SCOTUS stops the election interference....cold!

Ok. I’ll take your word for it in the above statement. The thing is, I don’t recall ever having read anything by these people. I have heard of a few of them. I think I have seen an interview or something with Steve bannon but I can’t recall any of the content. If these are the propagandists that represent the maga ideology, I’m not aware of any influence that they have had on my opinions and observations.

i truly do get most of my info on current events from npr during my daily commute. I’d speculate that npr may influence my opinions in some way because I recently bought a Subaru.
I don’t think anyone in this conversation would try to say that npr is propagandizing for trump or this maga movement.

 

No. None of my views comport with those five steps. I have never read, nor heard even on npr, that trump is suggesting any of those things and, let’s face it, they’re not his biggest fans. The things you have listed above just sound unrealistic to me. I’m not asking you to shower me with a list of citations. I’m just saying that, based on the information I’m aware of, those don’t sound believable. They sound like partisan hyperbole and alarmism. I’m not suggesting the left has any monopoly on this behavior either. So please don’t think I’m any less suspicious of claims from the right.

 

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“rational ignorance”. Interesting term. Not sure I understand the definition of such a term. I wonder if, like many definitions in our modern post-literate society, it might be a moving target.

As to the “don’t say gay” law: I did hear about that on npr. As you might imagine, it was quite egregious in their eyes. The thing is, I’ve learned over the years to not believe the headlines or even the first few articles on any subject. In my experience, it’s almost always severely exaggerated to hype the panic and keep the audience’s attention focused, or outright lies to promote a political agenda. After a few weeks and as npr actually allowed more varied guests on to discuss the issue, it turned out that the law was to prohibit school personnel from initiating discussions of sexual orientation or “gender identity” outside of health/sex-ed classes. Quelle surprise. Now as I alluded to much earlier in our conversation, I am a former “presenter”. I was being purposely vague because this is an anonymous discussion and personal details are not needed nor even desirable. To give some perspective on this issue, I will disclose that I was a teacher. I very much agree that such discussions, especially those about the teachers’ orientation or other proclivities, have no place in a classroom, with the possible exception of a health class. In any other classroom they would be, at best, an unnecessary distraction and a very inappropriate topic of instruction. In other some cases it could border on recruitment or predatory behavior. It was generally accepted when I was a teacher that discussions of anything about sex (excepting a health or a biology class obviously) was thoroughly inappropriate and potentially much worse. It seems to me that such a law would have been unnecessary because all such discussions were deemed inappropriate and unprofessional. If we have teachers today who engage in or, worse yet, initiate discussions of sex or sexuality with students, then, as a parent, I would welcome legislation or even just regulation to preclude such things. Sex and sexuality are already enough of a distraction for adolescents and teenagers without making them a topic of discussion in something like a math, science, history or english class. And the increased potential for inappropriate relations between teachers and pupils seems to make such discussions even less desirable.

 

Haha. Would you prefer a “softer”, less authoritarian, less “macho”, less disciplined military? Perhaps we have different concepts about what is the primary purpose of a military. It is not to “win hearts and minds” nor to distribute humanitarian aid.

As to any perceived antipathy toward sexual “deviants”. No. Aversion maybe; in the way one may avoid associating with those with various vices or other maladaptive behaviors. No ill will. Just a desire to not expose oneself to “the drama”.

 

Agreed, but in modern society, with click induced minuscule attention spans, the headline is all many people bother to read. As such, hyperbole and purposeful misinterpretation become commonplace. Eg. “bloodbath”. Further down the article the truth may emerge or, if the whole thing is slanted/partisan, maybe not.

The basic problem is that in order to be profitable, any media must retain its audience by whatever means necessary. Fear and anger are better at holding our attention than even titties are since the former naturally associate with more pressing concerns than the latter. I dont hold this against the media. I just accept it as the natural course of things and interpret their product accordingly.

 

As I explained earlier, rational ignorance is a deliberate decision to remain ignorant about certain subjects "when the supposed cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the expected potential benefit that the knowledge would provide" Rational ignorance - Wikipedia. e.g., in order to concentrate on things a person considers more important: keeping track of the stock market, work, family, leisure, sports, wife swapping, etc. I didn't make it up. Anthony Downs, American economist did, and its widely used by economists and public opinion experts.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20116485
https://www.thewokelawyer.org/post/rational-ignorance
The psychological foundations of rational ignorance: biased heuristics and decision costs - Constitutional Political Economy
We all do it, to some extent, cuz we can't keep up on everything. But you seem to be a textbook illustration of it when you tell us you won't "invest the time" to engage in reasoned discourse. IMO, that should be accompanied by bowing out of discussion, cuz you waste our time sharing your half-baked views with us if you can't bother to back them up with argument.

Good job! There you go! You explained why you hold the position. Of course, then somebody can explain why they disagree with it, but that's a good thing. We learn that way. I probably won't, cuz it's not a subject I'm really up on, but somebody else might. Be ready for that. I do think I can say, on the basis of my own observations, that politicians have gone overboard on the issue, using it as a political football to advance their own careers. And the bathroom police make me nervous. North Carolina had a law, fortunately since repealed, banning individuals from using public bathrooms that do not correspond with their biological sex, as dictated by their birth certificates. I visit a relative in that state and was wondering if I needed to bring my papers along to use the john. Showing them my dick wouldn't be enough! And the teenage grandson (formerly granddaughter) of a friend looks like a guy and presumably has the same thing between the legs that I do. I think he'd cause a stir using the ladies room, but that's what such laws would seem to require. Utah and Florida currently have similar laws for all government owned buildings, and my state is one of eight that have them for K-12 schools.

 

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Level One

Level One

 

It's been speculated that some support of policies that can only result in degradation of society may be attributable to an impetus for self-harm. And that impetus may be attributable to some kind of guilt. And some of that guilt may be attributable to views being pushed that some people are born oppressors and others are born victims. And that view, besides being false, is destructive to society.

Sounds like a vicious circle.

 

If that is the definition of rational ignorance, then yes I think that does somewhat describe me.

As to bowing out of the conversation; no. Not if it still holds interest to me.
You don’t like what I express nor my method of doing so, so I should shut up and go away? How very liberal and tolerant. I suppose rioting and looting would be a more acceptable expression of my opinions? I know it’s not well reasoned and footnoted but hey, orange man bad right?

 

Yes I have heard of the concept of disgust vs lack of it and its relation to lifestyle and political inclination. And yes, the concept makes some sense to me as I am able to relate it to myself in some ways as well as to people I know or have known. Like much of the social sciences, I suspect the relationship is complicated by confounding and covarying variables. Nonetheless, it seems plausible.