0
   

Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

 
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2004 09:25 am
And for those following the pattern...in his talk to Muslims regarding the torture of Iraq prisoners, Bush did not say what words?
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2004 09:26 am
In God we trust?
0 Replies
 
McGentrix
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2004 09:26 am
"Bring it on"?
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2004 09:33 am
Nope...good guesses, though. And nothing like "god that tickles my nose!" either.
0 Replies
 
John Webb
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2004 09:42 am
"***CAN ANYONE IMAGINE BUSH'S FATHER INSISTING THAT HE WOULD SUBMIT TO QUESTIONING ONLY IN THE PRESENCE OF DAN QUAYLE?*** NY Times"

Or Bill Clinton insisting that he would submit to questioning only in the presence of Monica? Laughing
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2004 09:49 am
It takes extremes to sometimes explain why the Bush-Cheney joined-at-the-hips meeting with the 9-11 commission is filled with so much comedy and jokes about parrots.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2004 09:54 am
Satire of the light and bright sort...nobody does it better than this fellow. The context is a class reunion. Dems and Republicans are cleanly divided into two groups...

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2004/db040506.gif
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2004 10:12 am
Quote:
Two weeks ago, 60 Minutes II received an appeal from the Defense Department, and eventually from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, to delay this broadcast -- given the danger and tension on the ground in Iraq.

60 Minutes II decided to honor that request, while pressing for the Defense Department to add its perspective to the incidents at Abu Ghraib prison. This week, with the photos beginning to circulate elsewhere, and with other journalists about to publish their versions of the story, the Defense Department agreed to cooperate in our report.


And, as we know from the New Yorker, investigations began in February. But Bush got his first inkling watching the tellie. The commander in chief then demonstrated his resoluteness and on-top-of-it leadership by...'chiding' Rummie. What a fella. What a leader.
0 Replies
 
hobitbob
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2004 10:15 am
And what did he "chide" him about? Wanna bet it was about letting the info go public?
0 Replies
 
Ethel2
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2004 10:31 am
Scrat wrote:
Quote:
Quote:
...Michael Moore has finished his latest documentary...

Moore doesn't make documentaries, he creates fiction out of footage from real life. There's a big difference.

Of course, that difference is wasted on liberals.


What's the matter Scrat? Have you never heard of the New Journalism? Tom Wolfe, you know.....
0 Replies
 
Scrat
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2004 11:59 am
blatham wrote:
Scrat wrote:
Quote:
...Michael Moore has finished his latest documentary...

Moore doesn't make documentaries, he creates fiction out of footage from real life. There's a big difference.

Of course, that difference is wasted on liberals.


Danged liberals anyway! Differences wasted all over the place. Much preferable they get the goods on what is like what, and what isn't like what from Rush, who has just described the torture of Iraq prisoners as like "a college fraternity prank."

Yeah, there's no grey area between Moore and Rush. Choose one or the other. That's what I wrote. Yup. Rolling Eyes <straw man alert>

And let's be real. What happened was despicable, but forcing naked men into a pile and humiliating them is not "torture". Torture is what Saddam and his henchmen did; driving nails into someone's head, lowering people feet-first into industrial shredders.... I'm not aware of a single report that suggests anyone was physically harmed, even slightly. You and yours call it "torture" because of your bias, not because anyone was tortured.

What happened was in fact very much analogous to a college prank; a bad one. College pranks shouldn't happen in a military prison. The idiots who did this screwed up badly, but they didn't "torture" anyone.

AND FOR THE RECORD, you clearly listen to Rush far more than I do. I have to take your word on his "college prank" comment, since I might catch 20 minutes of Rush every other week. So get a new complaint. Maybe one based on reality? (Just a thought.)
0 Replies
 
Craven de Kere
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2004 12:03 pm
Scrat wrote:
And let's be real. What happened was despicable, but forcing naked men into a pile and humiliating them is not "torture".

What happened was in fact very much analogous to a college prank; a bad one. College pranks shouldn't happen in a military prison. The idiots who did this screwed up badly, but they didn't "torture" anyone.


Scrat, you may not be aware of the sum of the charges.

Some were beaten to death and then had their bodies dumped. Some of these incidents the military itself ruled murders.

Some men were sodomized with tubes and sticks.

What constitutes "torture" for you? For example, does being beaten till you are dead qualify as "torture"?
0 Replies
 
hobitbob
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2004 12:04 pm
Quote:
And let's be real. What happened was despicable, but forcing naked men into a pile and humiliating them is not "torture". Torture is what Saddam and his henchmen did; driving nails into someone's head, lowering people feet-first into industrial shredders.... I'm not aware of a single report that suggests anyone was physically harmed, even slightly. You and yours call it "torture" because of your bias, not because anyone was tortured.

Are you insane, or just an idiot? The army's own report talks about incidents of prisoners being beaten, sodomized with chem lights and broom handles, forced to masturbate into each other's mouths, and even killed, with attempts made to "cover up" the death. If you don't consider this torture then you really need to seek psychiatric help.
0 Replies
 
Scrat
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2004 12:08 pm
Lola wrote:
Scrat wrote:
Quote:
Quote:
...Michael Moore has finished his latest documentary...

Moore doesn't make documentaries, he creates fiction out of footage from real life. There's a big difference.

Of course, that difference is wasted on liberals.


What's the matter Scrat? Have you never heard of the New Journalism? Tom Wolfe, you know.....

What you call "the new journalism" I call "propaganda".

You'd call it that too, but for the fact that you agree with it. (Doesn't that strike you as fundamentally wrong?)
0 Replies
 
Thomas
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2004 12:14 pm
blatham wrote:
Validity IS important, but it seems to me surely best achieved (even established) via a JS Mill 'marketplace of ideas' context.

I agree. And the last time I read him, John Stuart Mill advocated freedom of speech and the press, but not government regulation to enhance diversity.

blatham wrote:
But I'll wager you allow for some state controls on monopoly in business or technological development.

As an abstract matter, I do "allow for" it. But as a matter of practice, I can't think of any specific anti-trust regulation I currently approve of.

blatham wrote:
And though the desired end isn't diversity itself, it is diversity that forwards the liklihood of whatever ends you have in mind.

That's false. The end I have in mind is that as many people as possible get to watch the news channels they like best. When Fox is locked out to make room for the diversity-enhancing Gay Tree-Huggin Terrorist Channel, the likelyhood of this end is not forwarded.

blatham wrote:
But it doesn't tell the whole story, because it doesn't acknowledge monopolies - or uniquely priviledged positions- which might function to reduce diversity.

I agree. And that's why I disapprove of government institutions who meddle with the media. You cannot give the Canadian government the power to preserve the French part of Canada's heritage without also giving it the power to pander to their cronies Jeb Bush style. You and I agree that it's despiseable if the Florida state government is giving Disney reason to think it will lose government favors if it publishes a critical Michael Moore film. The difference is in our solutions: Your solution is that the conservative bully be replaced by a liberal bully. My solution is to take away from the Florida state government the power to bully media companies with pork.

blatham wrote:
If I correctly understand US and European government complaints against Microsoft, a part of those complaints pointed to the strategies MS had implemented which sought to place their products in a uniquely privledged position. Do you grant no substance to these complaints as regards likely negative consequences arising?

I think there's a lot of substance to those complaints, and I frequently make such complaints myself. The problem is I don't trust government to make things better. Government is itself a monopolist which seeks to place its products in a uniquely priviledged position. Hence, putting government in charge of curbing monopoly power is putting the fox (no pun intended) in charge of the henhouse.

blatham wrote:
Dick Cheney gave a speech saying he didn't watch network news other than Fox, which, he said his experience showed, gave the most truthful rendition of things.

So Dick Cheney's has a different idea of what a good news channel is than you and I do -- and acted on this idea. What's the problem? How did that infringe on our right to ignore Fox?

blatham wrote:
But, when you get to Alterman's book, you'll get a notion of how much money and design lies behind Republican/conservative moves to control TV, radio and print press, precisely because of their priviledged postion and influence.

Now the question is, does government regulation of the press help or hurt this trend? From where I sit, it looks as though American legislators are using government power to strengthen conservative media monopolies, and I don't like it. But these are precisely the institutions you defend -- except that they're run by people you disagree with.

blatham wrote:
Picking a morning paper to read, when your options are Pravda One, Pravda Two, Pravda Three and Pravda Four, isn't much of a choice.

1) Pravda used to be a government sponsored newspaper, and the government sponsoring it gave it a lot of what you call "cultural protection". Especially against capitalist foreign media like the (to its mind) ultra-conservative "Voice of America".

2) There's a lot of newspapers and TV channels out there. Even if Murdoch had 90% market share, which he doesn't, the other 10% would still leave liberals with plenty of news sources to choose from. If newpapers shift to the right, that's because people want to read more conservative newspapers -- not because liberal newspapers have become less available to those who want to read them.

blatham wrote:
You assume two things here: TV is less diverse than print, and the cause of this is a greater quantity of regulation over TV.

The first is something I observe, and the second is a plausible, though not compelling conclusion from my observation. To run with your example, I agree there are more porn channels than porn newspapers -- but that's because porn works better in magazines than in newspapers, and the number of porn magazines is practically infinite.

blatham wrote:
But it wouldn't be accurate at all to attribute that difference to regulations. Susceptibility to advertiser preference and demands, and the sound-bite nature of TV are the more proper culprits here.

Why not, and why?
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2004 09:30 pm
Quote:
blatham wrote:
Validity IS important, but it seems to me surely best achieved (even established) via a JS Mill 'marketplace of ideas' context.

I agree. And the last time I read him, John Stuart Mill advocated freedom of speech and the press, but not government regulation to enhance diversity.


He added something new last Tuesday. Of course, even though a work such as On Liberty might contain seminal notions and broad truths, it isn't necessarily entailed that the work is either correct or complete in all eventualities.


Quote:
blatham wrote:
And though the desired end isn't diversity itself, it is diversity that forwards the liklihood of whatever ends you have in mind.

That's false. The end I have in mind is that as many people as possible get to watch the news channels they like best. When Fox is locked out to make room for the diversity-enhancing Gay Tree-Huggin Terrorist Channel, the likelyhood of this end is not forwarded.


Damn. I can't get that one here. You know, I really do consider you too absolutist on this matter. By 'too', I mean I think you hold it as an axiomatic truth about proper governance. Obviously I don't. Mandatory seatbelt legislation, for example, I thing results in more positive real good for the community at large than does the lack of it, reduction in choice (choice, we agree, is preferable) notwithstanding. How about curricula? Will students/education/your institution be better served with absolute choice in courses and in assignments?

Quote:
I agree. And that's why I disapprove of government institutions who meddle with the media. You cannot give the Canadian government the power to preserve the French part of Canada's heritage without also giving it the power to pander to their cronies Jeb Bush style.


Pandering to cronies is clearly not eradicated or even lessened by relying on the private sector.

Quote:
You and I agree that it's despiseable if the Florida state government is giving Disney reason to think it will lose government favors if it publishes a critical Michael Moore film. The difference is in our solutions: Your solution is that the conservative bully be replaced by a liberal bully. My solution is to take away from the Florida state government the power to bully media companies with pork.


By pure definition, conservative bully is a more coherent notion than liberal bully, though you likely won't buy that one. It's a tad like saying "he's an idealogue about open-mindedness". But I certainly grant you the sentiment of your last sentence.

Quote:
blatham wrote:
If I correctly understand US and European government complaints against Microsoft, a part of those complaints pointed to the strategies MS had implemented which sought to place their products in a uniquely privledged position. Do you grant no substance to these complaints as regards likely negative consequences arising?

I think there's a lot of substance to those complaints, and I frequently make such complaints myself. The problem is I don't trust government to make things better. Government is itself a monopolist which seeks to place its products in a uniquely priviledged position. Hence, putting government in charge of curbing monopoly power is putting the fox (no pun intended) in charge of the henhouse.


I too have had experiences with civic officials who, by their behavior, might as well have stuck one hand inside their jacket and set a painting of Empress Josephine on their cubicle desk. But I'm not asking government to be perfect. I do trust government to help make things better. Well, I don't really 'trust' them to, but expect them to, and consider there is much evidence they can. Workplace safety, for example. Professional or trade policing boards are notoriously self-serving and can't be counted on. Ten or fifteen years into the twentieth century, New York city was a hell hole for most everyone living/working there. It was government-established agencies and regulations which not only enforced humane regard for workers, but which (as these moved into the New Deal) ushered in the most productive and innovative period in american history.

Quote:
blatham wrote:
Dick Cheney gave a speech saying he didn't watch network news other than Fox, which, he said his experience showed, gave the most truthful rendition of things.

So Dick Cheney's has a different idea of what a good news channel is than you and I do -- and acted on this idea. What's the problem? How did that infringe on our right to ignore Fox?


I noted this speech, along with the nearly word-for-word duplication in another speech the same weekend from Ralph Reed, to point to an instance of an attempt by RNC or affiliates to effectively minimize diversity (it's an explicit strategy, but that's a big conversation), rather like encouraging folks to drop out of school and get all their learning from the bible. No infringement on my choice is claimed here. But as we know, I don't consider this the only criterion of import.

Quote:
blatham wrote:
But, when you get to Alterman's book, you'll get a notion of how much money and design lies behind Republican/conservative moves to control TV, radio and print press, precisely because of their priviledged postion and influence.

Now the question is, does government regulation of the press help or hurt this trend? From where I sit, it looks as though American legislators are using government power to strengthen conservative media monopolies, and I don't like it. But these are precisely the institutions you defend -- except that they're run by people you disagree with.


Again, there is a difference between legislating towards multiplicity and legislating towards singularity. It isn't the legislating itself that is the problem. Government legislators in the US are presently attempting to dismantle (and are dismantling) various controls designed to foster multiple voices. The most recent attempt by Powell at the FCC to remove controls on ownership (breadth of) was probably only stopped/delayed because of a huge outpouring of citizen complaint (a rare and fortunate occurence). The present situation is coincident NOT with initiated legislation, but the removal of it.

Quote:
2) There's a lot of newspapers and TV channels out there. Even if Murdoch had 90% market share, which he doesn't, the other 10% would still leave liberals with plenty of news sources to choose from. If newpapers shift to the right, that's because people want to read more conservative newspapers -- not because liberal newspapers have become less available to those who want to read them.


People ought to be free to get what they want, absolutely? Craven wants nukes. But I'll again bring up curricula. I expect you've already taken me to task for the paternalism of this example, and the slippery slope dilemma that attends it, and I acknowledge both those dangers. But I think we can't escape them. I consider it a romanticism that human societies will function most ably, or most justly, when freed from controls in the same way that I think it romantic and false to assume a school would function most ably when freed from all curricula controls and demands..."I'll have five blocks of football, if you please."

Quote:
And again -- newspapers and websites, where the regimen is practically complete laissez-faire, show much more diversity than TV, which is quite tightly regulated. What does that tell you about the relative desirability of the two regimens?

blatham wrote:
But it wouldn't be accurate at all to attribute that difference to regulations. Susceptibility to advertiser preference and demands, and the sound-bite nature of TV are the more proper culprits here.

Why not, and why?


I should have added...and to the shift towards media outlets increasingly being owned/controlled by conglomerates. It is a commonplace notion, repeated by no small number of professionals who have worked in TV news departments since the 50's and 60's (eg Kronkite, Bill Moyers, Dan Rather, etc) that the nature and function of TV news rooms have changed over the years as new corporate owners have demanded that the news portions of the enterprise contribute to income production in the same manner as a sit com. That was not previously the case. Previously, newsrooms were considered something of a public service function of a broadcaster, and were exempt from demands to form content and style with 'pull in the audience, pull in the dollars' demands. These fellas do know what they are talking about, and I grant their words a logically valid degree of authority. My own viewing experience supports the contention.
0 Replies
 
Thomas
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 May, 2004 02:16 am
blatham wrote:
Of course, even though a work such as On Liberty might contain seminal notions and broad truths, it isn't necessarily entailed that the work is either correct or complete in all eventualities.

Yes. But J.S. Mill did cover the eventuality which you said matters here: monopoly power. Not in On Liberty, but in his economic writings. Economies of scale in printing newspapers were larger in his time than in ours. This suggests he considered the argument you made, and would have included it in On Liberty if he'd found it persuasive. He didn't.

blatham wrote:
Mandatory seatbelt legislation, for example, I thing results in more positive real good for the community at large than does the lack of it, reduction in choice (choice, we agree, is preferable) notwithstanding. How about curricula? Will students/education/your institution be better served with absolute choice in courses and in assignments?

Government intervention on paternalistic grounds can be fine with me if we know that government knows better what's good for the people affected than those people do. This merits some intervention on behalf of insane people and of children, but not of grown-ups acting of their own free will. That said, I reject your seatbelt example -- if grown-ups in cars think they are better off without seatbelts, and grown-ups in government think they're better off with them, I trust the car driver's judgment over the government's.

Your curriculum example is fine with me as far as it goes, if schools are run by the government. But I would prefer it if curricula were set directly by the schools, and if the parents had more of a say in it.

blatham wrote:
Pandering to cronies is clearly not eradicated or even lessened by relying on the private sector.

I think you have to distinguish between the state of being deregulated and the process of deregulating. The process of deregulating is ripe with pandering to cronies, because it allows the government to trade preferential deregulation for friendly coverage by the media companies being deregulated. By contrast, the state of being deragulated clearly reduces pandering because the government has nothing to pander with.

blatham wrote:
By pure definition, conservative bully is a more coherent notion than liberal bully, though you likely won't buy that one. It's a tad like saying "he's an idealogue about open-mindedness".

That would be a valid point if "liberal" still meant what it used to mean in J.S. Mill's lifetime. It doesn't anymore, and the trade-unionist, environmentalist, anti-globalization liberals strike me as no more open-minded than Rush Limbaugh. I really think you're succumbing to the fallacy of "bullies aren't bullies if they're on my side" here.

blatham wrote:
I do trust government to help make things better. Well, I don't really 'trust' them to, but expect them to, and consider there is much evidence they can.

As a German with a sense of recent history, I'm afraid I cannot agree with that.

blatham wrote:
Ten or fifteen years into the twentieth century, New York city was a hell hole for most everyone living/working there.

I don't buy that, given the millions of migrants who chose to settle in New York when they couldn't have settled everywhere else in the world -- or stayed at home, for that matter. This revealed prefeference is strong reason to believe that New York City was not a hell holes in the judgment of the people involved.

blatham wrote:
It was government-established agencies and regulations which not only enforced humane regard for workers, but which (as these moved into the New Deal) ushered in the most productive and innovative period in american history.

No. Working conditions improved dramatically during England's period of laissez-faire, ca. 1840-1910. They improved dramatically in America even before the Progressive Era, which was also close to laissez-faire. Safer workplaces are a consequence of technical progress just like faster cars and bigger houses, and they emerged independently of increased regulation. I challenge you to find evidence that working conditions increased more in countries with more regulations, other things being equal. I'd be very surprised if you found much.

blatham wrote:
People ought to be free to get what they want, absolutely? Craven wants nukes.

As long as they don't infringe on the equal rights of others, yes. If Craven want's nukes, that's reason to believe he wants to infringe on some of my rights, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of nukes by myself. The situation in the press is different. Fox's right to broadcast what it wants, where it wants, and my right to watch Fox wherever I want, don't infringe on your right to watch CNN. There is no lump of media outlets, and one more conservative news channel doesn't mean one less liberal news channel. Even if *all* TV stations were Fox, which they aren't, that doesn't stop you from starting up your own TV station, and it doesn't stop me from watching it.

blatham wrote:
new corporate owners have demanded that the news portions of the enterprise contribute to income production in the same manner as a sit com. That was not previously the case.

Maybe not in TV. But it has been that way in the press for at least 200 years, and the regimen has produced decent reporting for those who wanted to read it. This is reason to distrust your sources' reasoning.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 May, 2004 02:35 am
Thomas wrote:
No. Working conditions improved dramatically during England's period of laissez-faire, ca. 1840-1910.


I suggest, you visit the People's History Museum in Manchester :wink:
0 Replies
 
Thomas
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 May, 2004 04:56 am
Walter Hinteler wrote:
Thomas wrote:
No. Working conditions improved dramatically during England's period of laissez-faire, ca. 1840-1910.


I suggest, you visit the People's History Museum in Manchester :wink:

I'm sure they show working conditions that look awful to us. After all, England in 1850 was about 10-15 times poorer than industrialized countries are today. But I'm just as sure that working conditions in 1900 were a lot less awful than they were in 1850. I would be very surprised if this museum showed any evidence suggesting otherwise. I would be just as surprised if they had evidence that English working conditions were worse in the 19th century than Indian working conditions were in 1990 -- which is the appropriate comparison, given that India was then a socialist democracy of about the same wealth as 19th century England.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 May, 2004 08:12 am
Quote:
blatham wrote:
Of course, even though a work such as On Liberty might contain seminal notions and broad truths, it isn't necessarily entailed that the work is either correct or complete in all eventualities.

Yes. But J.S. Mill did cover the eventuality which you said matters here: monopoly power. Not in On Liberty, but in his economic writings. Economies of scale in printing newspapers were larger in his time than in ours. This suggests he considered the argument you made, and would have included it in On Liberty if he'd found it persuasive. He didn't.


Please refrain from publicly trumping my knowledge.

Quote:
Government intervention on paternalistic grounds can be fine with me if we know that government knows better what's good for the people affected than those people do. This merits some intervention on behalf of insane people and of children, but not of grown-ups acting of their own free will. That said, I reject your seatbelt example -- if grown-ups in cars think they are better off without seatbelts, and grown-ups in government think they're better off with them, I trust the car driver's judgment over the government's.


I don't, any longer. What turned me around on this one was an interview I heard with an Australian doctor who ran a serious back injury clinic (his own enterprise). When mandatory seat belt legislation was instituted in his country, his business dropped by over 70%. He had no disagreement with the instituted legislation, because of the reduction in real suffering (often, ruined lives) for the individuals and families affected. That, compared against the minimal, even trivial, incursion on self-determination, suggested to me that though the principle of maximal self-determination was a fundamental positive, if held absolutely, we can end up with a consequence which is detrimental overall. I reject your rejection. Nyah nyah.

Quote:
Your curriculum example is fine with me as far as it goes, if schools are run by the government. But I would prefer it if curricula were set directly by the schools, and if the parents had more of a say in it.


I'm not sure why the source of curricula would be relevant to my point. In either case, government mandated or local board/local school mandated, the result is the same...the student is not the chooser. Even where we have fully mature adults enrolled in an institution, such is the case, and for the good reasons you surely appreciate. There seems to me to be two aspects to this; first, many subject areas require a sequential/cumulative series of understandings (adding/subtracting must be learned before multiplication, etc), and second, whomever establishes the curriculum makes decisions regarding desired breadth and depth of learning from the institution. The first is unavoidable, the second more rubbery. But other-determinism reigns.

Quote:
blatham wrote:
Pandering to cronies is clearly not eradicated or even lessened by relying on the private sector.

I think you have to distinguish between the state of being deregulated and the process of deregulating. The process of deregulating is ripe with pandering to cronies, because it allows the government to trade preferential deregulation for friendly coverage by the media companies being deregulated. By contrast, the state of being deragulated clearly reduces pandering because the government has nothing to pander with.


I like that. Good differentiation thomas.

Quote:
blatham wrote:
By pure definition, conservative bully is a more coherent notion than liberal bully, though you likely won't buy that one. It's a tad like saying "he's an idealogue about open-mindedness".

That would be a valid point if "liberal" still meant what it used to mean in J.S. Mill's lifetime. It doesn't anymore, and the trade-unionist, environmentalist, anti-globalization liberals strike me as no more open-minded than Rush Limbaugh. I really think you're succumbing to the fallacy of "bullies aren't bullies if they're on my side" here.


It is in that Millian sense that I identify my liberalism. I also hold some notions regarding how economies ought to be managed/regulated which are commonly (now) filed under the 'liberalism' heading, but they are very much separate intellectual spheres. Having said that, I confess I do own a very sharp and shiny guillotine.

Quote:
blatham wrote:
I do trust government to help make things better. Well, I don't really 'trust' them to, but expect them to, and consider there is much evidence they can.

As a German with a sense of recent history, I'm afraid I cannot agree with that.


Fair enough. Perhaps our different cultural experiences go some distance to explaining how we might both be 'correct' while advancing different arguments.

Quote:
blatham wrote:
Ten or fifteen years into the twentieth century, New York city was a hell hole for most everyone living/working there.

I don't buy that, given the millions of migrants who chose to settle in New York when they couldn't have settled everywhere else in the world -- or stayed at home, for that matter. This revealed prefeference is strong reason to believe that New York City was not a hell holes in the judgment of the people involved.


Nah. What accurate information would a 1912 farmer from the Ukraine or a prostitute from a small norther Italian village have had of life in New York? My mother's family (from a small Ukraine village) saw a flyer. My father's family came over from England, based on rather more complete knowledge. Both went through periods (on the Canadian prairies) where they were quite uncertain they'd made the happy choice. Going back wasn't really an option. But even if conditions in New York city were better than where immigrants had come from, that does not mean very much in itself (a wife who is beat up daily leaves her husband to live with another man who beats her only every second day).

Quote:
blatham wrote:
It was government-established agencies and regulations which not only enforced humane regard for workers, but which (as these moved into the New Deal) ushered in the most productive and innovative period in american history.

No. Working conditions improved dramatically during England's period of laissez-faire, ca. 1840-1910. They improved dramatically in America even before the Progressive Era, which was also close to laissez-faire. Safer workplaces are a consequence of technical progress just like faster cars and bigger houses, and they emerged independently of increased regulation. I challenge you to find evidence that working conditions increased more in countries with more regulations, other things being equal. I'd be very surprised if you found much.


Technological advance or regulation? It isn't either/or. Both can function to make conditions better, but both can function to make conditions worse too. There was a 'world-wide' hue and cry at the magnitude of the disaster when Nobel's high tech dyanmite factory exploded and (if I recall correctly) five people were killed. One could bring up bio-diversity issues here, or the state of the oceans, and though population is a key culprit, a complimentary culprit is technological advance (running ahead of any advance in human smarts). Or one could point to craven's nukes.

As to working condition improvements, why not simply look at New York city's history? Working conditions very clearly did improve, and that occured following upon government regulation. Another example is early Hollywood. If you've seen any of the early Keystone Cops movies (firetrucks loaded with expendable depression-era actors plunging off a cliff) even you will start thinking of the clear need that existed for regulation.

Quote:
blatham wrote:
new corporate owners have demanded that the news portions of the enterprise contribute to income production in the same manner as a sit com. That was not previously the case.

Maybe not in TV. But it has been that way in the press for at least 200 years, and the regimen has produced decent reporting for those who wanted to read it. This is reason to distrust your sources' reasoning
.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but their familiarity and knowledge of this question does suggest I perhaps ought to grant them a measure of credibility over some weirdo in a polkadot suit typing from a disheviled flat in central Europe.

You're a good guy, thomas. The care you take in thinking/writing is a joy.
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