Brains: Gotta remember to update the title!

[elfs]

The Ultimate Guide to Conquering Your Clutter

Monks keep it simple, and get a lot done. Why can't you?

Seth: How To Make Money on the Internet

Just plain goodness. Enjoy.

Republicans: Dying from the Head Down

The Economist explains the death of the Republican party:

Republicans lost the battle of ideas even more comprehensively than they lost the battle for educated votes, marching into the election armed with nothing more than slogans. Energy? Just drill, baby, drill. Global warming? Crack a joke about Ozone Al. Immigration? Send the bums home. Torture and Guantanamo? Wear a T-shirt saying you would rather be water-boarding. Ha ha. During the primary debates, three out of ten Republican candidates admitted that they did not believe in evolution.

Conservative brawn has lost patience with brains of all kinds, conservative or liberal. Many conservatives–particularly lower-income ones–are consumed with elemental fury about everything from immigration to liberal do-gooders. They take their opinions from talk-radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and the deeply unsubtle Sean Hannity. And they regard Mrs Palin's apparent ignorance not as a problem but as a badge of honour.

Another reason is the degeneracy of the conservative intelligentsia itself, a modern-day version of the 1970s liberals it arose to do battle with: trapped in an ideological cocoon, defined by its outer fringes, ruled by dynasties and incapable of adjusting to a changed world. The movement has little to say about today's pressing problems, such as global warming and the debacle in Iraq, and expends too much of its energy on xenophobia, homophobia and opposing stem-cell research.

Andrew Sullivan says the "ruled by dynasties" bit is "a nice touch." Oh, if only that were true. National Review could have done will with Chris Buckley at the helm. I don't think he wants the job.

Crippled Dogs and One Trick Ponies: The Texas State Board of Education's Science Hearings

Apparently, the pro-science faction had to deal with state board member Terri Leo, who railed against "militant Darwinism" and tried, as creationists will, to use science when it benefitted her, and dismiss it when it didn't. A long, personal account of yesterday's meeting, in all its sick glory.

Obama's secret plan to muzzle talk radio. Very, very secret.

Marin Cogan at The New Republic does some actual journalism and fails to find a single person in congress who thinks the Fairness Doctrine will return. Obama is opposed to it. Those members of Congress most interested in media oppose it. Last year, when Democrats were in charge of Congress, the House voted 3-to-1 on a resolution discouraging the FCC from re-instating it.

I suspect that it's more than mere paranoia. In order to be effective, right-wing radio must be in opposition. They must appear to be the scrappy revolutionary upstart. It can't be the idea in ascendency. But they clearly are: in Seattle we have one "pretending to be neutral" station, one Air America outlet, three evangelical channels, one Catholic, and three rabidly right-wing. "Conservative" ideas own the airwaves. The only way to look as if they're under seige is to create this phony controversy. (via Steve Benen)

Comments

[fallenpegasus]

And this is different from what is on Air America, how exactly?

Or the average "Did you hear what the Rethuglicans did THIS time?!" cafe conversations I was so privileged to overhear N times too many over the past 8 years?

[mikstera.livejournal.com]

Assuming you're right, and Air America is guilty of the same excesses (I wouldn't know... I've never listened to them)... my response is a bored "So?"

My complaint is with demagoguery, with the willful eclipse of reason, and is not reserved to only the demagogues residing within one particular segment of the ideological spectrum. I note, with interest, that you didn't disagree with my assessment, only sought to deflect attention towards a different target. Such deflection seems to me to be a rather pointless exercise.

[fallenpegasus]

You can't make demagoguery illegal. It's an easy accusation to make, since it almost impossible to distinguish from "a popular and charistmic politician that you disagree with", for *all* values if "you".

Attempts to regulate it by government fiat and speech licensure are cures that are far worse than the disease.

[mikstera.livejournal.com]

No, we can't make demagoguery illegal... and I wouldn't want to even if we could... but that's not what the "Fairness Doctrine" is about, and it isn't what I had in mind.

My rule of thumb for identifying demagoguery is this: are they trying to make me some combination of afraid and angry, and not appealing to my reason, or asking me to think for myself and make up my own mind?... yeah, it's demagoguery.

So no, IMO, it isn't almost impossible, or even very difficult to identify demagogues... though, of course, honest and well-intentioned people can disagree as to who's being a demagogue and who isn't.

Also, this isn't about something as petty as whether I happen to disagree with a particular politician or not... it's about the methods they are trying to use to change my mind. Do they appeal to my reason? Do they appeal to the better angels of my nature? Or, do they appeal to my primate instincts towards tribalism and xenophobia...


As far as the "Fairness Doctrine" goes, I think this bit from the wiki page on that subject has it right:

Although similar laws had been called unconstitutional when applied to the press, the Court cited a Senate report (S. Rep. No. 562, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 8-9 [1959]) stating that radio stations could be regulated in this way because of the limited spectrum of the public airwaves. Writing for the Court, Justice Byron White declared:

A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a radio frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.[1]

The Court warned that if the doctrine ever restrained speech, then its constitutionality should be reconsidered.