What I'm Really Afraid Of

[Worffan101]

Um...no?

Uh....yes.

I notice you jump right to Fox News...and then you stop. That's not a coincidence...Fox News is literally all the Right has when it comes to cultural clout. Every other network, every late night talk show, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime...they're all dominated by a leftist world-view. I mean seriously...can you name ONE television show on ANY network that portrays the Right as anything remotely positive? They are almost universally portrayed as inbred hicks, corporate overlords or resentful racists. 62 million people voted for Trump. They're not ALL bad. But you wouldn't know it from watching most media today - because Democrats have an absolute stranglehold on all the major cultural centers in the country. Of course, this concentration of voters comes back to bite Democrats in the electoral college, but hey...no such thing as a free lunch.

They have the single biggest news--sorry, I mean propaganda--source on the planet. They also have Breitbart (which, to be fair, is outright Nazi propaganda and most right-wingers don't like it), PureFlix, NRA TV, all their own echo chambers.

Star Trek: Discovery portrays the Right as the only people who can save us. Xenophobic, nationalistic, cultural-imperialist worldviews like those of Michael Burnham are lionized on that show, and people who think that's bullshit are either cowards or idiots.

"Duck Dynasty" portrays obscenely homophobic assholes who if they weren't real people would be accused of being offensive stereotypes of rednecks in a positive light.

Right-wingers like John McCain and Antonin Scalia are (rightly IMO in those two guys' cases) lionized as American heroes.

"American Sniper" and movies like it lionize traditional right-wing archetypes, heroes, and stories.

Nobody's going to see Peppermint but it's basically brain candy for the Build-The-Wall types.

Need I go on?

The Right is FAR more unified than the Left; the evangelicals needed only a promise from Trump that he would police women's bodies and boom, they voted for him; meanwhile, Hillary was getting criticism from the Left right up until election day.

Sure, but that's literally always been the case. The Democrats are much bigger tent than the Republicans, and have been for darn near a century. On the one hand, that's good, because it means there are WAY more Democrats than Republicans...and there are. On the other hand, it means more opportunities for infighting, and between geographic concentration and the fact that Republicans are much more likely to actually vote than Democrats, the numbers advantage is greatly reduced.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat."

Just as true today as it was when Will said it.

And? That means the Right can punch above their weight when it comes to national politics. Just like they have since before the Democrats and Republicans switched places.

It's going to take decades to finally put the shambling corpse that is the American right-wing out of its misery and repair the obscene levels of damage it's done to our society, and it's frankly just plain depressing.

As bad has Trump has been, he hasn't started any wars yet. So at least he's better than W...although admittedly that is a low, LOW bar.

No, the Bushleaguer at least handled 9/11 in a decent fashion, though literally everything else about his administration was an unending clusterfuck. And Mueller was made Director of the FBI under Bush.

the only good thing Trump's done is make Mattis SecDef so that Mattis can play him like a goddamn harp. Every single thing Trump has done otherwise has been the actions of an immature, dimwitted cartoon villain who wants to be told all day every day that he's the most special boy in the world (and it has to be a new person sucking his dick every time or he'll worry that they're just telling him what he wants to hear).

[Worffan101]

You do know that the entire point of giving victims of sexual violence more resources is to...provide them with more resources, regardless of the gender of their attacker, right?

Except that hasn't actually been the case. There is exactly one shelter for male victims of domestic violence, which is entirely privately funded, but has still been relentlessly attacked for all of its existence by feminists. Hell, the guy who founded it ended up offing himself over the constant attacks and harassment. On top of that, there is a general attitude against the idea that a man can be raped, especially if the rapist is a woman. Like a recent example where an obsessed ex broke into a guy's house and then held the guy hostage with a machete and demanded sex from him. The only reason he got out of that is that he managed to call the police by saying he was ordering out for pizza. Now, what is it called when a person is forced to have sex against their will? Yet both the police and the media covering the story all danced around it and refused to call it what it was, and the woman never got charged with a sexual crime, not even sexual assault or anything. I think the worst she got charged with was kidnapping.

Citations and sources?

Dude, something like 40% of the rapes in the Congo are committed by women ('cause if you fuck someone up for long enough they stand a good chance of becoming something you really don't want to meet in a dark alley), this is a pretty well-known fact. Only TERFs are insane enough to seriously deny that women can commit rape, it's just that the most rapes are male-on-female.

This sounds like alt-right conspiracy fearmongering to me.

Everyone you don't agree with is alt-right, apparently.

Nah, I'm just used to the alt-right making up absurd nightmare scenarios like this where their group is the victims.

And telling Nazis that they can fuck off and not speak at a (private) college is not a First Amendment violation. It's just like a web forum kicking people off the site for being Nazis.

Setting aside how loosely that term is applied, it certainly could be seen that way if the university takes any kind of public funding. Of course, we're not just talking about universities here since the question was about what rights were threatened by the left.

Find me a quote of someone seriously saying that the government should restrict Nazis' right to spout their bullshit.

I certainly don't think that the government should protect Nazis from the consequences of spouting Nazi bullshit, but only Cold Warriors who think that McCarthy didn't go far enough seriously think we should restrict political speech.

Yes we do.

Really? List them.

Right to not be forced to reproduce (whether by coercion, deception, or forcible extraction of gametes). Right to not be forced to participate in a sexual act.

That's our rights, buddy.

Granted, rapes of men remain severely underreported due to societal pressure, but we do have the legal right to not be forced into sex or procreation. I don't think it's ever been tested in court but if you don't want kids and your girlfriend pokes holes in your condom you can probably sue for emotional harm.

There have literally been cases of sperm theft where the guy was forced to pay child support for a child he didn't consent to have, and another case where the guy was just a donor for a lesbian couple, and then they ended up going after him for child support, and the court found in their favor.

Source? Because otherwise I believe you as much as I believe Donald Trump when he says he's a stable genius.

While we don't have anything comparable to a right to an abortion (because our bodily autonomy is not threatened by reproduction after the sexual act itself), we also don't NEED that right due to the simple facts of XY male biology. We don't carry the kids, we don't have abortions, we don't need that right.

We could certainly use a right to legally divorce ourselves from the kid, though.

Why? If you consent to produce a kid and produce it, you're partially responsible. You shouldn't be able to get out of that.

Don't be facetious.

Why not? The post I was responding to was, as apparently the one who asked the question never considered the fact that the Democratic Party is just as much a threat to individual rights as the Republican Party is.

You have a funny understanding of the word "fact".

Literally nobody has ever seriously proposed this idea.

There are plenty of people advocating for less rights for white cis-gendered men as part of their idea of "social justice."

Sources. Or I'll be forced to conclude that you're talking out of your ass.

[LittleRaven]

They have the single biggest news--sorry, I mean propaganda--source on the planet. They also have Breitbart (which, to be fair, is outright Nazi propaganda and most right-wingers don't like it), PureFlix, NRA TV, all their own echo chambers.

Fox News is big, but again, it stands alone. There's a reason so many people on the right watch Fox almost exclusively...because that's where the bubble ends. Once you venture outside of that, you're in hostile territory.

Star Trek: Discovery portrays the Right as the only people who can save us. Xenophobic, nationalistic, cultural-imperialist worldviews like those of Michael Burnham are lionized on that show, and people who think that's bullshit are either cowards or idiots.

Wow, we got very different lessons from last season. Burnham is universally condemned for her actions, (except by a guy from the MIRROR UNIVERSE) is tried, convicted, sentenced to life in prison, and actually serves 6 months. (as long as Cassidy got for assisting terrorists....prison terms have apparently gotten WAY shorter in the future) She's expressly presented as close-minded, impersonal, and basically a total bitch. It's only after she learns how wrong her previous actions were that she starts on her path to redemption.

That's what you perceive as glorifying the right? I'm beginning to see the disconnect.

"Duck Dynasty" portrays obscenely homophobic assholes who if they weren't real people would be accused of being offensive stereotypes of rednecks in a positive light.

I haven't watched that show, so I'll take your word on that. I'll match you with Full Frontal and we'll carry on.

But I'm not sure that's necessary. I'm not saying the Right is culturally extinct, any more than the Democrats are legislatively extinct, merely that they're currently on the losing end of the sphere. Turn on your television at 11:00 tonight, and flip to a random channel. Odds are that find something sympathetic to the Right are not high...at all. Hell man, even Nike is abandoning them these days.

And? That means the Right can punch above their weight when it comes to national politics. Just like they have since before the Democrats and Republicans switched places.

Of course. Unity has it's perks. Combine that with how the Constitution favors empty states over full ones and the Right gets a considerable advantage in the legislative sphere. But there's no such thing as a free lunch, and the fact that your voting population is spread over thousands of miles of empty nowhere means the cultural marketers would much rather cater to your competitions nicely packed urban constituents in dense cities...and since all media is consolidated these days, that means everything you see is going to marketed to the other side. It's no doubt annoying.

No, the Bushleaguer at least handled 9/11 in a decent fashion, though literally everything else about his administration was an unending clusterfuck.

You and I have very, VERY different ideas about what constitutes a 'decent fashion.' My son was born in 2001. He's now old enough to fight in the war Bush started that year. Seventeen fucking years of war. For nothing. I guess you're cool with that, but personally, I find it to be the most massive waste of blood and treasure this country has ever set out on. And then he went and followed it up with yet ANOTHER pointless war. Tens of thousands of dead Americans. Millions of dead Afghans and Iraqis. Trillions of dollars. And nothing anywhere made any better for the effort.

Trump hasn't come close to that kind of damage.

[Worffan101]

They have the single biggest news--sorry, I mean propaganda--source on the planet. They also have Breitbart (which, to be fair, is outright Nazi propaganda and most right-wingers don't like it), PureFlix, NRA TV, all their own echo chambers.

Fox News is big, but again, it stands alone. There's a reason so many people on the right watch Fox almost exclusively...because that's where the bubble ends. Once you venture outside of that, you're in hostile territory.

I wouldn't call centrist outlets like CNN and CBS "hostile territory" just because they don't spout Fox Pravda conspiracy theories. And again--single largest propaganda source on the planet.

Star Trek: Discovery portrays the Right as the only people who can save us. Xenophobic, nationalistic, cultural-imperialist worldviews like those of Michael Burnham are lionized on that show, and people who think that's bullshit are either cowards or idiots.

Wow, we got very different lessons from last season. Burnham is universally condemned for her actions, (except by a guy from the MIRROR UNIVERSE) is tried, convicted, sentenced to life in prison, and actually serves 6 months. (as long as Cassidy got for assisting terrorists....prison terms have apparently gotten WAY shorter in the future) She's expressly presented as close-minded, impersonal, and basically a total bitch. It's only after she learns how wrong her previous actions were that she starts on her path to redemption.

That...wasn't the impression I got at all, and if it was it definitely wasn't intentional.

Maybe I'm biased because Kurtzman and his cronies wrote Captain Kirk as exactly the same kind of weak-willed murder-happy xenophobe, but I don't think that learning "oh I fucked a Klingon so I guess they're OK now" really qualifies as redemption.

That's what you perceive as glorifying the right? I'm beginning to see the disconnect.

Well, I haven't seen anything as unsubtle as Soviet propaganda come out from either side for a while now, so...

"Duck Dynasty" portrays obscenely homophobic assholes who if they weren't real people would be accused of being offensive stereotypes of rednecks in a positive light.

I haven't watched that show, so I'll take your word on that. I'll match you with Full Frontal and we'll carry on.

The Hell is Full Frontal?

But I'm not sure that's necessary. I'm not saying the Right is culturally extinct, any more than the Democrats are legislatively extinct, merely that they're currently on the losing end of the sphere. Turn on your television at 11:00 tonight, and flip to a random channel. Odds are that find something sympathetic to the Right are not high...at all. Hell man, even Nike is abandoning them these days.

And yet 40% of the population watches right-wing Pravda exclusively, and MSNBC's viewership (since MSNBC is the closest thing to left-wing Fox, though Daily Kos is a better analogue in terms of sensationalism and flat-out bullshit peddled) is what, a quarter of Fox's?

And? That means the Right can punch above their weight when it comes to national politics. Just like they have since before the Democrats and Republicans switched places.

Of course. Unity has it's perks. Combine that with how the Constitution favors empty states over full ones and the Right gets a considerable advantage in the legislative sphere. But there's no such thing as a free lunch, and the fact that your voting population is spread over thousands of miles of empty nowhere means the cultural marketers would much rather cater to your competitions nicely packed urban constituents in dense cities...and since all media is consolidated these days, that means everything you see is going to marketed to the other side. It's no doubt annoying.

Dude, most stuff isn't advertised to the left, it's advertised to the center. The Left has...uh...shit, maybe John Oliver, Colbert if you're OK with a more center-left perspective, and Tessa Thompson movies? And MSNBC. The center has fucking Disney.

Like...if you see everything to the left of McCarthy as the Evil Red Enemy, that's not the media's fault.

No, the Bushleaguer at least handled 9/11 in a decent fashion, though literally everything else about his administration was an unending clusterfuck.

You and I have very, VERY different ideas about what constitutes a 'decent fashion.' My son was born in 2001. He's now old enough to fight in the war Bush started that year. Seventeen fucking years of war. For nothing. I guess you're cool with that, but personally, I find it to be the most massive waste of blood and treasure this country has ever set out on. And then he went and followed it up with yet ANOTHER pointless war. Tens of thousands of dead Americans. Millions of dead Afghans and Iraqis. Trillions of dollars. And nothing anywhere made any better for the effort.

Trump hasn't come close to that kind of damage.

Oh, no, I don't mean Afghanistan, I mean handling the month or so after the event itself. If Cheney had been in power he probably would've started rounding up anyone with a turban.

Literally every other thing Bush did, from Afghanistan to the Katrina relief "effort", was an unending clusterfuck that has essentially destroyed our country's international standing and internal stability.

[LittleRaven]

I wouldn't call centrist outlets like CNN and CBS "hostile territory" just because they don't spout Fox Pravda conspiracy theories.

There aren't any centrists any more. The Blue Dogs are (almost) all gone. Same with the RINOs. There's almost no position you can take on anything that doesn't put you on one side of the line or the other. And once you're on one side of the line, everyone on the other side has a moral duty to fight you to the last breath. You'll find that line of thinking everywhere, on both the right and the left.

Nobody markets to the center any more because there aren't enough people there to make it worth while. Blue counties just get bluer and bluer each year. Red counties get redder and redder. For a long time, organizations like the NFL tried to just be 'patriotic' without being explicitly partisan, but even that isn't working any more. If you don't take a side, someone will force you into it. Even the tech giants aren't immune - Google was actively working to get Hillary elected even as Facebook was busy pushing Trump over the line.

There is no center.

That...wasn't the impression I got at all, and if it was it definitely wasn't intentional.

Oh, well, I definitely didn't get the idea that Burnham was introduced as any kind of hero. She had the potential to be heroic, but was too blinded by her own hatred to really capitalize on them. She only grows into something that's at least arguably heroic after she rejects her old way of thinking.

But we totally agree that the 'fucking a Klingon' subplot was mind-meltingly stupid. Actually, most of the stuff with the Klingons was just bad in general.

The Hell is Full Frontal?

Samantha Bee, dude! Just one of a thousand comedy news shows which primarily delights in skewering Republicans. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

And yet 40% of the population watches right-wing Pravda exclusively, and MSNBC's viewership (since MSNBC is the closest thing to left-wing Fox, though Daily Kos is a better analogue in terms of sensationalism and flat-out bullshit peddled) is what, a quarter of Fox's?

Naw, it's about 75%.

That has been a staple of cable news, so CNN’s willingness to try a different approach is probably tied to its ratings. The latest survey from Nielsen shows CNN is losing the prime time cable news race. It has 944,000 viewers from 8 to 11 p.m. EST. Compare that to 2.3 million for Fox News and 1.7 million for MSNBC.

CNN + MSNBC is considerably larger than Fox, but that's to be expected. Fox is big, but it stands alone.

Dude, most stuff isn't advertised to the left, it's advertised to the center. The Left has...uh...shit, maybe John Oliver, Colbert if you're OK with a more center-left perspective, and Tessa Thompson movies? And MSNBC. The center has fucking Disney.

Again, there is no center. The closest you can come is to basically be as apolitical as possible, which is what Disney shoots for, but even that is becoming an increasingly difficult line to walk. There was a time when you a product could have a political message without being partisan, but I doubt you could get away with that today.

And the most cunning marketers on the planet, Nike, have finally embraced that fact. That's pretty telling.

Literally every other thing Bush did, from Afghanistan to the Katrina relief "effort", was an unending clusterfuck that has essentially destroyed our country's international standing and internal stability.

Yup. Trump will have to work very, VERY hard to match Bush on the damage front. Frankly, I suspect he's already missed his window, unless the midterm polls are all wrong. (which is possible)

[Worffan101]

I wouldn't call centrist outlets like CNN and CBS "hostile territory" just because they don't spout Fox Pravda conspiracy theories.

There aren't any centrists any more. The Blue Dogs are (almost) all gone. Same with the RINOs. There's almost no position you can take on anything that doesn't put you on one side of the line or the other. And once you're on one side of the line, everyone on the other side has a moral duty to fight you to the last breath. You'll find that line of thinking everywhere, on both the right and the left.

Nobody markets to the center any more because there aren't enough people there to make it worth while. Blue counties just get bluer and bluer each year. Red counties get redder and redder. For a long time, organizations like the NFL tried to just be 'patriotic' without being explicitly partisan, but even that isn't working any more. If you don't take a side, someone will force you into it. Even the tech giants aren't immune - Google was actively working to get Hillary elected even as Facebook was busy pushing Trump over the line.

There is no center.

That doesn't sound right. Maybe the center's shrinking, but with the right wing increasingly dominated by actual racists and Nazis, the Overton window's shifting. Also leftists are beyond tired of the lack of progress.

That...wasn't the impression I got at all, and if it was it definitely wasn't intentional.

Oh, well, I definitely didn't get the idea that Burnham was introduced as any kind of hero. She had the potential to be heroic, but was too blinded by her own hatred to really capitalize on them. She only grows into something that's at least arguably heroic after she rejects her old way of thinking.

But we totally agree that the 'fucking a Klingon' subplot was mind-meltingly stupid. Actually, most of the stuff with the Klingons was just bad in general.

I disagree on the former (in part because I have a sadly large amount of experience with Alex Kurtzman's 'writing', if you can call the diarrhea he shits out that), but yeah, the Klingon stuff was wrongheaded at every possible level.

The Hell is Full Frontal?

Samantha Bee, dude! Just one of a thousand comedy news shows which primarily delights in skewering Republicans. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Wasn't she the blonde with the annoying voice on the Daily Show? I haven't heard anything about her since they replaced John Stewart with the funny black guy.

And yet 40% of the population watches right-wing Pravda exclusively, and MSNBC's viewership (since MSNBC is the closest thing to left-wing Fox, though Daily Kos is a better analogue in terms of sensationalism and flat-out bullshit peddled) is what, a quarter of Fox's?

Naw, it's about 75%.

That has been a staple of cable news, so CNN’s willingness to try a different approach is probably tied to its ratings. The latest survey from Nielsen shows CNN is losing the prime time cable news race. It has 944,000 viewers from 8 to 11 p.m. EST. Compare that to 2.3 million for Fox News and 1.7 million for MSNBC.

CNN + MSNBC is considerably larger than Fox, but that's to be expected. Fox is big, but it stands alone.

Fair enough, those numbers have shifted a lot recently, but that being said, Fox is still larger than its (considerably less mendacious and sensationalist) left-wing counterpart.

Dude, most stuff isn't advertised to the left, it's advertised to the center. The Left has...uh...shit, maybe John Oliver, Colbert if you're OK with a more center-left perspective, and Tessa Thompson movies? And MSNBC. The center has fucking Disney.

Again, there is no center. The closest you can come is to basically be as apolitical as possible, which is what Disney shoots for, but even that is becoming an increasingly difficult line to walk. There was a time when you a product could have a political message without being partisan, but I doubt you could get away with that today.

And the most cunning marketers on the planet, Nike, have finally embraced that fact. That's pretty telling.

I disagree. The simple fact of the matter is that the Overton window has shifted. The Right is no longer the side of security and encouraging business, but the side of racism, unrestricted greed, and keeping LGBT people in the closet. The Left has gone from the side of social liberalisim and 'maybe we should have some more worker protections' to the side of social liberalism and Solidarity Forever. Has the Left gotten leftier? Yeah. Has the center shrunk? In that what used to be considered centrist is now center-left, yes. But it's primarily a result of the Republicans actively courting and encouraging the most insane parts of their base for 20+ years. They created a monster and now they can't shove it back in the bag.

Literally every other thing Bush did, from Afghanistan to the Katrina relief "effort", was an unending clusterfuck that has essentially destroyed our country's international standing and internal stability.

Yup. Trump will have to work very, VERY hard to match Bush on the damage front. Frankly, I suspect he's already missed his window, unless the midterm polls are all wrong. (which is possible)

Don't say that, he'll probably nuke Iran tomorrow just to show the world that his penis extension is 3,000,000 times larger than his micropenis.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

"I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat."

Holy Hecate, I'm gonna need some skin grafts for that burn. >.o

[LittleRaven]

That doesn't sound right.

Ok. Name me a centrist politician. You know, someone who regularly crosses partisan lines. There used to be a lot of them.

Wasn't she the blonde with the annoying voice on the Daily Show?

Yup. Has her own show now. It's pretty much the same as all the others.

I disagree. The simple fact of the matter is that the Overton window has shifted.

I don't think we're actually saying different things. I'm saying that the center has disappeared. You're saying that the Overton window has shifted. Not only are both of these things true, but they are directly connected. The Republican party has been drifting into la-la land for quite some time, but with the election of Trump, they lost most of their centrist members and have catapulted into complete insanity mode. The Democrats have also drifted right over the years, capturing virtually all of what used to be the center. But as the country has become more polarized, that 'center' vote gets smaller and smaller. It's virtually non-existent now, which is why both parties emphasize turnout over all else.

[Worffan101]

That doesn't sound right.

Ok. Name me a centrist politician. You know, someone who regularly crosses partisan lines. There used to be a lot of them.

Senator Collins, Senator Manchin?

Wasn't she the blonde with the annoying voice on the Daily Show?

Yup. Has her own show now. It's pretty much the same as all the others.

Never even heard of it and not sure what others you mean.

I disagree. The simple fact of the matter is that the Overton window has shifted.

I don't think we're actually saying different things. I'm saying that the center has disappeared. You're saying that the Overton window has shifted. Not only are both of these things true, but they are directly connected. The Republican party has been drifting into la-la land for quite some time, but with the election of Trump, they lost most of their centrist members and have catapulted into complete insanity mode. The Democrats have also drifted right over the years, capturing virtually all of what used to be the center. But as the country has become more polarized, that 'center' vote gets smaller and smaller. It's virtually non-existent now, which is why both parties emphasize turnout over all else.

OK, that's more like what I was saying, too. I legitimately think that there still is a significant center vote, particularly Latino Catholics, but they tend to go Democratic because the alternative is Trump.

[Admiral X]

Citations and sources?

Find me an example of this being called rape by the media or the authorities. Also, you'll note, she was not charged with sexual assault or rape.

Find me a quote of someone seriously saying that the government should restrict Nazis' right to spout their bullshit.

I probably could pretty easily, given the enthusiasm there is for punching people they've labeled as Nazis.

Right to not be forced to reproduce (whether by coercion, deception, or forcible extraction of gametes).

You'd be wrong there.

Right to not be forced to participate in a sexual act.

Then why is it so difficult for those in authority to even define it as a crime?

Source? Because otherwise I believe you as much as I believe Donald Trump when he says he's a stable genius.

Literally the first result in Google

In Texas

Germany gets in on that action

Kid doesn't even have to be yours if you wait to long to test paternity

Texas says you're on the hook for whatever child support would be before the paternity test was conducted

Why? If you consent to produce a kid and produce it, you're partially responsible. You shouldn't be able to get out of that.

Much the same attitude the anti-abortion types have.

You have a funny understanding of the word "fact".

So you say.

Sources. Or I'll be forced to conclude that you're talking out of your ass.

Yeah, let's pretend the whole social justice thing isn't going on.