I tuned into C-SPAN on Friday night and caught part of a panel discussion hosted by Arianna Huffington. One of the panelists was Weekly Standard reporter Stephen Hayes, who is perhaps best known for advancing the bogus theory that Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda were in cahoots.
And oddly enough, the discussion turned to misleading political advertising, and the efforts to factcheck such political lying–an effort that Hayes cheered:
HUFFINGTON: What else can the media do, Steve?
HAYES: I think one of the upsides to the proliferation of information sources is that you can go to places and find out whether an ad is truthful or not. I mean, you certainly–whether it’s Politifact or whether it’s local reporters who have teamed up with national media outlets that are fact checking these things almost on a real-time basis.
Ultimately as a believer in free markets,I think if you put out good information that follows bad, if you can identify blatantly misleading political ads, and call them on it, Ithink that people will learn that it doesn’t pay to run those kinds of ads.
Hayes went on to say:
But I do believe that if you provide people with good information, provide them with places to get that good information, they will ultimately use it.
I guess Hayes thinks some people should be factchecked.
Peter, it might be interesting to hear Mr. Hayes’ views on net neutrality, since many of those “places to get that good information” – such as this here site – will get shunted over to the rutted roads far from The Information Superhighway if the principle goes belly up, as I imagine, being a true believer in “free markets”, he has no problem with megacorps like Verizon and Google making as much money as they can possibly squeeze out of the situation.
What do you think?
Aww- don’t be so rough on him. I betcha he was just doing what he was told.
Wow! What a crawling little toady. “Ultimately as a believer in free markets . . . ” Say what? What is this chump talking about? There it all is, the Libertarian insanity laid out–by a jabbering reactionary liar and first-rate fraud–all is nothing, nothing matters except making money, and it’s perfectly all right, even desirable, to fuck anyone over at any time for a piece of the action. It “doesn’t pay”? It only matters if it “pays” or not–it can be illegal, murderous, horribly destructive, anti-democratic, frightfully immoral, and so what? Where’s mine?
Hayes, in fact, couldn’t care less about facts, or fact-checking. Clearly he’s just mouthing words that mean nothing to him–it’s just something you do when you appear, as a celebrity of sorts, on some show where you must seem to be cerebral, in some minimally inoffensive way. Haye’s “performance” (that is what it was) on Huffington’s show perfectly illustrates how the life of the mind, the intellect as something used to discover what really matters, and what’s truly of import, has been totally corrupted and co-opted by idiot libertarian nonsense (‘free markets”) and utterly self-serving debasement. This implicates Huffington too (“What else can the media do, Steve?”), and all the other “liberals” who take seriously (pretend or otherwise) jackals like Hayes. Isn’t it past time to call out these liars and frauds for what they are? Why do racist clowns like Pat Buchanan appear as “friends of the show” on places like the Ed Schultz Show? Why is Newt Gingrich taken seriously? How has it come to pass that Gingrich appeared on a “panel” with Al Sharpton to discuss what’s to be done with public education? What is, or was, Sharpton thinking, or for that matter, what was President Obama thinking? Very, very bad, and sure to get worse.
Tim some of us believe that Free market means “not owned and operated by the government’.Individual freedoms over the collective.No-one ever promised you a rose garden.There are many draw backs to being free of government interference and rule.You are good at listing those differences that lead to inequality.We are after all born equal in theory in this country.We are NOT promised an equal outcome.
What system Tim would you espouse?What theory of government would you feel is the best for us to live with?You call yourself a liberal but as you point out above there are different definitions of even that word.I know what you hate(and the list is long).What do you embrace?
I guess it’s time to privatize and deregulate everything for our friend Mikey. Lets start with selling off Fire Stations to the highest bidder. Then we could all sign up for fire insurance from our local Fire company and they would come and put out our fires. Poorer communities wouldn’t have to pay for all of those classes that fire companies send their fire fighters to if they couldn’t afford to. Wealthy communities could pay more and get more services (like EMT) and they would pass their used equipment on down to the less prosperous ones as they get better and better technonogy. This could pose a problem eventually as there are going to be a lot more poor communities than wealthy ones. If one belonged to a poor community and couldn’t afford even the poorer Fire Station’s rates, they might be able to get service from their local station on an availability basis at a reduced rate, or one further away that would respond if they had nothing else to do. (of course they could leave with the fire half out if they had a higher paying customer to respond to). Some may choose to have the equivalent of a Medical savings account for fire protection, and if they never need the thousands that would be charged for a call they could pocket the money. They would have to have the money held in an escrow account before the fire Station would respond, or pay in cash or approved credit card upon arrival. Of course, as the fire station would have to make a profit, they would have to do some cost cutting and maybe downsizing. They could make extra money by standing on street corners with their boots in their hands for themselves instead of for charities. The station owner could save more money by having the workers supply their own equipment and clothing, lower wages, no bennies etc. I’m sure this wouldn’t affect the quality of the service that the station would provide, at least for the more affluent communities. The local water company (privatized) would negotiate a price per gallon to keep the hydrants pressurized and could cut off supply if the local station failed to make timely payments. The city or county could take the money they make from the sale of all the stations and lower property taxes even more than the savings they would reap from not having to fund the Fire Department. The cost of insurace could be spread evenly among the customers so that each property owner would spend the same amount regardless of the size of their property of the number of structures on it. that’s only fair. WOW! I can hardly wait to get started on the Police Department. And that’s just the local Government savings. Wait ’till we get going on the Defense Dept., the Transportation Dept., Highways and all the rest. It’ll be a beautifull thing if you live in a gated community….. until you have to leave.
Nellevad
Fun bit of speculation there.Your core value that all privately owned(privatized)entities will result in the erosion of our human value system is nonsense.We started as a citizen army.Fire companies were once people helping people put out fires.This country is good at its core.Your distrust of that”goodness”without the ruling hand of an iron fisted government elect is…..troubling.You forget who you are.You forget who WE are.The constitution lays down what government should do(military for instance).Ben franklin embodied the first fire companies.Free rein water acts go back to that time ,and were later fought for by our government in the plains states.Government does little well.The little it does….we must demand it does very well.THE LITTLE IT DOES!!!
I guess Michael E. and others arguing that privitation would not lead to errosion of public standards didn’t see the recent story about the Fire fighters that watched a fire in a yard spread and consume a house in Tennessee?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/10/06/2010-10-06_firefighters_let_house_burn_in_rural_tennessee_because_homeowner_didnt_pay_75_fe.html?r=news
Mr. Hayes’s argument that if good info is out there people will use it is utter bullsh*t. The vast majority of people make their decisions based upon 30 second television ads. To argue anythng other than that is to deny reality and poll after poll. The vast majority of voters have consistenly polled their dislike of negative advertising, yet it continues to be hugely successful at the polling staion. That’s why campaigns still do it.
I understand the free speech portion that upholds the right of a candidate to say virtually anything they want, but we need balance – perhaps a % added to the ad that indicates how much of what the candidate said is true. Coke and McDonald’s are required to tell the truth about the products they are selling, why would we stand for anything less than in the type of representation and goverment we are being sold?
Hell the President just through totally unfounded mud at the commerce dept.He wont apologize.Wont come clean.He out and out lied.So lets go straight to the head of the class for the worst offender of all…OBAMA!
Sorry for the” through”…. threw is what I meant.Disagree with your attitude that people are basically dumb animals.Again they were smart when they elected Obama.Now that they are throwing he and his regime out they are idiots?And by the way the private sector does almost everything better than the government..period.It has always been so,and always will be.Our government is not equipped under our constitution to do more than what is allowed.And that scope is narrow.And Im glad you understand free speech.Sounds like you grudgingly understand it.And no- we will not have any government empowered forces picking and choosing what is truth,and tacking it onto campain releases..During Obamas election you all chose to believe his massive lies though you knew them to be lies.We conservatives had to swallow that.If you believe what you wrote TODD I will expect you at the polls helping to throw Obama out.Or do you see a different truth?
What you describe, nellevad, is what the libertarians, their like-minded drones in Congess, and various back-sliders and ignorant fools want for us all. Regarding that fire business in Tenessee, Todd D., I heard a fellow on the Stefanie Miller show actually defend the fire department’s costly experiment whereby one must pay up front for fire “protection,” like bookies paying the mob. So, not having been paid a “service fee,” those amoral clowns watched the house burn down, immolating the home-owner’s pets. Instead of doing the rational, modern thing by using something called taxation, those yokels (whoever it was, whether the city council or the fire protection distrct) decided to run what might be called the Ayn Rand play. All modern nation-states that have a future understand that destroying or emasculating their governments is suicide for their people, and their democracies.
Of course, we are already seeing firefighters, school-children, various relief and aid-givers standing in the streets begging for money. On any given day, one sees this. This is the libertarian mode and mind creeping it’s way into normal life–first capture the government, steal it blind, wreck it by placing incompetent jack-asses at the helm, and then point at the wreckage and say, “See, we told ya govmint’s no good.” The above-mentioned begging in the streets, one would think, might convince many that something’s not quite right, but no. There was a time when libertarianism and it’s various off-shoots wasn’t taken seriously; indeed, it was considered the province of the greedy, the dumb, and the morally low. Everyone recognized (almost everyone) that reptiles like the Koch boys just were projecting their totalitarian, capitalist-lunatic ideas onto a lame-ass political project of some selfish, third-rate thinkers and hacks. Without fail, libertarianism helps immensely the very rich, while it puts the fuckin’ horn into virtually everyone else. Nihilism, and money-insanity, are no way to run (or perhaps I should say wreck) a government.
That having been said, nellevad and Todd Downing, have you checked out Thomas Frank’s latest, “The Wrecking Crew”? It captures perfectly the insanity that currently posesses Washington–how conservatives are wrecking the government, on purpose, whilst looting the Treasury. Funny, sad, and outrageous.
“Your core value that all privately owned(privatized)entities will result in the erosion of our human value system is nonsense.” That’s not a value of mine, Mikey, but an opinion, baised in the historical record. I spent a bit of time on another blog presenting that history (which you called a well written story or something to that effect). It’s very well understood by any serious student, which you clearly are not. As an example of how you have just enough information to draw rediculous conclusions from too few facts, witness your comments about fire fighters. ” Fire companies were once people helping people put out fires.” you said. In small, rural, unincorporated communities this is the only option available and works as well as it can, no more than that. At some point in our history, however, even the great new country of America developed cities, where people work and live in communities and specialize in doing something that others need so you get a division os labor. There are fires Homes, and even blocks burn down. Private fire departments are part of the specialization and people pay a fee to have their home and property on a list to protect. there is competition in the fire station industry. something like what I discribed above was actually the case in the 18th century in America. if one was insured by Station A and had a fire, and Station A’s wagons were already elswhere, Station B wouldn’t respond. tough nougies. sound familiar? You were correct that Ben Franklin (a great uncle of mine), started the idea of municipal Fire Departments. It was to correct this very inequity. He, and Thomas Jefferson became of the opinion that some things were so important to everyone that they should become part of the “Commons” and the costs and upkeep for them should be spread among the population. Fire protection and Police protection are local concerns and therefor part of local governments. Many other parts of the commons are of local, State and even National concern: National protection=DOD; need for an educated electorate= dept of Education (I know, you don’t believe in it, but I’d just as soon there wern’t so many citizens that still want to be able to piss off the back porch at will like they still owned 40 acres behind the farmhouse.); Transportation; Health (I don’t want sick folk everywhere); Agriculture; and the list goes on and on. Private Enterprise can play an important part of many of these but there is an honest-to-god NEED for some centralized organization (Government works for me. afterall, in a democracy it is us, unless you don’t think it’s to your liking and then you start talking “tree of Liberty Pruning” and sh*t like that). Too many today love the sound of “Freedom” and “Liberty” and all of the “me” parts of the Declaration of Independence, the Constituton, and the Bill of Rights, but they aren’t so keen on the “We” thing. When I presented the mini history of the reasons for the Labor movement, you passed of off a prose but made no effort to counter a single fact presented. As usual, you “know” how things should be and completly ignore all facts to the contrary. You don’t need facts, your mind is already perfectly aligned with universal truth. You think we are about to have another 1994 moment like Newt’s “Contract on America”. We shall see. If we are, and if your vision of the future comes to pass, a Democratic Republic will be lost in the process. It is not a co-incidence that the first and largest middle class in the world occurred at the same time as the strongest regulations regarding corporate behavior and worker safety, child labor, women’s rights, product safety and consumer protection, and important beginnings in environmental protection. All of this at the same time as some of the highest marginal tax rates in America’s histiory. Further, this same period saw the longest perriod in industrial history of low unemployment and, for the most part, low inflation. And a ton of people got really rich during this time as well! (well, not rich like “today” rich. Merely filthy rich).
Congratulations on hiding that history from the American working people and pushing the right buttons to keep them preoccupied with minutia while you and your leaders have systematically picked America’s pockets, off-shored their jobs, replaced their remaining jobs with immigrants to lower wages (while lining your pockets with extra profits from the cheap labor and now blaming it on Obama) and skipping town with the profits. No wonder you love America so much. there’s so much freedom here to “take advantage”.
Mikey says: “And by the way the private sector does almost everything better than the government..period.It has always been so,and always will be.” Bull Puckey! Im getting Social Security and Medicare (even though I still pay into it hansomly at the same time, ’cause I’m an entrapreneurrr). My medical ins. is less than half of what it was and the benefits are just as good or better and I had the best insurance I could get for my company AND our few employees. Full medical, Dental and Eye. I personally don’t think any Business should be providing medical care to it’s employees. I’d rather see a single payer system like the right says Canadians hate but no-one can find anyone in Canada to agree with them. but if that’s the only way to get Group Insurance (even with Obamacare) then that’s what I’ve done (for over 20 years). this and a SEP retirement plan much more than offsets a slightly lower than average wage (though higher than the non-union standard without ins. and SEP) and they are protected against loosing everything if they get really sick. one of my painters got his wisdome teeth taken out last week and he wouldn’t have been able to afford it without the ins. In the 50’s in Seattle people who went swimming in Lake Washington started coming down with Polio because sewage was going directly into the lake. Citizens formed Metro, a government ajency that cleaned up the lake, then the sound, then turned to busses, now trains. It works great! There’s lots that government does well. But as Tim says, and is in the Wrecking Crew, the Repugnicans love to defund programs and then say “See, Government doesn’t work”. government is US. Most of the problems with government today are caused intentionally. Just more fun and games for profit. Only in America do we have such people.