I won't condone the way Garofalo put it because there are no rigorous scientific definitions of any of the adjectives she used, but there is something to it.

http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Difference-Between-Democrats-and-Republicans-TED

As determined by psychological testing:

Liberal Concerns
Harm/Benefit (aka utility)
Fairness

Conservative Concerns
Authority (as an end in itself, not as a tool for benefit/fairness)
Purity (as an end in itself, not as a tool for benefit/fairness, hijacked by whatever notions of purity happen to occur in the location of their birth)
In-group Loyalty (as an end in itself, not as a tool for benefit/fairness). In various circumstances this is known as tribalism, nepotism, cronyism, nationalism, chauvinism, jingoism, xenophobia, racism, sexism, patriotism, speciesism, or ageism.

The latter three are a crude system of morals that might have suited humanity well before it developed a germ theory of disease, representative government, and global commerce.

>> ^Pprt:
robots for simple labour>importing third worlders

Well, only sort of. The device, or at least the vast majority of its components, will be manufactured in the "third world", so it is in effect a giant cheap-labor battery.

You put a bunch of people in a factory, sore their labor in the form of machinery, and then pull it back out after you ship it to your country.

Because the cost of energy(labor) is so cheap where you charge(manufacture) the thing it comes out as an okay economic deal over the full life of the machine.

If you point is strict xenophobia, simply not wanting to see the laborers, then I suppose it works.

But if you want not to be dependent on the laborers, and being subject to their desire to work for you at whatever rate you desire, that problem has not been avoided.

This is not true, yes Wilders is being prosecuted, but until the judges come to a verdict we don't know the result yet. Inciting hate and violence is illegal and the prosecutor is now checking if this was the case.

Wilders is a scary retarded idiot and his xenophobia has gotten him almost 15% of the potential vote now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Wilders#Islam

>> ^quantumushroom:
The most viewers Aljazeera ever had was on this sift.


Ahhh. Sweet, sweet xenophobia.

Those god damn white trash, comin over to our country and takin all our jobs.
Fuck them.

I SAY WE BUILD A WALL AROUND CANADA!!!

xenophobia + politics = massive fucking waste of federal taxpayers money

Guilty is a perception, just like justice, and good/evil. I thought you would like to read on how McCain is becoming desperate.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
Actually, the Obama edits sound pretty benign, one being childishly petty (the Adam Goldfarb is a liar), the other mostly wanting to squelch an unsubstantiated slur (the Vanilla Ice quote). Neither seems like something the Obama campaign authorized (and if it was, not a terribly useful set of edits).

By contrast the McCain edits are flagrant attempts to rewrite history, and look like a coordinated campaign of intentional edits. The Xenophobia article seems to be trying to erase the idea that racism exists in America. Look at what was removed from the Liberty University article -- three paragraphs of fair critique with sourced articles supporting the claims.

I would've liked a full listing of what "other edits on articles that favor McCain which can be considered a conflict of interest."

To me, you've given a great example of false balance, trying to point the finger at both, when only one seems to really be guilty of anything.

In reply to this comment by NordlichReiter:
Wikine
ws article on MCCain and Obama camps malicious editing.

Obama and McCain camps childish games. Wikipedia is not impressed.

Actually, the Obama edits sound pretty benign, one being childishly petty (the Adam Goldfarb is a liar), the other mostly wanting to squelch an unsubstantiated slur (the Vanilla Ice quote). Neither seems like something the Obama campaign authorized (and if it was, not a terribly useful set of edits).

By contrast the McCain edits are flagrant attempts to rewrite history, and look like a coordinated campaign of intentional edits. The Xenophobia article seems to be trying to erase the idea that racism exists in America. Look at what was removed from the Liberty University article -- three paragraphs of fair critique with sourced articles supporting the claims.

I would've liked a full listing of what "other edits on articles that favor McCain which can be considered a conflict of interest."

To me, you've given a great example of false balance, trying to point the finger at both, when only one seems to really be guilty of anything.

In reply to this comment by NordlichReiter:
Wikine
ws article on MCCain and Obama camps malicious editing.

Obama and McCain camps childish games. Wikipedia is not impressed.

Is this supposed to scare me? Is the stuff about China and India supposed to stoke my xenophobia?

The world changes.

>> ^Bfresh:
Just remember, by making a broad statment about ALL Kentuckians, you are engaging in the same prejudiced slandering that you are bashing.


That rather goes without saying. If you're referring to me, you'll hopefully see I made no statements about all Kentuckians; just the ones willfully flaunting their xenophobia and ethnocentrism in this clip.

I think our society's a bit messed up over this. We can't look on this seemingly well adjusted family without disgust, but we can go to the store, buy some other animal's breast milk that has been forcibly expelled by giant sucking machines

Right on! It's no suprise that human milk is better for humans than cow's milk. There's nothing wrong with extended breastfeeding between consenting people.

What a great Sift. I agree that the kids seem pretty well-adjusted. Much more so than the ones I see in the candy-aisle at K-mart.

I see so many kids in grocery stores being abused by parents who threaten to abandon them or hit them.

creepy

Creepy is just an all-purpose insult used to express xenophobia and ignorance on the part of the person uttering the word.

Dag, I pretty much agree with what you're saying there and I don't disagree with the fact that it's 'natural'. The problem I have is that we aren't a primal society, these kids are gonna be faced with problems as a result of this facet of their upbringing, whether it be in school or later life. I think it's short-sighted of the woman to encourage or even bow down to her 8 year old's demands when she's well aware of the society we live in.

All those resultant problems, if any, would be the result of the baseless social stigma, not the act itself.

its xenophobia parallel to blaming all the problems of Germany circa 1930s and WW1 on the Jews.

Did someone say "Godwin"?

I happen to think thats a bullshit "law" anyway, but you brought it up. Lets go to 2008 instead then, do I think every member of the cult of scientology are either evil manipulating money-grubbing scammers, or batshit crazy movie stars? No. But scientology is crazy. its an evil scam man-made for all the usual reasons, money and power, and the world would be better off without that kind of nonsense. Islam is the exact same thing. It is totalitarian, intolerant, primitive, organized fascism. It thrives on ignorance and discourages education, and promotes indoctrination in its place. This is why my Godwin is appropriate and yours probably isnt. (I dont know much about Wilders, and I expect I'll probably disagree with him on many things, but comparing his little movie to Nazi germany's relentless propaganda machine is probably stretching things just a little.)

Its so much easier to say its the evil muslims!!!111 then saying perhaps our foreign policy with regards to Saudi Arabia, Isreal, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq is and was deeply flawed.

Thank you for walking right into my anticipated criticism and mistaking my opposition to Islam as opposition to muslims, basically by quoting the claim I described as "stupid shit like that".

Also nice on your part to assess that since I "hate all the evil muslims" I automatically see every foreign policy decision the USA and Europe has ever made as absolutely flawless. Guess thats where my hundreds of anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war posts come from.

For clarification, unlike Geert Wilders, I am not frightened shitless when I see the "Number of muslims" counter in my country sky-rocket, I consider myself a world citizen, and place or culture of origin of the people around me means close to nothing. What I care about is whether people and society have to suffer. I dont want to live in a theocracy, I will stand up for the rights of women to wear whatever the fuck they want, and eat in whatever restaurant they want. And our press to print or publish whatever the hell they want. As long as these things are guaranteed for everyone, Islam or scientology, or nazism can be whatever the hell it wants to be for all I care.

You lost that on Godwin rules.

But seriously I was raised in this so called ideology you claim is so dangerous. Am not practicing muslim and I haven't met anyone who cared if I was or not so far, even though they can act all superior if they are themselves but thats besides the point.

My main complaint is that westerners are claiming Islam is so 'dangerous' without really understanding the people and the faith of close to a billion people in the world. The fastest and largest growing faith on the planet.

This 'dangerous' religion only came under the microscope now after 9/11 where a radical terrorist groups and their originating faith became suddenly a singular group. That's bullshit, its like saying Timothy McVeigh represents Christian Terrorists. No one connected Islam the faith and the radical terrorists before 9/11, but they were there in the first Trade center attack, in Israel, in PLO attacks of the 60s, in Egypt and countless other terrorist attacks.

The faith doesn't have anything to do with it, its being used just as fear is being used through films like that to cut down dialog between people, to incite fear and misunderstanding. Are you really surprised that faith based language is being used to incite conflict? What did George Bush say? Its God that told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. He used Christian based language countless times. What do you think those terrorists do? Same shit different words and God. They are simply using the faith as a vehicle to further their own ideas and power, the Taliban is a perfect example of this, they claim to be Islamic, but closer inspection shows that they don't know shit about Islam and impose their own hard line interpretation with Pashtun tribal overtones.

How many innocent Muslims were attacked post 9/11 for being simply Muslim? Since when is Osama Bin Laden or any of those crazy imams representative of the Islamic faith?

Its all about power and pushing people into taking complex topics to basic levels. Wilders only wants to incite hatred and division in Netherlands and gain political momentum off peoples fears, its xenophobia parallel to blaming all the problems of Germany circa 1930s and WW1 on the Jews.

Its so much easier to say its the evil Muslims!!!111 then saying perhaps our foreign policy with regards to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq is and was deeply flawed. You look at the middle east with a western slant without thinking about what people in this side of the world have seen and witnessed from the great western powers, arm sales and unconditional support for Israel to kill Palestinians, support of ISI and Mujahedin to attack the USSR in Afghanistan, support for corrupt and oppressive Saudi Royal Family, support for Egypt that is 20 years under emergency dictatorship rule, support for Central Asian despots who now imprison and vilify Islam so they can rule for ever, sale of arms to Iraq and Iran. Tanks and troops spreading freedom across Iraq and Afghanistan. People don't forget.

But you people like it simple and easy to disgust and process back through "Its the faith" I guess. Islam is evil. Bush is right. War for ever against a strategy and a religion.

For people who claim a diversity of opinion you enter intellectual lock down pretty quickly.

I disagree with that, countless times in history various parties have pronouced the end of war due to intellectualism, idealism or economic factors yet war and the concept of enemies remained.

Yes ideally we should be able to differentiate between enemies as a populace and enemies as organizations, but we are fallible, and most do not see it that way. This is helped on by the administration that hopes to push forward a perpetual war, remember how ominously it would proclaim not just a war on terrorism but a wider clash of cultures between Islam and Christianity. Not helped at all by President Bush's constant usage of Judeo-Christian concepts in his speeches at the start of the war.

The majority of the population does not see the differentiation at all, most Americans have no seen foreigners unless you happen to live in multicultural cities and along the coastal areas. Further feelings of xenophobia abound, as well as racism, how many people have I seen fidget nervously on airplanes at the site of a Muslim wearing the dishdasha.

Popular culture does not shy away from these concepts, rather it utilizes them to build upon preconceived notions. The administration never says we are fighting against a particular person, we are always against Iran or North Korea acquiring nuclear material, as if the entire population of those countries is hell bent upon that singular issue. The wider contextualized story is never presented, such as the aspects of why such nations would choose to be so hostile to the US.

I do not believe that people are inherently evil or inherently good either, I believe people are inherently selfish, the concepts of good and evil are simply built upon by social influence most of the time, it is better to be good because of law individually, but the morality compass can sway either direction depending on how it would benefit your actions. People are far more motivated by fear then any other emotion. This is manifested in fear of Islam, fear of terrorism, fear of death and so on. Again factors used in manipulation of the masses.

I also disagree with your thinking that religion or philosophy is in any way the driving force behind the conflicts we witness today, those are merely facilitators of acquisition of power.

I recently read Ahmed Rashid's Taliban, which chronicled the rise of fundamentalist Islam in Pakistan and Afghanistan, it was clear that the Islam created was a fallacy, it wasn't Islam more as it was Pushtan tribal traditions coated around an Islamic undertones, stripped of over 2000 years of Islamic scholarship to something totally alien. This is not real Islam as its world participators know it but a sabotaged form of it.

I would agree that wealth dissipates war but not entirely, consider Saudi Arabia, a country that is the largest exporter of Oil, yet most of its population lives in utter subjugation due to a fundamentalist strict Wahhabi version of Islam that sustains the Saudi Royal family in power and in control of the oil resources while rich its wealth does not reach most of its population who are then converted to anti-western sentiment by the government controlled religious schools who preach it so that criticism of the Royal family never flourishes. Most of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. But there is a benefit to the US and Saudi Arabia of this going on, because the US assures defense and support despite a brutal and authoritarian regime, SA assures the supply of oil and foreign funds to the US.

This is a case of economic development still fostering conflict in the future, the same is for the Western actions when it comes to dealing with nations like Iran and North Korea, mainly by marginalizing them and cutting them off from economic development by way of sanctions.

Globalism might assure more reasons not to commit to war in the future, but it will not prevent it, because war is not derived from ideology but from power, western capitalism depends on a imbalance of power to thrive and if the scales are tipped in the favor of power in the hands of one nation over others it will lead to eventual conflict.

/\ Be careful people, the world is full of foreigners. We're surrounded!

Xenophobia. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

Look, I've keep my mouth shut the whole time, but I think I will open it now.

^ those segments are not balanced. If you want to call this one unbalanced, fine, but if you say those are fare and balanced you must be joking, my babies.

If there was a conspiracy why bother with the planes? Think about how risky that is. What a huge chance of failure it has. Why not just blow up the buildings from the inside and say the terrorists did it, instead of fly planes into the buildings, then blowing them up from the inside "secretly" and then saying the terrorists did it. What if one of the planes missed? Being off a millimeter with a plane that size would send you an immediate mile off course. Think about all the people that would have to be involved. Every one of them would have to be psychopaths to let something like that happen. I’ll admit that Washington is a greedy bunch, but there isn't enough money in the world to keep all those people quiet.

Steve Jones may be a physicist but that doesn't mean he knows crap about structural design. But you know who does: I do. His postulations are beautiful garbage and his blathering exemplify his ignorance on buildings. I guess he was relived of duty after he said this and that, but, really, in the real world, you only get fired if you're an asshole. You can do a horrible job, say things that disagree with everything your institution stands for, but you'll only get the boot if you're a jerk. Ask anyone who's held a real job. He didn't get fired because of what he said about 911, he got put on relief because they already wanted to get ride of him and his bantering was the excuse.

Where were the engines? Inside the building. Why weren’t the wings there? Because a plane's wings are full of jet fuel and a 600 mile per hour impact would makes them EXPLODE. Why did the windows blow out: look up I.M Pei and get a lesson on air pressure. Passports planted: I'll buy it. What better way to direct attention. No video of the pentagon crash has come to light: that's fishy too, but, on the other hand, what would be the point? If you're going to crash a plane into the towers to incite public upheaval, why bother sending one to the pentagon, or why bother sending a missile instead of a real plane. I mean think of it: send planes, but then stop one of them, kill everyone on it, destroy the plane, then send a missile in its place? They hid the video because it was a knee jerk reaction and they didn't know what to do. They were scared. And they won’t release it now because it would prove nothing; let those people die in peace. Why would make it all so convoluted? Why leave so many loose threads? If they were going to fake something, it wouldn't be this easy to accumulate even this faux evidence.

The only public official who has said 9/11 was purposeful was the former president of Italy who has a serious history of mental illness and has his own conspiracy theory about being schizophrenic.

I think they did want to go back to the middle east. And 9/11 was the perfect excuse. Can't the manipulation of our wounded hearts, after a great national tragedy, be conspiracy enough? Of course it's about the oil, it about the whole region. It's about Israel and our former beef with all those "axis of evil" nations. It’s about Bush’s xenophobia. I think we would have ended up back there with or without 9/11, but, please, let those people who died on that die day with the dignity they deserve. It was a tragic day.

A few months after 9/11, I looked at an al Qaeda website and they claimed that 9/11 was revenge for every child who's stomach was born outside of it's body due to the use of depleted uranium in the gulf war. I don't think slaughtering thousands of innocents was just by no means, but what I'm saying is that they had their reasons and when you're living in the sand and you've got nothing else, a suicide mission seems pretty damn good. A 9/11 conspiracy theory even lessens what those mindless thugs died for.