other news organizations would leave out
Your point about why Fox News is super-awesome rested on the single word "detail." If I'm misreading, it's 'cause you're miswriting.


My arguments aren't arguments at all.
Quoted for truth.


My only points were that no single source is infallible given the groupthink tendencies present in all organizations, and that multiple, reputable sources usually give a more accurate picture of any given story.
In this we are in complete agreement. Getting news from a single source is ill-advised. I would add that making cable news a primary source of any sort is a path to madness and adult-onset idiocy.

-edit-

Just noticed:

MSNBC has been home of the moonbat left wingers for quite a while; it is not a recent phenomenon.
Given that MSNBC was only founded in 1996, and did not exist in any form previous to that, we must have a very different definition of "quite a while." Moreover, the attempt to re-cast MSNBC as a left-leaning version of Fox is usually dated to 2002–2003 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_MSNBC:_1996%E2%80%932007). Note that before it became a poor clone of Fox News, it was a poor clone of Headline News.

All of which leads back to my central premise: avoid cable news entirely.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Those people who praise BBC so much are amusing. A real case of the grass is greener. That may be true in Ireland but they're far from a paragon of journalistic integrity.

Does that include me?

The BBC is my grass, I grew up with it, I watch it every evening and most mornings, I've even watch it cover the inquiries into it's own misconduct and overspending.


I really miss BBCA evening news. You got a little bit of information with a hundredweight of condescension and arrogance. Great for motivating people like me but somewhat lacking on insight.

An Imperial Hundredweight, obviously.

I think what you considered "condescension" was actually the expectation that you, the viewer had a modicum of intelligence and "little bit" of information was not making stuff up, like Fox.


But what do I know?

Nothing about the BBC, evidently.

[Tellos Athenaios]

The BBC is pretty decent as far as a general, covers-all-the-bases new outlet goes and sometimes rather good. Though not when it comes to tech news.

[a completely inoffensive name]

hence the personal, subjective attacks on Romney's character that seem so odd looking in from the non-lefty world. It's all about how rich he is and how bad that must make him and/or how terrible his personality is. :shrug:

That's because you are not properly trying to understand the view point being presented because, no offense, you do not live in the non-lefty world, you live in the righty world. Everyone lives in one or the other to some degree, so I'm not trying to attack you or anything.

To the GOP establishment types and people who think along the same lines (such as you) these claims from Gingrich and "the left" about his wealth and work at Bain Capital seem to be odd attacks since according to conservative ideology wealth=hard work=free market.

Point that Gingrich and Mathews is making is that there is nothing wrong with being rich per se and nothing wrong with venture capitalism in itself (well, gingrich says a lot of crap, so maybe he has said that). The point is that Romney was perfectly within his right and rational to take his money and put it in off shore accounts. However, when we think of someone as a president, we think of someone who we imagine to be completely loyal to the US, a perfect patriot. Now a die hard American might hate his taxes and wish they were lower, but if someone is looking to be president, to be a role model, to be a representative of his country, don't you think it seems very shady for that man to willingly attempt paying his country as little money as possible, to point where he is literally taking his wealth out of the country to save a few % points?

Of course we should't judge someone for simply being born into wealth, Bush Sr. was born into wealth, but the rhetoric that Romney touts along here is condescending because just like I as a man sound like a idiot if were to say something like "I can understand what it is like to bear a child." Romney and his wealth makes it very obvious that he doesn't understand the trials of a poor person. He knows how to work hard no doubt and he knows about the free market and particularly venture capitalism but one thing Romney does not know, are the struggles of someone who makes 60, 50, 40k or less. There is no doubt that if he failed utterly in his free market attempts, that he would not be out on the street like the average joe.

So there in a disconnect. I have no doubt that big business execs know how the free market works and know how to get an economy working or at the very least, know to how make lots of money. But you have to link the two concerns of "what will get big business jumping up and down" with "what can the average joe tolerate". If we eliminated the minimum wage, than big business would love it! So much capital would free up! Americans can compete with chinese slave workers! Factories can open up again. But obviously, this would not be great for the average joe whose standard of living is barely met by the current minimum wage.

I don't like Romney because he doesn't "get both". He is not what I would call a "compassionate conservative". I want a compassionate conservative. But the very nature of living wealthy, which is in itself an isolating nature, makes all these "businessmen" that know about the free market incompetent imo to run the country.

That's my rant.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

So in other words, he's not "the guy you'd most want to sit down and have a beer with". Yes...I don't think he drinks at all isn't that right?

Not paying any more taxes than you have to is 100% American. Governments job to close the loopholes. Isn't he supposed to have closed a bunch when he was governor?

[a completely inoffensive name]

So in other words, he's not "the guy you'd most want to sit down and have a beer with". Yes...I don't think he drinks at all isn't that right?

Not. At. All. Sasaki. I believe you are putting words in my mouth. I am not saying he isn't personable, I am saying he is ignorant about the structure of a modern lower middle class family and the shortcuts that they must make in order to get by.



Not paying any more taxes than you have to is 100% American. Governments job to close the loopholes. Isn't he supposed to have closed a bunch when he was governor?

I disagree. If you agree with the American principle that our government is representative of the people and/or patriotic about the country, you should adhere to the intent of the law including the tax code not merely the letter of the law. If you really disagree about the American system or you are just not a patriotic person (humanity transcends nations and all that jazz) than fine, do what's logical and rational. But don't want to be Mr. President and store your capital as far away from America as possible. It's very shady imo.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Not. At. All. Sasaki. I believe you are putting words in my mouth. I am not saying he isn't personable, I am saying he is ignorant about the structure of a modern lower middle class family and the shortcuts that they must make in order to get by.

That's a large part of what people mean when they say that silly stuff about the beer. Anyway, Romney recently got flack for saying he would make the minimum wage automatically increase with inflation. That was your example of something he didn't understand, right? But why do you think he doesn't? I don't buy that you can't understand something unless you've lived it.

edit: also, he isn't personable :p


I disagree. If you agree with the American principle that our government is representative of the people and/or patriotic about the country, you should adhere to the intent of the law including the tax code not merely the letter of the law. If you really disagree about the American system or you are just not a patriotic person (humanity transcends nations and all that jazz) than fine, do what's logical and rational. But don't want to be Mr. President and store your capital as far away from America as possible. It's very shady imo.

But you do pay taxes on your overseas accounts. I thought we were talking about something else with regards to taxes.

[a completely inoffensive name]

That's a large part of what people mean when they say that silly stuff about the beer. Anyway, Romney recently got flack for saying he would make the minimum wage automatically increase with inflation. That was your example of something he didn't understand, right? But why do you think he doesn't? I don't buy that you can't understand something unless you've lived it.
Because at this point I can't trust anything he says. I want to believe that he knows pegging minimum wage to inflation is a good thing, but I can't. Have you seen the pdf I linked in the GOP Nominee thread? The one that comes from McCain's 2008 campaign staff that lists in details with many sources all his flip flops and tendencies to say one thing to the base and another to the public at large while seeming to only do while in office what seems politically expedient in the moment.

All in all, he just doesn't have that compassionate conservatism I want. He seems like a suit with a silver tongue. I'm not a city boy, but I know about those kinds of guys.



edit: also, he isn't personable :p
Well, I cut him some slack. I figure all people born into money suffer from what I call "Great Gatsby" syndrome. Dull as hell. But maybe I just didn't like the book or pay attention enough.



But you do pay taxes on your overseas accounts. I thought we were talking about something else with regards to taxes.
Yes, but why have oversees accounts in the first place. If Mr. American wants his country as strong as possible, he should make the sacrifice of placing his wealth solely in american accounts, taxed whether too high or too low according to the american tax code. A man should say "I entirely disagree with the system, but I will not legally cheat my country out of the money it says it deserves.". That I respect. Romney either has little tact or he is shady.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Because at this point I can't trust anything he says. I want to believe that he knows pegging minimum wage to inflation is a good thing, but I can't. Have you seen the pdf I linked in the GOP Nominee thread? The one that comes from McCain's 2008 campaign staff that lists in details with many sources all his flip flops and tendencies to say one thing to the base and another to the public at large while seeming to only do while in office what seems politically expedient in the moment.

"Can I trust what he says" is your metric for politicians? All politicians have their own beliefs and then they have to present themselves to the votes for their party. If they are a smart person and not an ideologue they will not match up to one of the parties exactly.

I have no interest in anybodies campaign staff propaganda sheet. Do you think he SAYS things that are expedient or that he DOES things that are expedient? You should go by what someone has done, not what they say...


All in all, he just doesn't have that compassionate conservatism I want. He seems like a suit with a silver tongue. I'm not a city boy, but I know about those kinds of guys.

Based on how he sounds or based on what he does?


Well, I cut him some slack. I figure all people born into money suffer from what I call "Great Gatsby" syndrome. Dull as hell. But maybe I just didn't like the book or pay attention enough.

I doubt that all rich people are dull :inquisitive:

When he's a poor speaker it seems like it's just because he's not good at faking sincerity. Which is a positive. McCain was the same way.



Yes, but why have oversees accounts in the first place. If Mr. American wants his country as strong as possible, he should make the sacrifice of placing his wealth solely in american accounts, taxed whether too high or too low according to the american tax code. A man should say "I entirely disagree with the system, but I will not legally cheat my country out of the money it says it deserves.". That I respect. Romney either has little tact or he is shady.

Is there a different tax rate for having it overseas?

How much does he donate to charity? Millions?

Basically this all sounds like cable news mudslinging to me. Why on earth would wealth be an automatic, strong negative? "He's out of touch, he's not like the rest of us!" :no:

[a completely inoffensive name]

"Can I trust what he says" is your metric for politicians? All politicians have their own beliefs and then they have to present themselves to the votes for their party. If they are a smart person and not an ideologue they will not match up to one of the parties exactly.
It's all relative my friend. There's your Gingrich style super slippery, non stick territory where simple statements can't even be pinned to him. Then you got your Romney maple syrup territory where it's all sticky because every kind of statement left or right has been projected onto him throughout his political career but it's still all runny and you can't make out any kind of shape from it whatsoever. Then you have your traditional politician territory, an oobleck situation where you don't know whats going on at first but once there's some actual pressure applied you get a solid sense of what he/she is going to do. Then you got varying degrees of honesty and straightforwardness until you get to your Ron Paul's brick territory, hard, unchanging but predictable.



I have no interest in anybodies campaign staff propaganda sheet. Do you think he SAYS things that are expedient or that he DOES things that are expedient? You should go by what someone has done, not what they say...

I suggest you look at the thing before you criticize it. It's 200 pages, with 190 of them being quotes from outside, independent sources both on his statements and on his actual record as Mass. Gov.



Based on how he sounds or based on what he does?
Both. His record as Mass. Gov. doesn't impress me. At all. If he was more like Pawlenty or Johnson with some of his actions, I would be fine with Romney. But he isn't.




I doubt that all rich people are dull :inquisitive:
I know that Sasaki. Just hyperbole. The most interesting man in the world is Richard Branson. Google Image his windsurfing activities to get a hit of the life of Branson.



When he's a poor speaker it seems like it's just because he's not good at faking sincerity. Which is a positive. McCain was the same way.
Well, faking sincerity properly is a positive when dealing with other countries imo, but that whole conversation will just derail this.

But a leader should be able to speak well. I am not asking for every guy to be JFK or Reagan, but again he just looks like a suit with the right words reading from a cue card.
Gingrich makes me laugh every time I hear him speak. He is so full of it yet I think he is extremely good with the populist style speeches, it is like your ego getting a dessert for every sound byte. If only he was you know...not a proven train wreck.





Is there a different tax rate for having it overseas?
My understanding is yes.



How much does he donate to charity? Millions?
$7 million over the past two years if the news I read is correct. But don't tell me you buy into the Ayn Rand Objectivist belief that charity is what should make society's social net instead of government.
I have yet to find out if that charity donation provides tax benefits to him.



Basically this all sounds like cable news mudslinging to me. Why on earth would wealth be an automatic, strong negative? "He's out of touch, he's not like the rest of us!" :no:

It's only a negative if that is all he knows. I am not convinced that he has experienced alternative lifestyles. He went from prep school to Stanford for a year, to his Mormon trip thing, back in America to BYU, then to Harvard.

Believe me, I am not trying to dismiss this man out of hand. His wikipedia page says that he lived in a "basement apartment" at one point during his studies at BYU. The wiki page links to a NYT article about his youth where the term basement apartment seems to come from Romney's own account.
"
Mr. Romney describes the time as “his glory days,” Tagg Romney said. Mitt and Ann settled into a $75-a-month basement apartment. Studying with new discipline, he graduated at the top of the humanities college. He built wading pools for his wife and son out of rocks in a nearby river."

$75 in 1969 is about $441 dollars today according to a random inflation calculator. I do not know what the housing market back in 1969 was I doubt that a $441 dollar place back when the US population was much smaller than it is today would be some basement place. It makes me think of that $10,000 bet Romney made with Rick Perry in one of the first debates, as if $10,000 was nothing to him. Again, the issue of trust arises.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Why not? If you could trust every rich person to be as generous as they could afford to be, wouldn't that be a preferable system?

No, because of the part I put in bold. Worst moment for the lower classes is when a recession/depression hits, guess who can't afford to hand out $7 million in charity anymore?

[Greyblades]

Show me a major recession/depression and I'll show you someone who took a shortcut or tried to screw the system.
This could be fun. 1930's, the great depression.

[Greyblades]

Actually they didn't. For some reason my schools never really got into history post 1870's and even then it was mostly classical history, greeks romans, egyptians, if it didnt happen before 1700 or had something to with the slave trade/industrial revoulution my classes ignored it.

It kinda sucks when you only find out your country used to rule a quarter of the world from a comedy book made for 10 year olds.

[Greyblades]

Not in the UK, it was the industrial revolution for me, and not even the good stuff like trains, we were stuck with bridges, roads, medicine, woman's sufferage, voting riots, canals and something about a lighthouse that was built offshore on a submerged reef, where they had to build a rickety second tower for the workers to live in when it got too stormy to send boats and how it nearly collapsed. Cant remeber the name of it but it was about the most interesting thing on the course, nothing insteresting to a teenager.

Kinda sucked when I found out that at the same time period we could have learned how britain had turned China into a opium cash cow, basically got massacred by, and then massacred back, an african tribe or managed to beat the stuffing out of russia even when our generals were doing dumb things like the charge of the light brigade left and right. You know, the cool and bloody parts of history.

[Greyblades]

That sounds better than what I had. I pretty much would have missed the the best parts of history if not for my own research. For a teenager, roads were boring, medicine was dreadfully dull, the trade triangle was tireing and the slave trade was just dreary. Sure history isnt rosey and there were parts that rightfully make us cringe when looking back, but it was a huge disservice to concentrate on only the boring and especially the guilt inducing parts at the expense of all the good stuff like empire, the crimea war, the napoleonic war, the breaking of the barbary pirates, the deception and conquest of India, Zulu war, Boer war, gunboat diplomacy etc. I didnt want to learn about how they created vaccines for poxy smallpox when I was fifteen, I wanted roarks drift.

[Greyblades]

Not to mention, there would be alot more kids interested in history if the only severed limbs they learned about wern't just done with bonesaws and 19th century scalpels. Kids love reading about gore and violence.

[Centurion1]

There are a plethora of reputable and debatable theories regarding why the depression occurred. From Rothbard, to Friedman, to your overspeculation theory, to the international crash being the true cause.

The theory you posit is the traditional, average american-centric theory regarding the causes of the Great Depression.

[TinCow]

Morning Joe is a good program. Intelligent discussion on the topics with opinions from both side presented in a civil manner without extremism. The rest of MSNBC is garbage, but I enjoy Morning Joe every day.

[Lemur]

Ayn Rand's theories would stand a very small chance of working if we could demonstrate that people behave rationally in their own self-interest. Sadly, every study on human behavior shows that we don't, or at minimum, cannot be depended on to make a rational decision.

People habitually vote against their own economic self-interest. People regularly make financial decisions that make low to no sense. Businesses have time and again pushed policies and practices that destroy their own long-term viability. Etcetera and so on and so forth. Human beings are not perfectible, not by Communism nor Randianism nor utopianism of any stripe. We are a fundamentally flawed species.

The best systems (regulated capitalism, representative democracy) acknowledge and exploit those flaws for the common good. That's what Adam Smith was all about, although Mr. Smith would be firmly rejected by today's rightwing Americans as a socialist, given his often-written concern for the common good and the welfare of the working class.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Ayn Rand's theories would stand a very small chance of working if we could demonstrate that people behave rationally in their own self-interest. Sadly, every study on human behavior shows that we don't, or at minimum, cannot be depended on to make a rational decision.
Ayn Rand's theories stand a very small chance of working because they're not in the self interest of any society, they fail when applied to a collective. Most human beings are not nearly as egocentric for them to fully accept these world views, and have enough sense of community/group/tribe/nation to oppose them if ever they were made the basis of policy.

Human beings do tend to behave individually in rational ways, but what economists don't tend to acknowledge is that money isn't everything here. For instance, social standing is rather hard to qualify or quantify and rarely present in economic analysis, but very much something that plays a part in people's voting habits: they will reject policy for the common good if they feel that on the whole their own position suffers as a result -- even if that means that down the line they will be worse off for it. Likewise, people tend to reject others determining their life for them, even if those others can manage it better than them; the subjective fuzzy notion of being “master of your own life” trumps what other benefits might be had.


The best systems (regulated capitalism, representative democracy) acknowledge and exploit those flaws for the common good. That's what Adam Smith was all about, although Mr. Smith would be firmly rejected by today's rightwing Americans as a socialist, given his often-written concern for the common good and the welfare of the working class.

Conversely, I expect Mr. Smith would reject the current American capitalism very much as well. He's not at all of the opinion that everything should be determined by the “free” market...

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I suggest you look at the thing before you criticize it. It's 200 pages, with 190 of them being quotes from outside, independent sources both on his statements and on his actual record as Mass. Gov.

I did look at it, it was a lame hit sheet...



Well, faking sincerity properly is a positive when dealing with other countries imo, but that whole conversation will just derail this.

But a leader should be able to speak well. I am not asking for every guy to be JFK or Reagan, but again he just looks like a suit with the right words reading from a cue card.
Gingrich makes me laugh every time I hear him speak. He is so full of it yet I think he is extremely good with the populist style speeches, it is like your ego getting a dessert for every sound byte. If only he was you know...not a proven train wreck.


No, all politicians need to do is be able to explain clearly. We'd be better off without our fascination with rhetoric.



My understanding is yes.

News article I read said that it was taxed at the same rate, that they often use offshore accounts to make it easier on foreign investors, and that there's some vague loss of money to the us from some other reason. I think the cheating comes in when you don't acknowledge that you have an offshore account.



$7 million over the past two years if the news I read is correct. But don't tell me you buy into the Ayn Rand Objectivist belief that charity is what should make society's social net instead of government.
I have yet to find out if that charity donation provides tax benefits to him.

But why claim he's a penny pincher in one case when he gives millions away? Charity donations can only be partially written off. You don't have to believe in any kind of -ism to be in favor of charity.


It's only a negative if that is all he knows. I am not convinced that he has experienced alternative lifestyles. He went from prep school to Stanford for a year, to his Mormon trip thing, back in America to BYU, then to Harvard.

Do you dismiss all male feminists? All white anti-racists?


Eh, it varies from school to school in the USA. They briefly touched on the bad stuff, but mostly it was a pretty rosey picture of history. Very little about anything outside of America, unless it was about a country we went to war with at some point--and even then, they never teach you about all the wars. I still meet people, my age, every day, who couldn't tell you when the Vietnam War was. Mind boggling.

It strikes me that history is one of the toughest subjects to teach, especially to people that start from a point of not knowing anything. How do you teach high school kids about the American Revolution?

[Lemur]

How do you teach high school kids about the American Revolution?
Show them the original Star Wars, and then tell them, "It was like that, but with muskets." Boom! Job done!

[Ironside]

That's an unfortunately defeatist attitude, in my view. I remain convinced that people are more than capable of acting better as long as they have incentive to do so. Your average American is jaded, untrusting of the establishment, untrusting of people in power, untrusting of people significantly different from them, and far less educated than they ought to be. I don't think its something you can fix with politics, but I do think its something you can fix.

There's still plenty of ideology left even with that attitude. Even if the ideal goal can't be reached, you can still try to see how far you can move towards it. It's boring, but it keeps those pesky revolutionists with their brave new world away.

[PanzerJaeger]

That's because you are not properly trying to understand the view point being presented because, no offense, you do not live in the non-lefty world, you live in the righty world. Everyone lives in one or the other to some degree, so I'm not trying to attack you or anything.

To the GOP establishment types and people who think along the same lines (such as you) these claims from Gingrich and "the left" about his wealth and work at Bain Capital seem to be odd attacks since according to conservative ideology wealth=hard work=free market.

Point that Gingrich and Mathews is making is that there is nothing wrong with being rich per se and nothing wrong with venture capitalism in itself (well, gingrich says a lot of crap, so maybe he has said that). The point is that Romney was perfectly within his right and rational to take his money and put it in off shore accounts. However, when we think of someone as a president, we think of someone who we imagine to be completely loyal to the US, a perfect patriot. Now a die hard American might hate his taxes and wish they were lower, but if someone is looking to be president, to be a role model, to be a representative of his country, don't you think it seems very shady for that man to willingly attempt paying his country as little money as possible, to point where he is literally taking his wealth out of the country to save a few % points?

Of course we should't judge someone for simply being born into wealth, Bush Sr. was born into wealth, but the rhetoric that Romney touts along here is condescending because just like I as a man sound like a idiot if were to say something like "I can understand what it is like to bear a child." Romney and his wealth makes it very obvious that he doesn't understand the trials of a poor person. He knows how to work hard no doubt and he knows about the free market and particularly venture capitalism but one thing Romney does not know, are the struggles of someone who makes 60, 50, 40k or less. There is no doubt that if he failed utterly in his free market attempts, that he would not be out on the street like the average joe.

So there in a disconnect. I have no doubt that big business execs know how the free market works and know how to get an economy working or at the very least, know to how make lots of money. But you have to link the two concerns of "what will get big business jumping up and down" with "what can the average joe tolerate". If we eliminated the minimum wage, than big business would love it! So much capital would free up! Americans can compete with chinese slave workers! Factories can open up again. But obviously, this would not be great for the average joe whose standard of living is barely met by the current minimum wage.

I don't like Romney because he doesn't "get both". He is not what I would call a "compassionate conservative". I want a compassionate conservative. But the very nature of living wealthy, which is in itself an isolating nature, makes all these "businessmen" that know about the free market incompetent imo to run the country.

That's my rant.

When I get a chance to watch Matthews' show, I try not to view it through a partisan filter - although I'm sure certain subconscious filters cannot be turned off. However, I think you may have bought into the MSNBC line without perspective: 'Romney and his wealth makes it very obvious that he doesn't understand the trials of a poor person.'

MSNBC, along with the rest of the liberal media (and I'm talking about the actual, self-declared liberal news and opinion outlets, not in the aggrieved, right-winger sense), have been pushing this line ever since it was decided that Romney was the most dangerous threat to Obama's reelection. What they never mention is that nearly every US president has been fantastically wealthy in comparison to the 'average poor person', including many that are considered scions of the common man.

The founding fathers, including our richest president (Washington), were a bunch of aristocrats, and yet they wrote documents like the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the eventual Constitution. Andrew Jackson was fabulously wealthy and also a champion of popular democracy (for US citizens, of course ~;)) The Roosevelts were American royalty long before Teddy got elected, and yet he took apart the trusts. His cousin, FDR, built the welfare state. Had Kennedy lived longer than his father, he would have inherited well over a billion dollars.

There is no connection between wealth and having no understanding or compassion for the plight of the poor and common people, despite the MSNBC narrative you have been fed. The attacks against his offshore holdings are a clear example of distorting reality to support that narrative. Anyone with a pension or IRA probably has money offshore as well. From what I know about Mormons and the Mormon faith, I would hazard a guess that Romney probably does have an understanding and compassion for poor people.

Queue an out of context sound bite from his CNN interview yesterday. :grin:

[Tuuvi]

Sasaki, if it's good for a politician to lie about his beliefs so his party will support him, does that mean that voters should just support their party of choice instead of worrying about the individual candidates?


It's only a negative if that is all he knows. I am not convinced that he has experienced alternative lifestyles. He went from prep school to Stanford for a year, to his Mormon trip thing, back in America to BYU, then to Harvard.

I'm not a Romney supporter but I am a Mormon and the "Mormon trip thing" involves quite a bit of experiencing alternative lifestyles.

[Tellos Athenaios]

There is no connection between wealth and having no understanding or compassion for the plight of the poor and common people, despite the MSNBC narrative you have been fed.

That is true. Doesn't help though when he comes out with something to the effect of “I understand what it means to be unemployed... I am unemployed, myself...” in front of people. Similarly his bought and paid for waffle about “I love America” which Lemur highlighted simply shows that he really does not get it.

It's not the lack of a job per se that has people worried, it is the lack of income that results from that. As in: in a few months water/gas/electricity/telephone might be cut off because you can't afford the bills. Likewise it's not listening to some old guy spewing mindless guff over and over again that gets people enthusiastic about America, either.

So answer this: if Romney gets all that, then why does he even bother with these gaffes? Is he actually a stand up comedian in disguise, doing it for the laughs? It's insincerity personified.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Hmm. I'm gonna reevaluate my opinion of Romney now.

[CountArach]

Can we please confine discussion of Romney/Gingrich to the GOP nomination thread? Thanks.

[Lemur]

Here's a pretty good take-down of the standard video news report. Warning, one f-bomb at 0:26, but otherwise fantastic. Note that even this sort of lazy reporting is on the decline with the three major cable news outlets in the USA; they can't be bothered to do the simple stuff. It's all talking heads all the time. Meh.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtGSXMuWMR4

-edit-

Oh, and polling caucus states is expensive and hard, so most of the news organizations aren't bothering (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/02/nevada-polls-mitt-romney-ahead-few-polls_n_1250283.html). Why should they? As I said earlier in the thread, actual reporting costs money.

Where have all the polls gone? While budgets are a factor, the main reason is the difficulty of surveying likely voters in low-turnout caucuses. [...] [W]e are also seeing fewer polls because of constrained budgets. National media and polling organizations knew that attention would focus on the first four primary and caucus states in January and spent their money accordingly. A few invested in the expensive task of surveying Iowa's likely caucus-goers using live interviewers, but in an era when many media organizations have cut back on polling, these upcoming caucus states are simply a lower priority.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I don't see why we do so many polls in the first place. All it really does is facilitate that "he's the frontrunner! So and so doesn't have a chance!" stuff.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Well, how else are you going to find out who's actually got support and who doesn't?

The primaries!!!

[CountArach]

Well, how else are you going to find out who's actually got support and who doesn't? I don't think Polls are the problem, I think the way they are reported by the mainsteam news is a problem. They're much too combative, sensationalist, and opinionated whenever a poll is presented.
Spot on. Polling is a useful way to understand public opinion and to act as a predictive factor, which is itself useful for elite opinion in terms of preparing for likely economic scenarios, etc. Polling outside of political primaries and elections is even more important, but generally less intersting. Most news outlets just use it as a way to drive their narrative.

[CountArach]

Well, how else are you going to find out who's actually got support and who doesn't? I don't think Polls are the problem, I think the way they are reported by the mainsteam news is a problem. They're much too combative, sensationalist, and opinionated whenever a poll is presented.
Spot on. Polling is a useful way to understand public opinion and to act as a predictive factor, which is itself useful for elite opinion in terms of preparing for likely economic scenarios, etc. Polling outside of political primaries and elections is even more important, but generally less intersting. Most news outlets just use it as a way to drive their narrative.