Spontaneous Musings

I do try to get a lot of information, I love to listen to Keith Olberman, but I only believe him if I hear things confirmed elsewhere because I know he is giving opinion pieces. And I always believe the opposite of whatever Rush Limbaugh ever says, because I feel that he gets everything 100% wrong; I can't even imagine that I would ever agree with anything he says/thinks!

I do try to keep up with a lot of different sources and not be so attached to my POV that I don't listen, but I do know I can be very closed minded about some things. I can be very stubborn, opinionated, and annoying in expressing myself, but funnily enough I almost never regret it....
I guess if I ever hurt the feelings of someone I cared about I would really regret it, but normally I have a pretty good idea of what my friends think and I channel my rants to people w/similar ideas.

I have to say that I only read a very limited number of people on lj, that is to say that I read 100% of all of my flist's posts... but I don't add people onto my flist if I don't think I want to read them. If someone isn't interesting enough to read then I don't see any reason to have their posts come up on my 'friend's' page.

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good video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=undEkXtJjJU
of course those of us online are going heavily for Obama....

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That's not completely true. Unfortunately.
There are quite a few conservatives online and more than a few anti-OBama youtube videos and pro-Palin ones. We've just managed to avoid them.

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Oh I didn't mean that there weren't any...
but when they do most online polls, when you look at youtube, MySpace, and other online sites you find it is pretty consistantly
Obama 80%
McCain 20%
but I have to tell you that AOL is REALLY the place w/all the conservative/Republican types, check out THIS crazy poll:
http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/09/11/aol-straw-poll-sept-11-18/
can you believe that?! LOL

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That actually makes sense. AOL is more structured with all sorts of controls and rules, while YouTube, Google, and Livejournal are far looser.

I find AOL annoying, which is why I never got on it. It's also very "ad" and commerical driven.

ON LJ - there are quite a few conservatives, they just don't always answer polls.

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I never used AOL because they never had any local connections to where I lived in Iowa (the 'local' dial up connection would have cost me .80/minute over and above what AOL charged!) otherwise I might have been tempted because when driving around the country it was usually easy to find a local AOL number. But you'll notice that Iowa is one of the few states going for Obama in AOL's poll...
I've actually noticed a lot more conservative/Republican/religious right at Facebook than at MySpace (although I'm sure there must be some at MySpace).

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Interesting comment about Iowa.

There are quite a few conservatives on MySpace. But MySpace also tends to be fairly "media centric or driven" and has a huge 20-30 something demo. Lots of actors, celebrities, etc on MySpace. And it tends to do more bands and videos than actual posting.

FaceBook started as a college networking site and branched out, also got bought by corporate interests...and has a very structured air about it. In some ways it has a lot in common with AOL. Also it's gotten very "biz networking" - I have at least one friend on it that was a former boss (from the video game company). I think it's geared more towards locating folks and linking up again than culture. The cultural sites seem to be more liberal for some reason and the business networking more conservative, but that may be a generalization.

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atpo-onm.livejournal.com

It wasn't on your list, but I rely heavily on NPR/PBS (radio and TV) for what I consider to be fair, even handed, accurate journalism and reporting. They aren't perfect, no one is, but they're a lot closer than 90% of the stuff that's readily available to the public. Newspapers are generally good as long as you read several of them, to balance out the inevitable owner/publisher biases.

Washington Week and Bill Moyer's Journal are must-see TV for me every Friday, and Frontline is brilliant although I don't always watch it because it usually upsets me and then I'm all grumpy right before bedtime.

BTW, I entered "left wing" as my choice, but that's really only very generally speaking. At heart I'm an anarchist but humanity isn't ready for that yet. ( I define anarchist as it was described in Ursula LeGuin's "The Disposessed", or as summed up in Bob Dylan's classic line "To live outside the law, you must be honest.")

Practically speaking, for the current real world, I'm moderate to conservative financially, but fairly liberal socially. As far as the connection between religion and politics goes, I'm an atheist, (and far more so now then when I was younger) so that inherently tends to dictate what I think about the role of the former in the latter.

As to when I question my own views or beliefs, all I can say is that I try very hard to evaluate contrary views as fairly as possible, but with the condition that the arguments made must be logical in nature and empirically testable. So, for example, someone using the argument that "God says etc. etc." has no chance at all with me because it's the same (to me) as someone saying "Santa Claus says... etc etc").

Now if someone want to argue that, for example, "abortion is wrong because it takes a life, and it should be the goal of a socially conscious human society to preserve life whenever possible", that gets harder to dismiss, especially if the person arguing the point is a) against the death penalty, period, always, b) a vegetarian c)concerned for the welfare of non-human animals, d) in favor of birth control to prevent as many abortions as possible, e) and so on.

That is, a logically consistent argument. I might still disagree with the conclusions, but at least I can understand how the person arrived at their beliefs.

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rahirah

I find NPR to be one of the most exhaustive and balanced sources of news about almost everything. Although they do have a slight liberal bent, they make an effort to bring in credible conservative speakers on a a regular basis.

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I don't know why I forgot to list NPR and radio.
I have a friend who uses it primarily as her news source. Radio reception is horrid in my apartment unfortunately, so haven't listened to it very often. Tend to listen to it more when I visit my family in Hilton Head (parents love it) and when I used to drive in Kansas City.

NPR isn't as biased as many conversatives believe, as you state above, it does bring in credible speakers from both sides of the fence. I think William S. Buckley used to do commentary on it, could be wrong about that.

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liliaeth

Well I'm from Belgium, I have much more trust in my country's newspapers than in either the internet or US papers. And I tend to vote socialist, which is not the same as communist. And I try to read most entries on my f-list, though I might skip fics, if the pairings don't interest me.

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Good point. A lot of people don't realize that socialism and communism are very different. Also there is more than one type of communism. And they do tend to be more "economic" systems than political, even though the lines have become very blurred.

Plus, each country is different. France, Australia, Canada, and the UK to a degree all practice a form of socialism - with their health care systems and welfare. Also the US as capitialistic as it likes to paint itself, did just take control of two major banks - which is a socialist reaction not a captilist one. (One that may have been prevented if there had been more regulation of the finance industry to begin with.)

My take for what's worth is the US went too far with capitalism and is now reaping the results. But I'm admittedly not an economist, so I'm sure there are people out there that disagree with me.

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frenchani.livejournal.com

It's done!

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I live and vote in the U.S.

I rely primarily on PBS and National Public Radio for daily political info. Also read Newsweek. I read books for historical political context.

In terms of editorial commentary, I regularly read David Brooks, George Will, Thomas Friedman, and Andrew Sullivan on the conservative side, to balance (saner) conservative perspectives against my tendency to lean a bit left of center. In the center, I love reading Fareed Zakaria and Maureen Dowd (yes, I’m aware those two are poles apart in terms of what they focus on, but still equal opportunity supporters/bashers). On the liberal side of things, I read The Huffington Post.

Most reliable sources: BBC and Factcheck.org. Also reliable: NPR and PBS, but they sometimes trip on two banes of journalism in the U.S. (obsession with “fair and balanced” even on issues that actually are “fact” vs “bullshit”; and a tendency to spend a lot of time analyzing “horse race” aspects of politics/media, as opposed to facts and policy positions.

Political affiliation: I picked “other.”

I’m a raging conservative on issues of personal responsibility, personal finance, and things like national debt. I also see first hand that federal government is often bloated and inefficient and supportive of mediocrity within its ranks, and smaller localized government or deregulation is more efficient when dealing with some issues. HOWEVER...

...I’m liberal when it comes to federal gov’t policies that affect national “security”: that is, policies relating to health care, social security, education funding (this local-tax-based approach to K-12 funding seems medieval to me), and the support and development of sustainable energy independence, environmental protection, and the military.

I’m a moderate when it comes to things like immigration (one of the few topics where I supported W and Co.) and free trade (although I recognize the costs/benefits are unequally distributed across our society, I'm also concerned about increasing quality of life in poor nations).

I’m liberal on taxation in the sense that I support a progressive system, with reasonable redistribution of wealth to maintain a solid middle class. The knee-jerk Libertarian stance most Americans seem to adopt about taxes is moronic. I’m happy to pay taxes if they go toward creating national security (in the broad sense I discussed above) and opportunity. I’m perfectly willing to have my investments taxed at a higher rate, or pay several-thousand more $ in income tax every year, if it means fixing health care, or jumpstarting the U.S. on the road to green energy, or funding functional education in a sensible and equitable way.

I’m liberal on issues such as gay marriage, abortion, and the separation of church and state. If we never heard another word from a politician about their faith it would make me ECSTATIC.

I hate oversimplification of complex issues in terms of black/white, opinion/counter-opinion, good/evil, right/wrong. Life is nearly always way more complicated than lots of people apparently believe or wish. I tend to maintain entrenched beliefs only on issues about which I’m quite knowledgeable. Since it pisses me off no end how many people who seem to have no understanding of (for example) basic scientific concepts nevertheless spout off opinions about science-policy issues, I try not to do that on topics that I haven’t studied.

I read most of my f-list, and reply regularly to about a quarter of them, I guess. I don't tend to post in the heat of the moment, and I avoid kerfuffles, so I rarely regret posting.

Re: politics in general...

In politics, media, education, and everything, the overwhelming current of anti-intellectualism in America horrifies me. The last 8 years have been agonizing on a deep psychological level, and this election cycle is terrifying and upsetting me to the extent that I actually fear for my sanity and health should McCain/Palin win, I don’t even know how I’ll be able to handle the grief and the rage, except by utterly disengaging from the civic life of a country with which I’m no longer sure I want to be identified.

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I should clarify my "liberal when it comes to policies dealing with the military".

I meant that I support a strong military, well-funded via federal government, and deployed only when really needed. So that's a mix of current and conservatism (strong, well-funded), old-school conservatism (deploy only when needed), and liberalism (in the sense that small government cannot effectively handle military security).

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Also, I guess Thomas Friedman could be considered liberal or conservative, depending on the issue under discussion. Maybe I should classify him as moderate? Heh.

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"I don't tend to post in the heat of the moment and I avoid kerfuffles, so I rarely regret posting."

Sigh. Very very wise. I unfortunately do the opposite 50% of the time so often find myself deleting. I'm emotional writer - as in I have written to handle or deal with emotions, and a bit of a venter. This has pros and cons. Sometimes it results in lovely poetic posts, others in embarrassing outbursts that I later regret and pray people excuse.

"anti-intellectualism in America horrifies me"

Me too. Although I'm not sure it is completely anti-intellectual - there are a few intellectuals of a William S. Buckley bent that support McCain, for much the same reason Buckley support Bush Sr and Barry Goldwater. I vehemently disagree with their views partly because I'm a pacisifist and believe that 80% of the time war and violence leads to horrible things - as the last three-four major armed conflicts we've engaged in have proven. But, I can appreciate other pov - even if it makes my blood pressure sky-rocket to hear it.

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Oh, I agree intellectualism isn't limited to liberals, for sure. I didn't contexturalize that comment very well. The conservatives I listed in my post are certainly intellectuals. I was bitching about more of a general trend in American citizenry and media and politics, a constant dumbing-down of discussion and entertainment, a pride in simpleness and shallowness, working class parents who hope to see their kids go to school, but then consider college grads to be "elite and out-of-touch". It's not a new trend, either. I keep meaning to read the classic by Richard Hofstadter, "Anti-intellectualism in American Life". I recently read Susan Jacoby's "Age of American Unreason" and found it fascinating.

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spacedoutlooney.livejournal.com

I'm unaffiliated. I don't believe in labeling my beliefs or in belonging to groups that form based on belief. At the moment however, Bush Republicans scare the shit out of me, and I more or less support the positions that the Democrats are taking.

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