wrote: Democracy is the second to last stage, and it is marked by a wide diversification of consensus.

Well, that is not where we are. Much of the population believes exactly as Fox news tells them to. And most of the rest follow a somewhat less extreme model.

It does put time-wasting stupidity on display, but I doubt that there is any more stupidity than before. Probably there is less; it really is possible to learn a lot.

It is interesting that Glenn is shown once near the beginning, once near the end. I think the story says:

Bloggers are not always those rabid pajama-clad unshaven derelicts (foaming at the mouth) that you have heard about. Sometimes they almost sound reasonable. But still they are wrong about this: here are the real facts. Now listen to him again. See? He is wrong. And we are fair and balanced.

It would be interesting to do a psychological profile of Fox viewers.

I think you are making too much out of this. Fox news is just a continuation of the kind of social interactions that happen in high school, implemented remotely and indirectly.

wrote:I don't know, Glenn. I watched the video clip you posted and I don't see a problem. In fact, I'd say that, perhaps for the first time in its un-distinguished history, FOX has actually produced a segment on a controversial topic that was indeed "fair and balanced."

But it was not. It was the story they do from time to time to appear "fair and balanced". They chose this story to do that way because Glenn did such a good job of repeating his main point that there was not a lot else they could do. What comes between his two brief appearances is lies intended to help the viewer feel both open-minded and well-informed, yes, part of the "in crowd" of right-thinking Americans.

I hated high school..

I wondered if that comparison might have some personal meaning. You are in a better place now!

This view is more fun: space-time is just a mental model, though a very accurate one within its range of applicability. But reality cannot be represented within such a model, and "local" is a concept bound to that model. "alocal" would be better than "non-local."

I have not been able to listen to the whole thing, and I do not want to. After listening to most of it (they are talking about the election.), I am appalled, and I have had enough. How can two well-educated highly motivated intellectuals sound so clueless?

Just one thing that struck me: I hear that preventative detention might be OK because we would only be locking up the bad guys. Can they not see that this is not what happened, and it is not what would happen if we were to do it again?

Glenn, if they comment on your post, they will sound very unhappy; they will say you have demonized them. But the fantasies they discuss! How can they be so stuck in their own worlds?

Your primitive (non-)morality confuses me. Why is is wrong to destroy the few cells that form a primitive brainless dependent entity a few moments after conception? How about quite a bit later (but well short of birth)? Why is it OK to start an offensive war and kill 10^5 or so people? Is it OK to kill a steer? Why?

but Glenn's comment there is far more interesting. I doubt that is is worth commenting any further on Drezner's response.

I guess I must be one of them, maybe the most humorless. But I sure do not see anything funny about destroying lives, especially just because, well, we have the power to do it, and 9-11 means only left wing nut cases will complain. Perhaps I just fail to understand how non-scientific academia works, but I am still appalled by the attitude D and C displayed in that video, even after reading their replies and getting perhaps a better idea of what they believe. If torture does not cause more concern than they show, then to me they are just sub-human, dried husks of intelligence emitting toxic dust.

I have just finished reading John LeCarre's A Most Wanted Man. His writing has been my companion for about forty-five years, but especially since the end of the cold war, when his topics have turned towards to the effect of the only superpower on the rest of the world. This latest novel is about European domestic surveillance in response to the threat of terrorism of mid-east origin. It deals with the rights of individuals, the possibility of extraordinary rendition, and other topics familiar to readers of UT. Throughout most of this novel, the American agency is just a shadow in the background, but one that motivates much of the action. There is, it seems no possible explanation for why the Americans do as they do, they are just a dark force that spawns smaller dark forces throughout the world.

It is this question "Why?", that is most apparent in Glenn's post today, more implicit in those of the last two. Thus, we see that history is so different from the study of current events. Does anybody really have any idea what is going on? How long will it be before the motivating forces can be understood?

A hundred percent of American politicians are 100% pro-Israel because 100% of them cater to a base that includes fanatically pro-Israel elements: in the case of the left, it's American Jews; for the right, it's evangelicals who think the survival of Israel is integral to the coming of the rapture (I'm not making this up).

I do not think that those bases are large enough to do it, but certainly they help. You have to look for something much better organized and financed. Even then "100%" is hard to understand.

Members of congress take no risk by supporting Israel, because those 70% simply don't care.

How do you change "should take no side" into "simply do not care"?