Friday, April 22, 2016

Professional Left Podcast #333


"Your rules are really beginning to annoy me.
-- Snake Plissken, Escape from L.A.


Links:

  • Joe Scarborough admits there is no Tea Party.
  • Vox columnist takes on smug liberals without mentioning the Right Wing once.




9 comments:

Prop said...

I like the clip, have used it myself, but it's from John Carpenter's classic "They Live", which was shot in LA, not "Escape From New York" which was shot in, well, you know...

Speaking of Charlie Pierce, his Comments section has been down for a couple of days. Anybody know whether that's a bug or a permanent feature?

Kevin Holsinger said...

Good morning, Mr. Glass.

About Mr. Rensin's column...

1. In the event I ever again joke about how entishly long your columns get, would you please post the following reply:

"Hey, Kevin. You were saying?

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism

:) "

F*ck, that was internminable.

2. From the column:

"That for every overpowered study finding superior liberal open-mindedness and intellect and knowledge, there is one to suggest that Republicans have the better of these qualities."

2a. Wait, did you just try to fact-bomb me with the hyperlinks in that quote? I thought facts were "smug." I thought you were supposed to be persuading me with "common causes" and "morals" and shit. Oh noes! Mr. Rensin's gone over to the Dark Side!

2b. What's an "overpowered" study?

2c. While I'm actually open to the possibility that Republicans are better than Democrats on "open-mindedness and intellect and knowledge," would you kindly back up "for EVERY overpowered study...there is one to suggest..."?

2d. Republicans are superior on "open-mindedness and intellect and knowledge," and this is reflected by Donald Trump being the Republican frontrunner?

Okay, I think I'm done for now.

Be seeing you.

Kevin Holsinger said...

I just read one of Mr. Rensin's links...

http://reason.com/archives/2016/01/15/liberals-are-simple-minded

Here's the headline...

"Liberals Are Simple-Minded...and often more dogmatic than conservatives, according to a new study."

But here are quotes from the actual article...

"It turns out that liberals and conservatives are both simple-minded, depending on the topic under discussion."

"The more interesting and telling results were found when comparing the liberal and conservative results derived from the environmentalism and religion dogmatism scales. The researchers report, 'Conservatives are indeed more dogmatic on the religious domain; but liberals are more dogmatic on the environmental domain.' In fact, they note that 'the highest score for simplicity was for liberals' (emphasis theirs).]"

"Overall, they report that liberals showed no greater complexity in thinking than conservatives did."

"Ultimately, the researchers report that both liberals and conservatives are almost equally simple-minded when it comes to topics about which they feel strongly."

So, 3-to-1 in favor of "they're equally bad."

Paul W said...

I'm curious, what's it like to host/run a podcast?

steeve said...

"this is reflected by Donald Trump being the Republican frontrunner?"

Indeed, Trump didn't run as a republican because he's a republican. He instead looked around to see where all the rubes were, and found them.

I'm not going to read that nasty smug column, but i'll still put money down that, where conservatives and liberals are "equally" simple minded, the conservatives will be dogmatic on positions known as "false" and liberals on positions known as "true". When an open mind closes, it's called learning.

Whenever there's a tie, reality will be standing by to break it.

crweaver said...

Given Trump's impending image makeover(re: Charlie Pierce's column), it is clearly etch-a-sketch time again!

Frank said...

I'm not a fan of Vox, but I don't understand why that interminable column needed to talk about the right wing. Some notion of balance?

Kevin Holsinger said...

Good afternoon, Mr. Shannon.

Let me take a stab at this. Hypothetical scenario: we have another mass shooting. According to Mr. Rensin, the common goal liberals would have with our fellow citizens would be to do find some way to stop such shootings from becoming our new national pasttime. So far, I'm with him.

Problem is, the Right Wing that Mr. Rensin ignores has been feeding people this idea that the most effective way to stop the shootings is with more guns. According to every study I've seen on gun violence, this is not only not going to work, it'll likely result in MORE shootings.

Mr. Rensin doesn't want liberals to use facts to solve this problem (because that would be smug). And the Right's counter-productive rhetoric is poisoning whatever arguments remain on the subject. In the end, that leaves us with nothing getting done, and more people eventually dying unnecessarily.

As I see it, that's what happens when he ignores the Rightwing elephant in the room.

Hope that helps.

Enjoy your day.

Frank said...

Thanks, I think that makes sense. Except that Rensin may have a point when he claims facts can't solve the problem. I'm not saying you shouldn't try to communicate the facts. I would claim that fundamentally the right wing likes the mass shootings because what motivates them is not stupidity but hate.