US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3176

On March 05 2016 13:16 oneofthem wrote:
chomsky is much smarter than harris

On March 05 2016 13:22 kwizach wrote:
Time to get back on topic, perhaps?

On March 05 2016 13:30 wei2coolman wrote:
I like how my joke about if you disregard Harris's contributions, you'd have to disregard Chomsky turned into an intelligence pissing contest.
When the whole point of the comment was that it should be discussion of ideas, not individuals.

The Alabama supreme court refused on Friday to defy the US supreme court ruling that effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, cutting off a conservative bid to prevent gay weddings in the state.

The court issued a one-sentence order dismissing a challenge by a probate judge and a conservative policy group that wanted the state to bar gay marriage despite the landmark federal decision.

In one of several written opinions accompanying the order, Justice Greg Shaw called the decision a “clear refusal” to ignore the supreme court ruling last June.

Several other state justices railed against the high court’s ruling while noting they can’t overturn it.

Chief Justice Roy Moore, a Christian conservative who has repeatedly spoken out against same-sex unions, wrote that previous state orders barring gay marriage in Alabama remain. Most probate judges already are ignoring that directive, however, and hundreds of same-sex couples already have wed in Alabama.

Eric Johnston, an attorney for the Alabama Policy Institute, which went to court seeking to prevent more gay marriages in Alabama, said the decision left opponents nowhere to turn in the court system.

"He transformed politics into reality politics using skill sets he acquired in 11 years of reality TV," said Hugh Hewitt, a conservative radio show host who has interviewed Trump several times during the campaign. "He is quite an artist of rhetoric and modern media communications and has more practice than any other Republican. I give him props for being able to carry this and sustain it. He's the best interview in America."

As one New York-based campaign reporter put it: "Being a reality-television star is the perfect experience to prepare a candidate for the modern news-media cycle."

"He's been easier to book than many, many people. I won't name names," Hewitt said. "He is very disciplined in making the rounds and so that has been to his benefit. It's all media all the time. That's great. You've got to flood the zone in America. In a media cycle where there's a breaking story every day, every candidate ought to be available every day, to every major media platform."

"He's absolutely exploited the media environment to his advantage," the producer said. "He understands every single tendency that producers of this business have and he tailored his strategy to hold us hostage."

The producer, like many media professionals interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity because the campaign still needs to be covered. But also because there's evidence that speaking even remotely critically of Trump will incite the candidate and may spur him to retaliate by either blocking access to him or by publicly ridiculing the source of the criticism.

Neither makes for good business if you're a political journalist pressured to get clicks or if you're a TV news executive in a fight for ratings.

"It's a problem. We need to make revenue," said the producer. "In terms of ratings, Trump is good for the company."

On March 05 2016 15:29 writer22816 wrote:
Wow I didn't expect this thread to suddenly turn into Sam Harris bashing. Since it has, however, would one of you self-professed brilliant minds (IgnE, plansix, zulu_nation8) be as kind as to point me to some of Chomsky's more brilliant works so I can enlighten myself as to why he's so great and why Harris is just a populist moron? I've read a lot of Sam Harris, but I've yet to see him make any sweeping generalizations about the Muslim world. In fact he consistently focuses his criticisms towards Muslim fundamentalists and the regressive left who cannot even bring themselves to concede that ISIS has *something* to do with Islam.

On March 05 2016 15:37 wei2coolman wrote:

Pretty much a lot of his linguistic theories, especially around linguistic hierarchy were pretty much the most cited pieces of research. I think there's like some algorithm that shows how good of a researcher you are based on the number of other research your cited in, and I think Chomsky is like insanely highly rated (like we're talking about top 10 territory) because of how fundamental his work in linguistics was in computer science, and various other fields. There's no doubt his work in linguistics is top notch, it's his foray into politics that is considered questionable depending on who you talk to..

On March 05 2016 15:26 Doodsmack wrote:
Is it really some nuanced media strategy, or is it just that he whipped up the right base, doubled down against media frenzy, and then continued to double down against media frenzy, earning him the favor of the anti-establishment (which includes media) masses? Did Trump himself predict the response to the phrasing "they're rapists"? Did Trump say "blood coming out of her wherever" to purposely keep the lights on him, or because he actually is so sensitive to criticism psychologically that he lashes out with schoolyard insults? I think it may just be a happy coincidence for Trump that his insecure nature meshes well with media coverage (which has been the case since the 80s).

That Trump is highly available to the media is certainly smart and geared toward remaining in the spotlight, but I don't think it's the core of how he got in the spotlight. He could only have gotten in the spotlight by attracting the masses. I'm just not convinced he attracted them in some cunning way.

Either way, what we do know is that he's a media-created spectacle without any indication of governing ability, realistic ideas or actual government knowledge.

Trump's ambition in life, starting with his earliest business activity, has been gain as much as possible by any means necessary. He's filth, and if America elects him, we can be sure that America is filth too.