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Political Science Class (Rant)

#81
hbarcat said:
I learned a lot from taking a few journalism classes in college. I learned that one of their jobs is to infuse news stories with an opinion or point of view ("Every story has to have an angle!") I also learned that people become journalists not because they want to report the news of the day - they want to affect change in society according to their own particular ideology. Something else I learned is it doesn't require a particularly smart or intelligent person to be a journalist.




BTW, Limbaugh and Beck are both on the radio, not on TV.

But, you knew that. :D
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not really....they're not on tv here but i just assumed they could still have tv programs in america....
 
#82
Jim Campbell said:
i recall tho' that much more time was spent back then on people talking and exchanging ideas.....without it turning into a shouting match.....i think that sat/cable,video games,i poods etc have detached so many people from the world that they don't know how to discuss anything with each other,and instead rely on tv talking heads like limbaugh and beck to form their opinions for them
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While I hate to say it, because its rather sad, youre spot on.
 
#85
aborgman said:
Well... brain size has been shrinking for quite a number of years - about 30,000 or so... and there is a good bit of evidence that IQ is tracking with that.
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Hmm. My understanding was that IQ was actually going up, but they readjust the scale. (So 100 today is smarter than 100 50 years ago).

No matter what, 50% of the population will always be subnormal ;)

edit: From Wikipedia (that ever-reliable source): "The average IQ scores for many populations have been rising at an average rate of three points per decade since the early 20th century, a phenomenon called the Flynn effect. It is disputed whether these changes in scores reflect real changes in intellectual abilities, or merely methodological problems with past or present testing." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient
 
#87
chondro776 said:
Correctly pronouncing a word does not necessarily imply intelligence, however, continuously mispronouncing a word does make one a moron.

Even if you are THE DECIDER.
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i've met a few guys who seem to like to mispronounce,intentionally i believe......i'm not sure if they are trying to goad you into correcting them,or if it's some kind of passive aggressive deal to see how you will pronounce the same word when it's your turn to talk....mostly i find it's with proper names tho'....
 
#90
MakiSupaStar said:
He is being judgmental. That's kind of like being a 'decider' for the 'decider'.
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I was introducing the possibility (and likelihood, in my opinion) that people we dislike may not be as stupid as we wish they were. I curse people for being idiots all the time for they way they drive, but I'm careful not to assume that the 20-30 seconds of exposure I've had with them is indicative of every other aspect of their life, nor do I add that exposure to some collective group of experiences that I use to asume the entire planet is populated by morons. Likewise (and fortunately for a lot of people in this thread) I won't be judging everyone else here on what I believe is a very false sense of superiority over the guy sitting next to them at the movies. I'm sure you all have more intelligence than is displayed on the little slice of entertainment called TalkBass.

Mike
 
#91
mike_v_s said:
I was introducing the possibility (and likelihood, in my opinion) that people we dislike may not be as stupid as we wish they were. I curse people for being idiots all the time for they way they drive, but I'm careful not to assume that the 20-30 seconds of exposure I've had with them is indicative of every other aspect of their life, nor do I add that exposure to some collective group of experiences that I use to asume the entire planet is populated by morons. Likewise (and fortunately for a lot of people in this thread) I won't be judging everyone else here on what I believe is a very false sense of superiority over the guy sitting next to them at the movies. I'm sure you all have more intelligence than is displayed on the little slice of entertainment called TalkBass.

Mike
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Not this guy.

<---
 
#92
To graduate high school we had to take US History, Government and Economics. Of course you could take the AP classes instead, but they were some of the hardest classes in the school. Anyways in government we learned about the government and how it works. The 3 branches of power, their duties and power. In US history we started in the early days of the US up to the 60's and 70's. In econ we had an awesome teacher who knew what he was talking about and was funny. We learned about capitalism and its inner workings.

There were a lot of discussions in all classes. Mainly government and econ. In our government class we took a questionnaire that asked yes, no, no opinion questions about certain topics. Then the teacher separated the class by their score. From the most liberal to the most conservative. There was one diehard conservative in the class. A few diehard liberals and most were in-between.
 
#93
Nappa said:
There was one diehard conservative in the class. A few diehard liberals and most were in-between.
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I'd imagine that's about how our society looks today. A little on the left, a little on the right and most in between. Yet, the way some people talk, you'd assume that everyone is either sleeping with Glenn Beck blow up dolls or pleasuring themselves while wearing a Karl Marx mask.

Interestingly, it seems that while most acknowledge this bell curve and very few consider themselves on the extreme end of political thought, many are quick to assume that anyone who takes a postition opposite theirs must be on the extreme. The last "miscommunication" I had here had very little to do with what was actually said and a whole lot to do with the assumptions tacked on to the statement, despite my insistence to the contrary. Why? No clue, but it appears to be the only way some can engage the topics. I find it best to just avoid conversation with such individuals, despite their apparent intelligence otherwise, becasue the only way to have civil discourse with them is to just tell them you agree with everything they say.

Mike
 
#94
mike_v_s said:
I'd imagine that's about how our society looks today. A little on the left, a little on the right and most in between. Yet, the way some people talk, you'd assume that everyone is either sleeping with Glenn Beck blow up dolls or pleasuring themselves while wearing a Karl Marx mask.

Interestingly, it seems that while most acknowledge this bell curve and very few consider themselves on the extreme end of political thought, many are quick to assume that anyone who takes a postition opposite theirs must be on the extreme. The last "miscommunication" I had here had very little to do with what was actually said and a whole lot to do with the assumptions tacked on to the statement, despite my insistence to the contrary. Why? No clue, but it appears to be the only way some can engage the topics. I find it best to just avoid conversation with such individuals, despite their apparent intelligence otherwise, becasue the only way to have civil discourse with them is to just tell them you agree with everything they say.

Mike
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Blow up dolls and masks are a lot of fun. Don't knock it until you've tried it.




Sigh... I'm not a proud man. :scowl:
 
#98
Jim Campbell said:
the presidency of the united states is not open to those born outside of the us.....tho' i assume that military personnel abroad are excepted
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The constitution says "natural born citizen" but doesn't precisely define that term. As I understand it there's been a bunch of somewhat conflicting legal opinions over the years with no single concrete resolution. "Born outside the US to parents who are US citizens" seems to be one that is often (but not always) accepted as well, because such a child would be a US citizen at birth.

(The rights and wrongs of where to draw the line would probably be an interesting, but non-TB-acceptable, discussion. So I'll stop here).
 
#99
UncleFluffy said:
The constitution says "natural born citizen" but doesn't precisely define that term. As I understand it there's been a bunch of somewhat conflicting legal opinions over the years with no single concrete resolution. "Born outside the US to parents who are US citizens" seems to be one that is often (but not always) accepted as well, because such a child would be a US citizen at birth.

(The rights and wrongs of where to draw the line would probably be an interesting, but non-TB-acceptable, discussion. So I'll stop here).
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The usual accepted definition of that term is that they were born either
A) On American Soil (military basses, consulates, etc) or
B) They were born to Parents who are/were American Citizens.
 
#100
mike_v_s said:
I'd imagine that's about how our society looks today. A little on the left, a little on the right and most in between. Yet, the way some people talk, you'd assume that everyone is either sleeping with Glenn Beck blow up dolls or pleasuring themselves while wearing a Karl Marx mask.

Interestingly, it seems that while most acknowledge this bell curve and very few consider themselves on the extreme end of political thought, many are quick to assume that anyone who takes a postition opposite theirs must be on the extreme. The last "miscommunication" I had here had very little to do with what was actually said and a whole lot to do with the assumptions tacked on to the statement, despite my insistence to the contrary. Why? No clue, but it appears to be the only way some can engage the topics. I find it best to just avoid conversation with such individuals, despite their apparent intelligence otherwise, becasue the only way to have civil discourse with them is to just tell them you agree with everything they say.

Mike
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I think that the majority of people just can't accept differing opinions.

And I was called an extremist liberal/socialist pig this morning. All I did was link to politifact.com. Didn't say anything at all. What bothered me more is that I posted the link to prove a point in favor of the guy that went with the name calling.

I think he serious is just trolling the online part of our class, but whatever.

Distant Cousin said:
I have a friend like that. He's convinced there's some kind of New World Order, and was telling me a couple of weeks ago that Obama wasn't born in the US? =/
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Well, yesterday I found out that Kennedy was murdered by aliens. The guy even brought a "scientific" book to support his claim. The scientific claim was that he was shot by a rail gun from over a mile away, and since it was before we had rail gun technology, the kill was attributed to aliens.

UncleFluffy said:
The constitution says "natural born citizen" but doesn't precisely define that term. As I understand it there's been a bunch of somewhat conflicting legal opinions over the years with no single concrete resolution. "Born outside the US to parents who are US citizens" seems to be one that is often (but not always) accepted as well, because such a child would be a US citizen at birth.

(The rights and wrongs of where to draw the line would probably be an interesting, but non-TB-acceptable, discussion. So I'll stop here).
Click to expand...


It kind of confuses me as to why we don't have a "The only politics thread." [DEL]I know that political ads are blocked, but are basic discussions as well?[/DEL] Never mind, found it in the rules on further inspection.
 

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