State of the Union & Pew Research Poll

In a Pew Research Poll conducted right after President Obama’s first State of the Union speech it was found that 98% of all Republicans didn’t watch the speech. The same percentage of Republicans polled also indicated that they disagreed with the president’s speech.

That pretty much sums up the Right's approach to partisan politics.

 

I watched every second of it.
His delivery was smooth (and rather arrogant & antagonistic), just as expected so the BO minions who are still blinded by the cult of personality got what they wanted.
I thought the direct attack on the Supreme Court justices was out of line & aggressive to the point of a conflict with seperation of powers. I was also disappointed that he only mentioned the cost of college tuition for about 2 seconds. If the pain is to be shared equally the universities & colleges should participate, afterall they remain the single most profitable enterprise in the country...but you won't ever hear that because these same institutions are the recruiting & training meccas for liberal idealogues.
I was also surprised he is still campaigning for his "cap & tax" proposal.
Overall, I doubt many people left with any new support or disdain for BO. He still blames Bush for everything & expects credit for things that have not happened.

 

The red highlighted comments are the only ones that are worth responding to. The rest is just mindless brain leakage.

I really can't figure out where you get your information from. Anyone familar with higher education knows the dire fiscal straights institutions of higher learning are facing accross the board these days. Just today there is a story online stating that colleges and universities are suffering huge declines in endowments. http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20100128/US.College.Endowments/ Please read. Here in Illinois, we are suffering through furlows, huge wage reductions, slashed benefits which weren't all that good in the first place, hiring freezes, travel restrictions, no raises in years, no money whatsoever from the state which is obligated to fund less than 25% of the higher education budget, and sky rocketing tuition just to stay afloat.

I have to say, and don't take this personally, but your knowledge seems more in line with right wing talking points than actual facts. If you really want to have people respect your opinion, research your comments a little better.

 

Did you even read the link you posted?
From your link: "But as with many schools, the last decade has been good to Duke's endowment as a whole — its average annualized returns have been 10 percent, Schoenfeld said.

"It was certainly not catastrophic to the university's aspirations," he said."

Endowments ebb & flow with the economy but they are on the rise now. In your link there is even a call for the schools to spend the money they are taking in & sitting on. What did it say, the schools are only spending about 4% of their endowments? What about the tuition they take in? Book money? Athletics? Get real, would you?
You acuse me on spewing talking points? My "knowledge" dispelled your "link". Perhaps you are the one who should try thinking for a moment.

 

The fact that I work in higher education and see the effects of this bad economy, decreased state financial support, elimination of student grants, declining enrollments, and a multitude of other financial pressures on institutions all across the country and have spent the better part of my life dedicated to education, I think that we are going to have to go with my knowledge of this situation. Athletics is a money loser in the vast majority of institutions. Books are expensive but it is the publishers that make the killing not the colleges. You clearly don't know of which you speak and yet you defend your position in spite of the egg on your face. My respect for your opinion is nil.

BTW The original post was just a joke. No PEW Research poll ever indicated those percentages. Nice catch though...

 

So the truth is more likely that I struck a nerve by suggesting the bastions of liberal thought should share equally in the pain? Your initial post was a lie, huh? The link you posted, your "proof", obviously backfired so I have no crediibilty with you now, huh? Typical....have you meet tomc yet? Both of your posting styles follow the same pattern...spew, spew, spew then, when confronted with the facts begin hurling insults.
Nice.

 

I can assure you that no nerve of mine has been struck. My initial post was an obvious joke which went right over your head. I've presented a current link to a pertinent topic and presented facts about higher education from an informed source...ME. You have presented nothing other than your opinion and called it "fact".

Have you met Midas? He says "Typical" a lot too. Typical is double-speak for "I have a preconceived opinion of you and those who believe as you do and nothing you can say or present will change that preconception". That one word is the epitome of those with the inability to learn. You, like Midas, get off on the argument rather than trying to learn something because you feel that you already know everything. To me, it seems like you stopped learning a long time ago. Arguing for the sake of arguing holds no interest for me especially when the other guy comes to the argument so ill-equipped for the task. If you have nothing more to say, I’ll move along.

Feel free to dance around the room and pat yourself on the back if you wish. One more person has just lost interest in your opinions David.

 

Oh, please stop your whining.
I too am a product of higher education (state university for under-grad, private school for post-grad) so maybe we're equally qualified to speak on the subject, huh?
You know exactly what I mean when I state that our colleges & universities are the wealthiest enterprises in the country...and you know it to be a fact. Perhaps, since you are still directly invested in higher education your opinion on the matter is a bit skewed?
And yes, despite what you may say (or even realize), you are very typical of the extreme left so bent on changing this country for the benefit of a few power hungry elitists.

 

In this day and age, the State Of The Union is just a political commercial. There are no surprises in them, nothing that comes of them and no one is really more informed for having watched it.

I did try to watch it but I




just couldn't seem





to make it through




his



stopping and



starting speech




cadence.

As usual.

 

I enjoyed the double speak and spin associated with defending the bank bailout. This was a carefully thought out, 3 step process.

Step 1: He started out the point by identifying with every single person in America and getting on their side (like he always likes to do), showing complete disdain for it!

Step 2: Then, he wraps them all up in a package by associating dems and republicans as having shared responsibility for the bill, so as to spread out the aimed anger as much as possible.

Step 3: After agreeing with the public, he turns around and defends it. Then states how necessary the bailout was and what would have happened if it hadn't been passed. "Unemployment would be much worse than it is now if they had done nothing." " 2 million Americans are still employed because they passed the bank bailout." How exactly would you come up with this figure? How could it be calculated?

IMO, this was a falsehood and scare tactics. I think we would have just lost some major banks (by their own stupidity) and some corporate scum bags would have ended up at the food pantry if they hadn't done anything. FDIC has spent over 54 billion dollars on banks failing since 2008 anyway. What's a few more?

But what I get a kick out of is that Brian Williams on NBC, right before the speech started admitted that " Everyone realizes the unemployment numbers are MUCH higher than the official figures...."

B.O.s hanging onto the 10% smokescreen figure. While everyone else knows that it's more like 17 to 22% in the real world. So yes. It is much worse than 10% out there, even after the bank bailout has happened.

Then he goes on to say that the banks have paid back most of it!! How will we ever know? Who knows what was or wasn't paid back or what kind of backroom deals were made so that the elite can get their bonuses again without govt. oversight? All water under the bridge now. Just have to let it go.

 

Cool. All we have to do is wait till the next Presidential election...it'll all be water under the bridge by then, rendering it irrelevant.
Scare tactics? Like the ones employed during the RNC's convention showing the films of 911 on their bigscreen?
The right should certainly recognize scare tactics when they see them.

 

Argument by Laziness (Argument by Uninformed Opinion):
The arguer hasn't bothered to learn anything about the topic. He nevertheless has an opinion, and will be insulted if his opinion is not treated with respect. For example, someone looked at a picture on a web page, and made a complaint which showed that he hadn't even skimmed through the words on the page. When this was pointed out, he replied that it shouldn't have been such a confusing picture.

 

Why is that liberals like Moen argue like hyenas circling a wounded lion. They will nip and slash when you are not looking, until you finally succumb...well...it's not going to happen.

Whether he attacks me for using the word "typical" or brings up that I was divorced 11 years ago is how people like Moen debate. They take a "shot" no differantly as Hamas firing rockets at civilian centers in Israel then quickly hide behind pathetic liberal crys of "fairness!" and "equality!"

I had no idea I would be mentioned in this debate so it is like knocking your legs out from under you as you turn to face each new liberal assailant...or hyena!

Here comes the "nips"...bite and run!

 

Hey! You found a way to insert Muslims into this topic too. Who could have seen that coming?

Don't get too excited you old wounded lion. When the same old dismissive word came up that you frequent so often, I couldn't resist making the comparison. To say anything is just "typical" says far more about the individual saying it than it does about the behavior being labeled. It's a laziness that denotes the lack of ability of the user to see the richness, the variability, and the diverseness in others. It is much more intellectually lazy to pigeonhole people rather than consider the broader characteristics that are part of us all. I'm not saying everyone displays this behavior but at the same time I certainly recognize it for what it is when I see it.

Like I said, I don't get off on arguing for arguing sake nor do I wish to indulge those that do.

 

Given the chance to do what is right, why is it liberals like Moen will consistently choose otherwise.

Maybe they do so because they adopt a worldview that is based on "what feels good." Let's hold hands and the government will provide for us. Oh goody! Problems are solved!

They follow impulses instead of moral standards of what is right versus wrong. And they seem to cheer for our terrorist enemies instead of our allies. Which when you think of it seems to be a defining characteristic of someone who has lost their mind.

Why is it that liberals look to themselves in power and want/demand more and more government where OTHER people pay for their socialist programs? Shoot...the top 50% of all wage earners already PAY 98% of all taxes while the bottom 40% pays nothing...ZERO...ZIP in federal taxes! How much more do you want Moen? 60, 70, 80, 90, 100% of our wages? We already have most households where both parents are working...one for the normal bills and one to pay the taxes just to keep up.

From the taking of our money that we work hard to earn and use to provide for our loved ones - to the direct communication, sympathy, and willingness to give the benefit of the doubt to those who wish to kill us - liberals are hell bent attempting to construct a society that few of us should wish to live in. Should they be left to their own devices they will rig the system to their own benefit and only the voices of "We the People" are able to stop them. That is what you saw even in Massachuesetts of all places!! Enough is enough!

Liberals are almost always wrong, on nearly everything...whether it be national defense, taxes, fiscal policy...and to not recognize it accelerates your own, painful, and dramatic destruction.

So when I see the same crap from Liberals who believe that taxes are not enough and government knows best what to do with YOUR money...yes, "typical" is the right word because we see it all of the time from the liberal movement.

 

I would say that ending a debate with insults when you are proven wrong is the height of "laziness".

 

The fallacy of Division is committed when a person infers that what is true of a whole must also be true of its constituents and justification for that inference is not provided.

There are two main variants of the general fallacy of Division:

The first type of fallacy of Division is committed when 1) a person reasons that what is true of the whole must also be true of the parts and 2) the person fails to justify that inference with the required degree of evidence. More formally, the "reasoning" follows this sort of pattern:


The whole, X, has properties A, B, C, etc.
Therefore the parts of X have properties A, B, C, etc.
That this line of reasoning is fallacious is made clear by the following case: 4 is an even number. 1 and 3 are parts of 4. Therefore 1 and 3 are even.

It should be noted that it is not always fallacious to draw a conclusion about the parts of a whole based on the properties of the whole. As long as adequate evidence is provided in the argument, the the reasoning can be acceptable. For example, the human body is made out of matter and it is reasonable to infer from this that the parts that make up the human body are also made out of matter. This is because there is no reason to believe that the body is made up of non-material parts that somehow form matter when they get together.

The second version of the fallacy of division is committed when a person 1) draws a conclusion about the properties of indvidual members of a class or group based on the collective properties of the class or group and 2) there is not enough justification for the conclusion. More formally, the line of "reasoning" is as follows:

As a collective, Group or class X has properties A, B, C, etc.
Therefore the individual members of group or class X have properties A, B, C, etc.
That this sort of reasoning is fallacious can be easily shown by the following: It is true that athletes, taken as a group, are football players, track runners, swimmers, tennis players, long jumpers, pole vaulters and such. But it would be fallacious to infer that each individual athlets is a football player, a track runner, a swimmer, a tennis player, a swimmer, etc.

It should be noted that it is not always fallacious to draw a conclusion about an individual based on what is true of the class he/she/it belongs to. If the inference is backed by evidence, then the reasoning can be fine. For example, it is not fallacious to infer that Bill the Siamese cat is a mammal from the fact that all cats are mammals. In this case, what is true of the class is also true of each individual member.

Examples of Division

"The ball is blue, therefore the atoms that make it up are also blue."

"A living cell is organic material, so the chemicals making up the cell must also be organic material."

"Bill lives in a large building, so his apartment must be large."

"Sodium chloride (table salt) may be safely eaten. Therefore its constituent elements, sodium and chloride, may be safely eaten."

"Americans use much more electricity than Africans do. So Bill, who lives in primitive cabin in Maine, uses more electricity than Nelson, who lives in a modern house in South Africa. "

"Men receive more higher education than women. Therefore Dr. Jane Smart has less higher education than Mr. Bill Buffoon. "

"Minorities get paid less than 'whites' in America. Therefore, the black CEO of a multi-billion dollar company gets paid less than the white janitor who cleans his office."

Imagine having to argue without committing a fallacy for a change. Then we'd really have a debate here eh?

 

If I can correct this mischaracterization, you began to call me names and I ended the "debate" at that point and told you so. Its all here for the reading but don't let the fact that we can all go back and read the sequences of posts affect the way you remember them. Heaven forbid.

 

Stop your whining & grow up, won't you?
It was you who hurled the first insults & began the name calling. It was you who made an assertation that your own link couldn't support- in fact it contradicted your contention entirely, so please do not focus your anger towards me...you should be upset at yourself for entering the debate so ill-informed! It was you who chose to disengage from the topic being discussed when you encountered an opposite view that you could not and can not dispel.

 

I can't imagine why anyone would want to "disengage" certain individuals