Bush's Shrinking Safety Zone

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Pay more attention to Fox News and other sources you don't agree with as well.

I see the problem as people paying too much attention to all news outlets, not just to the media wing of the GOP. They all have their bias, but their main objective is the public's attention. They don't get attention by dispassionately presenting what happened. The last I watched cable news, CNN was working as hard scaring liberals as Fox was scaring conservatives.

Both outlets scare their people into believing that more power needs to flow to their politicians. The vast majority of people are basically good. Those few who are evil will try to gain power over others, politics looks like the path to power when centralizers are successful. If we give too much power to politicians we are asking for oppression.

If it weren't for US influence, most of the world's oil chokepoints would be controlled by those bad actors and/or the nations interested in throwing their weight around.

We are a nation throwing its weight around. Our attempts to stabilize the region over the years have contributed to our problems on the Arab/Persian street. We were never great supporters of ME democracy before, supporting "undemocracy" if we thought tyranny suited our needs. We have this vision of ourselves left-over from WWII as international defenders of freedom, unfortunately that reality didn't survive the Cold War. In the work of halting global communism we lost the man on the street, when his democratic aspirations conflicted with our needs.

There wouldn't be US influence, actually because we'd be in Carter-era economic sluggishness/crisis.

I'd say we risk another era of sluggishness if we don't free ourselves of oil dependence. The money we've thrown at stabilizing tyrants was a subsidy for the established oil industry. Some would say subsidizing nuke, wind, and solar at the same levels would make them competitive. It is an argument worth having, especially if global warming is man's doing.

Look at history man. The time of world wars was before US throwing its weight around arrived on the scene. I know you don't like the World Police approach but you are reaping tremendous benefit... as does the entire world.

I stand by my previous thought that we are benefiting more from man's accumulation of knowlege than from US hegemony. Free societies are better at preserving and distributing knowlege. We are a country at a crossroads, will we choose to be free or will we choose fear? I do not believe we can continue to sow fear to justify foreign and domestic interventions and remain as free as we are. The voters will demand that people have less control over their daily lives.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Griff

I see the problem as people paying too much attention to all news outlets [[because their main bias is to frighten]]

Oh it's people now and not me. Yeeeah, I thought you were just doing the usual Cellar attack style, in which we take whatever we know about somebody and attack them on that basis. If we know they have an orange cap and wear it backwards, we attack on that basis. If we know they are fat, we attack on that basis. Now since it's been noted that, in the past, I watched a lot of TV news, I assumed you were assailing me for doing that. I was going to retaliate by saying you don't get smarter about the world by turning off all your sources and living in isolation in the middle of nowhere. So thankfully it's people now, and you weren't attacking me, you were just making an unrelated point about news, right?

If you have other outlets, you can learn to determine what is fright and what is actual news. But do tell us what your wonderfully golden sources are, and we promise not to mock you.

We are a nation throwing its weight around. Our attempts to stabilize the region over the years have contributed to our problems on the Arab/Persian street. We were never great supporters of ME democracy before, supporting "undemocracy" if we thought tyranny suited our needs. We have this vision of ourselves left-over from WWII as international defenders of freedom, unfortunately that reality didn't survive the Cold War. In the work of halting global communism we lost the man on the street, when his democratic aspirations conflicted with our needs.

Do tell us your wonderfully golden sources.

When I went to college in the early 80s, I had a friend named Roberto. Roberto was lucky and got to go to school in the US for nearly free due to international programs. Roberto was from Uruguay.

Roberto hated America. He would bring anti-American propaganda from Uruguay. The Uruguayans were mad, or at least some of them were, because they didn't like American pressure on their country.

But there wasn't really American pressure on their country. Come on, it was Uruguay! The socialists just enjoyed saying that there was, so they could blame America for all their ills. The people liked to think that their little country was so important that it required the intimate meddling of the great powers.

Being the biggest guy in the room makes us a target for doing nothing.

Some would say subsidizing... wind, and solar at the same levels would make them competitive.

We need your sources on this so that we can properly mock them (and not you)

So now the worm turns: you're in favor of massive government research programs in the name of freedom... broadly preventing free people (well, Exxon/Mobil, we can easily color them the bad guys) from trading with nations we don't agree with... and you're saying that if we prevent trade and come up with a sensible alternative to oil that is cheaper *snort*...

...it would surely make the US more powerful...

...which according to you, would make everyone that we don't trade with, not hate us, and therefore make us less of a target...

...although at that point, having developed and exported these energy alternatives, we will have undercut their only means of making serious money at all.

We are a country at a crossroads, will we choose to be free or will we choose fear?

I'm sorry, weren't you the one who was carefully cautioning about sources that use fright to make their message important?

[Griff]

My reply is fair because you claim special insight due to intense scrutiny of media. Your criticism is fair because I intentionally ignore same.


My "other outlets" are regular people like your Roberto. Did you find him misguided or instead evil? Unless Rob was advocating or committing violent acts, I'd say he was merely misguided.


Yes, we will take heat for being successful, but I'd rather take my chances with that than to take heat for being truly wrong.


Note the weasle word "Some." I don't advocate subsidy. I advocate bringing home the troops and letting energy cost what it costs. If you argue for the military subsidy, I'll counter by noteing a lower level of force would be used by the state subsidizing alternatives.


It is fair to say I'm fear mongering. I believe that people with "evil" or misguided intentions try to concentrate power. I believe that power distributed is safer. I am not familiar with any cable news outlet with that bias.