October 28, 2014

Fareed Zakaria: "Muslims Are Right To Complain That There Is Anti-Muslim Bigotry"

Fareed Zakaria: "Muslims Are Right To Complain That There Is Anti-Muslim Bigotry"

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/10/27/fareed_zakaria_muslims_are_right_to_complain_that_there_is_anti-muslim_bigotry.html

"SNIP....................


(the two Canadian jihadists and the one in new York this week) These are not people steeped in Islam, people for whom the religion shaped their world view over decades. People who were motivated by their immersion in the religion. On the contrary, these were unstable young men prone to radicalism and violence. They were searching for an ideology that would fit their disturbed world view, and in the radical and jihadi interpretations of Islam, they found it.

It's always worth remembering that these people represent a tiny minority. Think of it this way. Terror groups like ISIS and al Qaeda have been calling on Muslims to engage in terrorism in Western cities for over 10 years now. Of 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide, the number who have responded to these calls is a small, small, small percentage. If all Muslims were radicals, we would have more than three to worry about this week.

And yet, there is a problem within Islam. It's not enough for Muslims to point out that these people do not represent the religion. They don't. But Muslims need to take more active measures to protest these heinous acts. They also need to make sure that Muslim countries and societies do not in any way condone extremism, anti-modern attitudes, and intolerance towards other faiths.

Muslims are right to complain that there is anti-Muslim bigotry out there, but they would have a more persuasive case if they took on some of the bigotry within the world of Islam as well.


.......................SNIP"

October 25, 2014

Many conservatives are people who don't like 'cheaters' and 'those who break the law'.

That is in their minds. A certain percentage of the population. The GOP has co-opted those people with their law and order agenda as well as painting the poor as welfare queens and such. And they have to keep feeding them stories about the 'cheaters' to keep them engaged with the Republican party. No wonder these people are paranoid. It is as it was planned. They take something in the minds of their base, rework their party to harness it, and repeat and repeat the narrative that they are being cheated. Now the paranoia extends to Obama who is actually trying to make life better for them and has succeeded in many ways (the economy, health care) with no help from the right wing congress. No wonder voters fear they are alone. They are alone: not allowed to connect to Obama, and led by the GOP who just uses them. They are alone. They should be afraid. Just not of Obama.

October 18, 2014

Obama lost the white male vote after the Henry Louis Gates

arrest incident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Louis_Gates_arrest_controversy

Bill Maher did a new rule rant about pandering to the white vote. Got me thinking? What euphemism for "don't be sensitive about white people being racist" can we use to change the hearts of white republicans who live in a world where they do not wrong? Maybe something aspirational?

Obama uses "we're all in this together". He used "hope and change".

October 15, 2014

Odd Conservative Website Ranking Drop Right Before Elections

Odd Conservative Website Ranking Drop Right Before Elections

http://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,151332.0.html

by AbaraXas at the Briefing Room

"SNIP.....................

Notice something unusual about the website rankings for most popular Conservative websites at a time when they should be going up?

*note on the graphs. Higher numbers = lower ratings. 1 would be the highest rating. This is why the higher numbers are at the bottom. The higher the number means the site is trending further and further down in ratings. Ranking data from Alexa.com

................

...you get the point.... and all at a time that ratings should be ticking up, in the months before an election. We have been watching web rankings closely to see the trend of our own site for the past few years and noticed the drastic drop in rankings almost over night. In comparing to the other major conservative political websites, they all experienced the same drop at the exact same time, well out of pattern.



.......................SNIP"

* go to the website to see. They also show democratic sites further down the comments section. Dems ratings went up. As one would assume during a political season.

My theory? The GOP sites have paid GOP bloggers who get moved to the important GOP Senate races in the last 6 weeks of the election. No other explanation makes sense. Conclusion: the GOP websites are mostly paid astroturf in non election season.

October 1, 2014

"Moral Relativism" and the GOP. The GOP hate the "Moral Relativism" in

liberals and democrats arguments. Moral relativism may be any of several philosophical positions concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different people and cultures. Descriptive moral relativism holds only that some people do in fact disagree about what is moral; meta-ethical moral relativism holds that in such disagreements, nobody is objectively right or wrong; and normative moral relativism holds that because nobody is right or wrong, we ought to tolerate the behavior of others even when we disagree about the morality of it.(Wikipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism

But they seem to like it when it comes to justifying the GOP leadership using cult tactics to lead the herd that is their base. That is not morally wrong it seems, just different. It is an emergency after all - someone might get something from the government otherwise

They say their anti tax, anti mommy state policies come from a deep and authentic need for freedom within the souls of their base and is therefore equivalent to the democratic voters who want more equality in their lives. So are the GOP really saying that it is not alright for liberals to use moral relativism when arguing for the people's needs, such as the african american experience in America, but fine when used by the GOP to hide the jack boot tactics of GOP politicians and pundits, while Democrats try and lead to policies that will make Americans thrive, whoever they are. This is hypocritical and elitist as always. One set of rules for the people, a different set of rules for the powerful.

The GOP goes even further than that to say that the aims of climate scientists are selfish and about keeping their jobs, not about saving humanity. Anything to make the two sides of any debate equivalent in their selfishness or goodness, despite the reality that the GOP is a cult. It is projection when it is selfishness they imply the Democrats have as a motive.