he takes issue to the "personal attack" and then in his retort he

I also take issue with personal attack because when someone including you Baker, as I recall we had differing viewpoints with Howard Stern in a earlier blog of mine, has an opposing view point I welcome your view point and even consider it, I just don't dismiss it as ignorant.  That is being unbiased and fair not dismissing opposing viewpoints.  My original post was I believe factual as well, a lot of people do hate Bush around the world, more people have protested because of him than anyone ever. 

no such thing as a correct or incorrect political stance, they are all valid in their own way.

Exactly

"My original post was I believe factual as well, a lot of people do hate Bush around the world, more people have protested because of him than anyone ever."

I'm thinking you are stretching it there, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt...

My point wasn't to insult you, but to show how ingrained the idea that the people who oppose the Left in this country are the "unwashed". So ingrained that you don't even see it as an insult. As a Bush supporter, I am classed with the "uninformed".

I'm not really all that opposed to personal attacks, actually. I could count on one hand the people here at JU I would hesitate to sit and have a cup of coffee with, and I have been slapped around plenty good. I meant no serious offense to you psychx. I just think that people here insult people all the time without realizing it, and then pretend that insulting people is heinous. I like to insult people, lol, and I still like them thereafter.

As for your point about the scientists, I take that with a grain of salt. I have been around higher education since I was in diapers, and frankly people who live in academia generally are so detached from reality that they have no business trying to effect it. I don't doubt you could find 600 or 6000 prominant scientists and acedemics that oppose Bush. There are millions of scientists and academics in the world.

It is a balance, and as I have said many time, opposing Bush != supporting Kerry. I don't think they'd find Kerry much more accomdating to their agenda if he wins.

Psychx: You keep changing your story.

Here is what YOU wrote:

I think it's not just the "left" its everyone except Republicans and conservatives.

That was the explicit part I was referring to.  Most Americans LIKE Bush. Hardly "everyone" except for a few exceptions (unless you want to say that Republicans and conservatives represent the majority).

Then you backpedal and say:

The general public supports Bush because the masses don't take time out to research things

Well gosh, just a second ago you were saying everyone but conservatives and Republicans loathe Bush.  Now the general public gets lumped in.  But only because they're too dumb to enlighten themselves as you have.

I support Bush's polices. Are you seriously going to argue that I haven't taken the time to "research things"?  Or by "research" do you mean regurgitating left-wing "data"?  Do you believe in evolution? I do. But everytime I get into a debate with someone, some Christian fundamentalist will trot out "scientists" who all condemn evolution.  To me, those people just sound gullible.  Similarly, people who assume that Bush is somehow some sort of nightmare to the environment just sound gullible.

The majority of the public doesn't know that Kerry first said he would vote for the $87 billion dollar proposal if it was from rolling back tax cuts for the rich, that didn't happen so he voted against it being fully aware that his vote would make no difference.

Ah and here is where research comes in. So you've bought into the whole "Taxcuts for the rich" thing? Way to research.  All TAXPAYERS got a tax cut. It's just that if you give the guy who pays $1Million in taxes a 5% tax cut it's going to be much bigger than the guy who makes $10,000 isn't it? But that doesn't make the whole tax cut a tax cut for the rich.  But let's say you disagree there, did you ever bother to see WHO most of those $200,000 plus people are? They're LLCs, and Scorporations (small business owners).  How exactly do "the rich" get their money? You think they live in big castles they inherited living off their trusts? If you researched these things, you would know that increasing taxes on "the rich" would certainly not help our economy. 

But let's put that aside, Kerry STILL voted against the $87 billion.  Regardless of WHY he voted against it, he still voted for a war but then refused to pay for it while at the same time bitching that people were having to send help from home to the troops because of lack of supplies. If Kerry's side had won that vote, they'd be in even worse shape.

Also about 90% of the time I hold a political conversation with a conservative they end up trying to personally attack me without sticking to the debate and what I have said.

Perhaps because you make claims that aren't true.  I didn't personally attack you. I stated what I think is pretty obvious: You're ignorant on these particular issues. The more you write, the more obvious (I think) my assertion becomes.  About 90% of the time I have a political conversation with a liberal they end up regurtitating analysis from third parties that they have little understanding on and believing that they are personally more enlightened than their ideological opponents despite obvious evidence to the contrary.

 

My point wasn't to insult you, but to show how ingrained the idea that the people who oppose the Left in this country are the "unwashed". So ingrained that you don't even see it as an insult. As a Bush supporter, I am classed with the "uninformed".

Ok let me be specific.  Most people that have replied on this blog are informed, read the news, watch debates, listen to stands on policies, etc...   There are a lot more people who are misinformed.  I am sorry that my poor use of words seemed to categorize anyone here and I will rephrase it the way I should have said it.  Most of the public is easily swayed, ideologies are usually contradictory understanding of policy is not in-depth.  This is on both the right the left and for the most part the middle.  I will retract and make no claims that one is better than the other, they are just differing view points which I think have to exist.  With that said I don't agree that one side should point the finger at the other for something that is evident on both sides.  Don't worry about offending me I have very thick skin and I apologize if I offended anyone but I couldn't believe that in an article with this title my opinion was labeled as ignorant and it got to me.  As far as scientists and scholars they are one of the reasons we are the superpower that we are today and they can offer valuable insight. 

Ah and here is where research comes in. So you've bought into the whole "Taxcuts for the rich" thing? Way to research. All TAXPAYERS got a tax cut. It's just that if you give the guy who pays $1Million in taxes a 5% tax cut it's going to be much bigger than the guy who makes $10,000 isn't it? But that doesn't make the whole tax cut a tax cut for the rich. But let's say you disagree there, did you ever bother to see WHO most of those $200,000 plus people are? They're LLCs, and Scorporations (small business owners). How exactly do "the rich" get their money? You think they live in big castles they inherited living off their trusts? If you researched these things, you would know that increasing taxes on "the rich" would certainly not help our economy.

I have read your past articles which touched on this subject and that was not what I was referring to. Kerry stated he would vote for $87 billion dollar proposal if it was funded by a tax on the rich, since this was not amended he voted against it. 

So you've bought into the whole "Taxcuts for the rich" thing?

I didn't buy into anything I am stating what Kerry has said on his vote against the $87 billion which coined the term "flip-flopper"

You also seem to have missed my reply when I said=

Ok this article was basically stating that the left can dish it out but can take it. So if anything it should exemplify the fact that the right can take an opposing argument without calling it ignorant. I do agree, on BOTH sides it is the same issue one says the other can't do this or that. I knew that if I said something that was easily disagreeable that someone would call my argument ignorant, typical, liberal, whatever just because it is an opposing argument, completely proving my point. Why write a blog that the left can't take it when the first opposing argument is then called ignorant, it's contradictory. Nothing I say will change anyones mind here but pointing the finger explicitly and stating they can't take it and then doing the same thing is borderline hypocritical. This has nothing to do with whether I am on the left or right, I believe a balance should exist within this country and neither side is completely right, and you are right baker it is very on topic..

 

My point was completely skewed when I brought Kerry into this.  My original point was a simply a lot of people dislike Bush.  I brought Kerry and his vote for the $87 billion as an example. 

I didn't personally attack you.

Ok I won't take it personal but if you say that something someone has said is ignorant most of the time they will take it personal. 

Wait, wait. I support Bush, the "masses" support Bush; I am informed, and they areobviously not. I'm not seeing it, frankly.

Sure there are people that vote based on family tradition or other inconsequential ideals, but do you think the Right has much more of that than the Left? Nah, most people I know that vote blindly are Democrats, and it is because of the perception of "compassion", and the fact that Elanor Roosevelt dedicated the local high school.

I think you are probably right that most people aren't as informed as they should be, but I would say that it is pretty equal on either side. It is getting worse and better at the same time, with 24 hour news channels and the internet to spread both information and MISinformation...

"As far as scientists and scholars they are one of the reasons we are the superpower that we are today and they can offer valuable insight. "

True, but their insight as it pertains to their field of expertise. I get tired of microbiologists being hailed as people who know how to run a nation. If you want to put together a bunch of economists and poltical science scholars, then maybe I can agree, but these scientists you are refering to deal with small slices of Presidential policy, not the whole schmeer of being President.

I don't think insight on particle physics makes someone any more authoritative on voting than my voluminous knowledge of Everquest, lol...

don't think insight on particle physics makes someone any more authoritative on voting than my voluminous knowledge of Everquest, lol...

But a scientist who is studying the effects of polution on global warming is important when it comes to environment policy.

But psychx - what Bakerstreet and I object to is this myth that the left is somehow more enlightened.  There's no evidence whatsoever to support that Bush voters are less informed than those who oppose him. If anything, the evidence shows that his opponents are less informed on the issues (as a broad generalism).

When I look around the political discussions, not just on JU but elsewhere, I see the same thing: Claims of intellectual superiority by the left without backing it up with any evidence. It's intellectualism by proclamation.  I'll see some emotionally pleasing claim made by a liberal and then the conservative slogging it through with actual data with their own analsysis on that data.  By contrast, liberals almost always rely on the analysis of others.

In my experience, and I've been debating politics on-line for a long time and in 4 days a political strategy game based on real world politics will be on the shelves throughout North America, left-wing "research" is very superficial.  Research to the typical on-line liberal debater means going to some left-wing website and pulling a convenient article or quote and pasting it.  The conservative debate will tend to look at the raw data and lead to their own conclusions.  Now, that has a downside too, that's why the biggest on-line kooks in my experience are right wingers because they'll do their own analysis and come to some nutty conclusion. But as someone who does real research, I chaffe when I see someone who believes they're informed because they've latched onto the latest trendy analysis coming from "respected" left wingers. 

In the context of this thread, the left gives us people like Michael Moore who looks at the data and churns out analysis so tilted that it's essentially propaganda. And we've had it fed to us now for months. I still see liberals referring to Bush as "George aWol Bush" on-line even though that story's been pretty thoroughly discredited.  And we have to put up with stuff from MoveOn.org which gets guys like Wil Ferrel to reprise their SNL rolls to slam on Bush for commercials.  And yet these guys cry foul when regular guys who served with Kerry call him out on some of his over-reaching war claims?

Is it really that much of a stretch to consider, just for a moment, that a guy who served in Vietnam for FOUR months may not have actually done that much? That it might be a bit much to base a Presidential campaign so heavily on those 4 months? George McGovern was a war hero btw.  One who was in combat far longer than 4 months. Most people don't even know he was in the military.  Yet the left freaks out that conservatives are finally starting to look into Kerry's war record.

The left is also far far more likely to start crying "personal attack" yet be completely oblivious to their own words.  How exactly is it a personal attack to describe your words as showing ignorance? I didn't call you any names. I didn't attack you. I just believe (correctly I think) that you are not terribly well informed on these issues.

What other conclusion can someone take from your own words when you imply, essentially, that only conservatives and Republicans (who you apparently assume are some fringe minority since you use them as exceptions to your "Everyone" classification) support Bush? And then you later say well, most people support Bush but only because THEY are ignorant? (ignorance, btw, isn't a personal attack, it is a state of being uninformed, lacking "research" you might say).

Which does fit in: You guys on the left need a much thicker skin. Democrats have been dishing out the sewage and FUD about Bush and conservative views for a long while now and we've sucked it up and respected your freedom of speech.  You don't see Bush threatening to sue Michael Moore or his distributors do you? Yet Kerry is talking about sueing these swift boat guys. Sad.

"But a scientist who is studying the effects of polution on global warming can make them important when it comes to environment policy."

No, he can help make an informed decision on that one slice of environmental policy, but he can't really tell you the economic and social results of putting through the policy he is preaching. It is easy to forget that all of these policies are set up like dominos.

It's like extreme envoronmentalists that abhor taking timber in national forests. The trees die naturally, blow down, no one cleans them up, the forest builds up a thick layer of dead material, and eventually the whole damn thing burns. We are seeing the product of that in many areas right now. You can have great knowledge about a single aspect of something, but if you rely on that perspective alone you risk ignoring the unforseen eventualities.

As a matter of fact, the whole "global warming" thing is theory, anyway. There are a great many scientists that disagree on the whole or in part. When you stack that kind of uncertainty against the damage radical environmental policies can do to the economy, it becomes much less clear cut.

I didn't buy into anything I am stating what Kerry has said on his vote against the $87 billion which coined the term "flip-flopper"

Ok, I'll take your word for it.  I take issue when someone calls the Bush tax cuts a "tax cut for the rich" as if only "the rich" got tax cuts.

My original point was a simply a lot of people dislike Bush.

A lot of people dislike every President.  Bush's average approval rating throughout his presidency has been much higher than most.  And you said yourself that even BEFORE 9/11, people in Europe disliked Bush.  How fairminded is that? What did Bush do to insight them before 9/11? Breath?

Ok I won't take it personal but if you say that something someone has said is ignorant most of the time they will take it personal.

Personal attacks, by definition, are attacks that target something inherent about that person.  If I called you an idiot or a moron or ugly or corrupt, that would be a personal attack.  I am ignorant on issues of poetry.  Someone pointing that out is not a personal attack.  If you claim that a viewpoint is inherently ignorant that's where it gets borderline.  The written word is a tricky thing. 

I do agree with your definition of personal attack though and once again I apologize for being overzealous.  I really do think there are extremes on both sides and there are those that claim to be superior on both sides.  For every Michael Moore this is a Rush Limbaugh, for every Howard Stern there is a Pat Robertson.  True the media is very liberal but propaganda goes both ways...

"For every Michael Moore there's a Rush Limbaugh.."  I disagree. I must have missed Rush Limbaugh's movie. 

What's the right wing equivalent to MoveOn.org? What's the right wing equivalent to the "Vote for Change" tour (featuring Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, John Mellencamp)?  What's the equivalent to Al Franken? Or Rosie O'Donald or Whoopi Goldberg and on and on and on? 

There are certainly nutty right wingers out there (Ann Coulter springs to mind) but they are obscure by comparison.  Where is the right wing equivalent of "Out Foxed"?  I don't recall seeing any right wing films about CNN's soft pedaling coverage of Saddam even though it later turned out that they had to give Saddam propaganda time in order to stay in power.  Where is the movie that covers the oil for food program corruption and how France and Russia's opposition to the US actions in Iraq were likely economically motivated?

Moral equivalence is an easy path. But it's not an honest path.  The left has been dominating the media and airwaves with their crap for months.  But a few pinpricks back from the right and they get all defensive.

this isnt a question of right vs left.

it is right vs wrong.  defending smear attacks from either side evidences ethical confusion at best.

nor is it liberal vs conservative. 

proponents of specious amendments to the constitution, deficit spending, preemptive strikes, imperial foreign policy and attaching to the executive powers specifically denied to it by the constitution are hardly conservatives.  

 

Kingbee: In that case I assume you're a Bush supporter now?

Not only has Kerry defended smear attacks from the left, he's made good use of them such as his using Moore's crap about Bush not taking action for 7 minutes. Or his praise of Whoopi Goldberg.  It was Democratic Chairman Terry McCollough (spelling) who accused Bush of going AWOL.

I don't think the Swiftboat ad even remotely rises to the level of nastiness we've seen from the left.  Is there something factually incorrect in the ad? If so, spit it out.