Second Captains

Gbear wrote: »

It's exactly about false equivalence - the idea that all ideas are equally valid.
There's a broad swathe of ideas in question that are pertaining to science and hard fact or more broadly about statistics and the misrepresentation thereof.

Whether it's the rapeocaust engulfing Sweden, the made up statistics about employment in the USA or the overreach in interpreting sexual dimorphism, you often see invalid arguments being presented in a way to invite discussion on an empirical basis and it's fair game to not air every opinion for those, as it is in my examples.



The point here is that we didn't need an alt-righter or conspiracy theorist loon to add anything to the discussion. Having some beliefs that aren't nonsense isn't good enough.

Ms. Nagle was at pains to be even-handed, talking about the post-modernist type logical pitfalls made by the left and addressing the issue that there are legitimate concerns to be had which are driving some to the alt-right, Trump, or what have you, but that some on the left are happy to ignore if it means their "team" doesn't lose ground.

Of course there is balance required in political discourse when discussing difficult subjects, but in this case it's not nitpicking in the middle ground but looking at one extremist position that, as was pointed out, shares a disturbing amount of common ground with the sort of Islamofascist movements that it's supposed to be combating.

It wasn't a podcast about nuanced political opinions but of a particular brand of insanity that deserves the same short shrift that pseudoscience would get on a science podcast.

Gbear wrote: »

As I said, Ms Nagle was perfectly happy to concede that some on the left have abdicated their responsibility to logic and the issues you've raised above are important, but in an ideal situation everyone would be pointing at the left as being the lunatics for ignoring it from a position that's both morally and rationally stable.
It should be something like "you allowed your obsession with protecting minorities to shield bad individuals and their behaviours. Let's not let that happen again with some rational and measured policy".
What we're getting is more along the lines of "that means we should deport all Muslims".

Instead some have just legged it in the opposite direction to the left, as if in an attempt to outcrazy them. It's an explanation of what's happened but it doesn't even remotely excuse the insanity.

This is a podcast where reasonable people with reasonable beliefs are discussing an ideology that's flat out mental.
They're not discussing opponents with reasonable beliefs - nuances about 5% taxation here or there, prison sentences going up or down 10% or what have you - what you'd expect in a functional democracy.