Pangloss

I'm not asking if partisanship should be allowed, or if it is someone's right to be partisan. I'm asking if you think it is useful to society? Does it serve a useful purpose, or does it divide us further? This is, of course, a science board, and in every other subject people are expected to rely on reason and evidence. But here we are asking if, when it comes to politics, reason and evidence can be set aside in favor of opposition based on perceptions and larger, more general affiliations (such as "Democrat" or "Republican"), rather than the specific pros and cons of each issue. Is that a reasonable, productive approach for people to take? Does it make sense? Is it helpful to society, or harmful? (Note: This is not a thread about the Politics sub-board, it's about politics, the subject in general.) (Note2: Answers are confidential.)

I know that fact is important to you because you believe that Republicans are bad. But I doubt that it's an important fact to almost anybody else who regularly posts on this board, bascule. In your thread about the protests I could have pointed out that, with the not-recent exception of abortion, violent protest demonstrators are ostensibly skewed towards Democrats and liberalism. I never did that, because (a) I don't think liberalism or Democrats are bad, and (b) I think these kinds of baseless, partisan accusations gain us nothing in the discussion. They do not help us find common ground, they only spread the divide further. Put another way, you should be more careful what you wish for, and whom you defend.

I will just add briefly that I do understand there's a reasonable difference between putting up posters that can wash away with the next rain and permanently tagging someone's property. The legal system generally recognizes the difference as well. My main objection here is to people who deliberately prod the system for a legal response and then complain when it responds. They're just trying to get your anger up, and they succeeded, and for reasons that have nothing to do with freedom of expression. That's just how I see it.

This is important, and I'm glad to see real issues back in the discussion, so I appreciate your bringing them up, even if I see the VP as less important. I agree with you on all of these points, too. (Well, I'm still skeptical about man causing GW, as you know, but I believe we have sufficient information to take dramatic action, so we're effectively on the same side.) I don't think it has been factually established that she tried to get that person fired, btw. The official report is due out in October.

I must admit that I'll a little pissed off by the Democratic convention. They can say that Republicans are wrong, and even stupid, weak, whatever, but the fact that Democrats continue to imply they are the party that loves America, and of course, McCain just loves himself. It's childish. It's in part how they got America into Iraq, it's in part how they won against Bush 1, and they're at it again... I think it's a good idea for McCain to talk about this, too often, Republicans have retreated instead of fighting back to the point where they are even scared to say they are conservatives. (Isn't partisanship easy?)

Okay I took a look at the first one and it's even worse than a thought -- a talking head from Democracy Now, a completely biased, partisan organization hell bent on destroying conservatives regardless of the cost to the truth. And she's just blabbing about "armed groups of police", a statement which she has a predisposed reason to make. How much of that am I supposed to watch before I get some truth instead of just spin? You're a man of science, not propaganda. Give me some evidence instead of all this fear-mongering and leaping to conclusions.

What freedoms were tossed aside? Every time one gets listed I ask into it and get answered that they were charged with a specific crime after all, and that everything is legal and above-board.

I know you're not that shallow. Absolutely not. Well now you know how a lot of Republicans feel about Obama. I happen to not agree with them, but what's interesting to me is the way both sides are screaming at each other over this issue, utterly convinced that the other side is wrong. We're actually arguing whether a couple years in the senate is comparable to a couple years as state governor. We're actually arguing over whether a community activist is comparable to a business leader. We're actually doing that. In 2008! I don't know about you, but I'm having a Koyaanisqatsi moment just thinking about it. (And I didn't even have to refresh my memory on the spelling of that word -- that's how bad I think things are.) (I'm not sure that actually makes sense, but wtf, I'll say it anyway.) I'm not shutting you up on the VP thing, you go right ahead and talk about it. If anything maybe I need to shut up about y'all talking about it, I guess. Like I said a couple posts ago, it's valid and it's a big table. Anyway, I've said my piece.

In other words no, thus proving my point that you're not defending free speech, you're defending an ideological agenda. Thanks. Got it, I believe that answers your question: Nope, it ain't. Movin' on. line[/hr] Mod note: Thread on AP photog merged into this one. It's the same subject and the same arguments taking place.

YouTube is not an objective news source, and the manner of their arrest is not the subject of this discussion. And I have no interest in anything Sean Hannity has to say. As for whether or not any civil liberties have been violated, people like to say that and tout it and then when you look into it later it all turns out to be perfectly legal, it was just undesirable to the detainees. You actually included information above that actually says they've filed criminal charges. Where exactly is the problem?

Let's stop right there. The Daily Kos (unsurprisingly) spun the science and I think it calls for unspinning. First, McCain doesn't have a 15% chance of dying, he has an 85% chance of surviving. Let's at least phrase it in a positive manner, instead of trying to look forward to the man's DEATH! Yeesh, that Kos is a bastard. But more to the point, we get another election in four years. He might not run again. Palin might not be his VP next time. Who knows? But the point is, you get another choice in the matter in four years. Anyway, I'm not saying that the choice of vice president is unimportant, what I am saying is that I think all this talk about VPs is just distraction from the real issues, perpetuated by partisans who aren't really interested in the merits of the choices to begin with. They're only interested in making the other side wrong.

It sounds like the St. Paul police decided to be aggressive and proactive about all the violent protesters entering their city. Can you blame them? I surely don't want those religious zealots anywhere near MY house.

I do agree with iNow that Mrs. Palin's political positions regarding sex ed (etc) are perfectly valid for discussion. Her daughter is irrelevant to the issue and it's unfortunate that cable pundits will abuse that. But there's an interesting irony here: The left is hell-bent on telling us that she's only been governor for less than two years, and yet her political position is supposedly responsible for her daughter's, uh, delicate condition. It takes much longer than that to debate, pass law, and push it through textbooks and schools. And more to the point, even if she had gotten a thorough, modern education, she still might have gotten pregnant! Just because somebody knows something is stupid doesn't mean they won't do it. That's why you can't use individual examples on something like this to make a larger point about society. It's a very, very flawed argument. So the pundits should leave the poor girl alone (which I think we all agree on). But the left is not wrong to say that her position on sex ed is a relevant issue. It surely is. I just happen to think it's a distraction, because she's only a VP candidate. It's a waste of time. But I realize others see it differently, and we certainly have room for more than one debate in society at a time.

No matter how many periods you put on the end of a sentence, the cops still won't be working for the DNC or RNC.

Abuse of power? Huh? If they broke the law, they should pay, and if they didn't break the law, they shouldn't have been arrested. Whatever happened to people taking responsibility for their actions? If they actually believed their actions were worth a sacrifice, they wouldn't object to the sacrifice. Martin Luther King WANTED to be arrested. So this is a question deserving of a short, direct answer, not idle speculation about "abuse of power". And it's not a "shades of gray" issue at all. We have courts. If they didn't break the law, they get lawyers who say so and the government gets embarassed. What's the problem? This is utter nonsense (the second half, I mean; you're certainly entitled to your opinion about cultures): Cops aren't judges or law-makers. And I don't think you're defending free speech, I think you're defending a specific agenda. I repeat my question: Would you defend these people if they were putting up posters that advocated creationism and opposition to global warming?

So your justification for this crime is that it adds value to the property. Interesting. That argument could be countered with a discussion of true property values, but the real point you're missing is that if you let one person do that then you have to let all people do it. Tragedy of the commons. But what I really want to know is, would you defend what he was doing if the posters he was putting up advocated creationism and opposition to global warming?

Thanks. You agree then that Brazile got pepper-sprayed because of violent protesters? I know you made a point about pepper spray being individual in scope, but I think once that much of it gets into the air it's going to sting the eyes of everyone in the area, and it seems likely that's what happened in her case. I don't disagree with you about the pitfalls of pushing nationalism or the right to peaceful protest. I don't see that protesters at the RNC are comparable to Vietnam protesters of the 1960s. These are committed ideological partisans, peaceful though many of them may be, and completely uninterested in freedom of expression or open-minded reason. They damage the country by their actions in exactly the same way that Rush Limbaugh does. I defend their right to do it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it or see it as helpful or valuable in any way.

Sure, I'll be happy to help you parse blame amongst sub-groups. Why don't we start by figuring out who's really to blame for Donna Brazile getting hit with pepper spray, instead of blaming it on those evil conservatives and their nationalistic ways?

It looks like a mis-statement to me, and that's fine, thanks for clarifying, but I wonder what, then, the point was of including it. Yes, I dismiss what they're doing, but not because of anything to do with local authorities. I consider closed-mindedness and do-this-or-I'll-damage-something a pathetic and unproductive form of discourse, and so should anybody who considers science and reason paramount to improving society. Any role it played in ending Vietnam is trivial and social in nature, and came from peaceful protest, not violent protest. And the lack of any impact these people have had on the war in Iraq is obvious in the extreme. Those people are destroyers, not saviors.

Oh ok, so he was only arrested for defacing someone's property. Well that's okay, because it was probably just some faceless, wealthy, white Republican. I stand corrected, thanks for straightening me out.

Sure. Nothing.

No, you clearly said she was a target:

I don't think that's why society is polarized, and if mocking is a problem then one should steer clear of mocking groups, not just individuals. What does mocking groups tell us that's relevant to the conversation about improving society, iNow?

I'm gonna wait a bit but I love the competition. It's already managed a 78 on the slippery ACID3 test. One of my favorite features that I've heard about is that the autocomplete feature on the URL bar avoids sending you back to long, complex sub-addresses. I really hate when that happens. Also the nine-most-recent-pages default page is kinda cool, and its security mode actually seems to trump IE8's upcoming security mode. I'm a little skeptical about the "no-popups, no mal-ware" claim, though. I checked out that comic earlier, btw, and it is awesome. It's not only a cool way to explain Chrome's technical underpinnings, it's also a really engaging and informative explanation of process isolation, virtual machines, procedural testing methods, sandboxing, and so forth. (Although I kinda cringed a bit when they bragged about Javascript being "classless", but it's supposed to be an entry-level explanation.) (One word of warning: It's 39 pages long!) One thing I'm curious about is whether ActionScript 3.0 embedded in Flash movies are executed inside the JS VM. Anybody know? I'm guessing not (isn't it compiled before outputting to SWF?).

The Republicans must have paid off the Denver police! Yeaaaaah! Or, wait, did he confront them violently after they asked him to stop participating in an obvious Tragedy of the Commons scenario, since obviously you can't let everyone put graffiti everywhere? Let's go to your link and see if the answer lies there: Oh. I guess it does. Sounds like this was properly handled. Thanks Bascule.