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I can't help but think this sense is so prevalent on 'The Left' because they have established an image for themselves that is rational, empathetic, and humanist

I can't help but think this sense is so prevalent on 'The Left' because they have established an image for themselves that is rational, empathetic, and humanist above all else. They actively frame their positions and actions in terms of "justice" and "fairness". They love to declare that "Reality has a well known liberal bias" and frame people who see the world different as rejecting reality itself. With motivations so unquestionably good, and so unquestionably rational, anyone who is in opposition to their proposals must have something wrong with them, no? How else could someone be opposed to such righteous actions? Well, the answer is that they have been deceived by Fox News, they are ignorant, they are voting against their best interest without realizing it, they are reactionaries, they have no empathy, or they are just plan bad people. Take your pick.

abbub 5y ago
I mean...it's not 'The Left' that's pushing the 'fake news' and 'alternate facts' agenda when they come up against anything they disagree with...
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  As loathe as people are to hear "both sides", 'The Left' absolutely does this as too. They just use different names and insinuations to communicate the same point, that sources presented by the other side is not to be trusted.
  - mrtesthah 5y ago
    >'The Left' absolutely does this as too. Remember when Biden claimed that COVID-19 was invented by the Republicans to make his presidency look bad? Remember when Obama refused to acknowledge that Trump won the presidency and when CNN aired nonstop coverage from conspiracy theorists claiming that the entire election was fraudulent? Remember when Obama claimed months in advance that any election in which a Democrat lost was necessarily fraudulent, and then incited a mob to take over the US Capitol building during the electoral vote count? And then when Obama refused to authorize the national guard to prevent US senators and house representatives from being taken hostage? You're damn right -- they're both totally the same.
    - BitwiseFool 5y ago
      This is very likely to devolve into a partisan squabble, so I don't want to keep going back and forth on this. I was ready to cite examples of the left playing fast and loose with the truth but I sense it will just create hostility. If I pick only one example, it looks like I'm not prepared and have nothing substantial to counter with. If I list multiple examples, it will look like I came here prepared for a fight as a right wing partisan. How do you want to proceed, if at all?
      - mrtesthah 5y ago
        Can you cite an example of left-wing news outlets playing "fast and loose" in a way that literally jeopardized the foundation of US democracy and incited mass violence? Even if you think the investigation into Trump's ties to Russian influence was unjustified, it relied on democratically-elected representatives to impeach him, and it never undermined the rule of law itself. I'm sure you can find examples with lesser consequences, but given the stakes, are those really relevant here? It's easy to dismiss all such disagreements as being boiled down to partisanship, which is why it's more useful to look past the actions and focus on the outcome. Violent rhetoric from politicians and their supporting news outlets has real consequences, and in this case the actions of one side are resulting in the potential for mass vigilante violence: From Ethnic antagonism erodes Republicans’ commitment to democracy[1] About half of all surveyed Republicans agreed with these points: 1. The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it. 2. A time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands. 3. Strong leaders sometimes have to bend the rules in order to get things done. 4. It is hard to trust the results of elections when so many people will vote for anyone who offers a handout. 1. https://www.pnas.org/content/117/37/22752 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/37/22752
        iammisc 5y ago
        You start off with a premise that is not immediately obvious. You claim right-wing news outlets are jeopardizing the 'foundation of US democracy', but most right wingers would counter that democracy is not the foundational value of the United States, but rather, individual rights, that even democracy is subservient to the rights of the individual. For example, no matter how many people would vote for such an ability, a modern 'right winger' would reject the notion that the people should be able to buy others. Your insistence that democracy is being eroded by the right, is easily countered by most conservatives that individual liberty is being eroded by the left, and they can easily point to the coronavirus lockdowns which seem neverending, obviously overreaching, and -- given the vaccine -- also unnecessary. They can point to multiple examples of what they see as having their rights trampled over, such as being forced to participate in events they have moral concerns with, while facebook and Amazon and other large companies apparently have every right to kick off those they agree with from their multi-billion dollar platforms. So the counter to your claim that the right is undermining democracy is that the left is undermining civil liberties.
  - heavyheavy 5y ago
    Any examples of this?
- JasonCannon 5y ago
  Likewise, it isn't the left's fault that conservatives routinely do deny real reporting on real events that actually happened as being reported by a liberal bias.
- googlryas 5y ago
  Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, and Rachel Maddow have all used "No one could honestly believe that what we say is really true" as an argument in legal proceedings against them.
  - TomSwirly 5y ago
    > Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones These are well-known... > and Rachel Maddow I couldn't find any such thing in the news. Source for that one?
    - googlryas 5y ago
      The ruling(which Maddow won): https://timesofsandiego.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/MADDOW-DISMISS.pdf https://timesofsandiego.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/MADDO... The specific details are Maddow was talking about a journalist from another network(OAN), and said something like "This person is literally paid by the Russian government to produce news stories". Maddow's team argued that it isn't slander because no reasonable viewer of her show would take that statement to be truthful despite the confident/clear language it is expressed in.
      - CalChris 5y ago
        Krauss was in fact working for OAN and Sputnik at the same time and Sputnik is funded by the Russian government. Maddow even won attorney fees in that case. Rouz is a propagandist; quotes in the decision amply demonstrate that. Quoting the appeals decision, The challenged statement was an obvious exaggeration, cushioned within an undisputed news story. Equating Maddow’s exaggeration with Jones and Carlson is just rank bothsiderism.
        googlryas 5y ago
        If they actually are on the payroll, how is it an "obvious exaggeration" to say that they are getting paid by the Russian government? If something is demonstrably true, why would one need to hide behind the "No reasonable person would believe this to be true" defense?
Pxtl 5y ago
That's a wonderful narrative, except that Fox News and other conservative orgs have repeatedly been proven to be really, really deceptive. How many conservative talking heads have had to defend themselves in court that they're not really news, but entertainers playing a silly character for laughs? How many right-wing radio shock jocks have died of COVID because they drank their own kool-aid on the subject of Vaccines? Polls have shown that Fox News viewers believe more incorrect facts about current events than people who don't follow the news at all. For example: http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/ http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/ After we spend decades hearing about how Iraq has WMD's and was involved with Al-Qaeda, Obama's secretly a non-American Muslim, Anthropogenic Climate Change is fake, COVID is just a bad cold, vaccines are an evil conspiracy, publicly funded healthcare for Americans will result in "death panels" and so on and so forth... is it not reasonable for American progressives to accept that their political opponents are generally either malevolent or suckers? At some point it's time to stop assuming good faith.

abbub 5y ago

I mean...it's not 'The Left' that's pushing the 'fake news' and 'alternate facts' agenda when they come up against anything they disagree with...

BitwiseFool 5y ago
As loathe as people are to hear "both sides", 'The Left' absolutely does this as too. They just use different names and insinuations to communicate the same point, that sources presented by the other side is not to be trusted.
- mrtesthah 5y ago
  >'The Left' absolutely does this as too. Remember when Biden claimed that COVID-19 was invented by the Republicans to make his presidency look bad? Remember when Obama refused to acknowledge that Trump won the presidency and when CNN aired nonstop coverage from conspiracy theorists claiming that the entire election was fraudulent? Remember when Obama claimed months in advance that any election in which a Democrat lost was necessarily fraudulent, and then incited a mob to take over the US Capitol building during the electoral vote count? And then when Obama refused to authorize the national guard to prevent US senators and house representatives from being taken hostage? You're damn right -- they're both totally the same.
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    This is very likely to devolve into a partisan squabble, so I don't want to keep going back and forth on this. I was ready to cite examples of the left playing fast and loose with the truth but I sense it will just create hostility. If I pick only one example, it looks like I'm not prepared and have nothing substantial to counter with. If I list multiple examples, it will look like I came here prepared for a fight as a right wing partisan. How do you want to proceed, if at all?
    - mrtesthah 5y ago
      Can you cite an example of left-wing news outlets playing "fast and loose" in a way that literally jeopardized the foundation of US democracy and incited mass violence? Even if you think the investigation into Trump's ties to Russian influence was unjustified, it relied on democratically-elected representatives to impeach him, and it never undermined the rule of law itself. I'm sure you can find examples with lesser consequences, but given the stakes, are those really relevant here? It's easy to dismiss all such disagreements as being boiled down to partisanship, which is why it's more useful to look past the actions and focus on the outcome. Violent rhetoric from politicians and their supporting news outlets has real consequences, and in this case the actions of one side are resulting in the potential for mass vigilante violence: From Ethnic antagonism erodes Republicans’ commitment to democracy[1] About half of all surveyed Republicans agreed with these points: 1. The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it. 2. A time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands. 3. Strong leaders sometimes have to bend the rules in order to get things done. 4. It is hard to trust the results of elections when so many people will vote for anyone who offers a handout. 1. https://www.pnas.org/content/117/37/22752 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/37/22752
      - iammisc 5y ago
        You start off with a premise that is not immediately obvious. You claim right-wing news outlets are jeopardizing the 'foundation of US democracy', but most right wingers would counter that democracy is not the foundational value of the United States, but rather, individual rights, that even democracy is subservient to the rights of the individual. For example, no matter how many people would vote for such an ability, a modern 'right winger' would reject the notion that the people should be able to buy others. Your insistence that democracy is being eroded by the right, is easily countered by most conservatives that individual liberty is being eroded by the left, and they can easily point to the coronavirus lockdowns which seem neverending, obviously overreaching, and -- given the vaccine -- also unnecessary. They can point to multiple examples of what they see as having their rights trampled over, such as being forced to participate in events they have moral concerns with, while facebook and Amazon and other large companies apparently have every right to kick off those they agree with from their multi-billion dollar platforms. So the counter to your claim that the right is undermining democracy is that the left is undermining civil liberties.
- heavyheavy 5y ago
  Any examples of this?
JasonCannon 5y ago
Likewise, it isn't the left's fault that conservatives routinely do deny real reporting on real events that actually happened as being reported by a liberal bias.
googlryas 5y ago
Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, and Rachel Maddow have all used "No one could honestly believe that what we say is really true" as an argument in legal proceedings against them.
- TomSwirly 5y ago
  > Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones These are well-known... > and Rachel Maddow I couldn't find any such thing in the news. Source for that one?
  - googlryas 5y ago
    The ruling(which Maddow won): https://timesofsandiego.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/MADDOW-DISMISS.pdf https://timesofsandiego.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/MADDO... The specific details are Maddow was talking about a journalist from another network(OAN), and said something like "This person is literally paid by the Russian government to produce news stories". Maddow's team argued that it isn't slander because no reasonable viewer of her show would take that statement to be truthful despite the confident/clear language it is expressed in.
    - CalChris 5y ago
      Krauss was in fact working for OAN and Sputnik at the same time and Sputnik is funded by the Russian government. Maddow even won attorney fees in that case. Rouz is a propagandist; quotes in the decision amply demonstrate that. Quoting the appeals decision, The challenged statement was an obvious exaggeration, cushioned within an undisputed news story. Equating Maddow’s exaggeration with Jones and Carlson is just rank bothsiderism.
      - googlryas 5y ago
        If they actually are on the payroll, how is it an "obvious exaggeration" to say that they are getting paid by the Russian government? If something is demonstrably true, why would one need to hide behind the "No reasonable person would believe this to be true" defense?

Pxtl 5y ago

That's a wonderful narrative, except that Fox News and other conservative orgs have repeatedly been proven to be really, really deceptive. How many conservative talking heads have had to defend themselves in court that they're not really news, but entertainers playing a silly character for laughs? How many right-wing radio shock jocks have died of COVID because they drank their own kool-aid on the subject of Vaccines? Polls have shown that Fox News viewers believe more incorrect facts about current events than people who don't follow the news at all. For example: http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/ http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/ After we spend decades hearing about how Iraq has WMD's and was involved with Al-Qaeda, Obama's secretly a non-American Muslim, Anthropogenic Climate Change is fake, COVID is just a bad cold, vaccines are an evil conspiracy, publicly funded healthcare for Americans will result in "death panels" and so on and so forth... is it not reasonable for American progressives to accept that their political opponents are generally either malevolent or suckers? At some point it's time to stop assuming good faith.