179 replies to this topic

[Sister Midnight]

I’m very glad the tide is turning away from hate, xenophobia. and an extremist, irresponsible government. We took the house, which is a great start. Meaningful change may take time, but I continue to believe in the foundation on which the USA was built. It has been very troubling to see hate become a popular movement. The pendulum between liberal and conservative always swings left and right, left and right, endlessly. I admit I was losing faith watching all the bloviating, nationalistic rhetoric, but the pendulum swings.

[SeaBeeGipson]

Hopefully the pendulum falls off next election and we get a Libertarian wave lmao

[Rand0m her0]

Won't happen so long as the libertarians continue to caucus with the evangelical and raw capatlist blocs. Both of them are perfectly willing to throw core libertarian ideals right under the bus, especially as far as independence from state and pesudo state powers go. Liberatinism requires independence from all coercive institutions, not some.

Not to mention the hard evangelicals and wana be robber barons who think being pro pot makes them libertarians aren't doing anyone any favors. Oh and the general stank of objectivism needs to be sorted

[ccabal86]

It would have been a really sad state of affairs if the Dems couldn't even take the House back from Donald fucking Trump, lol.

[Sister Midnight]

Won't happen so long as the libertarians continue to caucus with the evangelical and raw capatlist blocs. Both of them are perfectly willing to throw core libertarian ideals right under the bus, especially as far as independence from state and pesudo state powers go. Liberatinism requires independence from all coercive institutions, not some.

Not to mention the hard evangelicals and wana be robber barons who think being pro pot makes them libertarians aren't doing anyone any favors. Oh and the general stank of objectivism needs to be sorted

You make an excellent point. A lot of “libertarians“ object to gay marriage, a woman’s right to control her body, decriminalization of drugs, freedom of religion or atheism, free speech, free press, etc.- not very consistent with the tenants of libertarianism. I don’t know what proportion of libertarians these people represent, but they sure are loud.

It would have been a really sad state of affairs if the Dems couldn't even take the House back from Donald fucking Trump, lol.

I was sincerely afraid we wouldn’t. Like I said, I was starting to feel discouraged. We have a long way to go still, but I’m much more hopeful.

[iSocialism]

A bad idea is only a good idea if it's done by my party - democrats and republicans.

[Sister Midnight]

A bad idea is only a good idea if it's done by my party - democrats and republicans.

Care to elaborate?

[Rand0m her0]

Won't happen so long as the libertarians continue to caucus with the evangelical and raw capatlist blocs. Both of them are perfectly willing to throw core libertarian ideals right under the bus, especially as far as independence from state and pesudo state powers go. Liberatinism requires independence from all coercive institutions, not some.

Not to mention the hard evangelicals and wana be robber barons who think being pro pot makes them libertarians aren't doing anyone any favors. Oh and the general stank of objectivism needs to be sorted

You make an excellent point. A lot of “libertarians“ object to gay marriage, a woman’s right to control her body, decriminalization of drugs, freedom of religion or atheism, free speech, free press, etc.- not very consistent with the tenants of libertarianism. I don’t know what proportion of libertarians these people represent, but they sure are loud.

In America? enough. The core of American Libertarianism is basically rooted in Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and everyone's favorite hypocritical loon, Ayn Rand. ( Which kinda makes the current anti feminism, pro traditional gender roles thing many "libertarians" have going on halarisad.) All of them were overly focused on perceived over reach of the state (although given that they did their writing in the era of the new deal, not surprising), and all fail to recognize that other institutions than the state can wield similar power without the check of democracy or that they can function as extensions of the state.

Unfortunately in the wake of the red panic, America went *hard* in on traditional institutions and military interventionism, and anyone who deviated from that orthodoxy was pretty much labeled a communist and similar. Which left those three (and the people they inspired) and the only acceptable voice of libertarianism. And then the Vietnam war *really* drove the wedge in, cause that was a bad time for anti interventionist ideologies. .

These days American Libertarianism has been co opted as a synonym for "socially conservative". The Republican party goes out of it's way to either crush any sort of actual libertarian candidate or basically borg them into the big tent (hellooooo tea party), because in its current state, an actual libertarian swell would be an existential threat to the GOP.

[Canik]

I was watching the results, switching through some channels. It was on MSNBC I believe, and they said, to paraphrase, "This shows the Democrats are more or less on the right path. Had they not had some success, there would probably be more thought of changes in the Democratic party and changes in leadership"

And altho I have always been left-leaning, registered as a Democrat, I was like "Damn.. that would've been nice."

Because while the Repubs may have a lot of extreme and hateful supporters, the Dems have quite a few of their own. And there is corruption in the Democratic Party. And there is liberal propaganda that is dishonest, misleading, and hateful in it's own ways. I would hate for the Dems not to think this still needs to change. If it did make these changes, it would be much stronger for it I believe. So I hope they do not read too much into this blue ripple, the Democratic Party still has internal crisis to deal with. 

A bit more Nationalism from the Dems would be nice. They're running to serve America, not the world. The rest of the world fights for their interests, we have to fight for ours. Not saying we should be isolationist, but we shouldn't be push-overs either, or naive.

btw here is a video on Liberal Universities publishing crazy, outlandish papers just because they support the far-left narrative. Ironically, it's Liberals (of the more moderate and honest variety, of which there are many!) who are exposing it and fighting back as well:



 

[Lord MK]

So who's the one saying that "gay marriage, a woman’s right to control her body, decriminalization of drugs, freedom of religion or atheism, free speech, free press" is wrong?

RandomHero's team or Lysis's team?

[Rand0m her0]

I was watching the results, switching through some channels. It was on MSNBC I believe, and they said, to paraphrase, "This shows the Democrats are more or less on the right path. Had they not had some success, there would probably be more thought of changes in the Democratic party and changes in leadership"

And altho I have always been left-leaning, registered as a Democrat, I was like "Damn.. that would've been nice."

Because while the Repubs may have a lot of extreme and hateful supporters, the Dems have quite a few of their own. And there is corruption in the Democratic Party. And there is liberal propaganda that is dishonest, misleading, and hateful in it's own ways. I would hate for the Dems not to think this still needs to change. If it did make these changes, it would be much stronger for it I believe. So I hope they do not read too much into this blue ripple, the Democratic Party still has internal crisis to deal with. 

A bit more Nationalism from the Dems would be nice. They're running to serve America, not the world. The rest of the world fights for their interests, we have to fight for ours. Not saying we should be isolationist, but we shouldn't be push-overs either, or naive.

btw here is a video on Liberal Universities publishing crazy, outlandish papers just because they support the far-left narrative. Ironically, it's Liberals (of the more moderate and honest variety, of which there are many!) who are exposing it and fighting back as well:



 

 

 

Oh that again!  We had a discussion on that recently.  it's here

 

But because I will never ever get tired of mocking those clueless twits, lets do it again.

 

So lets break there little experiment down by the numbers:

 

• 7 papers accepted.
•  
• 7 papers still undergoing peer review, 1 undergoing it's first review, 6 more previously rejected that they attempted to resubmit. 
•  
• 6 outright denied. 

 

So outright, 2/3rds of their hoax papers were rejected from publication which already rather strongly undermines their conclusion. Oh and two questions for you I''ll answer at the end. How many total attempts to submit papers were made, and what was the highest ranked journal they managed to get to accept something. 

 

 

What's interesting is that their essay goes out of its way to obfuscate which paper was in which category. I spent a good half hour cross referencing through their essay to put that together. Not surprising when "2/3rd of our papers were rejected". However many of the papers they spend time dwelling upon, were those outright rejected and they cheerfully lump them in with the remained. The Masturbation, Progressive Stack, and several others that they lavish over were infact....outright rejected. Of course that doesn't stop them from fitting square pegs into round holes no sir. They take the fact they were rejected as symptomatic anyways because the person assigned to peer review the paper gave them respectful feedback...exactly like the peer review process kinda requires of them.  There are other issues with the essay as well. For example they go out of their way to criticize the field of sociology throughout it. Despite the fact they were rejected from every sociology journal they submitted to.  Not that they bother to mention that. 

 

Of course that's the boring part of the essay really. "Hoax paper gets rejected, fails to be published" is such an utter non story. The remaining 7 are what we should be interested in. 

 

One of them wasn't a paper in the first place, but a collection of poetry published to a poetry journal.  It was garbage ass poetry, but it was hardly an academic work. Three more were scholarly essays. Which are at least a piece of academic writing, but again, hardly interesting. They're not research papers. They don't present any conclusions, they don't really contribute data any field and the standard for them is quite a bit lower for that reason. Those journals are aggregators and unless your essay is irredeemable trash, they don't care, because "is this essay good" isn't their problem. For that matter, the impact factor of the journals those ended up in are quite low. Without getting into the grit, low impact factor indicates a journal that is more geared towards highly theoretical  and esoteric work. To put it simply, they're the academic equivalent of r/showerthoughts

 

So now we're down to 3. The dog-rape paper, the dildo paper and the breastaurant research. And all of these papers have something in common. Every single one of them contains *extensive* fabricated data and detailed construction of  the experimental design. For the "dog-rape paper" they faked a 1,000 hours of observation. It shouldn't surprise anyone that made it through peer review. Peer review is not there to be an arbiter of truth. It's not there to go "yea this was a good use of your time to study". It's there to look at the paper, judge the presentation of the data, judge the experimental design, and make sure it's original research. That's it. And those three papers presented hours and hours and hours of empirical data. One them claimed to be the product of two freaking years of study. Empirical data is valuable and for all your undergrad TAs bitched at you for not having a flawless crafted objective, in reality no one gives a fuck. Regardless of the bullshit that surrounds it, meticulously collected data is always valuable. 

 

Which means those three papers aren't hoaxes, but outright fraud. The peer review process does not protect against that and it can't protect against that.This is true of every field, and there have been cases of it everywhere. The Schön scandal is a rather famous example, and you can't get a much harder field of science than condensed matter physics conducted at the freaking Bell Laboratories. That's just one case. There's a reason why the academic disciplines are so harsh about that. They'll boot an undergrad out of university for that shit. If your ass has a PHD and you try that shit? You get fired. You lose any fellowships you  have. They will revoke your degree That phd you spent 10 years and a hundred thousand dollars getting? Gone . No research facility in the world will touch you. The penalty for that isn't "your paper doesn't get published" but "watching as your career burns to the ground and they salt the ashes where it once stood." You could run exactly that sort of "sting" in any sort of academic discipline and get the same results. It's the academic equivalent of something like the police opening a bar, arresting everyone who comes out for public intoxication  and then publishing a report that says "DRUNKEN LAWLESSNESS UP 200%".

 

Seriously, look at this cause if you think "good empirical science" is immune to it, and this is the "degeneracy of the social sciences" whooooo boy. 

 

Picking up on that kind of fraud is left to the larger academic community. The journals aren't arbiters of truth, the handful of peer reviewers don't know everything, so "is this data right, is this data valuable, is this source being used correctly" is left up to the field of as a whole. And that works. All three of these papers were flagged almost immediately after being published for a deeper investigation. Bascily as soon as their fraud hit print, their entire experiment went so thoroughly tits up they had to immediately drop it. 

 

Which means they've managed to confirm that the process works. 

 

OK so considered those questions at the start?

 

they submitted 47 times. they were rejected 39 times. That's discounting the one paper they had only just submitted before scrubbing it. 82% failure rate out of the gate. 

 

THe "Best" journal they could get is Gender, Place & Culture: It's the #9 journal in the field of Gender Studies. So they couldn't manage anything outside of the 10th ranked journal in an already really niche.

 

Oh and as a bonus:

 

The average impact factor for those journals is less than one.  Significantly less than one. To put it in perspective, the various journals produced by the Nature Publishing Group (which is pretty damn well regarded) are in the high teens to low twenties.  The review journals occasionally push the 30s.

 

CA which is pretty much the most well regarded journal period has an impact factor of 64. Most of the journals  they "stung" have a impact factor of less than 0.64. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sister Midnight]

So who's the one saying that "gay marriage, a woman’s right to control her body, decriminalization of drugs, freedom of religion or atheism, free speech, free press" is wrong?

RandomHero's team or Lysis's team?

I cannot speak for Lys, but conservatives are more likely to object to these things than liberals. In fairness, there are people in both factions that cannot tolerate free speech if they are not hearing what they want to hear.

Lys would call me a liberal. Lys is a conservative by my standards.

[Lysistrata]

 

So who's the one saying that "gay marriage, a woman’s right to control her body, decriminalization of drugs, freedom of religion or atheism, free speech, free press" is wrong?

RandomHero's team or Lysis's team?

I cannot speak for Lys, but conservatives are more likely to object to these things than liberals. In fairness, there are people in both factions that cannot tolerate free speech if they are not hearing what they want to hear.

Lys would call me a liberal. Lys is a conservative by my standards.

 

Social issues have nothing to do with my politics. I don't believe in government intervention in any of these issues. The US Constitution guarantees the same rights to all Americans... period. That means we're not carving out extra rights for them, or we have to limit rights to those people. No one has a right to anything that costs money, or has to be supplied by someone's labor. Those are not "rights", they are "services", and must be paid for.

 

Gay marriage is not a single issue, it's two issues... there is gay, and there is marriage. I really don't care about who, or what, anyone has sex with. It's none of my business, and no one is very concerned about my right to not care, or that I don't care to know, or that I don't want it shoved in my face. I don't want to see "gay" in every TV show I watch... I don't want to see someone eat a bowl of dog shit either. I can always change the channel.

 

People are gay if they want to be. It falls in the category of "what turns you on". The only business of government is to ensure that what "turns you on" is not harming others, or denying others of their rights.

 

Now the issue of marriage, in my opinion, is really a non-issue. Somewhere along the way our leaders made a really stupid mistake of tying marriage to the law. For the most part, by tradition, marriage is a church thing... and this was just a huge juicy piece of low hanging fruit for Progressives and gay activists to stick it to the church they hate, cause confusion within the courts, and slam right into the Constitution. My solution is quite simple... remove marriage from the law. Then the church can exercise their right to tell the Progressives and the gay activists to pound sand.

 

I have never supported anything in the realm of preventing a woman from controlling her body. There is one tiny issue that must be addressed, and it needs to happen soon. The Supreme Court must make a ruling on when a baby is entitled to constitutional rights, and if they can't do that, we have to force the states to compromise on an amendment to the Constitution to make it absolutely clear. But, abortion is one of those issues that Progressives never want to solve, it's like immigration laws... even when they had super majorities in Congress they did nothing about abortion or immigration. They don't want to lose the issues that keep everyone angry and fighting.

 

As I have stated already, marijuana is a done deal, but there are some drugs that are too harmful to deregulate.

 

Freedom of religion or atheism? I'm not a religious man, but I despise people that can't seem to walk down the street without forcing someone else to remove a painting, statue, or a flag because they're a snowflake asshole. It's not "Freedom From Religion".

 

I'm all about free speech. Free Press? I actually pay for it... but they should be held greatly responsible for fake news.

 

These are all my personal views, but they do not make me a Conservative or a Republican. I would have the same personal views no matter what. I'm a Republican because it's a Conservative political party. There are others, but Republicans can win. My political positions mainly include small constitutional government, free Capitalism, strong military, and individual responsibility. Social issues are really stupid things to get hung up on, and not the business of the Federal Government. That's all I got right now.

[Blade 619]

The TL;DR version of american politics...

 

Reds vote red, blues vote blue, 80% of greys can't be bothered, and the remaining 20% of greys decide the outcome. 

 

Reds can't stand blue

Blue is exasperated by red

 

The only people that win an election are the politicians, in a two party system severely hobbled by powerful lobbies and politicians with outside interests the average voter can only ever lose. 

[brewersalliance]

or at the very least accuse Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh of pushing her down the stairs.

 

shocked this has yet to be said 

[Sister Midnight]

I’m gonna quote what my friend wrote on his Facebook page because he said this so eloquently and it is important.

“One thing I feel I have to point out about yesterday's election, because no one seems to be saying it. So far, out of the 35 Senate seats up for election yesterday, the Democrats have won 23, the republicans have won 9, two haven't been declared yet, and one is a runoff. This might seem confusing to people- how could the Democrats have won in more races and lost seats? The answer is that this year there most of the seats up for election were already held by the Democrats. They held onto most of those seats, but the Republicans took a couple away. There were very few Republicans up for reelection, and the ones that were were mostly in the reddest of red states. So, in the Senate, the Democrats won a lot more individual states, but the Republicans still managed a net gain.”

The tide is turning. The people see how more messed up the system is becoming. I look forward to the 2020 election (although I vote in all elections- voting nerd)!

[brewersalliance]

I’m gonna quote what my friend wrote on his Facebook page because he said this so eloquently and it is important.

“One thing I feel I have to point out about yesterday's election, because no one seems to be saying it. So far, out of the 35 Senate seats up for election yesterday, the Democrats have won 23, the republicans have won 9, two haven't been declared yet, and one is a runoff. This might seem confusing to people- how could the Democrats have won in more races and lost seats? The answer is that this year there most of the seats up for election were already held by the Democrats. They held onto most of those seats, but the Republicans took a couple away. There were very few Republicans up for reelection, and the ones that were were mostly in the reddest of red states. So, in the Senate, the Democrats won a lot more individual states, but the Republicans still managed a net gain.”

The tide is turning. The people see how more messed up the system is becoming. I look forward to the 2020 election (although I vote in all elections- voting nerd)!

yeah no, the tide is not turning

[Lysistrata]

This might seem confusing to people- how could the Democrats have won in more races and lost seats? The answer is that this year there most of the seats up for election were already held by the Democrats.

Eloquence to you is a "no shit Sherlock" to me. It was no secret that Democrats had to defend more Senate seats this election cycle. What you are actually saying is "look how damn good we can re-elect our Senators in states Democrats already control". You will not see me post a comment in 2 years when Republicans are defending more Senate seats how awesome it is that we won Wyoming or Oklahoma. The Facebook post was designed to make someone that really doesn't understand how our elections work, feel better about the outcome... not an indicator of "changing political winds".

[Sister Midnight]

This might seem confusing to people- how could the Democrats have won in more races and lost seats? The answer is that this year there most of the seats up for election were already held by the Democrats.

Eloquence to you is a "no shit Sherlock" to me. It was no secret that Democrats had to defend more Senate seats this election cycle. What you are actually saying is "look how damn good we can re-elect our Senators in states Democrats already control". You will not see me post a comment in 2 years when Republicans are defending more Senate seats how awesome it is that we won Wyoming or Oklahoma. The Facebook post was designed to make someone that really doesn't understand how our elections work, feel better about the outcome... not an indicator of "changing political winds".

Denial is a primitive, but common defense. You use denial and condescension a LOT.

We took the house. We’ll take the senate. And if Don runs for re-election, we’ll take the White House.

[brewersalliance]

 

 

This might seem confusing to people- how could the Democrats have won in more races and lost seats? The answer is that this year there most of the seats up for election were already held by the Democrats.

Eloquence to you is a "no shit Sherlock" to me. It was no secret that Democrats had to defend more Senate seats this election cycle. What you are actually saying is "look how damn good we can re-elect our Senators in states Democrats already control". You will not see me post a comment in 2 years when Republicans are defending more Senate seats how awesome it is that we won Wyoming or Oklahoma. The Facebook post was designed to make someone that really doesn't understand how our elections work, feel better about the outcome... not an indicator of "changing political winds".

Denial is a primitive, but common defense. You use denial and condescension a LOT.

We took the house. We’ll take the senate. And if Don runs for re-election, we’ll take the White House.