Ad hominem and left wing activists.

[I.M. Gei]

There isn't a polite way to express that reality is not a democracy, and even broad consensus in a particular group doesn't change the basic facts

This is someone else's post, for the record, but I feel it would be worth reposting here:

My biggest issue with categorizing media as "right" or "left" is kinda a gross oversimplification. All corporate news sources, be they MSNBC, CNN, or FOX are pretty crappy if you want to learn about the world. And the biggest offender by far is Fox News. For example:


Point 1:

In 2009, the Republican anti-health care bill rally was reported on by Fox News. There, Michelle Bachmann claimed that anywhere between 20-45,000 people assembled for the rally, though other sources reported much less than that. On the news report Fox showed footage of the rally, with huge excited crowds spread all across the turf.

Unfortunately there was a major inconsistency that did not go unnoticed.

Clip 1 from the Hannity program: Notice the sparse crowd, the reddish yellow leaves, and totally clear sky.




Clip 2 from the Hannity program, mere seconds later: Notice the green leaves, the overcast sky, and the crowd with thousands and thousands of people.




What was quickly discovered was that Fox News' Sean Hannity had taken 2-month-old footage from September 12, 2008, and tried to pass it off as footage from the Tea Party rally from November 5, 2009.




Unfortunately even though they were caught, and even though Hannity issued an apology (sorta) for the deception, the exact same tactic was used again not two weeks later to make Palin's book tour look much bigger than it really was: Fox simply recycled footage of Palin from the 2008 elections and tried to pass it off as current.

Hell, just earlier this year (March 2011) it seems that Fox News' Bill O'Reilly did a report on the (quite peaceful) Wisconsin labor union protests. However, while they were talking about Wisconsin some earlier footage from California protests popped up where protestors were getting loud, violent, and pushy. It's believed that Fox once again pulled the old switcheroo not to make conservatives look good this time, but to make liberals look bad. The great irony here is that at the same time O'Reilly was talking to Fox correspondent Mike Tobin about how protestors were unfairly accusing Fox News of lying.

Even one mix-up like that couldn't have been accidental, replacing current footage with archived stuff. Yet Fox did it at least three times that I know of, and this proves that Fox will habitually lie to its viewers to make conservative rallies and gatherings look much more energetic than they really are, or to make liberal rallies look bad.



Point 2:

Here's a brief history on some of the most notable errors on the Fox News chyron. It lists the given politicians (all Republican) and the rough date at which these screenshots were taken.

Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee (October 2006): Regarded as the "most liberal Republican" in the US Senate by the National Journal, Chafee was losing by 11 points in the midterm election polls.




Republican Congressman Mark Foley (October 2006): Caught in a sex scandal that involved him sending dirty text messages to male teenagers.




Republican Senator Arlen Specter (July 2007): Grilling Bush-appointed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on ethics violations. In 2009, Specter would defect and run as a Democrat.




Republican Senator John McCain (February 2008): A month before the primary election, John McCain was regarded as too liberal or too centrist to be a proper Republican candidate.




Republican Senator Ted Stevens (October 2008): Found guilty of federal ethics violations.




Republican Governor of North Carolina Mark Sanford (June 2009): Disappeared over a weekend and sent the national news organizations into a panic, until it was revealed that he was dallying in an extramarital affair.




Notice what's wrong? Every time a Republican politician threatens to make the party look weak through dissent, centrism, or scandal, Fox News mislabels them as a Democrat, with a little D next to their names. I can see this happening a couple of times since D and R are spaced closely together on the keyboard, but this happened well over six times. Strangely enough, when Democrats are disgraced you don't see them mislabeled as Republicans on Fox. You can't help but suspect that this is intentional.


Point 3:

On June 28 of 2008, journalist Jacques Steinberg wrote a report titled "Fox News Finds Its Rivals Closing In," which discussed how MSNBC and CNN are catching up to Fox News in ratings and are beginning to become competitive. Four days later on the show "Fox and Friends," co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade accused Steinberg and NYT editor Steven Reddicliffe as "attack dogs" for this article. The photos they put up of the two when going over this quickly were... less than flattering.






As you can see, Steinberg has been given a protruding skull, yellowed teeth, and a big bulbous extra-Jewy nose, while Reddicliffe just got yellowed teeth and an elongated forehead apparently to make him look like he's balding. I can understand wanting to hit back at your critics, but the article that Steinberg wrote was hardly an attack: it was a simple look at the TV ratings. That, and this was downright vindictive in how it made Fox's critics uglified and grotesque.


In conclusion, Fox News habitually lies to make itself look good, or to make the Republican party look good, or to make their opponents and critics look bad. Don't get me wrong, gaffes and errors do occur in reporting, even on The Daily Show. Sometimes you can just chalk it up to honest mistakes. Yet while other news organizations do carry some political bias, none of them come close to the almost cartoonishly evil levels that Fox News sinks down to when it comes to journalistic fraud.

And Fox News does it repeatedly, even after they've been caught multiple times! It's a terrible source that distorts information so severely that their viewers seem to have the worst political literacy compared to viewers of other news organizations. Recent studies have shown again that watching Fox News makes you more misinformed about the real world than watching any other news source... or even watching no news at all!

Looking at these combined problems (which are only a small fraction of the shit that Fox News pulls), it's absurd to try to draw some equally-bad comparison between Fox and other corporate news sources. Yes CNN and MSNBC have their problems, but nothing so vindictive and institutionally deceptive as Fox News. Frankly, if you want good and accurate reporting, go to NPR or the BBC.

Oh, and a lot of the media doesn't report on exactly how far to the right the Tea Party has dragged the GOP; placing blame where it's actually due instead of the milquetoast "The truth is always in the middle!" shit CNN spews out is just what we call, "good journalism"

p.s. also from another forum, but here's your liberal media, ladies and gentlemen:

t was "ransom" -- a word Obama has used repeatedly to describe Republican negotiating tactics -- that struck the last press corps nerve. The usual briefing room decorum, such as it is, broke down entirely when Carney said finally that Obama would sign a debt-ceiling extension but not if it meant "paying a ransom" to Republicans.

"The president will not pay ransom for ... " Carney began.

"You see it as a ransom, but it's a metaphor that doesn't serve our purposes ... " NPR correspondent Ari Shapiro shouted back with broad support from other confused reporters.

"Sure, the Republicans may be threatening to destroy the global economy, but there's no need to be RUDE about it!"

Edited October 15, 2013 by Soran Ibrahim

[Rapier]

People in Brazil are fanatical because of it for an obvious reason: We have dealt with a 50 year-old left-wing government and their influence is extreme (some people argue that we had a right-wing government before, but they mistake it for social-democracy. Easy to know why, since they're used to the extreme-left in power). While there are a lot of people who sympathize with the right-wing, we hardly see anyone from the right doing anything (aside from some few neat intelectuals who are shunned nationwide). They have no voice in politics here (I'd argue they don't even exist politically) and they have no representants.

My issue with left-wing sympathizers is that they often back up their arguments with emotion and forget to use logic (or just leave it aside), like when defending a wellfare state and dealing with the issue that it completely breaks a country in debts and inflation to sustain others (not to mention it only works the country has access to a huge cash cow, such as Sweden's absurd ammounts of oil). They mostly tend to say at some point that you hate people if you are against a wellfare state, which is an absurd remark - it's no use holding the monopoly of virtue if you can't back it up with good results.

In Brazil, since we have an extreme-left government, it is worse: If you don't outright worship their socialist tendencies, if you are against the absurdly high taxation and stupid overprotection toward the national market or if you defend free market, you're the worst monster ever, a fascist, a bourgueous (even though they earn more money than anyone else). There isn't even space for a dialogue to occur. Also, I've got evidence that people are taught that communism is actually great and capitalism only exists to explore people since elementary school. The absurd ammount of teachers who whorship Marx and never read about Mises or Hayek is depression inducing.

Edited November 17, 2013 by Rapier

[Nobody]

People in Brazil are fanatical because of it for an obvious reason: We have dealt with a 50 year-old left-wing government and their influence is extreme (some people argue that we had a right-wing government before, but they mistake it for social-democracy. Easy to know why, since they're used to the extreme-left in power). While there are a lot of people who sympathize with the right-wing, we hardly see anyone from the right doing anything (aside from some few neat intelectuals who are shunned nationwide). They have no voice in politics here (I'd argue they don't even exist politically) and they have no representants.

My issue with left-wing sympathizers is that they often back up their arguments with emotion and forget to use logic (or just leave it aside), like when defending a wellfare state and dealing with the issue that it completely breaks a country in debts and inflation to sustain others (not to mention it only works the country has access to a huge cash cow, such as Sweden's absurd ammounts of oil). They mostly tend to say at some point that you hate people if you are against a wellfare state, which is an absurd remark - it's no use holding the monopoly of virtue if you can't back it up with good results.

In Brazil, since we have an extreme-left government, it is worse: If you don't outright worship their socialist tendencies, if you are against the absurdly high taxation and stupid overprotection toward the national market or if you defend free market, you're the worst monster ever, a fascist, a bourgueous (even though they earn more money than anyone else). There isn't even space for a dialogue to occur. Also, I've got evidence that people are taught that communism is actually great and capitalism only exists to explore people since elementary school. The absurd ammount of teachers who whorship Marx and never read about Mises or Hayek is depression inducing.

Sweden has no oil. You're mixing it up with Norway

I agree that communism is (and was) terrible, but I don't really think teachers saying it's good is as widespread as the popular belief. Studying Marx is not the same as thinking Marx is right.

Despite my major being engineering, I'm forced to watch sociology classes, and I must say that the professor is surprisingly sensible, and I agree with him about almost everything, and I study in one of the most left winged universities in the country. But maybe I was just lucky, getting a good teacher.

But yeah, I do agree that the overprotectionism, insulting anyone that disagrees with them and the lack of dialogue is just terrible.

IMO, for Brazil, central-left is the way to go. The reason I hate PT is because they are extremely corrupt, not the fact that they have a lot of social politics. If anything, I'd say that's the only good thing about their government.

Edited November 17, 2013 by Nobody

[Rapier]

Sweden has no oil. You're mixing it up with Norway

I agree that communism is (and was) terrible, but I don't really think teachers saying it's good is as widespread as the popular belief. Studying Marx is not the same as thinking Marx is right.

Despite my major being engineering, I'm forced to watch sociology classes, and I must say that the professor is surprisingly sensible, and I agree with him about almost everything, and I study in one of the most left winged universities in the country. But maybe I was just lucky, getting a good teacher.

But yeah, I do agree that the overprotectionism, insulting anyone that disagrees with them and the lack of dialogue is just terrible.

IMO, for Brazil, central-left is the way to go. The reason I hate PT is because they are extremely corrupt, not the fact that they have a lot of social politics. If anything, I'd say that's the only good thing about their government.

It's true that studying Marx is not the same thing as thinking he was right, but plain worshipping him, omitting people like Mises and Hayek who plain refutted socialism and influencing people to believe the right-wing is evilz and communism is the way to go sickens me (why do people worship communism here, anyway?). How many teachers have you dealt with that speak so fondly of the points defended by socialism? Actually, how many right (or central-right) wing people have you ever met and chatted/shared ideas with?

I'm not against the center left-wing, even though they tend to limit the market with impositions and protectionism, but I tend to be center-right. I'm in favor of a free market, less intervention, legally liberating guns for people so they can defend themselves from people with bad intentions, I'm against public schools (they're expensive, not free, and useless); but I'm against the liberation of drugs, the teaching of religion on public schools, and I plain disagree with some conservationist thoughts. About PT... Well, I'd rather discuss it by PM. =P

[Nobody]

I see we disagree in many things, but what do you mean with this:

I'm against public schools (they're expensive, not free, and useless)

?

In literally every developed country in the world public school exists, and are good. The public schools should be made better, not closed! How else would the poor people study?

A developed country is not one where all the schools are particular, but one where the rich put their children in public schools.

[Rapier]

I see we disagree in many things, but what do you mean with this:

?

In literally every developed country in the world public school exists, and are good. The public schools should be made better, not closed! How else would the poor people study?

A developed country is not one where all the schools are particular, but one where the rich put their children in public schools.

Public schools are bad in America, at least as far as I know. They're also expensive (you pay for them in the form of taxes, and in the bill there's electricity, books, transportation and instructure included). In Canada, some of them are actually good. In Norway, they're great, but they have huge ammouns of oil and profit, so they can maintain this wellfare state. In Brasil they plain suck, and I don't think it's because no one's interested with education. It's too big of a country for an efficient public education, and we see a government that intends to keep people wrapped on its fingers as much as possible (that's a risk that public schools take: alienating children since the beginning of their education).

About the poor accessing schools... You know about Milton Friedman's proposal for a voucher to private schools? It says the government should lend some money for poor people so that they'd put their children on better and private schools. It's less expensive than maintaining public schools nationwide, at least. I find it pretty reasonable.

Also, the rich don't control the government or politics. That's also a leftie false dicotomy. They have nothing to do with this, even though the blame's placed on them for unequality.

Edited November 17, 2013 by Rapier

[Nobody]

About the poor accessing schools... You know about Milton Friedman's proposal for a voucher to private schools? It says the government should lend some money for poor people so that they'd put their children on better and private schools. It's less expensive than maintaining public schools nationwide, at least. I find it pretty reasonable.

That'd be actually more expensive. Particular schools have not only the coast of the education (teachers, infrastructure, etc.) but also the profits, something public schools don't have. Where would the government take the money to pay for poor people's education in particular schools? Yes, taxes. We would pay even more taxes, improving the public schools would be way cheaper. The actual reason taxes are so high here is not because of the social politics, but because of corruption. Which shows if we take into account that we pay almost the same amount of taxes than the average Swede, despite our public services being incomparably worse.

If we take America as an example, there are actually many good public schools there, despite most of them not being that good. Still, even their bad public schools are miles ahead of ours, and I even read a survey somewhere saying that the average American public school is better than the average Brazilian particular school. That's how bad our educational system is. The public schools in the USA, Japan or Europe, even if sometimes not as good as people here think, are still able to educate whoever is serious about their education, something that doesn't happen here.

Edited November 17, 2013 by Nobody

[eclipse]

It is possible to get an education, even in the worst schools here (in Hawaii). Social studies here focused more on history than current governing ideologies (from what I remember).

[Chiki]

Also, the rich don't control the government or politics. That's also a leftie false dicotomy. They have nothing to do with this, even though the blame's placed on them for unequality.

The ignorance in this post is appalling. Here's a concept to consider.

Still, of all the entities doing lobbying in Washington, the biggest overall spenders are, in fact, corporations.

Edited November 17, 2013 by Chiki

[Rapier]

The ignorance in this post is appalling. Here's a concept to consider.

You still know that's not the fault of rich people, but the fault of the government that's corrupt and accepts their meddling on governmental affairs? I'm terribly against lobbying too, and corporations. And before anyone says something about the right being sided with corporations; no, they aren't. A free market would actually make them less effective and end the protectionist laws that help those people. So, no, the rich aren't responsible for unequality, for the poor education and for all the bad things that happen in the society.

I'll refer to some other points (Nobody) when I'm not dying of drowsyness.

also

[quote]

But yeah, I do agree that the overprotectionism, insulting anyone that disagrees with them and the lack of dialogue is just terrible

[/quote]

I was actually referring to overprotectionism in economy. I wasn't referring to the polictically correct (which is also stupid).

Edited November 17, 2013 by Rapier

[Chiki]

You still know that's not the fault of rich people, but the fault of the government that's corrupt and accepts their meddling on governmental affairs? I'm terribly against lobbying too, and corporations. And before anyone says something about the right being sided with corporations; no, they aren't. A free market would actually make them less effective and end the protectionist laws that help those people. So, no, the rich aren't responsible for unequality, for the poor education and for all the bad things that happen in the society.

I'll refer to some other points (Nobody) when I'm not dying of drowsyness.

Lol. Of course it's the fault of rich people.. if someone leaves their door unlocked and a thief manages to get in, we'd blame the person for being stupid and we'd also blame the thief for doing the stealing. We blame the rich people for manipulating the government. I have no idea why the hell you'd just take away blame from rich people like that.

Edited November 17, 2013 by Chiki

[Rapier]

Lol. Of course it's the fault of rich people.. if someone leaves their door unlocked and a thief manages to get in, we'd blame the person for being stupid and we'd also blame the thief for doing the stealing. We blame the rich people for manipulating the government. I have no idea why the hell you'd just take away blame from rich people like that.

It would never have happened if the door had been closed at first place. The thief wouldn't have been able to rob their home if that was the case. It's also funny how you consider the rich people as immoral right off the bat, as if they were part of a beehive legion. People are corrupt by themselves. They are born as natural bastards with a latent potential for evil. If you just allow them to do so, you're opening up opportunities for them. Being rich means nothing, just like being poor doesn't (regarding morality). Can you look over a materialistic point of view to an individualistic point of view?

I blame the government for alloying lobbies as much as I blame the person who left the door opened, but I also believe the thief should be prosecuted and judged fairly in trial, just like the lobbyists. However, I don't try to justify the thievery because the thief is poor, the same way I don't try to justify the lobbying because the lobbyists are rich. The material spectrum has little to do with the moral spectrum.

I see those lobbyists as individuals, not just a bunch of people who are a part of a 'rich' collective.

Also, please clarify to me what it's got to do with education.

That'd be actually more expensive. Particular schools have not only the coast of the education (teachers, infrastructure, etc.) but also the profits, something public schools don't have. Where would the government take the money to pay for poor people's education in particular schools? Yes, taxes. We would pay even more taxes, improving the public schools would be way cheaper. The actual reason taxes are so high here is not because of the social politics, but because of corruption. Which shows if we take into account that we pay almost the same amount of taxes than the average Swede, despite our public services being incomparably worse.

If we take America as an example, there are actually many good public schools there, despite most of them not being that good. Still, even their bad public schools are miles ahead of ours, and I even read a survey somewhere saying that the average American public school is better than the average Brazilian particular school. That's how bad our educational system is. The public schools in the USA, Japan or Europe, even if sometimes not as good as people here think, are still able to educate whoever is serious about their education, something that doesn't happen here.

Actually, the government would only pay the minimum wage for someone to enter a school. The toll of maintaining the school wouldn't weigh on the state's shoulders, Meanwhile, public schools include electricity, maintenance, infrastructure, books, transportation etc. in the bill. I didn't say they should be turned into state schools.

- The actual reason taxes are so high here is not because of the social politics, but because of corruption. Which shows if we take into account that we pay almost the same amount of taxes than the average Swede, despite our public services being incomparably worse.

A welfare state based government needs a high taxation in order to maintain itself. Our public expenses are far too high and sometimes superfluous. Our politicians earn votes by literally purchasing voters by giving them benefits. The people become more and more dependent on the state (why not teach them how to fish? Why feed them fish until the fish stock ends? That has always been a problem with socialism), and that creates a contradiction: The quality of government programs is measured by how many people don't need need the benefits of said government programs after some time, not by the increasing number of people needing benefits.

You complained about taxes becoming even higher if public schools were closed, but the price of having a public good education, health care etc. Is so high that our taxes would increase stratospherically and, naturally, our income would decrease significantly until we are forced into a socialist-like state to survive (that's the intention behind inflating the state, by the way). Also, you must take note that Sweden isn't as gargantuan as Brazil.

Regarding public schools, I still defend that most of them are worse than private schools, no matter how good they are compared to brazilian ones (even outside Brazil... Though, in my country, they're utter crap), and I also defend that the voucher system would benefit the education level of any country and lessen the money spent on education at the same time.

Edited November 17, 2013 by eclipse
Double post merge ;/

[eclipse]

Dude, edits exist for a reason.

[Skynstein]

People in Brazil are fanatical because of it for an obvious reason: We have dealt with a 50 year-old left-wing government and their influence is extreme (some people argue that we had a right-wing government before, but they mistake it for social-democracy. Easy to know why, since they're used to the extreme-left in power). While there are a lot of people who sympathize with the right-wing, we hardly see anyone from the right doing anything (aside from some few neat intelectuals who are shunned nationwide). They have no voice in politics here (I'd argue they don't even exist politically) and they have no representants.

My issue with left-wing sympathizers is that they often back up their arguments with emotion and forget to use logic (or just leave it aside), like when defending a wellfare state and dealing with the issue that it completely breaks a country in debts and inflation to sustain others (not to mention it only works the country has access to a huge cash cow, such as Sweden's absurd ammounts of oil). They mostly tend to say at some point that you hate people if you are against a wellfare state, which is an absurd remark - it's no use holding the monopoly of virtue if you can't back it up with good results.

In Brazil, since we have an extreme-left government, it is worse: If you don't outright worship their socialist tendencies, if you are against the absurdly high taxation and stupid overprotection toward the national market or if you defend free market, you're the worst monster ever, a fascist, a bourgueous (even though they earn more money than anyone else). There isn't even space for a dialogue to occur. Also, I've got evidence that people are taught that communism is actually great and capitalism only exists to explore people since elementary school. The absurd ammount of teachers who whorship Marx and never read about Mises or Hayek is depression inducing.

I haven't seen so many lies since forever.

If you really believe we have a far-left government right now, you know zero things about politics. I seriously don't think we're living amid communism right now! PT's government is, at most, a social democracy. The party was extremist before, but wandered towards the center to appeal to certain segments of the population.

I wonder which country you've been living in for the past 50 years, because it sure as hell wasn't a left-wing government! The military dictatorship was extreme right-wing and the military acted because we had a left-wing president, and PSDB's government was center-right, which contradicts their name, they're the "social democrat" party but advocate typically right-wing policies (free market, less state intervention, etc.).

I don't worship Marx but Marx IS one of the fundamental theoriticians of the world we live in today, and should be studied by everyone INCLUDING those with an inclination for right-wing politics. As I like to say, Marx takes the clothes off capitalism. He explains exactly how the system works. You may disagree with his economic theory, or with his dialectic materialism, but he was the first to point the flaws in the system.

Hayek was one of the theoriticians of neoliberalism along with Friedman (who I think predated him) and I don't remember a single country that thrived under Friedman's ideas. Privatization of telephone services in Brazil was under influence of Friedman's ideas. At that time, it was a modernization of the country's economy since everything was so archaic (like, you had to wait a very long time just for a telephone line...), but there are accusations of corruption in the process, as well as the fact that, with the state things are today, it just shows that state intervention is more than necessary to keep things working. You can't trust Adam Smith's invisible hand to work every time. If we really had a completely free market, we would see even more abuse from telecommunication companies than we see right now, even with the government's intervention through state agencies, with numerous reports of badly executed services, disrespect for consumer's rights, and so on (I myself was a victim of that). Free market ultimately leads to oligopoly, and lack of compromise with quality.

The things I have to read... Being right-wing is one thing, outright lying about my country is on a completely different level and will piss me off. I can (almost) guess who you've been reading and watching to say such outrageous things, but that's a topic I don't want to discuss, because it's irrelevant to foreigners. And these people I suspect you read are actually more guilty of using ad hominem arguments than the left-wing people Nobody complained about in his post.

Edited November 18, 2013 by Malebolganone

[Nobody]

A welfare state based government needs a high taxation in order to maintain itself. Our public expenses are far too high and sometimes superfluous. Our politicians earn votes by literally purchasing voters by giving them benefits. The people become more and more dependent on the state (why not teach them how to fish? Why feed them fish until the fish stock ends? That has always been a problem with socialism), and that creates a contradiction: The quality of government programs is measured by how many people don't need need the benefits of said government programs after some time, not by the increasing number of people needing benefits.

You complained about taxes becoming even higher if public schools were closed, but the price of having a public good education, health care etc. Is so high that our taxes would increase stratospherically and, naturally, our income would decrease significantly until we are forced into a socialist-like state to survive (that's the intention behind inflating the state, by the way). Also, you must take note that Sweden isn't as gargantuan as Brazil.

Actually, I don't complain about taxes if they're used well, at all. I'd pay even more taxes than I do now without complain not even a little bit, if I knew they went to the right place, and not to a politician's wallet.

My problem is not with the high taxes. It's with WHERE the taxes are going. If I knew the taxes where going to where they're supposed to, I'd be gladly paying them.

About the "teach them to fish" thing. Where would they learn how to fish? Yes, in schools. We, the upper middle class, have to be taxed (along with the rich, obviously and all the other classes as well.), and the tax money have to go to education, so the poor can learn, become competent workers and improve their life. And the little money they get from the government don't make people lazy or work less. What they get is needed for food and housing. Without that money, they'd be homeless, or hungry and in that condition, they'd work even less. Most people that get "bolça familia" also work, they don't live only with that money.

Edited November 18, 2013 by Nobody

[Skynstein]

Adding to my early post: I actually got taught about Hayek and Friedman at school, as well as neoliberalism's influences on modern economy, because of the Washington Consensus. As history would later reveal, these measures were disastrous, with Argentina practically going bankrupt (remember the "panelazos", de la Rúa and Duhalde) and Brazil facing the bulk of the economic crisis in the late 1990s that led to the center-right government being replaced by a government led by a party which drastically changed its ways from its far-left beginnings and moved more to the center the longer it remained in power (and it still remains in power to this day).

Back on topic, I actually see the opposite. Most of the ad hominem arguments come from the right, and uneducated people tend to follow right-wing ideas, because the bigger part of the press in Brazil follows the right-wing.

Edited November 18, 2013 by Malebolganone

[Rapier]

Actually, I don't complain about taxes if they're used well, at all. I'd pay even more taxes than I do now without complain not even a little bit, if I knew they went to the right place, and not to a politician's wallet.

My problem is not with the high taxes. It's with WHERE the taxes are going. If I knew the taxes where going to where they're supposed to, I'd be gladly paying them.

About the "teach them to fish" thing. Where would they learn how to fish? Yes, in schools. We, the upper middle class, have to be taxed (along with the rich, obviously and all the other classes as well.), and the tax money have to go to education, so the poor can learn, become competent workers and improve their life. And the little money they get from the government don't make people lazy or work less. What they get is needed for food and housing. Without that money, they'd be homeless, or hungry and in that condition, they'd work even less. Most people that get "bolça familia" also work, they don't live only with that money.

That's where the risk lies: By giving more and more strength to the government, who is to say that they won't screw you with their given power? That's a clear path to serfdom, far more dangerous than some people can grasp. Our case is quite the same. Too much power accumulated within the Union in Brasilia, the Executive is run by PT, the Legislative is totally corrupt and the Judiciary has already turned over to them (for outsiders: some politicians involved in a big scandal did not go to prison, their judgment has been stalled for a long time). Give them more power, and they'll do with it what they see fit, all under the pretext of "equality" and "social justice".

[b]- About the "teach them to fish" thing. Where would they learn how to fish? Yes, in schools. We, the upper middle class, have to be taxed (along with the rich, obviously and all the other classes as well.), and the tax money have to go to education, so the poor can learn, become competent workers and improve their life.[/b]

I'm not from the upper middle class, and I believe we have more lower middle class people than upper middle class ones. The absurd taxation screws up with the poor because it takes the money they'd spend on something useful for them. For example, yes, let's spend our money on taxes so that public schools are better, and our public health system is also better... Except you could use that damn money on private schools or in a private health system, which are much better than the public ones.

- And the little money they get from the government don't make people lazy or work less. What they get is needed for food and housing. Without that money, they'd be homeless, or hungry and in that condition, they'd work even less. Most people that get "bolça familia" also work, they don't live only with that money.

Like getting 300 bucks in a country on which everything is expensive on purpose (again, because the state loves to tax people and screw with the poor, even though helping the poor is their main speech) makes a difference. They're still miserable. What they need are job opportunities and educational opportunities for their children, so that they can improve through their own work and effort. Also, before you say that many people ascended to middle class, I'll let you know that the government considers as "middle-class" any family with a familiar income of 600 reais (roughly 250 dollars, for comparison's sake)... Which is NOTHING.

-------------

(I'd use quotes, but IPB hates me)

The media being composed of right-wing activists? What a terrible joke. Tell me who you believe is from the right in the media, and please don't say Globo and Veja (which got right-wing people, alright, but they're a minority. Like Rodrigo Constantino and Reinaldo Azevedo actually mean anything compared to the left-wing legion). Mostly everyone you find in this country is left-winged. The universities make it obvious for anyone with half an eye open.

- I wonder which country you've been living in for the past 50 years, because it sure as hell wasn't a left-wing government! The military dictatorship was extreme right-wing and the military acted because we had a left-wing president, and PSDB's government was center-right, which contradicts their name, they're the "social democrat" party but advocate typically right-wing policies (free market, less state intervention, etc.).

Oh, yeah, the military dictatorship. They were the only right-wing government we had since then. And they didn't react merely because we had a left-wing president: They acted because the state was in utter chaos and the people ASKED them to intervene. Otherwise, we could very well be as bad as Venezuela is today, because of the communist activists. The military also had some left tendencies (thus, center), since they restricted the market quite a bit and started opening it slowly.

About PSDB being center-right and defending free market... I wonder which country you've been living in. They openly defend intervention in market and welfare state even today. FHC, who was once our president and is from the same party, openly defends interventions and a welfare state. Their new candidate does the same thing. The candidate who competed with our current president had the same speech. If they were as right-wing as you say, then I wonder why they see privatizations with scorn (FHC only did a few and, guess what, Vale and the telephonics became much better. This is also one of the reasons why he is shunned).

- I don't worship Marx but Marx IS one of the fundamental theoriticians of the world we live in today, and should be studied by everyone INCLUDING those with an inclination for right-wing politics. As I like to say, Marx takes the clothes off capitalism. He explains exactly how the system works. You may disagree with his economic theory, or with his dialectic materialism, but he was the first to point the flaws in the system.

I'm not against the study of Marx in sociology or philosophy, but they're using him on economy too, even though he failed hard in economy and spoke about things he didn't know about ("the effort put into a job makes its price", as if digging up a hole in the ground grants me income. Mises explains it better: "the value of something is defined by the own consumers' taste and value attributed to it, hence why a bad wine is not as expensive as a good, well preserved wine", paraphrased in a simple way).

Also, right-wing people know Marx and the socialist logic behind him. They don't just plain ignore Marx. Again, I'm not against the study of Marx. I'm against the omission of those who refuted him and the focus on him when studying sociology, law, philosophy, econony and other areas.

- but there are accusations of corruption in the process, as well as the fact that, with the state things are today, it just shows that state intervention is more than necessary to keep things working [...] If we really had a completely free market, we would see even more abuse from telecommunication companies than we see right now, even with the government's intervention through state agencies, with numerous reports of badly executed services, disrespect for consumer's rights, and so on (I myself was a victim of that). Free market ultimately leads to oligopoly, and lack of compromise with quality.

The chances of corruption are not null, but they're much lower than when things are under control of the state. We have a few monopolizing enterprises exactly because of overprotectionism from the government (yes, I'm speaking about our bus agencies, our internet and telephonics agencies which are better than before but still slooow and with a terrible signal, and our only oil retriever, Petrobras, which benefits nobody [luls, Nobody] but poltiicians and bureaucrats in general).

In a free market policy, it is much harder to happen. If there's a monopoly, someone else can offer products with a lower price and challenge it, not because of humanitarian thoughts, but because of greed, since they'll earn more ("They're selling X for 6 bucks, I'll sell it for 3 so that I'll earn in double and attract consumers"). If there is an oligopoly, someone will invent an alternative to it in order to appease consumers and earn money, because free market benefits those who listen to the consumers. We HAD an alternative to our bus agencies, but the government went on and hunt them all.

The consumers' rights are guaranteed by law. I don't see how a free market policy would go against it. Free market is not the same as anarchcapitalism, which stays in the faaar right. Also, you're terribly wrong about the service quality: They would kill themselves in order to attract clients and their services would become better, not worse. If an agency treats consumers badly, they'll lose money. If an agency treats consumers well and offers good services, they'll earn more money than the others.

You yourself was a victim of the overprotected services from the state, not from the free market policy. Just like we all are. We don't have a neoliberal economy, contrary to popular belief. We have an overprotected market that has more to do with Keynes than with Hayek, or Mises, or Friedman. All in all, did you ever read Mises?

- The things I have to read... Being right-wing is one thing, outright lying about my country is on a completely different level and will piss me off. I can (almost) guess who you've been reading and watching to say such outrageous things, but that's a topic I don't want to discuss, because it's irrelevant to foreigners. And these people I suspect you read are actually more guilty of using ad hominem arguments than the left-wing people Nobody complained about in his post.

I'm not lying and I'm ready to defend my position. If PT is center-right, why are they flapping their red flag all over our faces until today? Why so much hate for privatizations? Why do they defend an inflated state with high taxation? Why is Lula participating in the goddamn Foro de São Paulo, which is a coalition of communists in South America, including Fidel, Maduro (Chavez, before he died), the FARCs, Morales and the Kirschners?

Remember that opening yourself a bit to capitalism is imperative, because capitalism IS part of the economy, you can't just throw it in the trash. See Raul Castro's new government policy that mimics China's. There's no way that you can have a prosperous country without letting the influence of capitalism work within it. What they want is to stay in control of their respective countries while enjoying the benefits of capitalism as utter hypocrites (doesn't socialism oppose capitalism? Oh, whatever, communist logic).

Also, we're already discussing about our national politics. Wasting two lines to quote said ad hominem right-wing activists wouldn't kill. Some things that they say aren't restricted to our country only, but to politics worldwide (like Olavo).

---------------

I do find that the left-wing has a lot of hysteric parties in it that appeal to ad hominens. I see a lot of hystery comming from feminists, from the LGBT, from the Democrats "If you don't agree with Obamacare, you're a monster" and I dislike how most people compare the right-wing to Bush as a prime example. Why not Reagan?

Edited November 18, 2013 by Rapier

[Defeatist Elitist]

I want to live in a country where people aren't afraid to go to the hospital when they really should because they can't afford it. Luckily I do. I don't believe giving the government a bit of power is an inherently bad thing, and more importantly, actual facts about actual countries suggest that it isn't. Welfare states of a degree further than you suggest both exist and function. Take health care as an example.

It is incredibly difficult to agree on what is or isn't good, and I don't want to devolve into semantics, so I'll define what I'm talking about first. To me, a good healthcare system is one that guarantees quality care at an affordable rate to everybody in a society. If you accept that definition (maybe you don't), then the most "left wing", "welfare state" style healthcare systems are among the best in the world. Certainly, the general left side is much better than the general right side. You can argue that all of the real world right wing examples aren't truely free market solutions and that a real free market solution would work out fine, and I would disagree, but that barely even matters. As it stands we have no example of it, but we know the left wing system exists and works. Canada's health care system isn't perfect, but literally nothing is, and you appear to be arguing that providing everybody in a country with health care they need and are guaranteed to be able to afford is an actively bad thing. Why?

[I.M. Gei]

Oh by the way Rapier I'm sure that all the people alive today who were imprisoned and had their testicles electrocuted and/or were killed for the crime of having a book written by Marx would agree with you that Brazil has had a left-wing government for fifty years because... commies bad?

By the way, how do you account for Austrian economists explicitly rejecting empirical evidence because it disagrees with them on all counts?

Edited November 19, 2013 by Soran Ibrahim

[Nobody]

Military dictatorship is the origin of 90% of the problems we have/had in our country, including inequality, the hyperinflation we had in the 80s and the organized criminals. i don't believe you just defended it, Rapier. Seriously WTF

Edited November 19, 2013 by Somebody that isnt Nobody

[I.M. Gei]

There's always the possibility he's just trying to be ~le edgy and contrarian~, don't rule that out

[Rapier]

Oh by the way Rapier I'm sure that all the people alive today who were imprisoned and had their testicles electrocuted and/or were killed for the crime of having a book written by Marx would agree with you that Brazil has had a left-wing government for fifty years because... commies bad?

By the way, how do you account for Austrian economists explicitly rejecting empirical evidence because it disagrees with them on all counts?

I didn't understand the first part, unless you really mean that communists and their ideology are good and they're the victims here, in that case... WTF.

Also, Austrian economists rejecting empirical evidence that they're wrong? Tell me more about the economic methods that some countries took from Friedman that succeeded. Actually, tell me more about these frauds, if you may. I can point at Keynes' frauds and how a welfare state needs a lot of money to maintain itself, but I can't see any issues with liberalism, Mises and Friedman (I can see issues within anarchcapitalism, though. Don't mistake liberalism with libertarianism). See how Obama practically broke the USA's economy with this ideology.

"Trying to be edgy and contrarian"? It's not like the left-wing mentality is the predominant one or the right one, or are you assuming it is? There's much more to it than meets the eye.

@Nobody

You do realize that, while the military dictatorship WAS bad and I definitely don't cheer for them, they were better than communists in power? I prefer a dictatorship with 500 cases of death and torture than dictatorships with over 20,000 like in Cuba, thank you. Also, please expand on your reasons to blame them for unequality (which is still predominant) and for the organized criminals (how funny... Isn't our government allied with the FARCs? We just found one of their bases here recently, and we know they're part of the goddamn Foro de São Paulo, which our government has also its presence in. Do you think it is a coincidence that insecurity and violence have risen so much? They sell weapons and drugs to our criminals).

About our economy, our problem comes from the actual misgovernment. When our currency, the real, was established, it was a solid one, even compared to the dollar. You can thank FHC for this, since he was the one to establish the real. Nowadays, with an increasing inflation and public expenses, it's value has lowered down so much that the dollar is now 2.5 times higher than our currency.

@Defeatist Elitist

You can see that free market works when you see that the countries with it are more prosperous, rich, and the poor have more accessibility to opportunities. A more open market means more competition, better prices, better services and products, and more accessibility for the poor. Russia learned this quite late. Our country is still overprotectionist with its national market, hence why the prices are high and the competition is small.

I'll read about Canada's health system, but the USA and Brazil's attempt to have a public health care system failed miserably. It's no use to hold the monopoly of virtue ("I want a health care system on which everyone gets treated well") if you can't make this true, or if you have to suffocate people on taxes for it (where will they spend their money if it's taken?). I'm not indifferent to the poor. I just want good, solid solutions for our social problems, and that can't be brought with kind, optimistic words.

[Nobody]

Yes, I thank FHC for saving the country from inflation, i never denied that, and I think that despite some problems, he was a good president. But I dont know where you assumed that a communist government of the military ditatorship were brazil's only options. Joao gourlat and janio quadros weren't communists or anything, they just were left winged. The middle class of the time was paranoid, since the country had never had a president that thought of the poor a little, and started the communist acusations. The militars used that to take "temporary" control of the country.

[Rehab]

Health care in the U.S., as in medicine distribution and the running of hospitals and shit, is done for profit, and it's absolutely miserable. We have some world-class facilities, and IIRC you can "self-insure" if you can pay for all the costs yourself, but you or the average citizen would literally go bankrupt paying for that treatment, so high is its cost. The ACA, whose implementation has been fucked with by a bunch of state governors not accepting the money they were given by the government just to set up state-level insurance exchanges by the way, isn't even meant to change that: health care is still meted out to most people by, again, for-profit health insurance companies. Among the few real changes were that people can no longer be denied coverage for having a pre-existing condition, and the government will offer their own health insurance plan, their own product in a sense (IIRC, I assume I'm underinformed on that ATM and probably have that wrong in some sense), which they've been stressing probably won't be better than most plans available from insurance companies but should be available to everyone.

So, one particularly blatant form of fraud is no longer an option for insurance companies. Prices are going to be raised for other people to even things out, and in that sense things getting more expensive for some people is almost inevitable, but IIRC it's projected to drive costs down, overall, by getting more people involved in the system. I mean, I've heard of some dumb details in Obamacare, to be sure, and from what I've heard costs and availability of healthcare still aren't going to match up well versus the world, but if I personally had to choose between it and what we had before, there wouldn't be a contest.

On a related note, I listened to an NPR article relatively recently about an experiment where a hospital somewhere here was/is set up to have everything paid for by the government, and enrolled some at-risk people into being covered by it. Doctor's visits, treatment etc. were no object to the hospital or patients treated here, it was all covered by the state for the sake of the experiment.

The results have been that, relative to the state's average (private) hospital, the amount of money it was costing the state overall dropped like a rock, like it's not even close. Doctors were actually encouraging people to come back if they thought people were at risk of developing a condition, as in they wouldn't rest until they'd gotten in contact with the patient and checked them out, and patients were actually comfortable doing so- the doctors didn't have anything to gain from getting them back other than actually treating them for something, being money was no longer an obstacle. Costly surgeries became less common as a result, and that's apparently where the better part of healthcare costs come from.

That's not even close to what's going to happen under the ACA, to be sure. Just an example that seemed related to the line of discussion.

I'm not sure if I just missed your saying this somewhere, Rapier, sorry, but what exactly is your impression of what our healthcare system in the U.S. is like? Or rather, what it was like before, and what the ACA did to it?

Edited November 19, 2013 by Rehab

[Redwall]

See how Obama practically broke the USA's economy with this ideology.

That's pretty unlikely. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the ARRA benefited short-term GDP and employment, with no expected long-term effects on unemployment and with small long-term effects on GDP caused by lower wages (and not higher unemployment).

@Defeatist Elitist

You can see that free market works when you see that the countries with it are more prosperous, rich, and the poor have more accessibility to opportunities. A more open market means more competition, better prices, better services and products, and more accessibility for the poor. Russia learned this quite late. Our country is still overprotectionist with its national market, hence why the prices are high and the competition is small.

I'll read about Canada's health system, but the USA and Brazil's attempt to have a public health care system failed miserably. It's no use to hold the monopoly of virtue ("I want a health care system on which everyone gets treated well") if you can't make this true, or if you have to suffocate people on taxes for it (where will they spend their money if it's taken?). I'm not indifferent to the poor. I just want good, solid solutions for our social problems, and that can't be brought with kind, optimistic words.

He's not talking about the free market in general, only the use of so-called free market solutions to providing healthcare. If you look at the top countries in terms of life expectancy, you will find that they generally have universal health care with heavy government intervention. It's definitely expensive, but it works.