The obsession some of you folks have about me is getting creepy.
Get over yourself. No one has a an obsession with you, you just aren't that interesting. People just like pointing out the incongruity of your behavior. You claim to be some stalwart of liberal ideals, yet you never embrace any of them. You claim to be honest, but your one of the most dishonest posters on this board. I don't know how many of your articles have turned out to be nothing about what you claim and that you have cherry picked something that sounds like support but contrary to the actual intent/meaning of the article. You pontificate that you ate on the right side of the argument, but then rely on those who are headed to the wrong side of history as the very voices you use to state your case. This is why you get called out. Not because people are obsessed or care about you. They view you as an example of the the very failings of our public discourse and rhetoric, and choose to hoist you to the yoke for public display.
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...what does Rian Johnson have to do with anything?
I have no idea, but the comments on that tweet really show how pathetic and sad Star Wars fans have become. Hands down the most annoying fan base ever.
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Interesting. Love Andrew, but something sets off warning lights reading this article. He mentions "critical theory" which is a term spreading across conservative media like an Australian bush fire. It's become a talking point, which is extremely troubling as it clearly points to a level of collusion to make an argument. So much for these people being shunned for their opinions. Maybe they are being shunned because they are taking their cues for their opinions from others, the very same thing they are whining about. I hope I'm off base here as Andrew Sullivan is one of my favorite reads. He's a conservative with a brain and a conscience, so taking his cues from an organized body, and adopting the hive mind, would be massively disappointing.
If Andrew Sullivan has had enough, someone who is endlessly tolerant of meaningful debate and willing to defend his position, then it really is as bad as he says it is.
There has to be an exchange of ideas for there to be real progress. Otherwise everyone retreats to their echo chamber and screams into the void. That gets us nowhere.
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Originally Posted by ResAlien
If we can't fall in love with replaceable bottom 6 players then the terrorists have won.
If Andrew Sullivan has had enough, someone who is endlessly tolerant of meaningful debate and willing to defend his position, then it really is as bad as he says it is.
There has to be an exchange of ideas for there to be real progress. Otherwise everyone retreats to their echo chamber and screams into the void. That gets us nowhere.
And what happens when someone, say a popular author/blogger, starts basing their articles on a talking points provided by a political body. Shall we speak about the echo chamber and how the echo chamber works? That is how the echo chamber works. It absolutely makes me sick to my stomach to read Andrew's article and recognize talking points sweeping the RW media. Meaningful debate dies on the vine when people do not think for themselves and take marching orders for what they have to say from others. I am really at a loss for this article and Andrew's behavior.
This is equally dumb. I actually pointed out what was wrong with her argument - i.e., why she was being dumb. There was no part of my post that was an ad hominem.
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No, but when self-proclaimed free speech advocates decide to go on long winded rants about the radical left and their thought policing based on liberal indoctrination from college (oh, hey Cliff!) and can barely get up to write two sentences about laws restricting protesting that effectively eliminates the ability to do so, it's see-through.
Or it has something to do with the fact that you don't really need to write more than two sentences to deal with the laws restricting the exercise of free speech, because we're all on the same page there.
Look at the degree of resistance in here from you, from Psycnet, from the usual suspects. Obviously, I'm on the other side, as is Cliff. Everyone's playing their defined roles here, which is why I kind of dropped it until you decided to come after me personally. But the same sorts of criticisms can be aimed at you: attempting to deflect and deride and ignore legitimate criticisms of the state of affairs in mainstream journalism by pointing at other stuff that isn't remotely controversial. It's just the same old internet debate points game, and it's pretty boring.
Yes. The government should not be making laws that actively suppress political viewpoints like BDS, no matter how much we might personally disagree with them. I'm with you. I support the removal, at the first possible opportunity, of any politician who promotes that sort of legislation Cliff, I assume, is with you. I'm sure if you asked them, the vast majority, if not all, of the Harpers signatories are with you. Maybe Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin aren't, who knows (I actually think they probably would be) but it hardly matters because who cares what those guys think. Everyone who matters is on the same page here. What more would you like them to say? Let me know, and I'll say it, and perhaps we* can get back to discussing the points where there's actually something to discuss. Or do those make you uncomfortable?
*Note: by "we", I don't actually mean me, I think it's pretty clear where I stand here so unless someone else wants to accuse me of being inconsistent to provoke a response I'm good.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Last edited by CorsiHockeyLeague; 07-17-2020 at 08:42 PM.
And what happens when someone, say a popular author/blogger, starts basing their articles on a talking points provided by a political body. Shall we speak about the echo chamber and how the echo chamber works? That is how the echo chamber works. It absolutely makes me sick to my stomach to read Andrew's article and recognize talking points sweeping the RW media. Meaningful debate dies on the vine when people do not think for themselves and take marching orders for what they have to say from others. I am really at a loss for this article and Andrew's behavior.
It happens all the time because it acts as shorthand for those who are familiar with the idea. Let’s not get our knickers in a twist over the words he used. Let’s address the problem he is encountering.
Sullivan is a regular on Real Time with Bill Maher. He may give air time to the odd right wing nutter, but he doesn’t invite them back over and over again unless they’re sane and intelligent. Like it or not, Andrew Sullivan has real credibility here, so it should be sobering to you enough to honestly consider what he has to say.
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Originally Posted by ResAlien
If we can't fall in love with replaceable bottom 6 players then the terrorists have won.
Maybe I missed something but it sounds like he was let go, not that he resigned (though apparently Haskell said it was a mutual parting of ways).
But he also speaks highly of pretty much everyone he worked with, and seems to be just guessing at why he was let go. Though there was the incident a month ago where his column on the riots wasn't published, so I'm sure that somehow plays into it.
Sullivan is a good writer and sometimes a very good thinker. But he also leans heavily on outdated ideas at times and has occasionally been his own worst enemy. I think the idea that he's been "endlessly tolerant of meaningful debate" is a bit of a crock. Sullivan plays into his own biases and has his own moments of being a dismissive reactionary too. We don't need to put him on a pedestal to make this out to be something it may or may not be.
We all have some biases that we revert to, even the best of us. We are humans and that comes with the territory. However, I have always been impressed by Sullivan to take in new information and concede valid points when made. He has a world view (as do we all) but he’s not static and changes his mind more than most. Even if he’s on the other team, we should all strive to be that open to new ideas. Most of us aren’t, though we’d love to think that we are.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ResAlien
If we can't fall in love with replaceable bottom 6 players then the terrorists have won.
This is equally dumb. I actually pointed out what was wrong with her argument - i.e., why she was being dumb. There was no part of my post that was an ad hominem.
Or it has something to do with the fact that you don't really need to write more than two sentences to deal with the laws restricting the exercise of free speech, because we're all on the same page there.
Look at the degree of resistance in here from you, from Psycnet, from the usual suspects. Obviously, I'm on the other side, as is Cliff. Everyone's playing their defined roles here, which is why I kind of dropped it until you decided to come after me personally. But the same sorts of criticisms can be aimed at you: attempting to deflect and deride and ignore legitimate criticisms of the state of affairs in mainstream journalism by pointing at other stuff that isn't remotely controversial. It's just the same old internet debate points game, and it's pretty boring.
Yes. The government should not be making laws that actively suppress political viewpoints like BDS, no matter how much we might personally disagree with them. I'm with you. I support the removal, at the first possible opportunity, of any politician who promotes that sort of legislation Cliff, I assume, is with you. I'm sure if you asked them, the vast majority, if not all, of the Harpers signatories are with you. Maybe Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin aren't, who knows (I actually think they probably would be) but it hardly matters because who cares what those guys think. Everyone who matters is on the same page here. What more would you like them to say? Let me know, and I'll say it, and perhaps we* can get back to discussing the points where there's actually something to discuss. Or do those make you uncomfortable?
*Note: by "we", I don't actually mean me, I think it's pretty clear where I stand here so unless someone else wants to accuse me of being inconsistent to provoke a response I'm good.
There's "a lot" here that seems based off a misunderstanding or a missed point, so I'll try to address it by point:
- Just because you give a half-assed reason why you think someone is dumb, does not mean you've avoided an ad hominem, and doesn't make your statement any different than someone levelling a similarly valid criticism at Weiss. If you want to dismiss that type of discussion, go ahead, but don't then treat someone else with a similar type of effort, that's dumb
- Where did I come after you personally? The rest of my post wasn't directed at you in any way and I apologise you felt included in the criticism but I feel like I go out of my way to mention I appreciate the level of consistency and fairness you usually bring to topics (both to you directly and in conversations with others) so get over whatever personal chip on your shoulder you have already man, it's exhausting.
- What sides are we on here? What defined roles do we have? I am not Psychnet or whoever else, and you are not Cliff. Isn't lumping diverse points of view and varying levels of nuance into "this side or that side" part of the problem being explored here? How do you further the discussion if that's how you look at it? We might have 5 posters here that disagree with 5 other posters, but that doesn't mean that there are only two opinions or two points of view and no nuance on either side. If you don't see it that way, great, act like it, and stop assuming others do.
- The point, which I think you missed, is that there is a difference between principle and rhetoric as a weapon. Sure, it's convenient as a person of principle to include those on your side who use rhetoric as a weapon so long as the weapon is pointed in a direction you agree with, but how far will that really get you? It doesn't do principled people any favours to lump themselves in with people who use rhetoric as a weapon and say "hey, we probably agree on everything else related to this issue too!" because the likelihood is probably not and you debase your own principles by being entirely uncritical of the positions of motives of the people you agree with. You're sitting there saying "hey, these people agree with me on this issue, so they probably agree with me on all these issues, because they must be principled people," and at best, that's naive, at worst, its willfully ignorant.
At the end of the day though, if you're coming at it from a position of principle and not rhetoric, it should be easy to see, because your energy spent talking about an issue and the weight you give it should more or less match the actual importance of the issue. So excuse people "playing their defined roles" and thinking that those who fanaticize about college campuses and the liberal media while trotting out statistics that don't fit their point or run through the same tired and debunked talking points, all while remaining consistently silent on nearly every free speech issue outside of those two ballparks, are full of ####.
It's ok to be critical of things you disagree with. It's also ok to be critical of the positions of people who you seemingly agree with and not just take them at their word because you agree with them. You know that. Not every critique of Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson or Andrew Sullivan or whoever the latest matryr for the cause is needs to be taken so personally by every "classical liberal." Y'all need to relax.
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How are blind auditions unfair? Maybe blacks and Latinos just aren't into classical music?
Jeez what next. The only thing a professional orchestra should “reflect” is music.
Only the most hardcore classical artists are hanging in there now. You can go see an opera for 15 bucks. Used to be 100 bucks was cheap. The quality of opera singing declined when looks became more important than singing ability. Believe it or not singers have been fired for being too fat! All this to compete with pop music and Broadway.
The bel canto teachers I know were losing students left and right to teachers who lean more towards pop and musical theater well before we all had to go on Zoom. If anything, white people are leaning more towards Black and Latino music.
On the other side of this spectrum, Michael Brooks suddenly passed away yesterday at age 36. Was never a huge fan of his work but by all accounts he was a pretty solid dude. His Sam Seder impressions were hilarious.
Michael Brooks was pretty phenomenal, if you ask me. Funny, warm, and committed to making the world better. This loss is a real shame. There would never be a question of bias, as he was firmly socialist, but he was both critical of opinions different than his own and unafraid of giving space to critiques of his.
Anyone who frequents this thread should probably read Against the Web, which is a quite short but worthwhile critique of the intellectual dark web.
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"No, we do not support the boycott of Israel.… We do not ask anyone to boycott Israel itself.… We have relations with Israel. We have mutual recognition of Israel."
These words were uttered by none other than Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose clarion call to his domestic supporters and to Israel's detractors abroad sought to dissuade those who would employ this tactic due to its self-defeating and counterproductive nature
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Last year, BDS advocates revealed themselves as bigots, hate-mongers and anti-Semites when pressuring the Rototom Sunsplash reggae festival into demanding that Jewish reggae artist Matisyahu issue a statement in support of Palestinian statehood, a demand Matisyahu refused to comply with, which then saw the organizers cancel his performance.
On May 1, one week after the law was temporarily blocked, Amawi signed a new contract for Pflugerville ISD without the anti-BDS addendum.
When the Texas Senate debated HB 793 earlier this month, the bill's senate sponsor, Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, said the bill doesn't change anything Pitman identified as a "defect" in the existing anti-boycott Israel law.
"The bill primarily makes our original intent clear, which is that it was not to pertain to small contracts and individuals," Creighton said.
I generally wasn’t a fan of Brooks and his style but was still shocked about the news yesterday. I’d watch his show every now and again for the purpose of sponging a different perspective as the bloke was inarguably very well informed. Yesterday’s Majority Report during which they receive the news while recording, as well as today’s in which they pay tribute, were both pretty heavy affairs.
