To say John Aravosis cannot respond coherently without childish “sweeping aside” arguments is an understatement. One site not supportive of Dennis’ views says this of John:
Aravosis opens with a ridiculous premise, saying that “whenever you have a political contest, and one side wins, they cover the victor.” Not only is that premise false, it papers over the relevant fact, that coverage of the Marriage Equality Act is a rare example of the media doing its job. The media’s coverage of Proposition 8 (which Prager correctly cites), and even more recently, the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, did not focus on the so-called “victors,” but on the negative consequences of each of them…. Aravosis opts for transparent straw-man arguments, bizarrely saying, at one point, that “Now, Dennis is talking about I’m trying to turn him into a woman.” (Media’ite)
Here is the whole segment in video form:
And here is Prager discussiong his appearance and taking calls on the subject:
*NOTE: I do not in any way believe in the absurd idea of banning ATM’s. If anything, the production, shipment, and maintenance of ATM’s create more jobs than those that are being ‘taken away’.* A couple weeks ago, Dan Joseph and I went out with a petition to “Ban Job Killing ATM’s” after President Obama said that technology, such as ATM’s and airport kiosks, have taken away jobs from some people when speaking about unemployment. For the most part, people either signed or kindly refused; except for one woman who annihilated me on the stupidity of the idea- and rightfully so.
A great insight and challenge to Liberal ideology (Townhall h/t):
(FT) ….I recently watched an overwhelmingly liberal audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival shift uncomfortably in its seats as Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, offered his own explanation. For several years Professor Haidt has probed what he calls the moral intuitions of liberals and conservatives. I find his conclusions compelling. It has come to this: you need a psychologist to make sense of US fiscal policy.
Prof Haidt finds that liberals are driven mainly by intuitions about fairness (who gets what) and harm to victims. Conservatives are guided by those intuitions too, but also by intuitions about loyalty, authority, and purity (including bodily purity). These are not views so much as deeply embedded moral impulses. They are often wrapped up in religion, or lack of it. Transgressing them is a kind of sacrilege.
In the US, differences in these moral-psychological foundations are very marked. The more progressive you are, the harder you find it to understand the claims of loyalty, authority and purity. The more conservative you are, the more indispensable those claims appear to be. This matters because US politics, especially at the conservative end, is powered by the energy at the extremes.
Why did the Aspen audience squirm? Because Prof Haidt also notes that the wider conservative spectrum of moral intuitions is the global norm. Those conservative impulses are nearly universal across world religions and cultures. Secular liberals are the anomaly…
[….]
These need to start flowing in both directions, but since I write from progressive Aspen I will press the point on liberals. You express elaborate respect for foreign cultures and religions, despite the exalted place they give to loyalty, authority, and purity. You do not despise Muslims. You do not laugh at Buddhists. Difficult as it may be, try extending a little of that courtesy to your neighbours, even if they are evangelical Christians.
Hate and pressure at work from the left (Freep h/t):
At the Paris Las Vegas Hotel on Friday, Vice President Biden addressed a convention of the International Teamsters, telling the union members to vote Democratic next year.
“And don’t any of you, by the way, any of you guys vote Republican,” the garrulous Vice President started to say, after which he caught himself. “I’m not supposed to say, this isn’t political, I’m not supposed to say this.”
The crowd cheered him on.
“Guys!” Biden continued. “Let me put it this way! Don’t come to me if you do! You’re on your own, Jack!
At another point, the Vice President told the crowd, “Your logo is a horse’s head. Theirs should be the horse’s other end.”
The chief psychiatrist for California’s overcrowded prison system was paid $838,706 in 2010, more than any other state employee that year, payroll figures released today show.
[….]
The figures show that the 10 highest-paid state employees each earned more than $500,000 in 2010, for a total of $6.2 million. All but three were doctors or dentists for the Corrections Department. Joe Dear, the chief investment officer at the California Public Employees Retirement System, ranked seventh with a gross pay of $548,142, the data show.
A newly released police report in Norway says that all rapes, repeat ALL, during the past five years where the rapist has been identified are “Non-Western Men.” In some cases the rapist could not be identified.
And what exactly is meant by “Non-Western”? Almost all non-Westerners living in Norway are Middle Easterners and North Africans. And, the girls they rape are almost all Western girls.
From right blog Ruthfully Yours “Police Report: All Assault Rapists in Oslo Follow Muhammad” June 26:
According to the police report there was a total of 186 of known rape cases in 2010. These fall into various categories, the largest one of which is assault-rape, carried out by sheer physical force, of which there were 86 cases. In 83 of these cases the perpetrator could be identified by the victim. In all 83, the attacker was described as having “non-western appearance,” a laundered euphemism for Muslim immigrants from Africa, the Middle East, or Asia.
And according to one of the victims, her rapist said “he had the right to do exactly as he wanted to a woman … Because that is how it was in his religion. Women did not have rights or opinions. He was in charge.”
This is the type of stuff that makes you understand how a whole economic school of thought fails the people who prop it up with their hard earned blood, sweat, and tears!
…. The council reports that, using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus” (which it describes as a “natural way to estimate the effects of” the legislation), the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job.
In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead.
Furthermore, the council reports that, as of two quarters ago, the “stimulus” had added or saved just under 2.7 million jobs — or 288,000 more than it has now. In other words, over the past six months, the economy would have added or saved more jobs without the “stimulus” than it has with it. In comparison to how things would otherwise have been, the “stimulus” has been working in reverse over the past six months, causing the economy to shed jobs.
