All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Gray Lensman]

This was a clip I saw on Youtube.



I know many of you are not fans of Reagan, but what struck me is that while he was making fun of the Soviet Union towards the tail end of the cold war, he expressed empathy to the people of the Soviet Union. It's hard to imagine Trump doing the same when talking about China.

Reagan held many views now considered heresy among Republicans. He spoke well of refugees too.

[AnakinFlair]

One guy's take on why I'm going to have to politely disagree here...

(Unless the news that I have come across is incorrect. Totally willing to allow for that it could be....)

The person in question?

It seems like the news laid out that he had been enough of an issue on a college campus before that it made the coverage this time.

If that is the case?

It's not exactly a person crying out to be helped, but it sure(to me...) crosses the line into where society should be able to see enough to know that this person might need someone to throw them a rope.

Get that it is not that way every single time that this sort of thing takes place, but here?

It really does seem like there was a point where folks could have reached out.

We don't know what help this man tried to get, or what help his family tried to get him.

If he reached out for help, and didn't get it, then yes, society failed him. If the family reached out to get him help, and nothing happened, then society failed him. If, though, he kept this all internalized, and he didn't reach out for help; and if the family tried to keep things 'in house', and never reached out to any outside people or agencies for assistance, then it wasn't societies fault, because society at large didn't know.

I just watched an interesting biography of Charles Whitman, the sniper from the University of Texas mass shooting back in the 60's. By all accounts, he felt himself slipping. He reached out in a time that talking about your feelings wasn't easily accepted. Doctors basically proscribed him drugs, and that was that. They never followed up with him. And in the end, he killed his mother, his wife, and then 14 people on the campus. He was someone you could definitely say society failed. But until we know more about this shooter, we shouldn't make that assumption.

[Adam Allen]

Mental health treatment and recovery is a complicated area, but it is clear that for serious concerns, a therapeutic approach that includes both medication and counseling has the greatest effectiveness.

From a systemic perspective, the problem there would be that paying for regular therapy with a licensed professional is more expensive than just drugs (obviously) and there are only so many people in the field, anyway. So if we'd really like to see change, there would need to be investment in our mental health system's infrastructure, which currently is a patchwork mess varying state to state, city to city and much worse, neighborhood to neighborhood.

I mean, there are organizations like SAMHSA, but ultimately they tend to be only informational/regulatory ... the actual professionals are employed at nonprofits, hospitals, county government ... and there are nowhere near enough. If we want to be serious about mental health, government should not only subsidize/incentivize training for therapists, but funnel funds specifically to pay all those therapists, for the many people who would otherwise not be able to afford it.

[InformationGeek]

Hey WBE, got another one for you. I think you might have covered Mike Hopkins of Montana but in case you didn't...

Still can't believe this dude stood on the Montana House Floor and said "We are under no obligation to be kind to one another and students are under no obligation either" while arguing in favor of a right to bully trans students.

And video of it!

[Tendrin]

Hey WBE, got another one for you. I think you might have covered Mike Hopkins of Montana but in case you didn't...



And video of it!

I was gonna post this one but I got stuck at the hospital tonight! That guy is a piece of work.

[Mister Mets]

I'd prefer a real dialogue on the issue but as they tend to devolve into talking points I took the opportunity to try to understand why factual evidence is ignored by many conservatives when it supports a "liberal" position.

The facts show that regulation has worked effectively in other nations yet those facts -- like many others -- become irrelevant when they go against the "conservative" ideology.

Instead we get the usual excuses and nothing gets done.

This is not really a response to what was said. It's an ad hominem.

If you want to argue that people worried about losing loved ones to gun violence have a reasonable fear, that would be a valid argument. Someone else could note the potential costs of gun violence to people who are not present and the similarities to terrorism in provoking reactions. But it's immoral to shift from one goal to another and then go for personal insults, especially since I don't think anyone's actually disagreeing with me on the specific question of how likely it is that someone's loved ones will be a victim of violence. It's more about context.

I get that there's the whole distinction between being taken literally and being taken seriously, that he may not have been literally saying that an American should expect a loved one to be present at a school shooting, although that gets to another meta-argument about whether we should insist other people share a frame of reference. Being literal-minded is a way to avoid being misunderstood.

I have no problem with open discussions on gun violence and how we fix it. It is going to get messier, and get into unpopular answers when we get specific about what policies would potentially get America's rates of gun violence down to Japan's. People on the left mock "thoughts and prayers" on the right, but it's hypocritical if they're not willing to offer their suggestions, likely because they recognize that some of those will be unpopular.

It is important to get details correct. If we're wrong, we're going to encourage politicians to waste time and resources on something that will save less lives and help less people reach their full potential than alternatives. And it also leads to potential emotional costs when people are unnecessarily scared.

And if someone doesn't care about being accurate, why should anyone take them seriously?

I had forgotten about that. That was the whole reason OJ moved to Florida.



Mets, there are two students in Michigan State that have already survived a school shooting. One was present at Sandy Hook, another was present at a school shooting that happened less than 15 MONTHS ago.

Hell, the ad I'm seeing the most of on Facebook now is for the ballistic bookbag, a bullet-proof backpack that has a quick deploy panel that you can pull up and over your front like a vest. Do you get it? SCHOOL SHOOTINGS ARE SO COMMON NOW THAT WE HAVE TO SEND KIDS TO SCHOOL WITH KEVLAR BACKPACKS!!!!

Would you recommend family and friends purchase Kevlar backpacks for their children?

The Michigan State thing does not appear statistically unusual. Anyone who survived a school shooting is at least just as likely to encounter a second than the average student. There's a difference between this being an event that affects 1 in 20 students, which was initially implied, and the reality in the United States. And I get that this may come across as cold, but following emotions won't lead to the best policies.

[Reviresco]

First on CNN: DOJ officially decides not to charge Matt Gaetz in sex-trafficking probe

Prosecutors working on the case recommended against charging Gaetz in September, in part, because of questions over whether central witnesses in the investigation would be perceived as credible before a jury, CNN reported at the time.

But the final decision not to move forward with charges came from senior department officials. The DOJ declined to comment.

Disgusting. How does everyone around this sleazebag get convicted and jail time, and yet he slimes by without even an indictment? I'm sure it has something to do with his rich political dad, and hope we find out who made that decision at DOJ.

[Adam Allen]

And I get that this may come across as cold, but following emotions won't lead to the best policies.

Wouldn't want to let pesky humanity get in the way of governing humans.

[SquirrelMan]

Wouldn't want to let pesky humanity get in the way of governing humans.

Really, as long as there isn't a one in ten chance your child's guts will be splattered across a blackboard, why put limits on freedom? The numbers don't lie.

[Tendrin]

Hey, WBE. Your old friend Rep. LeMalfa is providing grist for your next update:

https://twitter.com/ChicoSexProf/sta...21707676385281

[Tendrin]

Wouldn't want to let pesky humanity get in the way of governing humans.

The idea that we can or should govern without emotions, and that emotions will lead to 'bad policy' when the policies that the conservative are advocating and expanding are directly causing us to experience an increase in mass death that is already on a scale unknown to any country in the modern world that's not in an active wartime scenario is a really deeply revealing.

Also, anyone who thinks that way about emotional reasoning can not be trusted to govern or understand people effectively. Almost all people I've seen who advance this narrative are simply people who are uncomfortable with or unable to recognize their own emotional responses and their roles in their ideological choices.

Or, as Alexandra Erin put it, "Anybody who thinks they are relying on objective truths has shrugged, given up on logic and critical thinking, and proclaimed "My biases are probably as good as any facts.""

We are culturally, deeply adverse to following the logic of emotions.

[aja_christopher]

This is not really a response to what was said. It's an ad hominem.

It is important to get details correct. If we're wrong, we're going to encourage politicians to waste time and resources on something that will save less lives and help less people reach their full potential than alternatives. And it also leads to potential emotional costs when people are unnecessarily scared.

And if someone doesn't care about being accurate, why should anyone take them seriously?

People are not required to play by your rules when asking and answering questions, especially on serious issues such as this one.

You were asked how "factual" Republicans can justify supporting a party which repeatedly nominiates bigots into office and lies incessantly to win elections and you reply with a lecture about "accuracy" that in no way addresses the questions that you were asked directly. While that's your prerogotative, it only confirms that you have no real "response" to the issues raised by myself and others and still chose to dodge these questions rather than to discuss the matter of why many Republicans support a party that they know is inherently bigoted and dishonest.

If a person can't accurately answer questions asked and instead tries to lecture others to deflect from the truth then why should anyone take them seriously?

I understand that you can't answer the questions many of us have raised because they expose the reality of Republican hypocrisy at its core -- you likewise can't factually prove Republicans are making the "right" decisions because I and others have shown plenty of evidence showing that they are not. Feigning ignorance about the questions raised and replyiing with a short treatise about "accuracy" in no way addresses the rot at the core of the Republican party and it likewise confirms (again) that fixing said party is not in any way your priority.

The mask of empiricism doesn't hide that fact that even from a data driven standpoint Republican policies are often failures nor does it address the rampant racism and bigotry that is driving Republican politics. Even the conservative icon Reagan (along with Nixon) called black people monkeys -- is that really the "right" way to address race relations in the modern era? Is that really something Republicans feel that they can be proud of?

Or is that a "fact" that you choose to ignore because it doesn't fit your narrative?

[aja_christopher]

The idea that we can or should govern without emotions, and that emotions will lead to 'bad policy' when the policies that the conservative are advocating and expanding are directly causing us to experience an increase in mass death that is already on a scale unknown to any country in the modern world that's not in an active wartime scenario is a really deeply revealing.

Also, anyone who thinks that way about emotional reasoning can not be trusted to govern or understand people effectively. Almost all people I've seen who advance this narrative are simply people who are uncomfortable with or unable to recognize their own emotional responses and their roles in their ideological choices.

The irony is that many Republican voters vote purely on emotion -- few would posit that Trump was a "rational" Republican choice, although it could be argued that it was somewhat inevitable given their dependence on fear and anger to win general elections. Likewise, if you look at who is banning books and taking over schools based on emotion (fear/anger) rather than facts and logic, it is the Republican party, not the Democrats.

Even the counter-arguments being made are rooted in bias rather than facts -- we take the time to link to factual evidence and we get a stock lecture about "accuracy" in response rather than any opposing factual evidence.

[Tendrin]

Or is that a "fact" that you choose to ignore because it doesn't fit your narrative?

At least he's not asking us to develop an entire set of policies for behavior on social media platforms again.

[aja_christopher]

At least he's not asking us to develop an entire set of policies for behavior on social media platforms again.

It's not that hard not to be openly racist, sexist, bigoted and/or dishonest -- that many in the Republican party use these as a selling point should be addressed directly and not ignored.

You can't complain about Trump being in your party while simultaneously supporting the same views and structure that placed him into power.

Edit: Also, there's the fact that the last Republican president tried to overthrow our government -- Republicans should be no where near power for the next decade/century given how easily they slid into autocracy.

Reagan held many views now considered heresy among Republicans. He spoke well of refugees too.

One has to wonder what might be if the Republican party actually lived up to the moniker of "compassionate conservative" and started showing real concern for the less fortunate.



History rhymes -- which is why those who seek to control others often don't want it taught.

A party that has settled on Trump and DeSantis as frontrunners -- it's really hard to think of which is the "better" option of those two, if that even exists.

Maybe none of us know exactly how to solve the problems which divide our society but we should all be able to agree that the answer doesn't lie in cruelty to others.