Re: FOX NEWS Is an Enemy of the State
Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2022 10:30 pm
That’s pretty damned rich coming from a literal secessionist and insurrection apologist, Xanax.
- Doc
- Doc
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Economic nationalism and an America first agenda is what the MAGA movement that Biden says needs to be exterminated was about. I'm not exactly sure how those principles are viewed as a threat to democracy. I'm not sure exactly what you mean you mean by "Democracy," when you say that MAGA is destroying American democracy. To me democracy based on the US constitution means more than just mob rule or 3 wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. It protects the rights of political minorities as well. What Veritas is advocating is as far from constitutional as it gets. Democracy doesn't mean that the majority gets to silence the minority because they don't agree with them or think that building a wall and enforcing the border is immoral.But what you are doing above? That's not a defense of American values. It's partisan demonizing. It's also lazy regurgitation of taking points you learned from some outlet.
Think about what it is you stand for and ask yourself: Are these principles I can articulate? Or identities I feel are threatened?
We're talking about Fox News and MAGA Doc. Secession is not the position of MAGA nor the SAVE AMERICA movement that Biden seeks to outlaw, silence, and exterminate. The lefts view that because a couple hundred idiots who fought with police and walked around the capital building for a few hours somehow came close to ending the American republic or that it means it's necessary to censor and criminalize the 74 million people who voted for Donald Trump is ridiculous.That’s pretty damned rich coming from a literal secessionist and insurrection apologist, Xanax.
Economic nationalism is a topic unto itself. I don't think it rises to the level of principle so much as being a policy. But if we take the second part above - America First - I think we need to confirm what your idea here entails.
The dispute over whether or not to build a wall on the border or how to enforce immigration law aren't the crisis issues.
Kevin, I'm going to painfully honest and blunt. The people that engaged in the online apologetic wars developed some of the most embarrassingly bad techniques of argument I've ever witnessed. And that's you in spades. You're so wrapped up in self-righteous outrage that you don't bother to take the time to read, think about, and understand what I said. Look at how you started out:
Res Ipsa wrote:First, there are “standards” in the form of well defined limits on freedom of the press.
Here, you respond as if you understand what the "existing" standards are. But you don't, so you make a bunch of flat out wrong assertions. Can you correctly describe the standards, or, put another way, the constitutional limits on freedom of the press? That limits X, Y, and Z are constitutional doesn't mean that proposed limit A is either constitutional or even a good idea. "Constitutional rights have limits" isn't an argument. Of course they do. That doesn't answer the question of whether the government has the constitutional authority to force Fox to broadcast a disclaimer. Can you accurately describe the Constitutional limits on the government's power to dictate to the press what it must or cannot say? Can you find single case in which the government has been found to have the power to force the press to say something?Veritas wrote:Which is what I'm talking about. Those limits need to be increased and more importantly enforced. Media isn't supposed to be allowed to flat out lie, but they do and get away with it because of lax laws that put stringent burdens on those needing to prove libel or defamation. But your initial suggestion was that merely regulating standards for what's news is nothing short of "authoritarian," and then when I demonstrate how we regulate just about everything else in our society you switch gears and say "oh but you don't have a constitutional right to those things. Well either more regulation = authoritarianism or it doesn't. You clearly stated that it does, but refuse to apply such a ridiculous standard to everything else we regulate. And you keep disingenuously framing what I've argued as something as a complete censor of FOX News when all I have suggested is that they not be allowed to call themselves News. And you also know that no Constitutional right is absolute. Your hand waving dismissal of my "rant" ignores my clear examples of how we regulate the freedom of speech which is also Constitutional.
I'm going to go through this paragraph in detail, because it shows all kinds of problems in argumentation. You keep harping on me calling you an authoritarian. But you do it completely out of context, which was in response to you branding Fox as an "enemy of that state." You've never responded to my actual argument on that topic, which is "it's a bad idea to use the same tactics that authoritarians use to take over governments."Veritas wrote:The fact is you called me an authoritarian for merely calling a spade a spade, because you said Fascists do that.
Let's not rewrite history. My initial comments were in response to your branding Fox News an "enemy of the state." You are conflating my response to that description with my substantive arguments as to why your disclaimer proposal is unconstitutional and a bad idea. You've also introduced yet another straw man: nowhere have I said that you proposed government control of all media. So, whatever argument you are describing, it's not the one I posted here. You proposed that the government force Fox News to run a disclaimer saying, in effect, "We're not news so you shouldn't believe us." Are you arguing that doesn't represent government control over what the media broadcasts or publishes? Or that it doesn't give the government the power to determine what is "news" and what is not?Veritas wrote:I never proposed "government control" of all media, I suggested something needed to be done to protect the country from the harm FOX has caused and continues to cause.
Whatever "logic" you are referring to it isn't mine. There's no discernible logic at all in your straw man description of what I said. This is exactly the type of thing I mean when I say you aren't even making an effort to understand. Again, you're taking bits and pieces of things that aren't related and splicing them together as if they were related.Veritas wrote:But then in an ironic twist you get upset with me for basically spinning your own logic back only you by pointing out that your remark about media being historically "partisan as hell" is precisely what FOX News argues to justify their existence as a counterweight. So what does that correlation make you? I don't know.
No, that is not what a straw man is. You've made all kinds of arguments in support of your proposal. One of them is partisanship. It's not a straw man for me to address that part. I never claimed that partisanship was the only issue. It's actually a straw man to imply that I did. Again, if you're going to throw around the names for logical fallacies, you really should learn what they are and use them properly.Veritas wrote:But this is all a straw man because no one is talking about mere partisanship. FOX News isn't just partisan, it is an enemy to this country because it WILLFULLY and KNOWINGLY propagates HARMFUL DISINFORMATION for the sole purpose of propping up a political party that is working hard to upend our Democracy.
So, this, I think, is where the rubber hits the road. Again, referring to the history of newspapers, here is what the press did historically with no interference: "WILLFULLY and KNOWINGLY propagates HARMFUL DISINFORMATION for the sole purpose of propping up a political party...." Look through what is commonly referred to as something like the period of the political press. There are also a few Supreme Court cases that address knowingly spreading false information. And they say that the remedy is not government authority but more speech. And there's a reason for that: giving government the ability to tell the press what it has to say (which is what your mandatory disclaimer does) and the right to determine what is "news" and what is not is so contrary to the core values of our system of government that it's not worth the risk of crossing those bright lines.Veritas wrote:FOX News isn't just partisan, it is an enemy to this country because it WILLFULLY and KNOWINGLY propagates HARMFUL DISINFORMATION for the sole purpose of propping up a political party that is working hard to upend our Democracy.
Yes, we call that capitalism. Making money isn't a reason for intruding on a constitutional freedom.Veritas wrote:Oh, and yeah, because they make money hand over fist in doing so.
Okay, so you're really scared. In terms of society withering away, again you take a very narrow historical perspective. Doing something in the open = not a justification for restricting constitutional freedoms. Threat to "society" = not a justification for restricting constitutional freedoms. People getting armed is a constitutional right. Causing people to exercise constitutional rights = not a justification for restricting constitutional rights. Escalation in violent rhetoric is constitutionally protected except in narrow, defined circumstances. Violent riots = crime. Remedy is law enforcement. There is nothing in this paragraph that justifies your proposal.Veritas wrote: And they're doing it out in the open and we're just sitting back watching our society wither away as more people get armed and we see an escalation in violent rhetoric as it corresponds to an escalation with violent riots.
Res Ipsa wrote:So, the reason we can’t have the fairness doctrine back has nothing to do with Hitler or Nazis. It’s because the founders saw the danger in giving the state the power to control the content of the press.
This is a classic non sequitur. You don't address what I said at all. It's also a straw man, as I never referred to you as a facist. And the reference to authoritarian was in a very specific context, which you continue to omit. Your butthurt over whatever it was I actually said is a red herring -- it literally has nothing to do with whether your proposal is constitutional. Appealing to Honor as some kind of authority is also a fallacy -- I get to disagree with Honor. But the grande finale is the kind of personal attack you always revert to -- that's one of the terrible, nasty techniques used in Mopologetics. You don't take the time to really understand and engage with my argument, so it makes no sense to you, so you claim it's personal animosity. Bull pucky.Veritas wrote:You called me an authoritarian or a fascist for merely saying something even honor seems to agree with. Own up to what you said Res. For whatever reason you don't respond this way to other posters who appear to agree with me. That tells me your problem with me has little to do with things I say.
Res Ipsa wrote:You keep simply ignoring the role that government control of the press plays...
Again, misuse of the straw man fallacy. Who said anything about government control of the press? I did. Right in the part you quoted. When a make an argument, I am not somehow limited to repeating back to you exactly what you said and stopping. I said you're ignoring a relevant consideration. And you still are. If the government forces Fox to broadcast a disclaimer, that is government control of the press. You simply keep ignoring the ramifications of that by claiming that "government control of the press" means "total government control of the press." Just for emphasis: if it is unconstitutional to require the press to get a license as condition of publishing, how in the world is forcing Fox to say "we're not news and you shouldn't believe us" going to be constitutional?Veritas wrote:Again, who said anything about "government control of the press"? I even clarified what I said and you continue to beat a straw man. What I suggest is a minimal attempt to circumvent the harm FOX and other bogus outlets have done to this nation. Again, there are already standards that are in effect for news organizations, but they're only enforced internally at outlets like CNN. FOX has its own code of ethics but it doesn't even pretend to use them anymore. Their hosts violate their own policies all the time when they get involved in political campaigns.
Res Ipsa wrote:Veritas pines for the Fairness Doctrine, but he has a short historical memory. Newspapers, through their lifetimes, have been partisan as hell.
Actually, it wouldn't. As I've explained, the fairness doctrine was constitutional because of a unique set of factual conditions, which no longer exist. It was never applied to cable. And because conditions have changed, there is no longer a constitutional basis for it even with respect to broadcast TV and Radio.Veritas wrote:The Fairness doctrine was just an example, and yes, it would still be helpful if it were never rescinded because Talk Radio kinda gave birth to FOX News. Hannity, Beck, Carlson, Limbaugh, Ingraham, etc. They all started as uneducated radio personalities.
Veritas wrote:Now you're just buying into the FOX News BS which it uses to justify their overtly partisan propaganda. The media was NEVER half as Liberal as FOX is Conservative.
Res Ipsa wrote:]Ah, your all purpose excuse for dismissing arguments you don’t like.
Again with the straw man. And the parallel you're trying to draw doesn't hold up. You're not trying to argue that I'm a "Fox News" -- you're trying to avoid responding to the substance of what I said by claiming I'm just repeating Fox News propaganda. The substance of what I said was 100% accurate -- historically, newspapers were much more partisan than Fox. By dismissing, rather than addressing the fact, you're just doing some fancy dodging.Veritas wrote: Again if saying something an authoritarian would say ("enemy of the state") makes me a fascist then what does mimicking FOX make you? "All purpose excuse"?
Res Ipsa wrote:How about you link to some of that sweet Fox propaganda about the historical partisanship of NEWSPAPERS. You can’t because it doesn’t exist.
Again, completely unresponsive to what I said. The Fox argument you keep harping on is that its conservative partisanship is justified because of other media's liberal partisanship. I said nothing about liberal, conservative, balance or justification for partisanship. My argument is that Fox's partisanship, which you you claimed was something like the most partisan ever, is less than that of newspapers historically. I'm arguing that the fact that Fox is partisan is irrelevant in terms of its freedom of the press. Your anecdote is irrelevant. Your dad is not Fox and history did not begin with your dad.Veritas wrote:FOX has always argued their existence was needed because all other media was inherently biased and Liberal, ESPECIALLY the friggin newspapers. My Step-Dad was a newspaper junkie growing up. I remember having to haul hundreds of pounds of used newspapers to the trash over the years. But shortly after 9/11 he canceled his subscription because Hannity told him the Atlanta Journal and Constitution was too Liberal.
Res Ipsa wrote:To be a partisan as newspapers have been historically, Trump would have to own Fox and Biden would have to own CNN. Politicians owned newspapers and used them to mercilessly attack their opponents. You’ve proved exactly what I said: short historical memory. Now, find me a case where the Supreme Court allowed the government to control the contents of those publications. I’ll wait.
Again, improper use of straw man. Nowhere have I come anywhere close to suggesting that what you propose is destroying the Fox newsrooms. But your incorrect straw man excuse again allowed you to dodge the issue. And that specific issue is whether degree of partisanship is a relevant factor in justifying the government to interfere with Fox's freedom. My argument is by counterexample: there were periods in U.S. history during which the press was more extreme in terms of partisanship but there are no examples of the government being able to force a newspaper to publish something to address that issue.Veritas wrote:Not nearly as long as I'll need to wait for you to stop beating straw men apparently. You seem to think I propose Nauvoo Expositor 2.0 or something.
Res Ipsa wrote:And Americans get to believe that violence against the government is justified under some circumstances. It’s in our national DNA. We’re a country that was born in violent resistance to government. Are you seriously taking the position that there are no circumstances under which you would take some kind of violent action against the government?
Why is that obtuse? Do you disagree that the government cannot do anything about what people think? The country is over 200 years old, so a 20-year snapshot doesn't tell us about the vast majority of U.S. History. But you're stuck with the fact that our country was founded on the notion that violent action against the government is justifiable in some circumstances. And you're stuck with all that watering the roots of the tree of liberty stuff that some founders said.Veritas wrote:Now you're just being obtuse. The polling suggests that this view isn't uniform across the timeline of US history, but that it is rather INCREASING, and mostly among you know who.
See above.Veritas wrote:]A majority of adults still say violence is never justified. But that number, 62%, is a new low, per the Post. Some 90% believed it was never justified in the 1990s.
The new poll found that 40% of Republicans and 41% of independents said violence can be acceptable, compared with 23% of Democrats. Forty percent of white Americans said violence can be justified, compared with 18% of Black Americans.
Flashback: The percentage of adults who said violence is justified was 23% in 2015 and 16% in 2010 in polls by CBS News and the New York Times respectively, according to the Post.
Res Ipsa wrote:And? At some point, people are responsible for their own bad decisions. No one is forced to watch Fox.
I call hyperbole. Fox creates the world? Gonna need some evidence for that.Veritas wrote:JFC, no, but we're forced to live in the world FOX News creates. You realize we don't live in a vacuum. Every day I have to interact with the society I'm dealt. At this rate my grandkids will be living with fewer freedoms because of FOX News. This isn't hyperbole. It is already happening right before our own eyes with the abortion crap and the courts being turned into a religious court against the will of the people.
Res Ispa wrote:No one is forced to believe what Fox says.
My point is that people get to choose what they believe. You have no control over that. And you have no right to run to the government to use its coercive power to make people believe what you want them to believe. I believe all religions are false. I can make a straight faced argument that religious belief is harmful. But that doesn't mean I get to run to the government and use its coercive power to force clergy folks to recite a disclaimer before every sermon. People have a right to believe false things -- even harmful false things. Every Fox viewer literally has at their fingertips access to a myriad of sources of information. All they have to do is change the channel. You get no say in that.Veritas wrote:But they do, and will continue to. So what's your point? There is no sign that FOX is letting up, but rather the opposite. Tomorrow a FOX News host could just go on a 20 minute commercial free rant explaining how virtuous and honorable it would be for Americans to rise up and end the Democratic party, using all sorts of metaphor and innuendo to suggest a violent, armed uprising.... and it wouldn't even surprise anyone today because that's basically all FOX is nowadays. And that host would likely get away with it because of all the ridiculous laws that make holding news outlets accountable for libel, slander and defamation damned near impossible.
Res Ipsa wrote: But do you seriously believe that people who rejected the vaccines are going to look at a government mandated disclaimer and say “Huh. I guess the CDC is right. I’m gonna run right out and get me that shot?” Seriously?
When you start a response as you did here, I read "I'm gonna duck the question." Don't you think that it's important to talk about whether what you propose would accomplish the result you want? Why does that subject amaze you? Didn't you think that through before you ever made the suggestion? Instead of presenting an argument for why we should expect your solution to have a positive effect, you just made up a big fat straw man. Did I argue that Fox didn't have an influence on vaccine refusal? No. Does a correlation between the unvaxxed and "right wing fanaticism" provide any evidence that your proposal would affect that in a positive way. Hell no. Why don't you try actually addressing the issue: why do you think the government forcing Fox to air a disclaimer would make people who don't trust the government already reject Fox?Veritas wrote:You amaze me sometimes, how you can be so obviously intelligent and informed and then say things like this. As if you're incapable of thinking more dimensionally, you you clearly are. No, that isn't the point Res. But it takes some truly strained logic to sit there and say millions of antivaxxers develop those views on their own, with no propaganda outlet to feed them fear, uncertainty and doubt. The correlation between the unvaxxed and Right Wing fanaticism has already been drawn.
Veritas wrote:The people you’re talking about don’t trust the government to begin with. Why would you think they’d trust the government’s opinion about Fox News? The more likely result would be to inflame the people you’re scared of.
So, why do you think the Fox audience will trust the government more based on what the government says about Fox. Let's be real, every Fox viewer will know that the disclaimer is the government speaking, not Fox. So, what happens when, before each airing of the disclaimer, a Fox host says: "The government has forced us to run this disclaimer. Obviously we don't agree with it. This is just another example of the government trying to shut down conservative voice." You gonna throw the host in jail for that?Veritas wrote:Again, anti-government sentiment isn't innate, it is taught. And it is taught by...? Exactly.
No. I get to choose my words. That's not within your control.Veritas wrote:And stop spinning this BS about me being "scared" of people.
Vertas wrote:Me being upset that a fake news outlet is almost singlehandedly upending our Democracy doesn't make me "scared of people."
Res Ipsa wrote: But you’ve demonstrated almost no understanding of what I said, so it’s hard to evaluate your claim.
Again, complete misuse of logical fallacies to dodge. The claim you made was "Sorry Res, but you're just flat out wrong." And you left out the first sentence of my response, which is the context for what you quoted. With the first sentence, the quote reads:Veritas wrote: As if you would. You're the one who came at me over my opening post and you misrepresented what I've said and engaged in hyperbole to beat straw men.
Res Ipsa wrote:I’m pretty sure I’m not wrong about the Constitutional basis of the fairness doctrine
Never said that you said I was. See how that works? You made an unqualified statement that I was wrong. After acknowledging that I was probably wrong about something, I listed the things I was pretty confident I was right about. Doing that in no way implies "Veritas told me I was wrong about the fairness doctrine." Again, this is more goofy apologetic wars crap that gets in the way of actually discussing the issues.Vertitas wrote:Never said you were.
Res Ipsa wrote:If I am, you sue haven’t offered any evidence to that effect.
That's complete gibberish. If you're interested in actually presenting an argument or sharing ideas, there are good ways to address an actual straw man. One is: that's not what I'm arguing -- I'm arguing X. Or "I didn't claim X, I claimed Y. It's normal in the back and forth of an argument that someone will misunderstand or misdescribe a position. But not responding to a straw man because it would no longer be a straw man makes no sense whatsoever. You don't get points for saying "straw man." That's not how arguments work. And, if I do get something wrong, "You misrepresented my argument but I'm not going tell what my argument actually is" is sheer game playing. If I get your argument wrong, all you have to do is tell me what your argument is. I shouldn't have to guess.Veritas wrote: I don't address straw man arguments because to do so would no longer make them a straw man.
Hmm. Interesting experiment. I'm gonna have to chew on this a little. I like your phrasing of the dilemma, but I might want to tinker with bit a little.honorentheos wrote: ↑Sun Sep 04, 2022 8:36 pmPerhaps it helps to frame the problem independent of the speech issue.
I see the problem starting with the premise that a democratic society that is established on shared principles and the rule of law requires those principles be valued by the members of that society. Once those give way, the social order collapses to the next lower rung of shared identity. This is often a combination of heritage and cultural history. Often folks who have "collapsed through" principles to identity don't recognize the difference or destruction because their own definition of what it means to be an American, Mexican, German, Japanese, etc., etc., always included their heritage and culture intertwined with vague ideas regarding late 20th Century democracy equaling "freedom". The distance between the tiers is minimal for many nations who are largely homogeneous such as many of our European and Asian neighbors. For others, especially the US, the distance is a planko board composed of historical changes and hard-fought progress.
This isn't isolated to persons on the right. The identity tier is almost always more fundamental to people's ideas of what defines their national identity and makes being a/an "X" mean what it means to them. It's fundamental to mine, where I see our base society of which I am part as pluralistic, religiously agnostic (meaning no religion, or lack thereof has priority of others), and diverse to include people who claim heritage from around the world. So the issue isn't that people live their lives with lofty idealism engaged. It just has to be present when stresses occur that threaten to balkanize people into their lower tier identities completely.
News outlets have always sought to capitalize on the divisions between those lower tiers. Usually it includes a profit motive to sell time in front of eyeballs via whatever medium is being used. And they have traditionally be motivated by influence in the form of advocating for certain political positions over others. Good, bad, or indifferent it's been that way since before and including Ben Franklin. And this includes news outlets, think tanks, and influencers across the political spectrum, time and, media.
In the 90s and 2000's, my opinion of Fox News was they were clearly targeting a WASP base with culture war leverage to benefit the neocon capitalists. They were selling product and their political influence made sense within a paradigm that still benefited from the stability of Western Liberal Democracy and it's principles.
I can't see that anymore. Are they selling product and buying eyeball time? Absolutely. But the influence motive is lost. We see this "WTF are you all thinking?" from folks who previously enabled the same media vehicles such as the Lincoln Project members. We talk about Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney as being only a handful of "principled" Republicans left because the stress became so great between the tiers they stand out as having reached to the higher tier to attempt to protect the integrity of the United States of America. As an Arizonan I never shared Jeff Flake's politics. But it turned out we both shared a belief in what made us Americans at that higher tier.
So what do you do when the issue isn't completing speech but the use of the freedoms of a liberal democracy to gut it and turn it into a authoritarian regime dominated by conflict and a coalition of second-tier identities?
I love peace and push for it over violence. But I'm not a pacifist. There is tension in believing in these rights and opposing views not being a moral issues to needing to protect the rights against those who would use them to destroy them.
I think Res is right that were the government to attempt to regulate speech it would fuel the authoritarian impulses of those who believe government is already oppressing them and politically weaponized against so-called conservatives. Conservatives being code for certain heritage and religious identities rather than any actual political ideology or fiscal policy. I don't know. It's a bad situation once Congress decided they won't agree with holding accountable the destruction of our Republic as a partisan matter. We are in a bad place.
So, really, I honestly would love for someone to explain the influence motive for Fox News. Because in my mind there is a point where an influence motive opposed to the higher principles of liberal democracy justifies reconsidering their access to the rights they may just be tearing apart.
I am an unregistered voter and I am queued.Gadianton wrote: ↑Mon Sep 05, 2022 3:25 pmBinger says stupid crap like this forum bans people for being republican. Look at his sig line. Any right-leaning forum or blog would have perma-banned Binger immediately for an equivalent insult in a sig line. And that's one of countless examples.
I think there's enough evidence that unrestricted free speech leads to bad outcomes that it's impossible to believe 2. Because the right wing is so hypocritical in their empty calls for free speech I'd personally have no problem with the government shutting down Fox -- they deserve it. But do I think it would work? Binger (I think) did make a good point that there are so many other avenues to get the message out. My right-wing friend, for instance, doesn't have Fox, and hasn't had it for years. He and his peers have been circulating the same nonsense right-wing emails since Clinton was in office. Would those emails have life without Fox? Maybe, maybe not, I don't think it's clear to say they wouldn't. I think social media has become more important, overall, than TV. I wouldn't have a problem with unplugging Fox as an experiment based on their hypocrisy, but I give it 50-50 odds of working.