Hate Speech 101

Unlike conservatives, liberals don't need the idiot box to tell us what to think.Malloy generates nothing but liberal anger porn. That's what he does - he just yells. But honestly he's basically just an angrier Sean Hannity, only the things he says tend to be truer. (Or are obvious hyperbole, like when he talks about the Bush "crime family." On what planet is that even true? Between Hannity dumping callers at the slightest hint of disagreement, to Limbaugh's commands for black callers to "take the bone out of your nose", to the Bill O'Reilly "No 'Spin' Zone, where 'spin' means 'any mention of Keith Olbermann's name'", Malloy is the perfect mirror-universe liberal version of the majority of conservative talk radio. What universe do you live in where conservative pundits are doing anything on their shows but repeating RNC press releases, generating new myths and falsehoods to be endlessly repeated by know-nothings in the mainstream media (like the Obama-madrassa myth), hawking their ridiculous books, and dumping any callers who object? None at all, for me. I listen to The Young Turks and Democracy Now. As far as I'm concerned those are the two most enjoyable/informative liberal/progressive programs on the radio (to the extent that Sirius counts as "radio.") On your TV, tune into Keith Olbermann. There's a reason why his ratings go up as O'Reilly's go down, and it's not people trying to catch the beginning of "Scarbourogh Country", I can tell you that.

I find Democracy Now informative, and Young Turks entertaining, but I don't listen to either that frequently; mostly, I stream Jim Aquino's "Fistful of Soundtracks" on my computer. And I listen to a few podcasts, including Skepticality, Taverncast (a world of warcraft podcast), and the Dungeons and Dragons podcast put out by Wizards. I guess if "dialogue" constitutes "bloviating conservative pundit being told how great he is by carefully-screened callers", sure. In terms of being essentially content-free, they're identical. But, yes, Malloy is pretty angry. Inflammatory is one thing, but outright race baiting and dissemination of falsehood is another. Conservative talk radio has the corner on that stuff. I know; I've listened to it pretty extensively. You're a conservative who's never heard of the Republican National Committee? Chaired by Ken Mehlman? Why do I find that very hard to believe? No webpage found at provided URL: http://mediamatters.org/items/200701300007Depends on what you mean by "great." Well written and informative? Negative. Top-selling? Negative. Influential? Negative. Honest and truthful? Negative.Actually I guess I have no idea what you mean by "great." Are we talking about Coulter's documented plagarisms and falsehoods? Are we talking about O'Reilly's made up "Culture War" that he hilariously styles himself a "warrior" in? (If all it takes is a goofy windbreaker to make you a warrior, I guess Bush can outfit troops for Iraq from an Land's End catalogue.) Michelle Malkin's "How dare liberals hit me back!" whinefests? No, those are the hosts. You must not listen to much radio, I guess. What, a liberal? That was sort of the point, wasn't it? The point is, no matter how articulate and calm you stress your arguments to people like Hannity and Limbaugh, they're going to cut off your call and shout at you about how much you hate our troops and hate America and all the rest. The sort of insightful dialogue you refer to is not something that I ever heard in several years of listening, daily, to people like Hannity and O'Reilly on the drive home from work.What I did hear was "Hello, Sean, you're a great American; wouldn't it be great if San Francisco fell off into the sea?" I mean, Sean Hannity said that preventing a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives was something literally worth dying for. That's supposed to be the measured, restrained, intelligent dialogue you're so excited about?That's a bloviating ideologue, that's what that is. That people are tired of the collusion between the mainstream media and conservative punditry/Bush cult of personality, and they're eager for someone who talks some sense on the boob toob. Hence, the popularity of Olbermann and Stephen Colbert, etc. People are tired of conservative blowhards who shout down opposition and don't have any plans or strategies or solutions.

Just so we're on the same page - a "podcast" (aka "netcast") is a kind of prerecorded audio file that you download from the internet. Usually the adopt the same sort of formats you hear on the radio, but they tend to be about subjects that don't have the same kind of broad appeal necessary to go out on broadcast radio. Taverncast: Pure 100% FunIf you're an iTunes user, you can add it to your subscribed podcasts list and get past episodes, as well as have all the new ones download automatically. Other programs exist to subscribe to podcasts (they're like RSS feeds), or you can always just go and download them like any file.Basically a group of people get together over some beers and talk about playing World of Warcraft. They're a little less than hardcore, if you know what I mean. But they have a casual approach to the game (and an enthusiasm about the in-game lore) that can be a lot of fun to listen to.If you're desperate for hardcore, high-level raiding information and strategy, they don't really do that. They mostly just figure out ways to have fun with a radio show about a video game.(from a 64 Night Elf rogue)

That might have been true in the 80's and 90's, but it definately isn't now. From CNN featuring Glenn Beck on the evening news, to Rush Limbaugh's brief racist stint as an NFL announcer, to Coulter hawking her books on Good Morning America, to conservative speakers on every talk program, to Chris Matthew's "feeling [John Boehner]'s greatness", to the Obama-madrassa smear covered on eleven different networks with absolutely no fact-checking, to "the Path to 9/11" which contains anti-Clinton scenes that the producers admitted were entirely fictitious, conservative viewpoints and narrative frameworks (i.e. "Republicans are strong on defense" no matter how their policies result in greater defensive weaknesses) dominate every mainstream media channel.The myth of the "liberal media" is just that; it's a successful strategy for increasing conservative influence even as conservatives deny that they're doing that.

FICA is Social Security (which, I notice, has been chugging along just fine long after Bush-cult-of-personality conservatives breathlessly insisted that it was DOOMED!!!11!1!!) Wal-Mart is able to pay what they do because most of their employees are subsidized by welfare, etc. In other words my taxes are subsidizing Wal-Mart's wage structure. Personally, I think it's only fair that Wal-Mart is asked to compensate the rest of us (particularly those, like me, who don't even shop there.)

I don't see how it does, at least, not for the reasons NJ gave. His assertions that conservative talk radio, of all things, is a place of intelligent and insightful debate open to all viewpoints is laughably ridiculous to anybody who's ever spent any time listening to any of it.I listen to people like Bill-o when I want a good laugh, and to keep tabs on the made-up reality of conservatives. To stay informed I turn to liberal sources.

I love how in economics you can just invent whatever facts are most advantageous at the moment. How convenient!

I'm sorry, I guess I thought I was clear.You asserted that the existence of the poor was somehow crucial to the functioning of society for the rest of us.You didn't, that I could see, provide any evidence for that assertion, which I found entirely consistent with the so-called "science" of economics in general, which as a field has about as much rigor as theology.Economics makes for convienient arguments because nothing in the field has to be confirmed, just asserted. As you did.

Ignoring for a moment the fact that who's middle class and who's poor is a subject for considerable sociological debate (what do those terms even mean), asserting that the "poor will always be with us" is, again, another one of those completely made-up economic "facts" that so conveniently seem to materialize out of thin air to shore up your political ideology. I don't see what that has to do with anything.I'm not saying that solving the problem of poverty isn't hard, but clearly it's not impossible - countries like Sweden and Denmark have made great steps in ameliorating conditions of poverty.Are there always going to be people who don't have a lot of money? Sure, I think that's true. But will that condition always lead to homelessness and starvation? I don't see that it has to. Yes. But are we, as human beings, going to tell someone that they have to fuck off and die because the all-powerful market has determined that the product of their labor isn't worth enough?I see that as an inherently evil system. How long does it take him to detail a car? 25 bucks sounds like he's getting screwed. I assume this is skilled labor? It doesn't sound like it works very well for your friend. It sounds like it works great for his employers, because they get to circumvent minimum-wage laws and other legal worker protections.But I don't really see what this has to do with your OP.

Irrelevant. People who, otherwise, would get no care at all.That's what people seem to miss most of the time. A long wait is better than an infinite wait.Regardless, I don't see how any of this is on-topic. Debating the complexities of health care systems seems boring and fruitless. Those seem like pretty arbitrary distinctions. Obviously, in any system where people don't have precisely identical wealth, somebody's at the top and somebody's at the bottom, and you can split the graph into three tiers.To that extent, your statement is a tautology. But the idea that the conditions of the poor are eternal and therefore any attempt to ameliorate is doomed to failure is another made-up economic "fact" conservatives use to justify slashing any sort of aid for the poor. What's this unstated purpose for the poor? I thought that meant painting, chroming stuff, putting on those vinyl flames on the side, horns that honk La Cucaracha, that sort of stuff. "Pimp My Ride" kind of stuff.I don't know much about cars. If it doesn't take as long as you say it does, then I guess it's a good deal for him.

Not sure why you think I had to be excluded - I listen to NPR every day. I stream WBUR out of Boston on my computer while I level my rogue.

Nobody's saying that it won't be hard. But does the fact that we haven't landed a man on Mars, for instance, mean it's impossible to do so? That's nonsense. The fact that we've made progress on the front of poverty (as well as space exploration) proves that, eventually, we'll figure it out.It's just hard, is all. To which you think poverty is "no good" and yet simultaneously "crucial."Can you see why I've come to the conclusion that you're just making it up as you go along? I think there's a negative attitude about those jobs, sure; and not everybody was born to be a brain surgeon. But honestly not even the people who do those jobs want their children to do them. Everybody wants a job that people respect, and when the plumber comes over to your house to do a job you can't do, he's a servant to most people, not a trained expert. Well, that's one thing. In the free market utopia that you're infatuated with, what responsibility does the employer have for the health consequences of his employees doing their jobs?