[quote]Originally posted by Biggles:
[b]Why did this get dragged up again? Don't we have enough political debate threads?
[/b][/quote]
No kidding. They're like a bad meal, they just keep coming back. Maybe if I throw up a few times... [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/tongue.gif[/img]
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There are 3 things in life I never forget: my friends, my enemies, and my access codes.
Never put gasoline in a fire extinguisher.
"No government, no dictator can hold an imprisioned population by force of arms forever. There is no power in the universe greater than the need for freedom. Against this power, governments and tyrants and armies [i]cannot stand[/i]." - G'Kar, [i]The Long Twighlight Struggle[/i]
[quote]Originally posted by Argone:
[b]What makes threads like this hopeless is one major FACT.
The first casualty of war is truth!
We sit here and debate whos is right without knowing all the Facts or Truth!
And I don't believe that any newspaper or TV news has all the Facts or Truth! Bias reporting is way to common these days!
So how can you pass, or what gives you the right, to pass judgement on either side of this debate! To pass judgement on anything like this is saying you know more than anyone who is there and that you know the TRUTH!
Debate it for what it is a travisty, man's inhumanity to his fellow man for whatever reason. But to come out and place blame without knowing the TRUTH about the matter in question is shear stupidity!
[/b][/quote]
[Faylorn]Hopeless? You are not alone -- it goes both ways... The U.S. voter is among the higher political echelons in the U.S., and indeed the world, but you can only make good decisions if you have the proper information. Important questions are:
-What is the source of your information and its interests?
-Does it largely corroborate sources of different interests? For example, did the New York Times corroborate the Guardian and Le Monde during the Vietnam war.*
-Does it largely corroborate apolitical entities? For example, did the New York Times corroborate the Red Cross or Lebanese government during the '82 Lebanon invasion. With regards to the Lebanese government, remember the Lebanese consensus did not appreciate the Palestinian presence** and that its death toll estimates were the lowest with the exception of the Israeli government and, in turn, American media.
*might I add: the first is American, the second British and the third French
**in addition it is relatively powerless[/Faylorn]
These are pretty good ways to find the TRUTH as you put it. Not the whole true but a pretty good picture of it. Furthermore, Leonard Silk, the author of Economics in Plain English and a former columnist of the New York Times, states what he calls economic thinking. I discovered it for myself before reading about it and called it dynamic thinking. Whatever you want to call it, it is a means of generating accurate hypotheses. There is a good example he of economic thinking he uses in his book: police make a major drug siezure. Naturally, this drives up the price of this and similar drugs and, in turn, crime as addicts attempt to increase their purchasing power. This increases the burden on society in the form of hidden taxes like insurance and the temptation to buy personal security measures. An economically sensible alternative would be to provide safe injection zones with clean needles. Furthermore, people ususally take drugs because of a generally bad social climate: a person may face few opportunities if they come from a low-income family or a family on welfare for reasons we all know. This person has a family and the mess continues. An economically sensible idea would be to encourage self-sufficiency for those that cannot find a place in the capitalist system. This as opposed to increasing funds toward the jail system as Clinton did. Get economic thinking? Where everything has a realistic and rational relationship? From this one can arrive at a very good approximation of the truth. This is why Noam Chomsky is credited with providing such convincing arguments. It is like connecting the dots, if you follow the numbering of each one you will eventually see the picture as it should appear. Things should appear to be the TRUTH, as you put it. This kind of thinking works for just about anything, whether its economics or physics or - because the universe is economic, dynamic, whatever and forgetting all the melarky about humans being too complex to comprehend - solving the human condition.
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[url="http://www.zmag.org"][i]Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.[/i][/url]
"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a life time. But teach a man to BE a fish, and he can eat himself."
--Dennis Miller, Dennis Miller Live
[This message has been edited by Faylorn (edited 12-11-2002).]
[This message has been edited by Faylorn (edited 12-11-2002).]
If you wish to remain ignorant of the debate then don't bother entering the thread; simply joining in to complain defeats the purpose of a forum debate, and isn't particularly endearing.
Comments
[b]Why did this get dragged up again? Don't we have enough political debate threads?
[/b][/quote]
No kidding. They're like a bad meal, they just keep coming back. Maybe if I throw up a few times... [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/tongue.gif[/img]
------------------
There are 3 things in life I never forget: my friends, my enemies, and my access codes.
Never put gasoline in a fire extinguisher.
"No government, no dictator can hold an imprisioned population by force of arms forever. There is no power in the universe greater than the need for freedom. Against this power, governments and tyrants and armies [i]cannot stand[/i]." - G'Kar, [i]The Long Twighlight Struggle[/i]
[b]What makes threads like this hopeless is one major FACT.
The first casualty of war is truth!
We sit here and debate whos is right without knowing all the Facts or Truth!
And I don't believe that any newspaper or TV news has all the Facts or Truth! Bias reporting is way to common these days!
So how can you pass, or what gives you the right, to pass judgement on either side of this debate! To pass judgement on anything like this is saying you know more than anyone who is there and that you know the TRUTH!
Debate it for what it is a travisty, man's inhumanity to his fellow man for whatever reason. But to come out and place blame without knowing the TRUTH about the matter in question is shear stupidity!
[/b][/quote]
[Faylorn]Hopeless? You are not alone -- it goes both ways... The U.S. voter is among the higher political echelons in the U.S., and indeed the world, but you can only make good decisions if you have the proper information. Important questions are:
-What is the source of your information and its interests?
-Does it largely corroborate sources of different interests? For example, did the New York Times corroborate the Guardian and Le Monde during the Vietnam war.*
-Does it largely corroborate apolitical entities? For example, did the New York Times corroborate the Red Cross or Lebanese government during the '82 Lebanon invasion. With regards to the Lebanese government, remember the Lebanese consensus did not appreciate the Palestinian presence** and that its death toll estimates were the lowest with the exception of the Israeli government and, in turn, American media.
*might I add: the first is American, the second British and the third French
**in addition it is relatively powerless[/Faylorn]
These are pretty good ways to find the TRUTH as you put it. Not the whole true but a pretty good picture of it. Furthermore, Leonard Silk, the author of Economics in Plain English and a former columnist of the New York Times, states what he calls economic thinking. I discovered it for myself before reading about it and called it dynamic thinking. Whatever you want to call it, it is a means of generating accurate hypotheses. There is a good example he of economic thinking he uses in his book: police make a major drug siezure. Naturally, this drives up the price of this and similar drugs and, in turn, crime as addicts attempt to increase their purchasing power. This increases the burden on society in the form of hidden taxes like insurance and the temptation to buy personal security measures. An economically sensible alternative would be to provide safe injection zones with clean needles. Furthermore, people ususally take drugs because of a generally bad social climate: a person may face few opportunities if they come from a low-income family or a family on welfare for reasons we all know. This person has a family and the mess continues. An economically sensible idea would be to encourage self-sufficiency for those that cannot find a place in the capitalist system. This as opposed to increasing funds toward the jail system as Clinton did. Get economic thinking? Where everything has a realistic and rational relationship? From this one can arrive at a very good approximation of the truth. This is why Noam Chomsky is credited with providing such convincing arguments. It is like connecting the dots, if you follow the numbering of each one you will eventually see the picture as it should appear. Things should appear to be the TRUTH, as you put it. This kind of thinking works for just about anything, whether its economics or physics or - because the universe is economic, dynamic, whatever and forgetting all the melarky about humans being too complex to comprehend - solving the human condition.
------------------
[url="http://www.zmag.org"][i]Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.[/i][/url]
"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a life time. But teach a man to BE a fish, and he can eat himself."
--Dennis Miller, Dennis Miller Live
[This message has been edited by Faylorn (edited 12-11-2002).]
[This message has been edited by Faylorn (edited 12-11-2002).]