Lastly, we do not, and will not welcome anyone who elects a man like trump just to threaten others into submission.
What I'm hearing people saying is that they want a candidate who will talk about compassion for the economic futures of Americans.
If you are barely making ends meet, you don't want a candidate talking about compassion for people from less fortunate countries, when out in the countryside of America you see a lot of people who could hardly be less fortunate.
“I’d love to see one-tenth of the outrage about the state of our lives out here that you have for Muslims from another country. You have no idea what our lives are like.”
The Democrats had a debate in Flint about the water crisis where they discussed what to do about it and how the country's infrastructure got there.
Meanwhile Donald's fans were screaming "TEN FEET HIGHER!"
If GOPers put one-tenth of the outrage about being proactive about the state of their own local economies as they do finding "liberal" scapegoats to blame for their lives being shitty their lives wouldn't have gotten so shitty.
I know what their lives are like, but it's hard to keep giving a shit when they keep voting to tell me I'm not a "real" American because I care about gay and minority friends as much as I do about them.
AS MUCH. Because they're not special just for being White. Democrats and the left have been bemoaning the decline of the rust belt my entire adult life. The only thing that made their proposals non-starters was the paranoid delusion that there was a secret welfare state for the Blacks holding them down.
When I listen to them, I hear people who blame others for their situation, mostly liberals and foreigners. I also hear people who refuse to believe most sources of news and almost all academics.
The combination of these things is scary. The fact that they have disproportionate political power and stockpile weaponry is even scarier.
Honestly it is beyond me why health care reform was so controversial. It seems that Obamacare is flawed, but would be less so if there wasn't so much resistance to it. I don't think it should be a partisan issue but somehow it turned out to be. I would love to see a level headed analysis of what happened.
Oh that's been a lesson for a while. I'm old enough to dimly remember the run-up to the first Gulf War and the level of discourse was generally much more thoughtful. You had your partisan hacks like Bob Novak and other Heritage Foundation tools, but they were embedded within a media-world that still took itself somewhat seriously and had resigned itself to being staid and boring. At one point I remember someone quoted Thucydides and discussed various ideas about Just War theory from Aristotle to Michael Walzer and applied it to the present situation. And this was on a major news network!
People make a big deal about "fake news on the internet" but the truth is, the reason the fake news had impact is because the "real news' long ago gave up any claims to credibility to be calling out the fake news. They've been acting as platforms for partisan hacks like Sean Hannity and Bob Novak for too long for anyone to put trust in them.
Americans have decried the poor state of the rust belt for decades and multiple attempts have been made to save it. Didn't Obama literally inject billions into American car companies to save them?
People on HN are either too young or too forgetful.
In the era before the internet Fox News was an accomplished craftsmen of the echo chamber. Heck Americans taught me and many other countries how hyper polarized and polarizing news should look like, and that was before the internet.
Simply put - liberals could literally repeat a conservative document letter for letter and it would be disowned/ criticized by conservatives.
The fact that people believe that liberals care more for Muslim countries is Unsurprising.
Liberals wonder why conservatives are so worried about bombing middle eastern countries.
People are in their bubbles and keep themselves there
I can understand this statement as my paternal family is indeed in this state and has been for almost a century. They are too proud to take my "handouts" which I offer of around $50 a month. They would be greatly offended if I actually offered what I could afford.
I am not a liberal, I am actually a centrist on the upper left hand corner of left wing and libertarian. I have different, but equally heated debates between my liberal and conservative friends.
With all of that said I can tell you the following based on my world travels. If you have running water, a flushable toilet, electricity and a foundation in your house you may be US poor, but are most definitely not globally poor. There are more globally poor people in the world then all of the people in the entire US.
If you have not lost a house due to tragedy such as tornado, hurricane, fire or bombing then you are not likely to understand the refugee issue. You may think you get it and if you are a liberal I would say you are less likely to get it, based on what my liberal friends say. This kind of loss is not a "set back" and can take years if not a decade to recover from. If you are lucky you have insurance that works and rebuild. If you are in a war zone there is no rebuild. I actually have more Christian conservatives that support refugees as a calling of their faith then liberals that would actually host a refugee. This could vary but it is the case in the area, no SV. At the same time I have more "Christian" evangelicals that want nothing to do with refugees.
With all of that said I still don't understand the desire to stay in an economic desert. My paternal side long lost their farm after letting the slaves go yet still have a desire to stay in the same area. I just don't get that. Maybe I am strange but if there are no jobs or economic opportunity why stay? As the libertarian in me why should I care about you choice to stay? If you, or for that fact my family, decide to stay in a place that does not warrant growth why should I sacrifice my liberty for your choice? Why should I not be allowed to support those from forgien lands that I think will increase my community? Why should those that would give up everything to get a change to be here be placed below those that would not even bother to move to a place of greater opportunity less then a 1000 miles away? What is so Holy about the "countryside" that necessitates cities of great wealth from providing to others? Why should my tax dollars grant those whom want comfort to stay in a situation that cannot be pulled out of yet prevent it from providing to those that wish to better themselves?
This is not even compassion this is just good business sense and ROI.
Have you had to fall on the "safety net" of a homeless shelter?
Upper class liberals seem to only express interest in groups of people that it makes them feel virtuous to talk about. If you truly care about suffering, you should also open your eyes to the tens of millions of your fellow citizens that need help.
If the platform was utterly protectionist (or at the very least pragmatic), but made a moral exception for Syrians then it'd be easier to listen to.
Instead today, it feels as if supporters of immigration are simply cherry picking the most sympathetic candidates and using them to prop open the door for everyone else.
No one lacks sympathy for war refugees, what we all disagree on is where, when, and how such sympathy should be expressed. There are wars happening in our world constantly. Should there be an open door policy to all refugees? Should they ever be expected to leave the country? (some say yes, but I'd argue that after building a life for 5+ years in the US, you ought to given permanent residency). Should there be any kind of screening processes? (after all wars do not erupt from nowhere, some civilians will always support the 'bad' side, even if they eventually become refugees).
-Deny science: Like saying there is no biological differences between a man and a woman. -Basic human rights: Like when applying for a job, that my skin color won't be taken into account? (i.e. race quotas) -Lack compassion for people who come from less fortunate countries: Like how the left defends Islam, which murder gays, and executes woman for the gull of having been raped. -If you feel you're entitled to things others are not: Like the right to have a political opinion, and being allow to keep my job.
How will you know that you're so clever, so morally superior, and more scientific minded, if you won't allow yourself to hear a different opinion? The country is divided right now, not because of the right, but because of this exact mentality.
That said, I think silicon valley is definitely not a morally superior place. Given what came out this weekend about Uber. They're not the first tech company to have diversity and problems with how they treat women.
I absolutely generalized, and I hate doing it! My point is that the left is not immune to these types of critiques. To point to the other side of aisle as unscientific, uncaring, etc, coupled with the belief that your side is none of theses things is tribalism, and amount to nothing more than "Blue team good, red team bad!" or vice versa. That's why having a dialog is so important, so that we can weed out bad ideas. Saying that "we do not, and will not welcome anyone who elects a man like trump" is just divisive and socially damaging.
You lack the most basic amount of awareness of the culture around you, or empathy for others.
As for Islam, I'm tired of arguing with this strawman. Liberals do not defend Islam's policies regarding intolerance. Liberals defend the right for a human being to not be branded a suspected terrorist based solely on their race and/or religion, but rather based on evidence of their actual behaviour and actions.
Who says I'm white?
Larry Elder on that form racism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFqVNPwsLNo&t=34m56s
You'll (Americans) have long ceased to have a conversation with each other.
People seem to have forgotten the many decades of Fox News (when there was no internet), the steady movement of debate from policy to stuff like "birthers", tea parties, gun boats, creationism, and so on.
The larger debate has been going south for decades. Why do you think people weren't violently sick when a person who would count as a boorish Buffoon 20 years ago, became the republican candidate?
There never was any debate or meeting in the first place!
Today liberals are frightened and incandescently angry. As a result they are turning to the same kind of language and radicalization any group does in such a situation.
People aren't going to be going away from liberalism - they're going to be more militantly liberal in order to meet conservative forces.
Fox News was founded in 1996; the internet started being publicly popular in 1994-1995 (and had been around for decades earlier); there were not any decades of Fox News when there was no internet.
The period 1996-2006 was extremely different when compared to the last several years.
Consumption of media is not the same, and the impact of old media sources is not the same either.
-----
I do appreciate the correction. I was wrong and your correction Has helped me recall and revise other facts about the empire built by Fox News and Murdoch.
As I recall Fox News is the one which helped make climate change deniers look respectable, and helped build the world we live in today.
This comes up from time to time here on HN. I don't buy the whole CO2->Global Warming->Catastrophe thing, and I regularly get down votes here if I try to make arguments to the contrary - even science based arguments. I think a lot of people on the left try to hide behind some kind of false consensus as to what is "better", "morally superior", or "factually correct".
What brings you to the conclusion that global warming could be a hoax? Do you have a reason for not trusting the experts? Who could be interested in spreading the global warming hoax? Wouldn't it be much easier and profitable for them to e.g. sell oil?
These are questions I haven't seen answered so far.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/154082416051/the-non-expert-pro...
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scott_Adams
It's hardly surprising therefore that he has issues with Climate Science and supports Trump.
And then begins to undermine it by effectively saying "well, so what? If there is a problem with global warming, we will just do something to scrub the air clean."
While also dumping a laundry list of canards and debunked arguments about climate deniers.
For example:
> 1. A theory has been “adjusted” in the past to maintain the conclusion even though the data has changed. For example, “Global warming” evolved to “climate change” because the models didn’t show universal warming.
Really?? Climate change? Changing the name is a big deal? And that to after politicians and their media managers helped force that change ?
And inherent in this statement is a full assault and repudiation of science and scientifists.
If science updates their models and the conclusions stay the same, then it improves confidence.
That science.
What Adams ends up implying is that liars cheat and fudge their data, and that's when their results stay the same. HMMMM, suspicious.
> 3. The models require human judgement to decide how variables should be treated. This allows humans to “tune” the output to a desired end. This is the case with climate science models.
Shocking ply this is the case with many mathematical and statistical models. You expect trained and expert scientists to do this and do it well.
That's the whole damn point.
> 4. There is a severe social or economic penalty for having the “wrong” opinion in the field. As I already said, I agree with the consensus of climate scientists because saying otherwise in public would be social and career suicide for me even as a cartoonist. Imagine how much worse the pressure would be if science was my career.
Again, the Fox News-esque assassination of science and scientists continue. The reason people follow the consensus is becusse they are afraid.
5. There are so many variables that can be measured – and so many that can be ignored – that you can produce any result you want by choosing what to measure and what to ignore. Our measurement sensors do not cover all locations on earth, from the upper atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean, so we have the option to use the measurements that fit our predictions while discounting the rest.
....
To top it off, he concludes with "so I hold both positions. If it turns out it was a disaster, i get to say i believes science. If it's not a disaster I get to say I told you so ".
This is not logic, this is mood manipulation.
>> What part of the "CO2->Global Warming->Catastrophe" thing is it that you don't buy?
I don't buy that CO2 emissions are going to be a problem. I don't buy that the observed changes in climate are due to CO2.
>> What is "false consensus"? Are you in a position to judge the conclusions supported by a vast majority (that's only my perception, but how likely is it to be completely mistaken?) of experts?
I do not believe that a majority of experts believes that stuff. The IPPC reports are not actually singed by a majority, only a few people who claim to represent that majority. To be honest, I trust engineers judgement more than I trust funded scientists. If you like that idea you may want to read Burt Rutans take on it here: http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm Like you say it's your perception of experts.
What about the documented case of a computer program that showed the same "trend" regardless of input? There is documented fraud on the GW side. Does that invalidate all of it? Of course not, but it should call it into question.
>> What brings you to the conclusion that global warming could be a hoax?
I never said that. I do think it's being used to further political agendas (don't you?) whether those people believe in it or not.
>> Do you have a reason for not trusting the experts?
Sure, go read about climate and weather models. They are very tricky. Sometimes a part of a model is improved based on some real experimental data, but it throws off the weather models which had been tweaked to work with the old assumptions (sorry, I don't have a link handy). New tweaking is needed. This points to known problems with the models, which are not 100% physics based and are not inclusive of all phenomena as they'd like you to believe.
One of my biggest complaints is the lack of consideration of water vapor in the models - it is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. Here, just read this: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/artificial-weather-revealed...
I live in Michigan and while everyone was feeling the trauma of those events, I noticed the unusually cloud-free the sky was at the time. It was a beautiful deep blue every day. Notably different to the norm. One may also notice that the change in "climate" over the last 50 years is also concurrent with the rise in air travel. I don't think that's a coincidence. BTW, the weather models do not incorporate much in the way of contrail effects - precisely because they are very sensitive to it. Until we can understand the effects of water vapor, I don't see how we can vilify carbon.
Then there is the benefit plants - had we not dumped carbon into the air we were dangerously close to having too little. Lots of studies are starting to show how plants thrive in our modern high-carbon world.
Let's talk historical records - not 50, 100, or 100 years. I'm talking 100K or 10M years. We are in an interglacial period, which is near it's end if you look at history. If we do nothing, you should expect glaciation in geological short order. Then there's the fact that glaciations didn't used to happen at all. If you go back even farther, the earth was in fact warmer and life flourished.
If you watched the recent Cosmos series, I believe the whole thing was propaganda. I watched the final episode which was on Climate Change. It was sadly science-free. That is to say he talked a lot about the things you see in the paper but didn't give any evidence - no data, no plots, nothing. And then at the end he's up in the arctic talking about some coastal tundra eroding and there's old plant matter buried in there! Imagine plants thriving in the arctic - I don't even see a problem with some warming even if it's not caused by CO2.
Then lets talk about desertification, which people like to attribute to climate change. Here's a great TED talk about how farming practices can reverse that (and may be the cause): https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_worl...
I would hope that all of this at the very least can cast some doubt on the notion that CO2 is this big global problem that's going to destroy everything if we don't do something about it. Cast some doubt. Start a debate based on data not a media promoted "consensus". And not doctored data: https://www.google.com/#q=doctored+ocean+temperature
Oh, and finally this has been going on so long that the longer term predictions are starting to fail: https://www.google.com/#q=failed+climate+change+predictions
But I'm not trying to convince you, just maybe cast a little doubt.
Climate scientists versus climate data https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus...
I posted it to HN as well but it never got any traction. Great read nevertheless.
Anyone who has lived for a while has seen multiple climate doomsday predictions that didn't pan out. The end prophecy reminds of a religious sect.
Climate modeling is hard, of course it is. Many things are hard. You don't doubt planes because building jet engines is hard, do you?
Do you honestly think climate scientists would forget about water? Really?
Or not know about the history of our planets climate?
Dangerously close to having too little CO2?
I don't doubt that you believe what you say you do, but you sound more like anti-vaxxers than you sound like a medical professional calmly explaining well documented research of vaccination.
Full stop.
Name any dead, famous scientist. They upended the scientific conventional wisdom and accepted truth.
If you could do that, you'd be in the history books.
You can't.
It's like arguing with he time cube guy, but not about what he is gonna publish next Tuesday, but the future of the human race in the balance.
Do you get now why it is infuriating?
Mine is actually, it's people like you that are infuriating.
What year were you born in? If it was before 1985, I have a bet for you.
If the global surface temperature for every month in 2017 is less than the temperature the year you were born, I will give you $2k. If the global surface temperature is greater in 2017, you owe me $1k.
Wanna take that bet?
Happy to put $24k into the reputable escrow service of your choice and wholly pay for the escrow fees myself, if you'll do the same with $12k, ensuring that the bet can last a whole year. I'm also happy to scale down, if that's too rich for your blood. It must be for the full 12 months, as I have found the educational value of this bet increases substantially if it lasts for more than a few months.
Do you have a published climate model I I can run through its paces?
Until you do, all your protestations that you have 'evidence' for your beliefs are bullshit, in the technical sense of the term.
What is not black and white about abortion?
What is not black and white about refugees fleeing war?
What is not black and white about LGBT rights?
Note that these aren't necessarily my views, but I live in the Midwest, I hear what a lot of classic Republicans are about and why people voted for Trump.
Do you think abortion for no reason at all 3 days before birth is the same as abortion within 30 days of pregnancy for the health reason of the mother?
Is it black and white or different shades of gray?
To put it another, slightly less controversial way: do you agree that a 17 year and 11 month old teenager is the same as a 13 year old teenager? In the eyes of the law, they both have the same legal status: minors. It doesn't matter than in 30 days one of them will be an adult. They haven't hit that black and white dividing line set in the law.
I would also like to point out that no one has ever had an abortion "for no reason at all" and shame on you for trying to squeeze that one in there.
We constantly fight against legislation on moral values, because morals change dramatically over time. Legislation based on resolving actual damage is much longer lasting, and there are plenty of pro-choice arguments that are based on mitigating or eliminating actual damage.
Morality is the separation of right and wrong. There are of course different ways to build moral systems, but it's fair to say that pretty much all try to "resolve actual damage", whatever that means.
When I say "accepted moral values", I mean just that - the values that we as a society can agree on. Come on, that wasn't so hard.
Here is a straw man for you if you need the point made a little stronger and a little more ridiculous: what you're advocating for is that owning human beings, treating blacks as less than human, keeping them from voting, etc was right and was a completely moral act. I mean it was legal, and most everyone agreed with it. A lot of Germans agreed with the Nazi's treatment of Jews, too. Hell even Americans did when we locked the Japanese-Americans in internment camps. Was that morally right? Because society agreed on it?
Or maybe subjective moral opinions of the day aren't the best reasons to take away people's freedoms.
I don't think that's what "moral(ity)" commonly means. "The values that society can agree on" is all we have. The laws are just a codification of that. If they were not (at least in theory) an expression of the values that society agrees on, something would be very wrong. You seem to imply there was a magical way by which we can know right and wrong that was not "moral".
Again, you seem to think of "morality" as something connected with unreflected obedience to a (possibly outdated) belief system, or maybe even a fundamentalistic interpretion thereof. It's not.
You totally miss what I say (and you missed what your parent said, which is why I posted my first comment). I will make crystal clear why I posted that:
> You are confusing what the current law is, with what the law could, or should be, based on accepted moral values.
You claimed that abortion was some black-and-white topic, because there might be some law which draws a clear line at the time of birth. Nobody ever argued against that, but it was not the topic of discourse.
The discourse was not about law, but about how we should deal with abortion. There's a lot uncertainty, and all OP said is that it makes a difference whether abortion is 3 days before conception or 3 days after insemination. THERE IS A GRAY AREA. (Nobody disputed that, if you make a law, you have of course to somehow set a somewhat arbitrary limit by which it is allowed, given certain circumstances, to proceed with abortion).
There need to be (and there are) public debates on what's the right way to deal with abortion, given that there are good and widely accepted reasons both for and against abortion. It's not that simple with abortion - that's all OP said.
I grew up in China, people there have abortions ALL THE TIME, sometimes just for reasons like changing mind about having a kid last minute. I didn't think too much about that. But now thinking about it, it does seem messed up to me and no, I'm not squeezing that one into there.
You really, really need to learn to just give in when someone proves you wrong.
That kind of argumentation leads nowhere. These are straw mans at best.
global warming: long-term economic interests should trump short-term economic interests.
evolution: science should trump faith.
abortion: pregnant women's rights should trump fetal rights.
refugees fleeing war: generosity/compassion should trump safety, jobs, and taxes.
LGBT rights: general human rights should trump straight cis-male rights.
What I hope you can see is that rather than statements of fact, these political topics are actually ethical questions: what _should_ we do? Any time we're prescribing a best course of action for individuals or groups, there will be differences of opinion. Certain facts related to the arguments may be incontrovertible (humans _are_ changing the climate, evolution _is_ supported by evidence), but that doesn't mean the _should_ part that comes after evidence is also a matter of fact.
I'm amazed to see a comment like this on HN of all places.
What's "fact" today can be false tomorrow.
History is full of ample proof.
Why are you entitled to a comfortable apartment near your job while the waitress who served you lunch or the landscaping crew at the Googleplex have to commute from hours away or live in a squalid trailer park ? Guess it's their fault for not being software engineers too, isn't that right, Mr. Equality ?
I travel 2.5 hours for work.