On Shaping Public Opinion

This was thought provoking, and I may come back to write more about it.

Or not. (Various ideas have flitted by for posting, one of which related to how we interact with the news and media we encounter, but it's late. I won't go into it now, and as other topics have also been flitting around I'm not sure I'll write about this one when I finally set fingers to keyboard). 

Liberalism

 I've been thinking about how Putin said liberalism was 'obsolete'.

Okay, more seriously I was thinking about how there seems to be a concerted effort to undermine liberalism, and while he's not the sole person behind it I'm sure he's part of it.

And I understand why Russians would dislike 'the West'. I understand that after two major invasions of their country they really wanted satellite nations as a buffer, and there was the whole NATO thing, and they feel threatened... (I don't claim to understand it at an expert level, but I get the broad brushstrokes)...

But I don't really see what that has to do with liberalism, or why Putin takes issue with it. You could even argue that the problematic parts of 'the West' aren't their liberalism. It's more the imperialism, colonialism, and non-liberal elements that are softened by liberalism.

But that term gets thrown out a lot, often as a dirty word, and I decided to actually look up the definition. (I kind of get confused about liberal vs. progressive vs Democrat vs whatever other term is used for various factions on the left. So much of them seem interchangeable, but they're clearly not. At least, not to the people arguing over what the Democrats should do.)

Here's the definition that most closely fits how I understood it: "a supporter of a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise."

I suppose the vitriol is reserved for the other definition: "a supporter of policies that are socially progressive and promote social welfare."

I don't really see why either of these deserve so much hatred, though I suppose the second one is just a handy way of describing whoever conservatives (who don't want to promote social welfare, apparently. And oppose progressive policies on principle) hate.

But let's go back to the first one.

Individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.  

That sounds very American to me. As American as apple pie. Like, I have a hard time understanding how anyone who considers themselves a patriot would say that they don't support these things.

Individual rights? Like freedom of speech and the right to bear arms?

Civil liberties? Also includes freedom of speech, right to assembly, right to a fair trial, and more.

Democracy? I can't not believe that supposedly patriotic Americans have actually started using the 'we're a republic, not a democracy' line. I mean, it's something I've known for decades... 

but only because it had been the sort of nitpicky thing political scientists cared about. It's not exactly one or the other, or that having one means you can't have the other. We're a republic, yes. But we use democracy to choose who represents us. And democracy is a very important way of choosing who represents us. 

They should represent the will of the people. There's a whole very long history behind all of this. The social contract, the importance of having a government that governs on behalf of all its citizens. I don't understand how you can claim to care about Western values and history and ignore some of it's better achievements. 

The problem is that these people don't seem to care about the social contract or the will of the people when said will might go against what they, personally, want. (Do we really have to prove all over again why minority rule is so bad?)

Free enterprise? Liberals aren't against capitalism. Not by this definition. Now, we can go into the second definition (progressive policies and promotes social welfare), but that's the sort of thing I'd expect to get resolved in a healthy fashion. Through debate and elections. 

It hardly seems the sort of thing that justifies the hatred and knee-jerk reaction conservatives use. (I've seen takes that focus on extreme opinions on said progressive policies and use it to claim modern liberals have given up civil liberties and democracy... but in my lifetime none of the people pushing those ideas has gotten into a position to truly threaten that. Conservatives don't see it that way, I know. But no... your children are not being indoctrinated by 'liberal' professors and your concerns about 'cancel culture' are highly exaggerated. There's always edge cases, doesn't mean that's the reality for most of us. Plus there's the problematic way that their efforts to control the narrative lead to the very same suppression of ideas. Like trying to outlaw teaching true facts about our history, just because they make white people look bad. Apparently we can't handle learning the truth.)

I think what shocks me is this.

I knew there was a lot of debate over those edge cases. Over 'political correctness', or now 'wokeism', or 'critical race theory'. But every time I see a story that seems concerning - by which I mean it's not overhyped and overexaggerated, and you have to wonder why the hell anyone thought it was a good idea - it generally gets a lot of attention and then gets fixed. Or we learn that there was more to it than that, and maybe it actually was a good idea. Either way, it's not going to destroy America.

But overturning an election? Voter suppression? Creating a system that caters to a minority and ignores the wishes of the vast majority of Americans?

That will. That absolutely will. 

I don't understand how people who claim they value 'freedom', claim they value America, claim they love our country... can then turn around and justify putting in place a system that will destroy all of that.

Do the morons arguing that we should forcibly remove elected officials who don't do what a small minority of the people who elected that official want honestly think that's freedom? 

That's basically what the brownshirts were. They use violence to suppress dissent... and you can't do that and claim to care about the rule of law and democracy. Not with any integrity.

The reason we use elections to settle these issues is that it's a hella lot better than deciding by whoever is the most violent. Once you open that door, it's not long before the people who disagree with you follow your lead and do your same, and we degenerate into infighting and possible civil war.

It's a terrible idea, and the people behind it are terrible people. I don't care why they think it's justified. Whatever it is, they are wrong. 

Anyways, you really have to wonder why there's such a concerted effort to undermine liberalism. What's so scary about it? What are you offering that's better? 

Because all I'm seeing are forces hell bent on forcing us to prove all over again how terrible authoritarianism and minority rule are.

Minor Update

 I suppose I ought to post something about Texas (or the flooding on the East Coast, and climate change. Or the continuing toll covid is taking on us. The world is such a mess.)...

but tbh it kind of snuck up on me. I didn't really know anything was going on until I started seeing stuff on Twitter, hours before the legislation went into effect.

And I don't want to downplay the damage this will do... but I'm also kind of curious about who's going to be the first to try the snitching part of it out.

Because here's the thing. 

You can put laws on the books, but that doesn't mean people actually act like they exist. 

Take sodomy laws, which are still on the books in some states. Has anyone actually tried arresting someone for breaking them? In the last decade?

I imagine most people a) don't even know if someone is getting an abortion and b) probably aren't going to report it if they do.

Which means the first attempts to actually put this in practice are probably going to be edge cases. Probably either some abusive man who impregnated someone and is upset they're getting rid of the baby (some really do try to tie their significant other to them that way. Like the one who tried giving a woman I knew fake birth control pills. Or that whole 'stealthing' BS) or some terrible arch-conservative parents willing to put their daughter (or trans-son, it's possible) in jail. Because they've bought the BS about abortion being the same as murder, and consider their child a murderer. (Overlooking the role they probably played in creating that situation, since such parents probably also didn't want their children taught about contraception, and taught their children that unmarried sex was a sin and therefore made it far more likely that the child hid their sexual activity from them and didn't take precautions.)

So it's a mess, and y'all can read about it on the news, but I don't really have a lot to add on it.

Oh, except that I saw  a headline today that captured so much of what most of us hate about MSM. It said "Texas law could flip script on abortion politics, with Democrats eying gains". 

As if that was the most important and relevant thing here.

Perfect example of 'horse race' reporting, and how damaging it can be. (Perhaps the article itself handled it better, but with a headline like that I wasn't interested in reading it.)

Anyways, I was mulling over something else and will post about it shortly. I just didn't want to start today's blogging by ignoring the news of the day.

Russian Trolling

This post reminds me of this joke.

Curious about what's going on in Russia these days, though I don't have any good sources for reliable news. Just seems they've been underreporting their covid cases, and they didn't have as many people in the first place. (Plus, iirc Russia also has an aging problem. As well as a huge problem with alcoholism, mostly the men I think.)

Also have heard China's had some flooding or a dam breaking or something. Maybe.

Again, accurate reports are hard to find. 

Worth a Read

An interesting look at some systemic issues behind our problems in Afghanistan. 

The Software Industry Gets Away With A Lot

Could you imagine if car manufacturers treated they're new product lines the way tech companies do?

'Oh, your new Ford Pinto caught on fire? Too bad, so sad... You accepted this really long and arcane set of terms and conditions stating that you won't hold us liable. Good luck with your next car!'

(for today's motivation for this post, read this thread, actually... It started here.) 

Mad

I saw a post on Facebook, and initially passed it by the way I usually do when it's a bunch of people I don't agree with, but don't really know and don't see any good coming from trying to educate.

But it really bothered me, especially the more I think about it, so I'll vent here a bit.

The post was about Afghanistan, and given today's attack and the loss of life anger is reasonable. So no, I don't want to try and argue that everything is fine. It's not.

But some of the commenters were also talking positively about Trump, and here's the thing - 

Even aside from all the glowing promises he failed to deliver on (infrastructure, and Republicans had control of the Senate and House his first two years. The wall, where he stole money from the pentagon, the wall that's already falling down, and the wall that honestly was a lousy idea for reasons I posted about before - put up sensors and have a quick reaction force, and other such things, The fucking pandemic. Which even if you've fallen for the propaganda hard, you ought to remember he claimed would just 'disappear'. Oh, and the Kurds he abandoned.)...

Even if you ignore all of that, he fucking lied about the election. For MONTHS. And he's still lying!

He lied, and held a rally pretending that the vice president could change the results, on a day that should have been ceremonial, and the events on the 6th of Jan happened.

That right there should make anybody who actually cares about this country furious. It really boggles my mind that so many people want to just shrug and move on.

That undermined our entire system, and I'm sick and tired of people still acting like that PoS is worth supporting. Or even listening to.

Hate on Biden all you want. He's got a tough job to do and seems to be doing it as best he can, so I'm not really going to complain.

But you would have to find someone a helluva lot worse before I'd even consider Trump.

He should fade into obscurity and never be heard from again.