Politics 09: Fire Reid and Steele.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Largely echoing Lady Door's comments.

I dunno if he's the best person to receive it, of course, because I won't even pretend I've done my homework on who would be a good candidate this year. I understand, however, why he is receiving it. It's because, simply, the US remains the strongest country in the world. People the world over look to it for leadership in the area of world peace. Even a semi-interested follower of world events such as myself is aware that Obama has taken stands calling for disarmament and has attempted to rebuild bridges between the west and the Islamic world. This is the kind of leadership we have been waiting for, and it is very heartening to see. The award seems furthermore to call attention to these good things he's doing and encourage them. It is embarrassing that more Americans aren't proud of them, losing sight of actions done for the good of the world for the sake of partisan bickering.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2009/10/a_reversal_in_teen_pregnancies.cfm


Good work, Texas.

Hey look, it's yet more research (adding to the already massive pile, might I add) showing that abstinence-only education fucking fails at its intended goal (reducing sex) and fails so badly it has the reverse effect at what should be its intended goal (reducing unwanted pregnancies and the spread of STDs). How this "education" has survived for as long as it has is a complete joke which I would spend many an evening laughing at if it weren't so sad.

(No, I don't feel strongly about this, why do you ask?)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

It is embarrassing that more Americans aren't proud of them, losing sight of actions done for the good of the world for the sake of partisan bickering.

While I usually refrain from posting in this topic exactly due to how alien and incomprehensible the partisan split seems to me, this more or less sums up my feelings on everything I've seen recently regarding US politics on the more pedestrian levels since the year began (and I don't think I've followed foreign politics this closely before). I don't know if this has always been the case, but the partisan priority given over actually paying attention to the issues of a country seems to have reached a level that makes five-year-olds who insult each other with your mom jokes shake their heads in shame when looking at it, and it boggles me that politics can be so petty in a country that reached political maturity when most of Latin America was just getting decolonized and has been mostly seen as the main example of how to work out democracy for most of the world until recent years.

EDIT: Apologizing beforehand if I said anything out of hand here, this is a pretty touchy topic as it stands.

[VySaika]

No, that largely sums up my oppinion of American politics too, Snow. It's really just @_@ inspiring more often then it's not.

[Pyro]

Who else could have gotten it?

Morgan Tsvangirai? Though I can't say he's accomplished much, sadly.

I'm kind of struggling to think of high profile people who have contributed to global stability/peace in the past year. Of course, I'm also struggling to think of any particular conflicts that have been resolved recently.

I didn't know the Nobel Peace Prize was supposed to be for work done in that year, though. This is still all really surreal.

And Snow, I think most Americans would echo the sentiment of partisan bickering.  The problem of course is that most people think it's the other guy's fault.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

And Snow, I think most Americans would echo the sentiment of partisan bickering.  The problem of course is that most people think it's the other guy's fault.

Which is basically the crux of why it's such a staggeringly childish conflict. Multiple parties exist to give echo to multiple representations for multiple ideologies. The adamant work both parties have been trying to do in the sidelines and in the spotlight to invalidate each other can be described, at best, as a mortifying disservice to democracy and the country itself, and as a /b/ thread in 4chan at worst.

[NotMiki]

I think most Americans would echo the sentiment of partisan bickering.

Not me!

http://www.glreview.com/issues/11.5/11.5_Frank.php

See Barney Frank.  Basically, it comes out ugly, but it does so because two sides genuinely think that advancing their own agenda, and stopping the other side's agenda, is better for the country.  Do I approve of the tactics in a lot of cases?  No.  Do I think that a scorched-earth approach is justified?  Rarely.  Do I believe that politicians are justified in abandoning fair play and common decency to make the country and the world better places?  You bet.  As long as I believe their approach, taking every factor into consideration, makes the country and the world better places, I'm all for it, period.

Civility and honesty are important factors to me, they make the world a better place after all, but they take a back seat to things like improving education and health care.  If civility gets in the way of substantive progress, I'll happily throw it out the window.

EDIT: and for politics at its most naked we have...a conservative Texan attorney general fighting to keep a gay couple married...to defend the traditional definition of marriage.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/10/09/the_texas_two_step_on_gay_divorce/

[Hunter Sopko]

EDIT: and for politics at its most naked we have...a conservative Texan attorney general fighting to keep a gay couple married...to defend the traditional definition of marriage.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/10/09/the_texas_two_step_on_gay_divorce/

Can't remember what it's from, but it reminds me of the joke "If gay people want to get married and be miserable like the rest of us, I say let them."

[NotMiki]

Can't remember what it's from, but it reminds me of the joke "If gay people want to get married and be miserable like the rest of us, I say let them."

It's fascinating to me that the core issues of the gay rights movement are such bedrock conservative values as marriage and military service (and lower taxes).

[Taishyr]

Re: who could've gotten the Nobel Prize and probably deserves it more, gonna quote CTB over in Feministe comments, with the note that I agree that Obama was a valid candidate under the committee's rulings, despite... thinking these people merit it more.

Sima Samar, women’s rights activist in Afghanistan: “With dogged persistence and at great personal risk, she kept her schools and clinics open in Afghanistan even during the most repressive days of the Taliban regime, whose laws prohibited the education of girls past the age of eight. When the Taliban fell, Samar returned to Kabul and accepted the post of Minister for Women’s Affairs.”

Ingrid Betancourt: French-Colombian ex-hostage held for six years.

“Dr. Denis Mukwege: Doctor, founder and head of Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo. He has dedicated his life to helping Congolese women and girls who are victims of gang rape and brutal sexual violence.”

Handicap International and Cluster Munition Coalition: “These organizations are recognized for their consistently serious efforts to clean up cluster bombs, also known as land mines. Innocent civilians are regularly killed worldwide because the unseen bombs explode when stepped upon.”

“Hu Jia, a human rights activist and an outspoken critic of the Chinese government, who was sentenced last year to a three-and-a-half-year prison term for ‘inciting subversion of state power.’”

“Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China’s communist system. He now lives in the United States.”

There's probably many others, but there's some for the list.

[metroid composite]

I think most Americans would echo the sentiment of partisan bickering.

Not me!

http://www.glreview.com/issues/11.5/11.5_Frank.php

See Barney Frank.  Basically, it comes out ugly, but it does so because two sides genuinely think that advancing their own agenda, and stopping the other side's agenda, is better for the country.  Do I approve of the tactics in a lot of cases?  No.  Do I think that a scorched-earth approach is justified?  Rarely.  Do I believe that politicians are justified in abandoning fair play and common decency to make the country and the world better places?  You bet.  As long as I believe their approach, taking every factor into consideration, makes the country and the world better places, I'm all for it, period.

Political parties that staunchly disagree with each other are absolutely needed and exist in just about every country.

Lying, refusing to work with an opponent even when they've compromised and are working on a bill using your policies, and celebrating when the country fails (loss of Olympic bid, for instance), strikes me as bad for democracy, however.

There's a difference between being devoutly behind your political beliefs (good in a democracy) and being devoutly opposed to your opponent regardless of the situation just because he/she is your opponent.

[NotMiki]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/opinion/12mon3.html?ref=opinion

What do you know, undercover video sting of a subject worth talking about.  If Bloomberg's worth reelecting, his tireless efforts on gun control are the reason.

Gotta question the title of the article, though.  "Not Your ‘Bud’ or Ours" makes it sound like a slam on InBev.

[metroid composite]

You know, it strikes me that you should be at least as stringent with the regulations around firearms as you are with the regulations around beer.  If private vendors are liable for selling beer to minors, then private vendors should be liable for selling guns to people who wouldn't pass a background check.

[superaielman]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/10/nine_questions_for_reihan_sala.cfm

Good Q and A with Salam, a conservative editor from the Atlantic who is talking about what the republicans should do to not be such failures.

[Laggy]

That man sounds about as far away from the GOP party line as you can get and still claim to be conservative. (Not that this is bad mind you. Just making a note.)

Good read though.

[Luther Lansfeld]

I'd vote for him.

[Dhyerwolf]

That man sounds about as far away from the GOP party line as you can get and still claim to be conservative. (Not that this is bad mind you. Just making a note.)

Good read though.

I'd certainly call being about as far away from the GOP party line and still claiming to be conservative a very good thing! Although thinking on it, the article doesn't actually say he's a Republican.

[Taishyr]

He lost me on his comments for McCain, but he seems more reasonable than most, I'll grant him that.

[NotMiki]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/22/AR2009102200697_2.html?hpid=artslot

The BBC was beset by protesters when it decided to allow Nick Griffin, head of the whites-only British National Party, to participate in Question Time, a long-running political show (which is exactly what it sounds like).  Opponents of the move claimed giving him time to talk would help legitimize his party, but the BBC defended the move, because the BNP won 2 seats in the European legislature in the past election (they also got 5% of the vote in the most recent London mayoral election.)

Here's question Time's website.  Check out the program.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/question_time/default.stm

Thoughts?

[metroid composite]

If you watch the Question Time linked, he mentions at the end that the BBC's own policy requires it now that they have seats.

Should they make an exception?  I don't see that setting the precedent for special censorship by a government organization is really proper, particularly a political opponent.  He did not come across well at all in the interview, plainly didn't answer any question where he was asked for details, and spent most of the time with the audience slamming the BNP with much better rhetoric than his responses.

And...frankly, while I don't like the idea of broadcasting a message of racism, I also don't like the idea of sugarcoating race relations.  There's people in America with the false impression that racism (and sexism) have been solved, and act like anyone campaigning around those issues is really doing it for an unscrupulous reason like a free meal ticket.  The reality is very different--there was a study a while back where black men with a college education were less likely to get job offers than white men with a criminal record (in New York City).  For all that gay rights have come up in this topic a lot, it's still worse to be Black than Gay.

But this isn't publicized; hence it's surprising information (to me).  And for that reason I'd rather the BBC report racism instead of making special case government censorship of a political party.

[superaielman]

*Shrug* The BBC's stuck. Let the racist morons speak and let them dig their own grave. Best way to solve those problems.

There's people in America with the false impression that racism (and sexism) have been solved, and act like anyone campaigning around those issues is really doing it for an unscrupulous reason like a free meal ticket.

A few rotten apples really do spoil the barrel there.

[Cmdr_King]

I don't suppose you have some links for that study met?  Having a problem-seeking mind, my immediate thought was "well, a gay person can pretend to be straight, a black person can't really pretend to be white very well" and was wondering if it had any notes to that effect.

[metroid composite]

I don't suppose you have some links for that study met?  Having a problem-seeking mind, my immediate thought was "well, a gay person can pretend to be straight, a black person can't really pretend to be white very well" and was wondering if it had any notes to that effect.

Umm, well here's the first google search I got on the study; I'm pretty sure this is one of many reports of the study, though--pretty sure I've seen one with more numbers.

http://www.cuny.edu/news/newsreleases_p=249.html

[Grefter]

Freedom of speech is freedom of speech (not that I believe there is any law for it in England).  Stupid retards are free to say stupid retard things on television and they are free to be brutally mocked and destroyed for it by a good presenter.

[Yoshiken]

Yeah, freedom of speech still applies legally here, Gref.
And hell, I hate the BNP, but I was all for the guy going on QT. All it was certain to end in (and did, as far as I've heard) was him getting torn to shreds by the public, and all it's gonna do is destroy what little image they had.
The protests against it were somewhat stupid, since they were on every news show, and all that's gonna do is show the BNP's opposition as irrational and give them some free publicity - and for a party like the BNP, it seems like all publicity is good publicity, no matter how negative it may seem.

[NotMiki]

Stupid retards are free to say stupid retard things on television

Yes, but only because it's the BBC.  Remember, freedom of speech is different from freedom to actually have an audience for your claptrap.  I think it's right for legitimate political parties to get their say, the voters lend them that legitimacy, no matter how repugnant their views are, but it's always good to remember there's a world of difference between the government legally preventing you from expressing your views and a TV station refusing to waste airtime on you (doesn't apply in this case because it's the BBC, but yeah).