Issues, We've got Issues

Discussion in 'Elections & Campaigns' started by Natty Bumpo, Jul 5, 2019.

  1. Natty Bumpo

    Natty Bumpo Well-Known Member

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    Despite the various ongoing criminal investigations into Trumpery, and his desperation to persist in hiding those tax returns he had promised to share, and his determination to make Americans pay for his "big, beautiful wall!" that he had repeatedly assured them Mexico would pay for, I expect that Americans, in 2020, will prioritize 1) Healthcare, 2) The Environment, and 3) Immigration

    Healthcare: Trump and the GOP have been strutting their stuff since before his unpopular ascendancy in January, 2017. Result: What had been, by far, the most exorbitant system on earth that dumped tens of million it left uninsured on the taxpayer tab has become even more expensive and less inclusive. (Their record confirms that their promises regarding rebuilding America's infrastructure were every bit as fake.)

    Democrats must promote choice between public and private options, with profiteers' supplemental coverage available to all Americans.

    The Environment and Immigration: Only nutjobs are still in denial of the anthropogenic climate change that is self-inflicting global crises and auguring mass human migrations. As a vital matter of national security among other concerns, a regional approach to population shifts demands the US assume hemispheric and global leadership in forming remedial policies and attaining technological preeminence.​

    Retreat is defeat. Abdication is surrender.
     
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2019
  2. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    Yes I guess tearing people down is an effective life style. Good luck with it.
     
  3. The Centrist

    The Centrist Well-Known Member

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    Where is 3?
     
  4. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    he said without a trace of irony.
     
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  5. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Please have a look at this website, and tell me if you think the people commenting there are 'nutjobs'.
     
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  6. Natty Bumpo

    Natty Bumpo Well-Known Member

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    Ideologues who attempt to suppress scientific data are either nut jobs. or rational individuals calculating that allowing such information to be shared conflicts with their agenda.

    Someone who derives huge profits from dirty fuel is less likely to welcome data that indicts dirty fuel, and is more likely to bankroll politicians that protect their special interests.
     
  7. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Election is coming up. Offer someone better.

    *hint: america-hating socialists are a pretty big gamble
     
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  8. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No, they are paid industry shills and those who suffer from the arrogant certitude of ignorance.
     
  9. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So are trump loving fascists and white nationalists. go figger.
     
  10. Natty Bumpo

    Natty Bumpo Well-Known Member

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    My preference for science over ideology in scientific matters does not constitute a political platform, although I view it as an essential part of one.

    As for your election speculation, I offered the following:

    Trump's strategy for being re-elected appears to be even more divisive, demonizing the "other", and pandering to a fanatical, highly motivated minority of Americans.

    I think that Democrats could do far worse than, while continuing to advocate forcefully for progress in environmental issues, medical coverage, sensible confrontining firearm permissiveness, as well as equality in racial, gender, and gender orientation equality, emphasize

    [​IMG]

    in blue-collar, bread and butter issues.
    I have the feeling that the volatile, unstable Sturm und Drang of rabid Trumpery is just too demanding for most Americans to be forced to endure much longer. His new world disorder has become tiresome.

    Democrats should seek a dull, stable, steady, boring person.

     
    Last edited: Jul 11, 2019
  11. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    conflating civic nationalism with racism and fascism isn't going to help win any elections either...
     
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  12. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not conflating anything. Surely you are familiar with wignats? And guess what, cloaking racist ethnic nationalism in civic nationalism is just as big a loser.
     
  13. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Never heard of it.

    "Wignat
    Within the parlance of the Alt-right movement, “wignat” is short for “wigger nationalist,” and refers to a person who takes unironic neo-Nazism over the edge into absurdism and lunacy." -Urban Dictionary

    If UD's def is accurate, these are no more common than leftist extremists who call for white genocide. Yes, they exist. No, there aren't enough of them to exhibit any meaningful influence.

    Trump was elected on civic nationalism in direct opposition to civic globalism (no, not globalization). Any comparison to Nazism is disingenuous at best.
     
    Last edited: Jul 11, 2019
  14. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Quite true. But did you have a look at that website?
     
  15. Bowerbird

    Bowerbird Well-Known Member

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    Should we start calling Trump “Origami Donald” for the amount of times he has folded?
     
  16. Bowerbird

    Bowerbird Well-Known Member

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    Wattsupmybutt? You have GOT to be kidding me?

    Please tell me you do do NOT think this is good science?

    If you really want to understand why it gets a failing grade let me know, otherwise it has a ton of critics

    https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/watts-up-with-that/
     
  17. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I know it has critics. I read some of them from time to time. But when I read the WUWT website, I don't find that it's a pseudo-science website ... the MediaBiasFactCheck just claims it is, and quotes Michael Mann to that effect. They may be wrong but they're not 'nutjobs' or scientific/statistical illiterates ... far from it. I know you have no interest in it, but anyone else reading this thread should go take a look:http://wattsupwiththat.com/

    What I hate is group-think, the attempt to stampede people into a certain view, by appealing to the natural human desire not to be different, not to be thought a 'nutjob', etc. I'm not impressed by the "I'm-just-so-terribly-clever" method of argument, which substitutes sarcasm and witty insults for reason. Just the opposite. Whenever I find someone using those tactics -- even in defense of the truth -- I'm automatically put on guard, because that method of arguing degrades consciousness.

    In any case, let's push ahead with providing clean electrical power wherever we can, via lots of nuclear power plants. Only airhead nutjob hippy tree-huggers could possibly oppose building lots of nuclear power plants, I'm sure you agree.
     
  18. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    My understanding is that Joe Biden puts HIMSELF to sleep. He should be perfect.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2019
  19. Natty Bumpo

    Natty Bumpo Well-Known Member

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    Yes. It is a blatant example of political hyper-partisans in a regime with an ideological agenda suppressing scientific information - inconvenient truth.

    Individuals lacking scientific expertise who do not like the conclusion of the report that “Absent extensive mitigating factors or events, we see few plausible future scenarios where significant — possibly catastrophic — harm does not arise from the compounded effects of climate change,” in not serving the nation's interests, are being criminally negligent.

    For a regime that is also virulently xenophobic, refusing to confront a scientific reality that will provoke vast human migrations, it is particularly irrational.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2019
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  20. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Okay ... that was not my impression at all. Didn't see any evidence of xenophobia at all.
    The scientific issues are beyond my own level of expertise ... I think I could probably get up to that level with a few months study, learning and re-learning some advanced statistics, but I don't have the time, or, perhaps energy. So it's one of those issues where I don't usually comment, except on the question of how to argue for or against something. Since I agree with a lot of the practical goals of people who are worried about GW, it doesn't bother me too much. I'd love to see fossil fuels diminished in importance and replaced by electrical power, generated by reliable nuclear power plants, supplemented by renewables.

    I wonder what you think about Judith Curry? She seems to me to be intelligent, well up in her field, and not at all someone who fits your description of the Watts Up With That contributors. This is a link to her blog. Anyone interested in climate change ought to at least look at it.
     
  21. Natty Bumpo

    Natty Bumpo Well-Known Member

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    My acceptance of the scientific consensus is in deference to the vast preponderance of those who have devoted years to climatological data collection and analysis, consistent with the common sense awareness that spewing millions of tonnes of industrial greenhouse gases into the atmosphere over the past two-and-a-half centuries parallels the resultant rise in average global temperature that one would predict, entirely consistent with observable phenomena.

    Those who have progressed from "It ain't happening!" to "It's just coincidental!" still have a way to go, imho.

    I don't regard Curry as a climate change denier, but as a valuable critic who challenges both academic pressure to adhere to a consistent view and the hubristic tendency to be unjustifiably specific in establishing timetables that are, necessarily, far from precise.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2019
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  22. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Okay, that's reasonable.
     
  23. Bowerbird

    Bowerbird Well-Known Member

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    So are you interested in learning something?

    A) It is a blog

    There is a difference between a blog and something like the IPCC report and in a word it is referencing. THe IPCC reports are what is called a meta analysis of research

    upload_2019-7-12_23-56-12.jpeg

    There are thousands of research papers referenced to each report (don’t take my word on it check it out for yourself

    http://www.ipcc-wg2.org/AR5/images/uploads/IPCC_WG2AR5_FactSheet.pdf

    B) they will use ANYTHING from ANYONE. Some of the more notable howlers have included papers purporting to challenge the underpinning physics of greenhouse effect and this one

    https://wottsupwiththat.com/greatest-misses/

    B) His “papers” he quotes do not agree with each other. The site is a mishmash of conflicting theories that only have one thing in common - a determination to throw doubt on the real science
     
  24. wgabrie

    wgabrie Well-Known Member Donor

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    3 is immigration, here you go:
     
  25. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yes, it's just a blog, and yes, I do get the impression that there is no editorial oversight.

    It's one of those issues where I cannot exercise independent judgement. In the genuine hard sciences, like physics and chemistry and biology, I defer to the consensus, even though I know scientists are human and subject to group-think like everyone else.

    Even here, there are areas of controversy where I believe the arguments seem to be influenced by political considerations -- for instance, the debate about group selection in evolutionary biology, or the sociobiology controversy -- and my own understanding of politics probably influences my understanding, where the debate is at a level I can understand.

    Where it's so-called 'social science', I really do put my hand on my wallet, since here, there is often little committment to objective truth, but rather the following of a poltiical agenda, and the American academy in particular is corrupt. The controversies about climate change are so obviously heavily influenced by politics, that I am only a tentative endorser of the lowest-common-denominator of the consensus, plus probably being influenced by a certain kind of conservative pessimism which means my my default position is to be skeptical of the benevolent results of radical change in anything, be it society or the natural environment.

    Anyway, at some point I'll have the time to spend a few days reading more deeply into the issue. Thank you for the references.
     

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