How can people rationally discuss the ideas of a Kenyan Nazi Socialist?

How can people rationally discuss the agenda of a stupid, bible-thumping, drunken, chicken-hawk, racist sexist homophobe neocon? From Reagan to Bush to Palin - those are the lables the left applies. Conservative politicians are not engaged on the merits of policy. They are attacked with ad hominems.

Barak Obama does not discuss conservative policy. He dismisses it blythely and pretends he didn't hear it. Like when the Republicans took him to the woodshed just before the health care vote. They cleaned his clock. They beat him like a rug with his own bill. But he ignored every conservative point and said crap like "that's just a prop..." and proceeded to parade sob stories as if they justify his position.

When it comes to policy the GOP has been more than willing to talk substance. The blogosphere and talk radio are not so egalitarian, but they bring up many facts that go otherwise unreported by the left leaning news media. They all certainly are given to fits of exaggeration and rhetoical hyperbole - but since when was that uncommon in politics? But now all of a sudden "oooo - it's mean spirited". Bullcrap. The left ate, drank, breathed and slept in mean spiritedness for 8 years and now they're all offended by it? The public isn't buying it because they aren't that stupid. The left's crocodile tears ring hollow because it's just rhetoric. The right whined about it during Bush, and this is nothing more than the cycle of life in the political world.

Glen Beck's crazy is all showbiz. If you want the real deal, check out this talk radio host from Texas (of course).

Civilized talk-radio in North America? Who would have thought...

In September 2006, Baldwin released his book titled The Unusual Suspect, which details highlights from his personal life, career, days of drug abuse and ultimately his turn to becoming a born-again Christian after the 9/11 attacks.[11] In the same year, Baldwin, Mario D'Ortenzio and Bobby Brewer founded, "Breakthrough Ministries", which was designed to utilize extreme sports as a ministry via arena tours, which were referred to as, "AsSalt Tours", and featured extreme sports celebrities, with Christian Hosoi being the most notable one. In 2007, Daniel Southern joined Baldwin as President of his ministries. In late 2008, Baldwin formed a for-profit organization called, "Antioch Ministry", which exists, "to facilitate the gifts and calling of Stephen Baldwin".[12] In 2009, Baldwin and Southern launched a third ministry called, "Now More Than Ever", designed to reach enlisted men and women in the military, around the world.


Baldwin at CPAC in February 2010, promoting his radio show.
In 2008, Baldwin teamed up with conservative evangelical Christian talk-radio host Kevin McCullough to put together a Saturday radio show called, "Baldwin/McCullough Xtreme Radio". As of April 18, 2009, the show airs on more than 195 stations and in more than 370 cities across the country.[13] Baldwin appears weekly on the show from the broadcast studios in New York City, as well as from various locations around the country when he is traveling for other business purposes.
-Wikipedia

What a terrible fuck fase he is

this hasnt just been going on since the bush administration.
i remember hearing the same tone concerning clinton in the early 90s. like way early, like 92.
except, i think at least newt gingrich, while awful and nasty and hideous, actually managed to get things done.

this hostile climate and tone started with nixon and has grown and grown since then. fueled by conservative talk radio, rush has been on the airwaves for 20 years now and started writing his fat idiot books during clintons first term. conservative talk radio begets fox news. and now its all kinds of out of control.
corporate media is very very responsible for this, theyve enacted a policy of sensationalism for ad $$$. conservative talk radio is basically like one big fucking political tabloid, and fox news absorbed its rhetoric because it saw a successful business model. they're not journalists, they disgrace the name and almost everyone who worked for newscorp during bush's first term should be imprisoned for facilitating war.

oh and other news outlets just parrot fox news's talking points. basically, we're all fucked.

turn off the tv and quit buying what it tells you,or it'll just get more shameless. passive resistance.

To help you understand better, NinjaInHeat, on American politics, just think on this. The concept of a conservative/liberal agenda news agency did not emerge until Fox News turned from 'journalistic quality' in the early 90's to sensational news coverage. Basically, that 'news' agency started to embrace more weird things and not so much stable ideas. During that time, it was not leaning to one or the other side of the political spectrum. With the 'election' of George W. Bush, the owner of Fox News started to switch it from 'neutral' to 'conservative' journalism. During the first couple of years, pass 2000, more and more Americans started to hear of differences between Fox News an all others.

They called it 'the elite media' or 'leftist media'. In an effort to undermine good journalism in favor of their style of journalism. Journalists/reporters were often charged with the task of reporting the news, as it happened, and allow the audience to form their opinions. They would show facts and evidence, and would stay away from opinionated journalism. Think 'Walter Conkrite'. So, Fox News, turned to having a political 'bent' on news reporting. They often tried to put the Republican President, Mr. George W. Bush in the best possible light. Anyone who remains neutral on the subject would point out, that, it undermines good journalism. They were the last ones to report about events in several spots (i.e. Gitmo), and did try to spin the knowledge of an event in the most favorible manner towards the Republican president and Congress (which until 2006, was controlled by the Republican party).

During this timeline, radio, in an effort to draw more listeners, started to bend towards conservative politics. Radio was getting heavily hammered thanks to the Internet, and needed a gimmick to draw more listeners to its site. Largely to get people to buy products and services the radio stations aired on ads.

Conservative radio, actually changed how Fox News 'reported' information. On talk radio, often the host would try to keep the tone and mood of any discussion on subjects that would anger its listeners. Making callers respond in angered voices. As anyone who has studied psychology will understand. Someone who talks in a calm, rational tone, generally can think and be reasoned with. When someone is beyond angry, their ability to think rationally is severally if not, totally, eliminated. Hence were the concept of 'blind rage' comes from. The Frontal Lobe of the human brain shuts down.

So, back to Fox News, and your question. Any news source that doesn't blindly agree with Fox News or conservative talk radio, is, to those people, liberal media. Whether the media is actually liberal bias or not, is irrelavent. So, for example, CNN (i.e. cnn.com) is considered liberal. The BCC, in England, is liberal. The Washington Times (or is the Post?), is liberal. The Boston Globe, is liberal. Newsweek, Money, and even Forbes, is liberal. Generally, any publication that questions Republicans, is automatically liberal. Conservative media will not show things, that hinder its philosophy or show moderates/liberals in a positive tone.

/end neutral bias

I've seen alot of news coverage by Fox News on the sift here, showing how they undermine good jounalism in favor of the latest spin to keep Republicans out of scrutiny. I'm sure many of the people here could post links of some of the more amusing moments in which Fox News, Hannity, Beck, O'Reilly, or even Rush Limbaugh tries to change the facts to place conservatives/Republicans in to the best possible light. And, to lump moderates as liberals. Then, to show liberals/Democrats in the worst possible light.

Honestly, to understand American politics, one needs to listen to all possible sides on a given piece of information or event. Use, 'critical thinking skills', wisdom, and reason, to figure out what the reason information and facts are, THEN, decide on how to accept that information. For most conservatives, and some liberals, that's way to much effort to expect to take in.

@dystopianfuturetoday, I agree with that 100%. But does that mean you're dancing with glee because the single left-wing radio outlet folded, while all the right-wing talk radio thrives?

I'd love it if they all went away at once, but I think a situation where all political opinion radio is essentially one giant right-wing zoo is unhealthy for society, and not something to really cheer about.

I'd probably listen to a left-wing political shock-jock, but Air America really didn't have any. I could strike the pose that "that kind of thing doesn't appeal to liberals", but that's not true -- I love inflammatory left-wing rhetoric, and so do most of the liberals I know.

Our rhetoric is definitely different in content, but we loves a good no holds barred smackdown and a good righteous rant.

@blankfist, I'm just saying that steering conversations into literally semantic battles isn't helping your advocacy for libertarian (or whatever made-up word you'd prefer everyone use) ideas.

Me personally, I really love arguing semantics; I've got something of a fetish for it (it's part of why I'm a programmer in my day job). However, I think it's important to speak the same language as your audience if you're looking to be understood.

People who use words with their colloquial, rather than archaic meanings aren't brainwashed by some sort of government indoctrination they received in public school (fun fact: I didn't go to a public school), they're using the words they think will convey their meaning most accurately and concisely to the listener.

What you're doing is like trying to hijack a conversation about due process for police officers with a story about how the word "cop" originally referred to the criminals being chased by officers of the law, and not the police themselves, and then act as though this implies something nefarious about the very idea of having public defenders.

At best, this fixation on trying to dust off the old meaning of liberal is a strange sort of non-sequitor. At worst, it's some Orwellian plan to shape thought by trying to erase the modern definition of the name your ideological opposition uses. In either case, it's usually deployed as an attempt to change the subject.

As I said originally, I'm just trying to convey to you that I think it's an intellectually lazy tactic, and that I think you can and should do better.

I actually like talk radio. The program I listen to, Free Talk Live, is on for almost 3 hours a day, 6 days a week, 12 months a year. They've actually taken some of the spots AA was on.

I subscribe to their podcast.

I think I like talk radio because for the type of work I do I can play it in the background and it fills the dead space. It's also rarely boring because the topics are so damn good and relevant. There. I just plugged the shit out of Free Talk Live.

I gave AA a shot a few years back, until I came to the conclusion that it's not conservative talk radio that I hate, but rather the talk radio format itself.

Talk radio is as dumb a media format as media formats come. Listening to some blowhard bullshit off the cuff about politics for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, 12 months a year is not something I'm interested in doing, regardless of the political views of the host. I think even your intellectual Chomsky types would be hard pressed to come up with three hours of commentary a day for weeks on end, let alone the rejects they dig up to host these AM shows.

I have to take this failure as a sign of intelligence of my ideological brethren.

If you want news, commentary, culture and politics on the radio, public radio is by far your best bet.

It's their own fault.

Liberal talk radio just isn't the same thing as conservative talk radio, but that's exactly the model that most of the AAR programs were based on.

I don't think most liberals like just listening to talk all of the time. They really should have jazzed up their programs with more music, apolitical interviews, and who knows, maybe even some radio theater.

Liberals don't crave the lecture scene quite the way the cons do.

" History has proven that to be a blatant falsehood. Giving money to government programs does not reduce poverty, help the poor, or in any way improve the issues in society."

What history books are you reading Winstonfield? Never in the entire history of civilization has a "Libertarian fiscal conservative" government ever succeeded in creating a stable social environment. Not once! Why? Because it flies in the face of human nature. The world is not so super simple that we can teach everyone to be rugged individualists and then we will not need government at all. Before it will even have a chance to work you need an even playing field, and that does not exist and probably never will exist, thanks to human nature again.

Conservative thinkers know this, which is why pure conservatism = dictatorship. If you don't believe me, turn off the talk radio and crack open a book. Read the philosophers that inspire conservatism, like Plato and his "Philosopher King" or John Burke's defense of royal fiat.

Conservatism does not create a paradise like Galt's Gulch, it leads to places like Haiti, and Zimbabwe, and Somalia. "Liberalism" leads to high standards of living, like Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the fast recovery of Germany. These countries are technologically more advanced, better educated, have higher average incomes, better medical care, and longer life spans than us Americans. Yet they are (falsely) labeled "socialist" and are considered places we should not follow as examples.

Think for yourself!

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

There's just so much choice that I haven't settled down yet. I bop around to the places I've lived in my life- mainly for nostalgia's sake- then just look for random stuff. LA talk radio, over to Japan for some J-Pop. Was listening to some Turkish stations the other day. A bit of Hawaiian music. I'm sure I'll settle on some favorites eventually. >> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
What stations do you listen to?

Yes, but when the Democrats did it, it was due to a war that the republicans couldnt justify beyond fear. Maybe Longde could point out to us all here at the Sift, the location(s) of all the nuclear WMD's we were suppose to have found in Iraq? You know, the #1 reason why we invaded that country?

This guy, just wishs to be obnoxious, unruly, disrespectful, and unconsiderate of others. Yes, saying 'I object' was heard. To keep doing it, while someone is talking is just rude. Its behavior that is allowed on conservative talk radio and Fox News. This idiot doesn't have enough brain cells to know, he's in a place that's neither Fox News, nor a conservative talk radio. In fact, he's a waste of oxygen.

The longer version, is simply republicans using the same tactic, to disrupt the flow of things. In fact, as one of the democrats put it, she was being censored. Where was the Sergeant of Arms on this? Frankly, in the old days, the Sergeant of Arms would have removed the fellow with a club to the head.

But hey, the health care bill they were deciding on here....pass. So Obama: 1 Republicans: 0

Fuck Rush Limbaugh...the jeets who listen to him are just as ineffectual as the people who decry him as a fucking hobby...Whens the last march anyone participated in??...Senators and Congressmen throw their junk mail away like anyone else-(Word to the folks who think I pick on certain users on this site: since it seems that the climate is such)
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Limbaugh is a diversion. Chris Wallace??, Hard hitting questions?..Those cheesy edits make me dizzy. The news is turning into sound bite rhetorical bullshit no one should be forced to abide-That's the internet news for ya....Bullshit. Issues? Talk Radio has its ad revenue getters, and whatever news program puttiing 2 money-makers together for money's sake, has theirs. Money made on programming people what to think about, how to think about it, when to think about it, why it's important to......etc.

You can argue that we would benefit from a federal insurance system or not, but let's not make stuff up out of thin air and call it scary truth.

I couldn't agree more. Let's start with the lie about death panels. Then the lie about government takeovers. Then the lie about taking away benefits from old people. Then the lie that it'll bankrupt the country. Then the lie that wait times will go up. Then the lie that innovation will stop. The lie that you'll have a "government bureaucrat between you and your doctor". The lie that the proposed plans will kill small businesses.

In a related note, fear mongering about the H1N1 vaccine should stop too.

But back to your pet peeve on display here about "obscene profit" -- if you think the main, central argument Democrats have been using is for reform is that we need to punish insurance companies for the crime of having made a profit, you haven't been listening to Democrats. You've been listening to the talk radio/Fox News caricatures of Democratic positions instead.

I think it's pretty safe to say that what makes the profits "obscene" is not their size, but that they're coming amongst a backdrop of worsening service, and shrinking coverage base. As MoveOn put it, "Health insurance companies are willing to let the bodies pile up as long as their profits are safe." That's not a comment on the size of profits, it's a comment on how those profits were achieved.