Linky Links

[purplecat]

deborah | Information literacy: No, Trump did not craft White House policy that "women dress like women"

I said in my last link roundup that I was finding it very difficult to judge which of Trump's actions were genuinely exceptional and worrying and which were business as normal for a Republication President. This kind of thing is part of the problem. There are far too many people in my filter bubble that share stuff like this without due diligence even while complaining about fake news in almost the same breath.

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Did Neil Gorsuch Found a High School 'Fascism Forever' Club? : snopes.com

No.

More of the same.

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Yes, I know the Trump administration are telling mind-boggling whoppers, but where I tend to hang out on the Internet those get shredded in minutes while this kind of stuff slips through.

Comments

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I wish more people would realise that it is possible in politics for there to be more than two possible opinions. That it is, for example, possible to disapprove of Mr Trump's policies and also disapprove of, say, the Berkeley rioters.

I also wish more people would realise that it is possible in politics to agree with a politician on some policies and disagree on others.

Much internet comment on recent American politics seems to me to breach rules 1, 2, 3 (that's your point above I think), 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 21, 29, 30, 34, 35 (especially 35), 36, 51 and 55 (especially also 55). That's a lot.
http://philmophlegm.livejournal.com/223846.html

[purplecat]

Well I don't agree with all your rules. Or at least, I do agree depending upon interpetation? For instance I consider myself a left-leaning liberal - sometimes a situation would seem to require a compromise between the two (for instance while there are numerous problems with the Welfare state I do believe it is important to have a safety net of some kind and that relying on localism and charity to provide such a safety net is insufficient particularly since the safety net is generally more expensive in areas with fewer resources) - I don't think such compromises mean I can't describe myself as liberal.

My views on 32 are very complex. I believe positive discrimination is an incredibly blunt tool with many serious problems (including that, as it says on the tin, it discriminates and not on the basis of ability), but unconscious bias is a real phenomena as is a tendency for cliques of various kinds to self-reinforce by only recruiting from the same pool and sometimes a blunt tool is the only one you've got (or the least bad of those on offer). I don't think in and of itself it is automatically morally wrong - though I don't think you can deploy it morally without thinking long and hard about what alternatives there may be and being certain that there isn't a better way to achieve your end.