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Post 01 Jan 2011, 3:53 pm

tom
Oh boy, here we go again, AM radio and Fox news = Bad. All else = Good. Ricky, why do you refuse to admit CNN, ABC, CBS, etc (lets not get into MSNBC) lean left? ONLY those who are right are bad???
And the fairness doctrine sounded fair only, the whole idea was to tilt all news to the left and attempt to homogenize news, it was anything but fair and anything but free speech

The point I'm trying to make is about persistent misinformation Tom. The recent Maryland study on misinformation found a direct correlation between people holding misconceptions (belieiving something factually untrue) and exclusive viewing of Fox News. (Although exclusive viewers of MSNBC were also misinformed about some things as well.)
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/study-fox-ne ... consumers/
The problem with the end of the fairness Doctrine was because it took the natural governance off public debate. When all sides (I prefer all to both, but I guess in the US its almost always both) are given equal time they both have to acknowledge that the opposition has said something. Either they have to respond by providing evidence or substantiation for something they've said or they have to challenge the other voice....
According to a 2007 study by the Free Press and the Centre for American Progress 91% of AM talk radio programming is now "right Wing". Hannity, Savage, OReilly, Limbaugh etc." Its very profitable for AM stations to pick up a satellite feed and live off the network share and local advertising they can derive from the dedicated listernship.
But without a challenge these on air personalities follow Pierces' Second Great premise: Anything they say, if they say it loudly enough and often enough is to be taken as true by their audience.
My point is that the irrational people in the study weren't born that way. They listened to their exclusive media and their informational base was mishapen by the lack of exposure to anything else.
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Post 02 Jan 2011, 11:52 am

Hurrah! We have BBCode!

Ricky wrote:The problem with the end of the fairness Doctrine was because it took the natural governance off public debate. When all sides (I prefer all to both, but I guess in the US its almost always both) are given equal time they both have to acknowledge that the opposition has said something. Either they have to respond by providing evidence or substantiation for something they've said or they have to challenge the other voice...

Pretty funny given that this is written in the context of the spreading of incorrect info. First, I'm unable to see how FCC regulations imposed via fines amounts to "natural governance off public debate". It seems more like artificial governance to me. But more importantly, as so often happens, Ricky is confusing the Fairness Doctrine with the Equal Time rule. "The Fairness Doctrine should not be confused with the Equal Time rule." says Wikipedia.

President Obama does not favor reinstatement of the rule and no real effort was made to do so when the Dems held both houses. Why? I'm old enough to actually remember the Fairness Doctrine being applied in practice. As I remember it, here's how it would be applied today to a radio station that currently broadcasts nothing but "Hannity, Savage, OReilly, Limbaugh etc" around the clock: maybe twice a day, once at 5AM and again at 2:30 in the afternoon, some boring person with a droning voice who happens to be a prominent liberal is given five minutes of air time expressly to rebut what's been aired by the conservative voices.

It's a joke and would not make a dent in what Ricky seeks to redress. As I see it the problem isn't lack of weak (and possibly unconstitutional) government regulation, it's the commercial viability of a certain genre of broadcasting. Before I describe that, a caveat: I've never once heard or watched Hannity, Savage or O'Reilly (except for some brief clips of the last) and I don't subscribe to cable TV and haven't seen more than snippets of Fox News Channel. I'm basing this speculation on having listened to at least ten hours of Rush Limbaugh in my life. So saying you should take this with a grain of salt is probably a gross understatement. :shock:

Why has the Tea Party been so successful? We have to consider all partisan or ideological public affairs broadcasting and live events, plus email and blogging - basically everything except serious newspapers - as political theater. In theater, not all genres are equally successful. Audiences will respond with different degrees of interest and attention based not just on the skill of the thespian, but also on what emotions/attitudes the play evokes - which heart-strings it plucks. I mention the Tea Party because it, like Rush Limbaugh, plays to a special area of the American psyche. I don't know if this area is as strong in general for people elsewhere, but it's certainly been tapped at times nearly everywhere in one form or another, often getting completely out of hand and resulting in huge tragedies.

"You are being treated unfairly!" That's the basic message. Look how effectively it motivates Ricky! "Your problems aren't of your own making, but are imposed on you by nefarious forces who don't think like you do." Again, though I'm not saying all this to make this amusing point, look how the 'Our Brains Are Different" meme resonates with the left. The conservative mode of this paints academics, the mainstream media, intellectuals, feminists, globalists, pacifists and atheists as traitors to "the American way". Rugged individualism, self-reliance, libertarianism, moral simplicity/clarity, and a God-Country connection of significance are all elements not just of a national myth (as I so often hear Danivon say) but of a cognitive style that's fairly ingrained and pervasive among Americans who are members of the demographic mainstream/majority: white, Christian, non-intellectual (though very possibly college-educated and not necessarily handicapped in the IQ department), and busier than we, who spend too much time at Redscape writing all this crap, trying to deal day to day with life's practical difficulties.

I'm talking psychology once again. (Maybe that means brain anatomy, maybe not.) Rush Limbaugh is able to tap into this psyche in a very effective way. It's not a matter of telling untruths; it's being able to create an image of "them" that's threatening in a certain way. Not so threatening as to cause an immediate fear reaction - that would cause too many people to change the channel. Threat has to be combined with ridicule and diminishment. Rush seeks to provoke outrage and indignation (of the righteous variety) but also smiles. Liberal talk radio seems unable to do this nearly as well. I suspect that liberals lack the type of moral self-confidence needed to permit humor to mix with anger. Liberals don't seem to be able to laugh at their enemies the way conservatives can.

The Fairness Doctrine won't have any effect on this whatsoever. In fact, it's easy enough to see someone like Rush turning it to his advantage. What liberals need is a better genre of theater. They have it. It's called television entertainment. Look at Saturday Night Live (especially the "news" segment), The West Wing, Law & Order, and Jon Stewart for example. (I don't watch much TV so excuse me for offering a very short list. Also: cinema. There used to be many more liberal message movies that were thoroughly entertaining, not shrill or hectoring. Movies and TV have a huge advantage over talk radio; Rush can't really convent a lot of lefties because they simply don't tune him in, but movies and TV shows that are entertaining will attract lots of conservative viewers, and of course pictures plus sound is a much more powerful medium than sound alone.

Ricky: if I were you I'd be less interested in the Fairness Doctrine and more interested in figuring out why liberals have seemingly, to a large degree, lost the knack to be both entertaining and effective. Why can't there be a Jon Stewart on radio?
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Post 02 Jan 2011, 11:56 am

correction paragraph 2 about Obama. replace "rule" with "doctrine". (Even I get confused between the two!)

Where do I click to EDIT a post?
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Post 02 Jan 2011, 1:55 pm

x
Ricky: if I were you I'd be less interested in the Fairness Doctrine and more interested in figuring out why liberals have seemingly, to a large degree, lost the knack to be both entertaining and effective. Why can't there be a Jon Stewart on radio?

First, in fairness X, I'm not proposing a return of the fairness doctrine. All I'm doing is observing what happened to AM radio after the fairness doctrine ended. 92% of AM talk became largely syndicated right wing ranters.
Right Wing rants took over specifically because they were profitable. They attracted enough of an audience, and a loyal audience that advertisers found them an attractive vehicle. Particularly advertisers seeking the kind of people intested in speculative gold at retail prices...And pills for erectile dysfunction. And they were fairly cheap to produce and distribute. (No expensive research teams required.)
People always describe them as "entertainment". Especially when making excuses for their excesses.(Oh that Michael Savage always kidding around about rape...) But that doesn't diminish the role they have played in creating misinformed idiots who get most of their view of the outside world through their lens.
Yes, Jon Stewart has the same kind of loyal audience, 18-34 year olds who's world knowledge on current events is driven mostly by what they learn from Stewarts show. I would point out, however, that Stewart has plenty of conservatives as guests on his show and interviews all kinds of "experts". (Mostly authors peddling a recent book but still...genuine experts in their particular field." And he drives a lot of book sales of these authors.) And Stewart has this think about supporting his "points with actual evidence". Maybe just because using recorded video to demonstrate hypocricy and dishonesty is funny.
The topic we're discussing is "Are our brains different?". And I'm saying that when exposed uncritically to nothing but misinformation - your brain does become different. Its filled with nonsense.
In remonstrating here that Liberals just need to find a way to copy the idiots on the right on the radio you've given into Pierce's first great premise
" Any theory has validity if it sells books, soaks up ratings or otherwise moves units".
It isn't valid for left wing ranters like Ed Watchamacallit" (I heard him twice and he's as vile a ranter as Hannity) to be given an unrestrained voice unchecked by editorial restraint, the requirement for documentation or evidence, or oppossing views, anymore than Hannity. All that would do is create two silos where the uniformed can go and get their mind pablum.
I don't know what the solution is X, and I'm not arguing that it can be regulated... I just know that if you want to blame something for a mass of ill informed public one place to start is where the most ill informed get their information.
Perhaps the one thing is the concentration of media owneship. A couple of media outfits own 90% of the AM radio in the US. (Guess what they program). Maybe there's too much concentration?
Let me be clear X. I believe there are always cranks willing to believe uncritically and who respond emotionally to somethings that "feel" right. Whats different in the US is that these cranks aren't just tolerated, they've been given a loud clear voice and they've attracted a solid core who know nothing but what they are constantly exposed to....
When they make up a significant share of the electorate, it becomes impossible to have an inclusive public debate that respects what you and I would generally agree would be substantive arguement.
At what point do you stop arguing with a 9/11 conspiracy nut or an Obama birther and just realize they've lost touch with reality? (And don't get me started on the Lizard people...)
Yes, those two topics are on the fringe but when misinformation is so clearly deliniated by exclusive media choices, can you not agree that the media needs to be improved - not just another set of media silos created so that liberals can wallow in misinformation?
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Post 03 Jan 2011, 1:03 am

Ricky wrote:First, in fairness X, I'm not proposing a return of the fairness doctrine. All I'm doing is observing what happened to AM radio after the fairness doctrine ended. 92% of AM talk became largely syndicated right wing ranters.

But that didn't happen because the Fairness Doctrine disappeared. There's no reason at all to raise the issue of the Fairness Doctrine; it's loss didn't cause the problem and it's return wouldn't solve it. You wrote: "Perhaps the greatest advance for the irrational mind was the end of the Fairness Doctrine and the complete domination of the AM radio waves by Right Wing Talk Radio." I'm asserting that the Fairness Doctrine didn't protect minds from BS when it was in place, and the rise of conservative talk radio owed nothing to its disappearance. No cause/effect relationship (in that direction at least) whatsoever.

You have misunderstood the point I was trying to make about leftwing TV and media - what else is new?

Once again: 54% of Democrats reject Darwin. Only 20% fully accept him. Talk radio may be a problem but it's not the only one.
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Post 03 Jan 2011, 6:30 am

Minister X wrote:correction paragraph 2 about Obama. replace "rule" with "doctrine". (Even I get confused between the two!)

Where do I click to EDIT a post?


The feature is there now!First little icon on the top-right of your own posts is a crossed hammer and screwdriver(?)
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Post 03 Jan 2011, 8:04 am

x
But that didn't happen because the Fairness Doctrine disappeared. There's no reason at all to raise the issue of the Fairness Doctrine; it's loss didn't cause the problem and it's return wouldn't solve it. You wrote: "Perhaps the greatest advance for the irrational mind was the end of the Fairness Doctrine and the complete domination of the AM radio waves by Right Wing Talk Radio." I'm asserting that the Fairness Doctrine didn't protect minds from BS when it was in place, and the rise of conservative talk radio owed nothing to its disappearance. No cause/effect relationship (in that direction at least) whatsoever.

All right. So it wasn't the end of the Fairness Doctrine that caused media concentration and created the prevalence of right wing radio. (Makes you wonder why the right campaigned so hard against its re-instatement...)
You'll agree that it still happened that right wing radio began its dominance at the same time? But to you the rise of right wing radio and its dominace is only a matter of the markets deciding upon a winner I suppose?
Fair enough. Economically Clear Channel has won.
But the point remains that its still making people stupid.
Apparently thats okay with you, because any content that is successful in generating ratings is valid.
x

Why has the Tea Party been so successful? We have to consider all partisan or ideological public affairs broadcasting and live events, plus email and blogging - basically everything except serious newspapers - as political theater. In theater, not all genres are equally successful. Audiences will respond with different degrees of interest and attention based not just on the skill of the thespian, but also on what emotions/attitudes the play evokes - which heart-strings it plucks.

The gut feel. If it "feels right" it must be right.
When you noted wrongly that I was appealing to the natural governance of debate, by implying I meant outside regulation, was that your "feel" of what I said?
What I meant by natural governance was the interaction between two educated adults in conversation. Both respectful of the others ideas, but also respectful of the process of the debate. Demanding evidence or authority for claims. Allowing a give and take.
The silos that are created when a media program is nothing but one sided ranting is without any control. Its without this natural governance. Its one person yelling.
To suggest that conservatives brains are different because significant numbers are willing to accept this yelling as "informative entertainment" and make it successful economically as a result - but that Liberal brains aren't capable of giving in to their emotions and forgoing reason long enough to make a Liberal ranter a success seeems a strange arguement from a conservative. (And the point that Liberals aren't funny. Really? Colbert and Stewart and Black aren't funny? Tina Fey ain't a hoot?)
Michael Moore's a Liberal. His movies tend to use the emotional ploys and appeals that make him a reasonable equal of the radio ranters. With an exception. At least in his movie on the medical insurance industry in the US, (the last one I actuallly saw) he went to enormous pains to document all of his claims... He was aware of the criticisms of his previous efforts and responded to them when he produced that effort. (Grant you, he's still insufferable.)
Is there any influence on right wing radio that would make Hannity or Savage sit back and respond to criticism in a like vein?
What would happen for instance, if once a week Hannity had to offer Jon Stewart 15 minutes of air time to offer his listening audience a typical Daily Show rejoinder? How would Fox and friends respond if their foibles were on display through Stewarts eyes on their own show every so often? (They don't care that he does it on his show, because their audience NEVER watches him.)
Methinks that they would avoid some of the transgressions and improve their "journalistic game".
What the media silos of right wing radio, and cable news from particular points of view has done is that they've eliminated the competition of ideas and replaced it with the loud repeated transmission of slogans.
If thats a winning formula brought to you by the success of the free market, I submit that the free market has failed in this instance to deliver society what it needs. And what a healthy democracy needs is a healthy media that allows people to engage ideas. What they've been given is a media that selectively spews one kind of pap to an audience that hasn't learned the benefit of engaging ideas with an open mind.
And you're saying is that conservatives are better at this? Is that the kind of "brain difference" we're talking about?
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Post 03 Jan 2011, 5:25 pm

LOL. Ricky is so used to arguing with me he's totally incapable of discerning when (on occasion) I'm on his side. [i.e. I supposedly believe that "any content that is successful in generating ratings is valid."] But that's not important. I finally got him to admit an error! (Now he'll redouble his determination to never do it again.) :lol:

Ricky: the liberal media content I was thinking about as being effective transmitters of beliefs was the TV series The West Wing and the movie Norma Rae. More like this would be, IMHO, the best way for the left to compete with the right for the minds of people who don't read very much. But it's silly to continue a discussion along these lines because I'm simply not familiar enough with popular culture. I've never seen Colbert and don't even know who "Black" is. I've only ever seen a few minutes of Tina Fey. So I withdraw due to ignorance and concede whatever goes along with that.
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Post 03 Jan 2011, 6:29 pm

First, thank you Danivon for posting a supposed quote by me that was not said. I said clearly both sides have their idiots, the dems maybe more. Never did I say they were the same but the libs have more, thanks for changing what I said in an effort to make me look stupid. No, those who misquote are the stupid ones, when it is pointed out, they have to back pedal over their statements. Please do not try and change the thrust of your statement was to ridicule me and it simply is not what I said.

Second
MX mentions what the fairness doctrine was. The suggestions that had been made from many Democrats was often called the fairness doctrine but they were usually referring to something different, they wanted to stop any opposition views from being spread on the airwaves. They did in fact often call for equal time on AM radio while calling this a "Fairness Doctrine"It reminds me of the way Ricky and Danivon are speaking here, they see no problem when misinformation suits themselves. Why do we hear nothing about CNN, or CBS or ABC or the liberals favorite blogs? So we can complain about freaking AM radio but ignore mainstream TV and internet blogs? The crap is the same on both sides, they simply have different vehicles to deliver the manure they are selling.
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Post 04 Jan 2011, 7:35 am

x
LOL. Ricky is so used to arguing with me he's totally incapable of discerning when (on occasion) I'm on his side. [i.e. I supposedly believe that "any content that is successful in generating ratings is valid."] But that's not important. I finally got him to admit an error! (Now he'll redouble his determination to never do it again.)

Ricky: the liberal media content I was thinking about as being effective transmitters of beliefs was the TV series The West Wing and the movie Norma Rae. More like this would be, IMHO, the best way for the left to compete with the right for the minds of people who don't read very much. But it's silly to continue a discussion along these lines because I'm simply not familiar enough with popular culture. I've never seen Colbert and don't even know who "Black" is. I've only ever seen a few minutes of Tina Fey. So I withdraw due to ignorance and concede whatever goes along with that

You're on my side, but then you admit that you don't know what you're talking about?
Thanks.
Interestingly, you do the old "choose up sides thing here X". Its typically American to pick sides on any issue rather than discuss the nuanced positions.
For instance, you appeal to popular entertainment as a great Liberal vehicle for the hearts anf minds of the unwashed public. Yep, shows like 24 which seemed to have the socializing effect of making torture acceptable and a consistanty reliable source of information. Produced by a Canadian liberal.
I think that most people can discern that most popular entertainment is just that, "entertainment" and don't draw from "Texas Ranger" a position on effective law enforcement or a stance on illegal immigration...
The problem is that Talk radio, is entertainment when criticized for its excesses and inaccuracies. And treated as a news source by most of its listeners. And cable news is supposed to be, and tells its audience it is, a reliable news source. With journalistic integrity. You can't accept that it isn't and not understand that polarized political "news sources" damage the ability of a people to govern themselves. Madison said that an informed and educated public are vital to self government. Isn't a misinformed public a danger to self government?

If conservatives and liberals have different brains, then why do people change their allegiances in life? (There are examples amongst our posters). I think because peole become exposed to other ideas and critical thought that challenges their pre-conceptions.
The dis-service the politicized, polarized media does to the American public is the absence of critical thought and competing ideas.
The one thing unique to Americans from most of the west is the extent to which Americans are religious. In that one thing, the ability to "believe with faith" and an absence of rationale evidence makes the religious mind more accepting of rants offered with no evidence. More accepting of that "gut feel" that something is right... And in that way the respect for authorative experts is diminished.
Colbert defined that as "truthiness". Its a shame you haven't bothered to expose yourself to his act. He's on the Interweb!!!!
That conservatives are much more religious than liberals is perhaps why rant radio is a mainly conservative medium. But again, it doesn't mean their basic brain chemistry or structure is different. It means from the time they entered consciousness they were taught to believe rather than think critically.
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Post 04 Jan 2011, 12:55 pm

GMTom wrote:First, thank you Danivon for posting a supposed quote by me that was not said. I said clearly both sides have their idiots, the dems maybe more. Never did I say they were the same but the libs have more, thanks for changing what I said in an effort to make me look stupid. No, those who misquote are the stupid ones, when it is pointed out, they have to back pedal over their statements.
No backpedalling, I employed a device we use in language called 'paraphrasing'. I was recalling a very similar discussion on the old site where you basically said the same thing, I used the same paraphrasing and you hit the roof. You didn't say that the libs had more, but you did say that they had the same or more, and thus discount the possibility that there are fewer.

Please do not try and change the thrust of your statement was to ridicule me and it simply is not what I said.
Oh, please, you can't read my post and not think I was trying to poke fun at you. Yes, I was attempting to show that you are incredibly predictable sometimes. I gotta get my laughs somewhere - the Tories just put sales tax up here so fun is that little more expensive now (as is non-fun).

It reminds me of the way Ricky and Danivon are speaking here, they see no problem when misinformation suits themselves. Why do we hear nothing about CNN, or CBS or ABC or the liberals favorite blogs? So we can complain about freaking AM radio but ignore mainstream TV and internet blogs? The crap is the same on both sides, they simply have different vehicles to deliver the manure they are selling.
But we do hear about them, don't we. Every time in this debate, if Fox or right wing talk-radio is mentioned, it's inevitable that someone will compare them to the 'Mainstream Media Bias' of the 'major' networks. So why bother mentioning them, when they will come up anyway. It's almost redundant. Indeed, as having three threads which are pretty much on the same topic of "why do people on the left and right appear to see the world differently" seems to me to be stunningly redundant when there are zero threads about other political subjects. In the USA alone there's a new Congress coming in after a bunch of frenetic bill activity by the previous majority, Daley being mooted to take over as Chief of Staff, O'Donnell being investigated over her finances, the mysterious death of John Wheeler, continuing implications of the Wikileaks... That's before you guys consider opening up your horizons to look at things going on in the rest of the world.

Oh, when it comes to the internet, for every Kos, there's a Drudge. Claiming that the internet is in any way more or less 'liberal' or 'conservative' when 99.99% of it is probably total horse-pucky (and that's of the tiny amount that is actually about politics) would take a hell of a lot to substantiate. Let's just say that when it comes to spreading misinformation and rumour, the internet has provided a way to take things to a whole new level.
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Post 04 Jan 2011, 8:46 pm

Sorry but your "logic" is failed all around. You did not paraphrase what I had said, paraphrasing (as you well know) is saying the same thing in different words. You changed what I had said in a deliberate attempt to make me look stupid, you did not paraphrase in the least, fine but admit it and not try to weasel out of it. You got called on it, admit it and stop trying to find some loophole, I did not care for your slander, I especially do not care for your attempt to explain it away while once again trying to make me look stupid.

As far as the fox nonsense, again, not the same thing in the least. Look at the mentions of FOX and the main stream liberal media bias, FOX is mentioned FAR more often in a negative light and more often than not, the liberal media bias comes into play AFTER the FOX nonsense is brought up. If you really want to believe blogs are even as far as lib/conservative, go right ahead, we know it's wrong. We can just as easily say FOX is balanced by MSNBC while we have equal numbers 1 to 1 MSNBC is not watched by as many people. Just as there might be as many conservative blogs, the popular ones are mostly liberal ones. And stilllllllll, no thing about main stream media bias, by conveniently ignoring it does not make it less so. If you want to slam FOX, go right ahead but you then open yourself to criticism of MSM as well.
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Post 05 Jan 2011, 11:15 am

Tom, it was how I interpreted your words, and the things you’ve said before. I’m not trying to weasel out of anything – I stand by what I wrote as an expression of how I think you think. As I said, you were able to consider that there is the same number of idiots on both sides, or more on the liberal side, but excluded the possibility of more on the conservative side. If that’s not the case, then look at what you have written and try to understand why it may come across that way (I realise that this requires you to stop and think, rather than just hit ‘Reply’ and go off on another rant, but give it a go, huh?).

Basically, I’m saying that you can’t seem to help yourself. Every time there is a similar debate on behaviour or whatever, you start off even-handedly saying that both sides are about the same, and then leave off with the position that one is/could be slightly worse.

On Fox and the MSM, you prove my point. Mention of Fox guarantees that right wingers will moan about the other networks, so in a sense there is not much point in doing so. It would only be a throwaway or a sop anyway. I have, however, seen discussions about MSM bias where it was raised first by the right and only afterwards does someone mention Fox. Even on here!

Mind you, I didn’t slam Fox at all in this thread, did I? Would you, perchance, be misinterpreting what I’ve written and extrapolating from that? Perish the thought that you might do the same thing that seems to have mightily offended you. ;-)

On websites, I’ve no idea how you’ve established which the most popular ones are and what their position is. Additionally, that doesn’t account for the huge number of small sites and blogs that work collaboratively, or forums or whatever. It seems to me that if anything, the internet is likely to be far more representative of the population that use it than the more traditional one-way media. It also allows a far wider spectrum of views to be aired and discussed. Which could explain why libertarianism is more vocal and visible on the internet than in the wider population. Now, that means that conservatives will see lots of non-conservative sites around. But equally, liberals will see lots of non-liberal sites around too. Still, as the internet is pretty much an open market of ideas, it would be very difficult for anyone to argue that there is a bias there.

Anyway, does anyone else have any ideas why we have three politics threads on one aspect, but none on anything else? Did nothing happen since mid December?
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Post 12 Jan 2011, 7:03 am

One BIG problem, check the posts, as many as you can and please tell me how many times FOX and/or Conservative talk radio is used FIRST. (almost always by RickyP by the way) Yes, you will see some complaining about main stream media first but my guess is it is 95% of the time a liberal will complain loudly about FOX/Radio. If one wants to bring them up as an example of one side, then can't the other side be brought up? ...seems that answer is no.

If you want to point to one thread about the MSM being biased, gee, yes then there the shoe is on the other foot. The MSM IS biased, but conservatives seldom use this as some sort of rallying cry as liberals do use FOX/O'Reily/Limbaugh/Hannity/etal Honestly, look at the forums and tell me how many times it was a conservative complaining FIRST, you simply will find very few examples.
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Post 12 Jan 2011, 8:41 am

True. We take it for granted because it's been so for a long time. Rush and Fox are more recent phenomena and the lefties haven't yet gotten used to the idea. Also (talking about brain differences), lefties are always much more concerned about fairness. That's #1 on their priority list at all times. Conservatives are inured to the idea that the world is and will always be unfair.
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