Comments on: Local news takes on NASA

By: The Management

The Management — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 23:54:47 +0000

Would Messrs. Robertson and Trotter please take their off-topic discussion offline? Your anticipated cooperation is appreciated.

By: Cecil Trotter

Cecil Trotter — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 23:44:34 +0000

“you accept current conservative dogma as absolute truth without seriously questioning it”

As if YOU don’t accept anything and everything that flows forth from the NYT liberal propaganda fountain?

“Most of what I saw on Fox is propaganda”

No more so, and I would even say much less so, than what is passed off as “news” by CNN, CBS and you favorite the NYT.

Has Fox yet had to fire an entire cadre of “journalists” caught broadcasting false stories on a high-ranking American political figure? Not that I know of, yet I don’t recall you castigating CBS as a propaganda network. And the story I refer to was only the latest in Dan Rathers long history of made up liberal agenda propaganda.

But this is way off topic to continue here, but I challenge you to this: You email me privately the very next time to see anything on Fox that you think is lies or propaganda. Of course that would require you to watch Fox, I’ll suggest you start with “Fox News Sunday”.

By: Donald F. Robertson

Donald F. Robertson — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 19:19:59 +0000

You can say that, Cecil, because, like many conservatives, you accept current conservative dogma as absolute truth without seriously questioning it — exactly the way many people in Berkeley do about liberal dogma. Just like Patrick complained about liberals, you give the other side near-zero credit for intelligence or validity.

Most of what I saw on Fox is propaganda, no more and no less, and exactly comparable to the liberal rags in Berkeley. There are good conservative news sources, but, unless Fox has changed a lot in the last year, Fox is not one of them.

– Donald

By: Cecil Trotter

Cecil Trotter — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 18:57:40 +0000

Donald: “no I don’t watch Fox, any more than I read the ultra-left rags published in Berkeley.”

That is not even a mildly accurate comparison.

By: Donald F. Robertson

Donald F. Robertson — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 19:48:19 +0000

Patrick, this liberal can think of many very intelligent conservatives, some of whom I have great respect for. Mr. Gingrich, for instance, though I think he largely wasted his time as House leader. Or on this list, Jim Muncy, Dfens, Mr. Day, and, at least on space issues, Cecil. Or, any of the editors at The Economist. However, Mr. Bush and most of his close confidants are not among them.

In fact, if American conservatism would lose the social agenda and practice what it preaches on personal privacy, adapt a more nuanced military philosophy, and stick to economic issues, I would probably be a conservative.

– Donald

By: Donald F. Robertson

Donald F. Robertson — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 19:33:32 +0000

Cecil, no I don’t watch Fox, any more than I read the ultra-left rags published in Berkeley. Neither are news in any meaningful definition of the term. I read The Economist for my conservative slant. And, yes, the NYT is both liberal and the nation’s best paper, and probably the world’s, which is not necessarily a contridiction. (Second best in the United States is probably the — conservative — Wall Street Journal.) Globally, The Economist comes in as a close second, partially because they are one of the world’s only truly global newspapers (e.g., the cover what’s going on in Africa), and because of their bluntness and unwillingness to toe anybody’s party line, including the “neocon” movement in the United States. Sometimes I find their positions hard to take, but they are always interesting and well argued and based on presented facts. (You will consider them “liberal,” though, because they don’t like Mr. Bush or some of the other axioms of the American Right, but Mr. Bush’s policies and conservatism as a philosophy are hardly synonomous.)

– Donald

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 19:27:21 +0000

Face it: for your average liberal, “conservative” means evil, uneducated fundie and/or Gordon Gecko. It’s a deeply entrenched and continuously self-reinforced bigotry. Sad but true. It doesn’t help if you know what you’re talking about: if you’re simultaneously smart, articulate and conservative, the liberal puts you in the same mental compartment with horses that can count with their hooves–he sees it happening, but he’s automatically looking around for the guy who’s secretly feeding the cues.

And why shouldn’t he? He’s been fed this mindset for the last forty years.

Sorry to go further OT, but I just hate to see people headbanging that particular wall.

By: Cecil Trotter

Cecil Trotter — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 12:45:23 +0000

Donald: “With the exception of the NYT and LAT, no, I don’t consider any of those Liberal news sources.”

So you agree that NYT is a liberal news source? Now I have to reach back into my memory for another of your past posts where you declared that the NYT was one of the best (you may have said the best) news sources in the nation/world. There is nothing inherently wrong with your thinking that a liberal news source is so great, but it is an insight into your thinking.

By: Cecil Trotter

Cecil Trotter — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 12:40:57 +0000

Doanld: “The difference, Cecil, is I willingly listen to, in fact go out and seek, information from many points of view, much of which I disagree with.”

You posted once here not long ago that you never watch Fox, except once when you were in a situation where it was on and you had no choice (and on that one time you formed you opinion of Fox “one-dimensional pap”). So which is it?

By: Rand Simberg

Rand Simberg — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 00:00:08 +0000

Obviously, its in the eye of the beholder, but you seem to feel that anything that doesn’t toe Mr. Gingrich’s philosophical line to the letter, or mentions any government program in a positive light, or admits that some people in our society might need help, is a “liberal” media.

Well, that’s an amusing, but unuseful strawman, Donald.

BTW, I don’t believe any of the outlets you listed are especially subsidized.

Of course not. The point (which you seem to have missed) is that the two that you specifically cited are. And they’re the only ones that “conservatives” are trying (not to “shut down,” but) to end the subsidies for.