What political ideology are you and why?

[theprincethatwasntpromised]

There is a point to be made here about the difference between news reporting, and news commentary.

Bill O'Reily's show, for instance, is commentary. As such, he has no ethical standards to be unbiased or neutral. We would, ideally, want political commentary to be fact-based and such, but the standard is lower for political commentaries than it is for actual reporting. The same difference is seen in newspapers. For instance, Billy Krystal or Jonah Goldberg can write any number of numb-skulled comments about Iran peace talk based on only soundbites and half-tuths, and WSJ or NYT will publish them. At the same time, when it's actual reporting of the events of the peace talk written by reporters of the newspapers, the material is vetted more heavily by copy-editors and editors and fact-checkers. Doesn't guarantee that it's free of errors or biases, but at least the reporting has a higher standard to meet than the opinion piece.

So to be clear, my annoyance with Fox is not the political commentary portion - that's their job to pander to a demographic and get them to tune it. My annoyance and criticism is on the portion of the shows that are, nominally, news reporting, that is inexcusably biased and manipulative. Practices like leading news stories with biased headlines "Is Obama the worst president ever?" or as they often do, label a Republican under investigation as a Democrat "by mistake," to completely inaccurate bar graphs. All of these things are part of the reporting component, not the commentary part.

So you believe MSNBC doesn't do this...You only citing Fox because you disagree with them?

[aceluby]

So you believe MSNBC doesn't do this...You only citing Fox because you disagree with them?

Who in this thread has brought up MSNBC but you? Nobody watches MSNBC, nobody gets their information from them, and there are a lot of places that have the issues. But as you've pointed out; Fox is the biggest, Fox is egregious in this particular area, and Fox is where a large portion of Republican voters get their 'news'; so bringing up a 'they do it too' argument is pretty meaningless.

[TerraPrime]

Who in this thread has brought up MSNBC but you? Nobody watches MSNBC, nobody gets their information from them, and there are a lot of places that have the issues. But as you've pointed out; Fox is the biggest, Fox is egregious in this particular area, and Fox is where a large portion of Republican voters get their 'news'; so bringing up a 'they do it too' argument is pretty meaningless.

I do watch Maddow fairly regularly. I catch about 2 to 3 shows of hers a week as time permits. I don't really watch the others though. I have found her background work to be the most thorough and the most balanced. Her bias is in what issues she chooses to investigate and comment on, not so much on how she does it once the topic is chosen. She's also been fairly consistent on liberal issues, including war authorization, use of drones, and NSA wiretappings. I don't agree with her stance on some of these issues but she does a good job reporting on the background (she will often go back a couple of decades in background to bring context to the issue) and the questions that should be asked.

But no, I don't "get the news" from her show. I watch the show for deeper background and to catch her analysis and comments.

[FuzzydaBear]

Bill O'Reily has no ethical standards to be unbiased or neutral while Rachel Maddow's background work to be the most thorough and the most balanced.

​Careful friend your bias is clearly showing.

At least you didn't state that the evil conservative has no ethical standards while the righteous, morally superior, and saintly liberal's background work to be the best.

[TerraPrime]

​Careful friend your bias is clearly showing.

You thought I was hiding the fact that I am a (bad) liberal?

[all swedes are racist]

Bill O'Reily has no ethical standards to be unbiased or neutral while Rachel Maddow's background work to be the most thorough and the most balanced.

​Careful friend your bias is clearly showing.

At least you didn't state that the evil conservative has no ethical standards while the righteous, morally superior, and saintly liberal's background work to be the best.

Fairly certain that's not what TP was saying...

[sologdin]

really no need to resort to accusations of 'bias,' unless one is attempting to recuse a judge. it is by contrast sufficient that a journalist is wrong.

[TerraPrime]

really no need to resort to accusations of 'bias,' unless one is attempting to recuse a judge. it is by contrast sufficient that a journalist is wrong.

And that's part of my point that FuzzyDaBear seems to be upset about: Bill O'Reily is not a journalist.He's a commentator. As such, he's held to a much lower standard of competence and transparency (though O'Reily's bias is plenty transparent, as is) in the reporting segments of his program. I think my disregard of Bill O'Reily and similar talking heads as not-journalists is a mere observation of facts.

[sologdin]

o'reilly is wronger than a broken clock. he revealed his quality in the glick episode, http://carpeicthus.livejournal.com/238893.html?delayedid=.

[Littlefingers In The Air]

I guess I'm a moderate Libertarian. Maybe slightly right of center.

[The Killer Snark]

Extreme libertarian in social freedom terms, moderately so in economics, where I'm slighty right of centre. For dentralisation of everything except for the health system, which I'd part privatise, and welfare. I find the Far Right too selfish, and the Left in general too authoritarian. I used to be more Left leaning but abandoned that due to my hatred of how arts funding has long been a hive of Leftist nepotism, and the encroachments of PC. My love of free speech and belief in non collectivism of our arts has swung me down the years more over to the right.

[Athias]

Libertarian, like the terms "unique" and "perfect," can't be modified. To be libertarian is to hold [moral] liberty as a principal objective. One's philosophy either conforms to or deviates from this objective. There's no "extreme" libertarian. And only through its political manifestation we have seen the creation of non-existent nuance. It becomes a question of how consistent one's beliefs and notions are with this libertarian objective. If you believe in "some freedom" or "most freedom," then liberty is not a principal objective for you. It's a notion that you have subjected to arbitrary selection. Ergo, by definition you are not a libertarian -- you just believe in select freedoms.

[sologdin]

not sure if that'll work, athias. does anyone actually believe in an individual liberty without restraint? even the most inegalitarian liberation still accepts the principle that one's liberty must be restrained by a no-intentional-initiation-of-physical-violence rule? and if so, it'd be a restraint? i.e., no one actually believes that they should be permitted to murder? and if that's the case, then that's one freedom (to murder) that is not accepted? (maybe freedom-to-murder is Xtreme Liberty?)

[Athias]

not sure if that'll work, athias. does anyone actually believe in an individual liberty without restraint? even the most inegalitarian liberation still accepts the principle that one's liberty must be restrained by a no-intentional-initiation-of-physical-violence rule? and if so, it'd be a restraint? i.e., no one actually believes that they should be permitted to murder? and if that's the case, then that's one freedom (to murder) that is not accepted? (maybe freedom-to-murder is Xtreme Liberty?)

That's why I had the term, "moral," precede liberty in brackets. While true that morality has its restrictions on will, this transmuted notion of liberty is still an objective rule of libertarianism. You can't consistently maintain libertarian principles to a degree. "I'm 'mostly' libertarian"; "I'm 'somewhat' libertarian." It suggests that there are instances in which one can accept a notion that, in the case of liberty, contradicts the principle. Therefore, [moral] liberty isn't a principal objective for that person. Libertarianism, at best, is a tenuous adherence that manifests only in accordance to its holder's abitrary selection.

The particular reason i make this argument because I've seen members here claim they are libertarian while endorsing notions of coercion, which violates the aforementioned objective of [moral] liberty.

[TerraPrime]

So, "extreme" is not an acceptable modifier for libertarianism, but "moral" is?

Got it.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

And that's why I like "Classical Liberal".

[Frisco]

I think one can be Libertarian in principle and still let reality moderate how they vote, since it's more a philosophy than a political platform.

"I think X is right, but I think that given our current society it would be wrong to enact legislation supporting it."

Calling oneself a Libertarian while also using descriptors to denote how strongly you support the principles is useful, in language, to let people know where you're coming from, I think.

[Athias]

So, "extreme" is not an acceptable modifier for libertarianism, but "moral" is?

Swing and a miss. I didn't suggest that 'moral' was an acceptable modifier, only that libertarians maintain [moral] liberty as an objective rule. The term Libertarian reflects an adherence to an objective standard even if said standard had been trasmuted and derived from another. Deviation from the standard hence results in deviation from the label.

If democrats maintained that health care service as a right is an objective rule to consider one self a democrat, then I would say that the label democrat couldn't be modified. One could no more be an extreme democrat than one can be an extreme libertarian if maintenance to the rule is principled.

[Sullen]

Any ideology can have diluted variants, libertarianism included.

Being willing/able to concede liberty for the greater good in some circumstances does not make you any less of a libertarian as long as liberty remains your main political and ideological concern. How much you concede determines how much of a libertarian you are.

Without concessions, the only true libertarians would be amoral Randist objectivists.

[Athias]

Any ideology can have diluted variants, libertarianism included.

Being willing/able to concede liberty for the greater good in some circumstances does not make you any less of a libertarian as long as liberty remains your main political and ideological concern. How much you concede determines how much of a libertarian you are.

Without concessions, the only true libertarians would be amoral Randist objectivists.

Not really. If you concede liberty to any standard that would contradict it, then you are not conforming to a libertarian standard. For libertarians, liberty is [should be] the greatest good. Again, [moral] liberty is libertarianism's principal objective. One can call one's political and ideological concerns libertarian but unless it adheres to libertarian principles, it would be like my calling myself a democrat. You are ascribing a degree to libertarianism by your own standard not by its own.

The only "true" libertarians -- that is those who maintain [moral] liberty -- are voluntaryists. (Note that I didn't mention anarchists or minarchists.)