Americans now more politically polarized on climate change than ever before

Yeah, but what call ye reasonable? I mean, fifty bucks a fifth?

Hudson Baby.

Beyond that, I don't know what to tell you; I met Maker's Mark right at the end of its cork era, and suddenly bourbon was more than just okay with me. (Dickel 12, I think, was what we were using before.) But I'm not much for whiskeys as a regular drink. They have their place in my Universe, and I revere them when they serve their purpose.

Oh, hey, I guess I can tell you Bulleit. I'm always surprised when I drink that stuff; you'd think I'd learn. Oh, right, I'm getting old.

 

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Locally, we have bulleit rye(there's a bottle on this desk)(well, 4/5 of a bottle anyway)

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Dickel 12 held the price line longer than anyone else, but it's part of my past now.

At one time, Highland Park Scotch 12 was selling for less than the price of Jack Daniels regular - all the other single malts had doubled or tripled. And I did not, - as my alert reason told me I should, immediately - stock up.

 

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Well, now I'm going back to my pole. Rye - blegh! I used to like Jamieson's Irish when I could drink hard liquor.

Seriously, though, most polarization on matters of fact is manufactured: both the issue and the data, deliberately distorted by parties with an economic and/or political stake in one or another reaction from from the public. And people tend to believe the sources they've learned, at some impressionable period, to trust. Of course, those sources may since have been taken over by different, less honest, managers, and be operated for the benefit of interests we don't even know are behind the information.
The only way to avoid this would be a strong, independent communications network. The scientific knowledge is out there, eager to be heard; the journalistic competence to collect and present the information is still available - it just needs an accessible platform.
Not likely to happen, is it?

 

Jamieson's Irish
Yeh, me too

 

Father Blackie Ryan in the Andrew Greeley novels used it to help him ponder, and priests know their booze, so I figured, wth. He was right. Johnny Walker is ok, too.

 

Don't be shy: these parties are not anonymous, unfamiliar. We know who's doing this, we know how, and we know why.

Also: "polarization" is not really the right word for the situation in which the facts are at one "pole", and the distortions etc at the other "pole". Reality is not a "pole".

 

Reality does have a well-known liberal bias. And you can't trust anything with a bias.

 

Not everything in the world is about Democrats and Republicans. Not everything in the world is about American politics.
But, yes, by and large, on this particular issue, the positions are pretty clear and so are the tactics. Yet, so many people don't seem to know which is what.
So, I'm still holding out for a free, well-informed, impartial press. ... holding... turning red...
... purple... blue...

 

I'm going to take a sentence in order to pick on the Australians, just because, but otherwise my point is about Americans, because while Australian liberal and conservative tends to defy pretty much everyone else, we Americans discard the rest of the world in this context; historical considerations of liberal and conservative are exactly irrelevant to our society.

What am I supposed to tell you? #NotAllAmericans? #JustNotMe?

Whatever.

Either Iceaura or the late Billy T tried reminding me that Sen. Sanders wasn't being extraordinarily leftist or socialistic in his platform; indeed, he was rather quite conservative as socialism goes. But that's the thing. Consider how conservative our radically liberal Democratic Party is compared to the rest of the history of liberalism and conservatism.

In a more worldly politic, the question of conservative and liberal has to do with preserving established order, and to that end, yes, the positions are pretty clear.

As to the press, it is not so easy to testify to the rest of the world, but part of the American heritage of the Fourth Estate has to do with the idea of enacting deliberate partiality as a demonstration of impartiality. As we're making the joke about reality, yes, it's true, when reality beats up our conservative political outlook too badly, the press plays the role of white knight.

Donald Trump, for instance, hasn't begun to endure the proper scrutiny of the press.

I pulled a punch the other day, in a blog post; I refused to call Colin Powell a traitor.

I know, it sounds really weird to put it that way, doesn't it? But here's how it works: We're all on the same team, and the reason Powell doesn't remember the conversation with Clinton is that nobody would except that now it's a really important point. I know people who do the same thing; they genuinely don't remember a conversation they had with me, and circumstance dictates that the conversation is much more important to me in the moment that the question arises than it is to them. But he also chose to play into the political rhetoric, complaining of Hillary Clinton trying to pin it on him. But if the press treated these politicians the same, they would be hounding Secretary Powell on this point. Really, it's more believable that they had this conversation than not; he's playing to a disruptive political maneuver that hurts the United States. We're all supposed to be on the same team, in the end―i.e., America. But Colin Powell has chosen something else, the advancement of Donald Trump's attack against American values and the U.S. Constitution. Secretary Powell undertook a specific oath to defend the United States from enemies foreign and domestic; as I understand it from the military personnel I know, that oath does not expire when they retire, yet here we have General Powell giving aid and comfort to an effective enemy domestic.

But, yeah, I pulled a punch and nobody seems to have a problem with Secretary Powell giving favors to political allies who contributed to his private foundation.

The press is a fucking joke.

Reality makes Republicans look really fucking awful these days; it has for a long time. And in order to be "fair", the press has deliberately tanked story after story.

It wasn't actually what we normally consider in this political range, and it's also true that I loathe local television news, but ... okay, honestly, you're not going to believe this.

Dateline, November, 2014↱, Riverside, California: A local mechanic hand-wrote a note on a receipt that the customer was "to stupid to understand normal thinking"; yes, Skitt is in effect.

It was never entirely clear what the insult meant, though it had something to do with "keeping oil clean". The mechanic didn't explain, but merely stood by his opionion of the customer.

But insofar as the garage owner wrote this note on the receipt that he gave the customer, CBS Los Angeles Inland Empire reporter Crystal Cruz explained, "Tonight we’ll let you decide who’s in the right or the wrong."

There is no measure by which the answer to the question of right and wrong is uncertain. The only real question is what upset George Fritts enough to write that on Reuben Rodriguez's receipt.

Honestly, I remember running that story by every gearhead I knew, because it was funny, and not a single one has any clue what the bit about keeping oil clean is supposed to mean unless the garage owner was upset that the guy didn't pay out extra for an unnecessary additive.

I mean, I heard some jokes about customer dude's sister, who may or may not be real, but ... right. There you go.

And Crystal Cruz explained, "Yes, this rude receipt, sort of gone viral. The customer posted it on social media, has gotten a lot of mixed responses regarding this receipt. Tonight we’ll let you decide who’s in the right or the wrong."

The press can't figure this shit out. The press can't stop writing stories about how there's nothing illegal or unusual in this or that but it's Hillary Clinton so it must be scandalous.

No, seriously, by what measure do we expect the press ....

Oh, right. Something about not everything yadda yadda Americans.

Phuck.

 

But this thread is. And polarization is not the right word for a conflict between reality and delusion, information and deception.

 

All right. As an outsider, I had refrained from party name-calling and made a more general statement on polarization. The above twice-quoted sentence was a response to iceura's :

However, I stand by the generalization, and can relate it quite well to the American information-scape I've witnessed over the past half century.
It's not just environmental degradation or wealth distribution that suffered this change; it's all topics of public discourse.

Older people, who grew up with newscasters and correspondents of skill and integrity, tend to be in the habit of believing what they hear on the evening public affairs broadcast, or weekly news-magazine program; tend to believe what they read in their long-accustomed daily paper. They tend not to be aware of the changes which took place, little by little, in vocabulary, in tone, in attitude and priorities. They know the news isn't what it used to be, but can't define the exact words and phrases that have changed meaning in the last 10 years, the last thirty years. They unconsciously assume those same attitudes in their own conversation, though, if pressed, they might not be able to defend the position or explain why they've taken it.
Younger people get their information from quite different sources, but those sources are, by and large, no more reliable. They have their accustomed sites, and Google, or some other helpful robot, steers them in the same direction they're already going; offers them sources similar to the ones with which they are already familiar, each reinforcing the belief held. They don't even question the meaning of words or underlying assumptions of the position they've unwittingly taken.
To the extent that this is true of old and young, it is also true of left and right, male and female, theist and atheist, conservative and liberal (which is not synonymous with left and right), technophobe and technophile, iconoclast and conformist.
Both, of course, will bristle at a challenge; both will defend their convictions. And never communicate directly one with the other.

 

Tiassa:
I would have guessed that "keeping the oil clean" meant replacing the oil filter when replacing the oil.

 

Why in Reason's sweet name would the news media, or anybody, take an interest, let alone sides, in a matter so petty as one yahoo calling another stupid, on whatever trivial subject?

 

But it's not equivalently true of all those different sorts. In particular, it's not equivalently true of the current divisions of "conservative" and "liberal", or "Republican" and "Democrat", or (to bring up a centrally and overwhelmingly significant division in the US that seems to be continually underestimated by foreigners) "white" and "black".

To point to an obvious illustration: there is no left, or liberal, or Democratic, or non-white, or even female, - in your terms above (what's true of the old and young, etc) - version of the mass of deception and dishonesty and slander and bullshit and misrepresentation and fact-omission and so forth

the "pole" mentioned above, in the "polarization"

presented every month, every week, every day, every hour, for the past twenty five years

by the rightwing, "conservative" (self-described), Republican, white, male dominated, and enormously influential, corporate mass media in the US.

The equivalent "liberal etc" pole does not exist, and never has. Nothing like it exists.

Of course one can find many examples, here and there, of misrepresentation and deception and slander and bullshit on the part of some "liberal" of "Democrat" or whatever, somewhere at some time - and these are what is matched by equivalent flaws among "conservatives" or "Republicans". We are all human. But to use that comparatively trivial circumstance to justify a blanket generalization of the US media and political scene is delusional.

 

I know that. I was generalizing about the population; that they seem largely unaware of how their attitudes have been, and are, manipulated. The Entire language has been debased. People don't seem to know the meaning of words anymore.

Let me guess - two solitudes?

That's accurate, unfortunately . Books, the odd movie, a few comedians... are just telling the truth.

I've done exactly what the 'good' media do, haven't I? I tried to be fair by failing to call a spade a bloody shovel. Have we progressives all got Stockholm syndrome?
I'll have to walk around all of tomorrow with a paper bag over my head. Where to find one that big? Ah, the liquor store! (May I cut eye-holes?)

 

Nope
You may as well be as blind as everyone else.

 

Part of me wants to inquire, "As opposed to what?"

But it occurs to me that I think I've heard a story like that before.

I mentioned oil filters in my blog version; apparently I was inclined against that notion. Unfortunately, the video is no longer with the story, so ... I don't know, I can't check for what I might have missed.

But, still, the garage owner could have won the argument if that was the case simply by making the point. And why would a reporter withhold that from the six o'clock broadcast just to tease the late run?

In the end, the problem is a matter of format; she wasn't "reporting" the way we might think of it within Jeeves'↑ model; rather, she was "reporting" according to the business model. You're supposed to tease like that, and this time it just didn't make sense. But they do it because reporting the news is not the first function of a television news reporter. The first function of a television news reporter is to make money for the television station. The stylistic flourishes like tease and brand reinforcement ("network exclusive", "breaking news", market names for news stories such as Snowmageddon) are all there for the moneymaking part. One of the interesting problems with going about it that way, of course, is that nobody actually knows what doesn't work.

Still, though, withholding reportage as part of the tease would be extraordinary.

Seriously, though, remember the bit with hurricanes? It's like, yeah, Stone Phillips making the point about the air raid warnings is, at the very least, arguable. But sending reporters out to stand in a fucking hurricane for no good journalistic reason at all is one of the best characterizations of television news in general we might find in these United States.

Attending Jeeves' consideration, I'm uncertain how many television news viewers actually grasp how shitty the reporting and presentation have gotten, but ... okay, I'm torn over the question of whether I digress or not.

Because part of me just comes 'round to point out that if the media can't figure out the right and wrong of a stupid story like the Riverside receipt, the hope of a free, well-informed, impartial press becomes ever more challenging.

And, probably, urgent.

Oh, right: If the media can't figure out the Riverside receipt, it probably ought avoid climate change.

That's why I was on about the Inland Empire. And, no, it's no better a joke now that I've remembered it again.

 

And to emphasize - not to contradict, in general, but to clarify - that fraction of the population that one might characterize as intellectually "liberal" or "left" or whatever has been whinging on about exactly that, in awareness and with attention, for decades now. It's a major focus of analysis, a central matter of common and detailed discussion, almost a conventional wisdom, within that faction of the population. It's not "people" who don't know the meanings of words - although it's far too many people.

 

Smoking is bad for you, is being sold as a causal fact, and not a statistical correlation. The hypothetical example you showed disproves that smoking is bad for 100% of the people; causal relationship; not all the data touches the curve being sold.

A more realistic and rational way to present the impact of smoking is; smoking is not good for many people, and can lead to all types of health problems and even death, for some people. However, there are exceptions to this smoking rule of thumb. We have many documented cases of smoking having little impact on some people, such as the guy who smoked two packs a day and lived to 100. We can go hypothetical and say he would have lived to 200 if he did not smoke, but that is not hard data.

The bottom line is, the medical sciences are not advanced enough to the tell who is who. Therefore, we need to err on the side of protecting the vulnerable from themselves. It is unfortunate, but we will need to bully the healthy people, who do not deserve to be scapegoats.

If you took the number of people who died of cigarettes, which is in the millions, and divide by all people who ever smoked a cigarette, which is in the billions, the number is less than 1.0. It should not be sold as 1.0.

There is a liberal tendency to reduce everyone to the lowest common denominator. If one child is allergic to peanut butter, all students have to pretend to be allergic and not bring peanut butter to school o touch it at home, even though this rule does not apply to them. This is justified due to feelings of paranoia and caring. This approach is due to the state of the art in medicine unable to determine true limits for each person.

Man-made climate warming change, or whatever is the marketing today, dependents on computer models to predict, which are rarely reliable. This is similar to medicine unable to tell vulnerable from the invulnerable. It also depends on the liberal vulnerably of letting feeling override thought. In this case, the feeling is fear. Like with smoking it does not matter is exception occur; computer model fails to predict. They will rationalize their fear, and assume appeasing the fear justifies the means. This is the political divide. It is a battle between feeling and reason, with reason better able to see limitations.