U.S. Electile Dysfunction 2016

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Not to disagree with Richard's "GOP evil abandons historic role as fiscal conservatives and rational counterbalance to liberal excesses! Dems good at least don't write their anti-science into the party platform or candidates' speeches!"

.

[Zeta-Flux]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Dems good at least don't write their anti-science into the party platform or candidates' speeches!

Instead they pretend to have a vote, and then change their platform anyway.

[cheesehead]

By "at least don't write their anti-science into the party platform or candidates' speeches!" I was referring to that although some leftists have anti-science beliefs such as anti-vax, such anti-science doesn't make its way into Democratic party platforms, or into speeches by leading Democratic national political candidates (AFAIK). Republicans, on the other hand, have incorporated creationism and AGW-denial into theirs.

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

Instead they pretend to have a vote, and then change their platform anyway.

May we have an explanation of "pretend to have a vote" and "then change their platform anyway" in the context of anti-science beliefs, and a specific example of such?

[Zeta-Flux]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

May we have an explanation of "pretend to have a vote" and "then change their platform anyway" in the context of anti-science beliefs, and a specific example of such?

It wasn't in the context of "anti-science beliefs" but rather ewmayer's point that you only seem to see the good in the Democrats and the bad in Republicans.

For a specific example of a pretend vote, see this article.

----

ewmayer, why'd you fix my bad quote boxes? I meant for them to be that way. ;-)

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

It wasn't in the context of "anti-science beliefs"

... so it's not an exception to my point about party asymmetry in regard to anti-science.

but rather ewmayer's point that you only seem to see the good in the Democrats and the bad in Republicans.

I didn't interpret Ernst's "'GOP evil! Dems good!' repeat-o-meme" as meaning that I "only seem to see the good in the Democrats and the bad in Republicans". That, instead, is your (incorrect) paraphrase of Ernst's words, Zeta-Flux.

I viewed Ernst's phrase as a shortcut reference to a certain theme of mine without necessarily implying anything about what I "see". Thus, my response was to present an expansion of his shorthand rather than a rebuke to Ernst.

- -

I'll once again point out:

1) My multi-year political theme has been to point out specific faults that have arisen in the Republican Party since the 1970s (because conservative strategists changed direction then), and what those faults have caused.

(I don't see anyone else presenting that theme in this forum.)

2) It's not a matter of seeing only the bad in Republicans, but a matter of sticking to one theme because I'm not so omnipotent as to be able to comment on everything I see.

Note that I don't complain about onesidedness when other folks comment on things (such as good in Republicans or bad in Democrats) that I haven't commented about. (I do sometimes comment to correct factual errors I notice in such other comments.) Instead, I welcome such comments without complaining that other people focus their comments on certain subjects rather than covering all possible points of view. (Specialization is okay.)

3) My references to Democrats are almost entirely for contrast with what I see as those Republican faults (1). Generally, I'm pointing out what Democrats do (or do significantly more often than Republicans do) that I want to see Republicans also do, such as eschewing pseudoscience.

I don't fail to see any bad in Democrats, but I leave commenting on such bad aspects to other folks who want to do that (without my sniping that they "see only bad in Democrats" !!).

- -

I invite you to show me where you've commented on other participants' non-universality in postings.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

ewmayer, why'd you fix my bad quote boxes? I meant for them to be that way. ;-)

Richard had obviously tried and goofed his attempt as "quote-box special effects", and you went on and quoted his mal-quote. Did my best 60-second fixup job. If you don't like, there's a number on the side of the machine you can call to attempt to obtain authorization for someone to provide instructions on the procedure to follow to request a form explaining where to get a complaint form, or something.

As you can see, we aim for 100% customer satisfaction!

[ewmayer]

From the Slate article in my previous link - did anyone making lengthy flame/counterflame here actually bother to read that article? - we see

In March 2010, the Associated Press found that, under Obama, 17 major agencies were 50 percent more likely to deny FOIA requests than under Bush. The following year, the presidents of two journalism societies— Association of Health Care Journalists and Society of Professional Journalists—called out President Obama for muzzling scientists in much the same way President Bush had.

Admittedly, the Bush administration was a worse offender in the specific realm of science. But w.r.to whistleblowers, torture and immunity for Wall Street, Obama et al are as bad or worse. And Guantanamo - which is merely the the most-public of numerous "black sites" - is *still* open, over a decade after 9/11. As I recently wrote to a friend who tried to defend such indefinite-detentions-sans-trial:

The 3rd and 4th protocols of the Geneva Convention are at issue here - from the related wikipage on unlawful combatants:

The judgment quoted the 1958 ICRC commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention: Every person in enemy hands must be either a prisoner of war and, as such, be covered by the Third Convention; or a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention. Furthermore, "There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law,"[4] because in the opinion of the ICRC, "If civilians directly engage in hostilities, they are considered 'unlawful' or 'unprivileged' combatants or belligerents (the treaties of humanitarian law do not expressly contain these terms). They may be prosecuted under the domestic law of the detaining state for such action".[1][5]

Your Kafkaesque extralegal netherworld of indefinite detention without trial and with lots of "enhanced interrogation" [wink, wink, nudge, nudge] makes a mockery of such things, and your fig leaf of "constitutional protections don't apply just because they're in our custody" makes a mockery of the latter document.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Richard had obviously tried and goofed his attempt as "quote-box special effects",

I wasn't trying for any special effect, but what you substituted, though adequate for that discussion, I think, was not what I intended.

It's not a big deal (note that I didn't complain in the other thread), but I'm curious ... what was wrong?

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

I wasn't trying for any special effect, but what you substituted, though adequate for that discussion, I think, was not what I intended.

It's not a big deal (note that I didn't complain in the other thread), but I'm curious ... what was wrong?

You had quoted me and modified the quoted text with strikethrus ... the closing [ quote ] was missing the / in front of the quote. I restored that, but further had to append a . to the close-quote because vb requires at least one 'original' charcater in a message.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

From the Slate article in my previous link - did anyone making lengthy flame/counterflame here actually bother to read that article? - we see

Yes, Obama's faults need to be publicized, too. I have no objection to anyone else's doing so. I don't have the time.

If the Republican Party were to reorient its strategic directions in the manner I favor, it would have many, many party members who could post such criticisms (and thus serve as a counterweight to liberals) competently and without the taint that that party's current expeditions into irrationality and single-minded drive to transfer wealth to the already-most-wealthy right-wingers have lent to the GOP.

Admittedly, the Bush administration was a worse offender in the specific realm of science. But w.r.to whistleblowers, torture and immunity for Wall Street, Obama et al are as bad or worse. And Guantanamo - which is merely the the most-public of numerous "black sites" - is *still* open, over a decade after 9/11. As I recently wrote to a friend who tried to defend such indefinite-detentions-sans-trial:

Exactly. I applaud those who can write about such things competently. Whistleblowers, torture and immunity for Wall Street are not issues about which I have enough knowledge to post an informed comment that adds anything to our forum that is not already being posted by others, so I'm very glad that Ernst and others are knowledgeable about them.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Yet another candid statement of the GOP's real motives

When I complain about some fault of "the GOP", I'm not intending that to include everyone who might vote for a Republican, but instead am referring to only the party leadership and strategic planners.