Pangloss

Teachers have a professional responsibility to be respectful of their students beliefs. But firing over that is just lame.

When will it attack Moscow?

One of the Harry Potter books, wasn't it? (runs for cover)

I wonder if you'll have the same reaction the next time I mention something I saw on Bill Moyers or heard on Air America. I'm guessing not.

I see your point. Certainly a society can have varying degrees of freedom, and be more or less like a fascist state. As I said above I don't have a problem with people casting a wary eye on events. It's unfounded fear-mongering for ideological gain that I have a problem with.

They might, but there's not a single thing he can do about that. I get your point (to the tree) about repressing his feelings and I completely agree, but ultimately they're going to do whatever they're going to do, as free human beings, and he'll eventually have to come to terms with whatever that is. It's ultimately the only real choice any of us actually has. Freedom doesn't mean you can change other people's minds. The world would be a much saner place if people could just get over things they have no control over. Dr. Phil would be out of a job, as would Maury Povich and Jerry Springer. There would never be another video tape of abusive spouses or annoying neighbors. The entire industry of psychoanalysis would die overnight -- all those people out of work! Swarms of locusts! Parting of seas! Cats and dogs living together! Oh sorry (slaps self) got a little carried away there.

I'm still trying to get used to the undocumented, unacknowledged UI behavior changes in Vista, many months after release. Some of them are quite frustrating, like when I right-click on something and get the wrong context menu, or try to sweep objects with the mouse and get unexpected results, or click and get a drag response instead of a click response. Very annoying. The point being that there's probably never been a better time to switch, between Vista causing Windows users to re-learn things on the one hand, and Apple incorporating a chip that runs Windows code natively on the other. Why NOT try a Mac? My personal opinion is that what drives this industry forward, generation after generation, is competition. And for that to work we all have to remain open to the possibility of changing our own preferences. That means NOT being a Microsoft fanboy OR a Linux fanboy OR a Mac fanboy. The Linux preachers are just as wrong as the Microsoft preachers. Heed none of them, or eventually we all lose. Instead try them ALL, and be ready to switch at will, whenever the situation warrants or it just plain strikes your fancy.

Interesting comparison.

Well thanks for prompting me to think more about it. I guess to answer your question, I think that usually the intention of a phrase like "becoming more of a fascist state" is to scare people into thinking that the policy being discussed is a bad one, and therefore something to fear. Clearly the only definition that matters in those cases is the ultimate fascism of no civil liberties, including freedom of expression. I suppose it's conceivable that someone might use it in a positive sense, trying to convince people that the US should become fascist, and might therefore define fascism in a more positive light. I don't think that's the usual usage, but it might make for an interesting discussion. Anyway, hence the comparison with "being a little bit pregnant" -- you either are a fascist country or you aren't. Though to a certain extent this point is moot, because I agree that it's reasonable to worry that we might be headed in that direction. It's just fear-mongering that I have a problem with (though the subject of fear-mongering is interesting food for discussion, e.g. this thread).

Again you raise important points, and I agree that it's unfair for the right to brandish these labels and presumptions. But I think they chose this topic for a reason. I think it's reasonable to question what that reason might have been. You mention cases where science was unfairly admonished when the facts said the scientists were right. What about cases where the facts ultimately showed the science to be wrong? How many drugs were withdrawn from the market over the last couple of years? How many chemical products were hastily withdrawn amidst scientific speculation that later turned out to be false, and we lost a powerful and helpful ally like DDT, a drug which has never shown any solid evidence of harm and yet which people even right here in this forum continue to challenge the use of on the grounds that it harms people? I know you don't claim that scientists are demigods with supreme knowledge and authority, and I'm not chastising you. I'm saying that society puts too much power and authority in the hands of individual paper-writers who mash the press release button too early just so they can get published and get a name for themselves. If it turns out later they were wrong, well they just shrug and move on, hey it's not their fault the follow-up studies weren't done, if only we had a government that would do what it's supposed to do! Yeah, that must be it, it's the government's fault. Riiiiight. Scientists don't deserve canonization any more than they deserve demonization.

That's an understandable reaction, and one that I have myself sometimes, but I think it's unjustified in this case -- I haven't accused the authors of this paper of using "faux scientific evidence". I was speaking about a larger issue and raising the question of whether this might be an example. As I said from the start, I cannot read this paper because I'm unwilling to pay for it. I am willing, therefore, to keep an open mind about its methods and focus instead on why they chose this subject in the first place. If you work in academia you know that chosing a research topic is 9/10ths of the battle. I think it's possible this paper was written with an eye more on either ideological agenda or name-making than on actually proving a scientific point. And I think it's interesting to ask whether scientists who try to prove a liberalism-intelligence link are suffering from the same human frailty as religious zealots who try to prove the existence of god. I know it's not very politically correct to ask that question on a science board, but scientists are supposed to be above that sort of thing, and they're supposed to be above hypocrisy too.

Ok, this is getting a bit stale so I'd like to expand the discussion slightly with this offshoot question: Why is it that the protestors are stating that the "Jena 6" need to be "freed"? I just watched a Temple University professor on Bill O'Reilly explain carefully and thoughtfully that none of the protestors in Jena last week wants these boys to get off scott free -- they should be punished for their actions. I wanted to ask him how he reconciles the obvious disparity between that statement with the statements of "FREE THE JENA 6!!!" made by protestors at the rally. To me that is a non-sequitur, and it raises at least two possibilities in my mind by way of explanation: 1) The protestors feel exactly as this professor does, but they wanted to make an outrageous contrarian statement just to "increase public awareness of the problem". In other words, they're deliberately trying to tweak (let's be honest: WHITE) people's noses a bit in order to get them to pay attention. 2) They disagree with this professor's position, and think the six individuals should be freed immediately and not be held accountable for their actions. Two wrongs make a right, and they are just another kind of victim of inequality in America. What do you all think? Which one of these possibilities is more likely, or is there another possibility?

No. It is, however, becoming a state that's more divided by ideological partisanship. The presumption and declaration of fascism is one aspect of that problem, and the lie of those statements is seen in the fact that we're able to read them at all. "Becoming more fascist" is like "being a little bit pregnant". You either are, or you aren't. We aren't. Doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about trends and issues, but we shouldn't misrepresent them for ideological gain either.

Brief follow-up: The New York Times' Public Editor (read: Ombudsman) filed his take on the MoveOn ad today, saying that the newspaper violated its written policy in allowing the ad to take place, and erred again in giving the discount rate. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/opinion/23pubed.html?_r=2&n=Top/Opinion/The%20Public%20Editor&oref=slogin&oref=slogin As usual, I think the Times will ignore this internal criticism and continue to represent a leftward bias towards news reporting.

I had much the same reaction to the Slate article -- the author extrapolated quite a bit. (And that's why I'm not an ideologue on this issue, Phil, because I see both sides of a debate. You see one undeniable truth, when actually quite a bit of reasonable doubt has already been cast. So... who's the ideologue, again?) I find myself wanting to reiterate the original premise, which is about a larger subject that doesn't seem to have generated much response thus far: My hypothesis: Some far-left ideologues feel a compulsion to prove a connection between liberalism and intelligence. And that this desire for a connection is fundamentally equivalent to the desire by some on the religious right to prove the existence of god through faux scientific evidence.

You misunderstand the purpose of my posting behavior, which is actually to increase traffic, and attention to your subject, not reduce it. I'm not the only one posting amusing asides in this thread, and that's an acceptable practice in general at SFN, as are topic digressions most of the time. As a thread-starter, what I generally do if I feel that a thread is a bit too far off the subject and I'm getting frustrated with the replies, is I'll post a thread asking people to focus more on the subject, or prompt them, like you did with Lockheed above. Nothing wrong with that. But don't sweat about digressions, they're (usually) just part of the social atmosphere here.

Or maybe the reason they're making the choices they're making is because making different ones is really bad idea if your goal is anything other than hurting George Bush. Don't you remember when "uniter not divider" was a COMPLAINT from the left? Didn't that mean that the left believed that uniting was a GOOD thing? Or did they really mean "uniting" in the sense that "set aside your own beliefs and join our ideology, or else"? It takes two to tango. You want progress in this country, learn how to find middle ground, not stamp your feet and insist on the most stubborn and intractible policy imaginable.

I thought she went through security as well. That's interesting, I guess that does change the picture a bit, although I still wouldn't recommend walking around an airport wearing "artwork" that looks like a bomb. That's still pretty dumb. And it's dumb anywhere, not just in the US -- remember that incident after 7/7 with the British policeman shooting a suspect? This actually reminds me a lot of that Cartoon Network promotion-gone-awry story from a year or two ago.

You're a security guard. Guy walks up to you in an airport wearing a vest covered with electronics and plastic. Would you reach over and rip it off, or get everyone away and call for backup? It's a reasonable point to SOME extent, I won't say that it's not, but I think you have to put yourself in their shoes. Their job isn't to die stupidly for us, it's to keep an eye out for us. Yeah I'm sure that "Don't Tase Me Bro" guy said the same thing. Then they talked to his buddies and found out the truth. (shrug) But I don't see how it's relevent either way. The security guards aren't mind readers.

... says the guy who's name and avatar exemplify the importance and relevence of secrecy! That's kind of an ironic position to take, don't you think?

Curix, why don't you post some links and perhaps a summary for us? It sounds like interesting food for discussion.

You know as well as I do that they have a majority caucus and every single chairmanship. They control legislation and its appearance on the floor, they control what happens in committees, and they control the calendar. That's not a stalemate, it's a Democratic majority. The ONLY thing they lack is veto and filibuster override capability. In other words, EXACTLY the same thing Republicans had when they were in charge. And you've posted about Democratic congressional leadership and its successes and failures right here on these boards, so don't act like you never took that position. I'm very sorry the Democrats are failing at their "leadership" as badly as Republicans were, but trying to spin the blame isn't going to cut it here.

We don't let people walk through with hairspray and shampoo, why would we let them walk through with circuit boards wired to battries? Duh. If this person had gotten through security with that thing, you would have seen the student video posted to YouTube showing how lax that security is in a matter of hours.

Dr. Phi(l) has spoken! Nice post, Phi. He raises a really good point, which is that you're going to have to make peace with what your family is doing, because that's just their way. It's like getting upset that your mom makes you wear a jacket when it's cold outside. I'm more or less convinced that most day-to-day religious interaction exists on this basis. People just need an underlying reason for being good to one another. I guess just being good to one another for its own sake isn't sufficient motivation. (shrug)

Do you really wonder? I wonder....