Paradox SuXcess said:
Sunny and hot at the end of October? That's grea... Oh wait it's raining
Boy oh boy I don't have the energy anymore for this. On one channel, "Ebola will wipe out humanity for good". On other channel, "ISIS will wipe out humanity and all non muslims". Then another news channel has "Everyone you may or may not know is a pedophile. It could even be YOU!!!" and another new outlet will have. "These black, Hispanic, Jewish, communist, socialist, Stalin loving, Reagan hating, liberal person, is here illegally, taking our jewbs and sleeping with our fertile women. ITS WRONG" (I have no idea where I went with that one). I've just had enough.
No I am not going to bury my head in the sand but new outlets today, is just draining my energy. Time to go outside and breath the fresh air? Did that and have been doing that a lot recently and I feel great. However when I get back to news information, its never really anything positive. How do people do it? Do do they consumer news programmes for hours each day and not go madly insane and hide in their homes because going outside will kill them.
To be honest, what am I fed up of? Unbiased reporting? Yeah. Victim blaming? Yes. Use of fear to manipulate audience? Sure. "Experts" telling us to do this and do that and don't actually speak for the people but for the companies they represent. Unless its the US where companies are people. Stupid shit. Just doom and gloom and its sad.
So what do you all at the Escapist think? Am I bad for being fed up of the news? How do you feel about the structure of the news today and how do you handle it.
Sounds to me that you just don't want to face the problems, which as I understand things is becoming increasingly uncomfortable for a lot of people who have largely grown up with sheltered, liberal, ideals through the 1990s and new Millenium. As a general rule the media tends to lean pretty far to the left, except for Fox, but even some of the most rabid news networks are beginning to have to face a certain degree of reality. You'll find stuff written all about it, as well as something being called "the culture war" (of which Gamersgate is a facet) if you look.
That said you do seem to be listening to some unusually alarmist sources if that's a literal description of what your hearing. As a general rule it breaks down something like this, with various spins in either direction:
1. When it comes to Ebola we're dealing with a massive outbreak. The cause of the disease largely comes from conditions in Africa, Ebola and similar viruses aren't a general problem in other parts of the world where low-tech overpopulation isn't an issue and sanitation/personal hygiene are a lot better. Ebola has been a well known disease for a very long time, and has actually inspired a lot of "pandemic" thrillers over the years. Famous stories like "The Hot Zone" dealt with a mutating disease like the new strain beginning as a pot boil and eventually expanding to threaten humanity.
Right now most discussion on the subject basically comes down to not continually making the mistakes that took place in that version of speculative fiction. Basically the issue is one about bringing people into the US and first world with Ebola, and the morality of large-scale quarantines. The fact that we've brought people back to the first world and had containment breaches is pretty much exactly how a lot of these stories start, with the virus then mutating to spread in the new environment.
There is also a side discussion about the moral duty of the first world to cure the disease, and what good it would do given the ability of diseases like Ebola to adapt since it's likely any cure or treatment would be rendered irrelevant shortly thereafter. We're talking billions of dollars in research largely for the benefit for second and third world countries suffering from their own self-imposed problems, and who will demand the vaccine and constant adaptive research without contributing much of anything to it's development or the distribution infrastructure. At the extreme (outside of mainstream news) you have people pushing not just for more hardcore international quarantines, but to let the disease spread to deal with some of the overpopulation problems (for the level of technology) at the core of problems throughout Africa and to force cultural adaption in terms of lifestyles to combat it. The basic idea being that a plague is basically nature's way of dealing with a problem. At the more extreme of course is the idea that we pretty much start burning down Africa but that's not even practical to begin with and tends to involve crackpots who have other agendas.
Basically, it's a potential threat, and raises a lot of practical vs. humanitarian questions which are all the more profound when you consider it's largely being laid at the feet of the US, and the US is trillions of dollars in debt. In a practical sense, do we borrow money to sponsor research, simply to give to the UN and other countries? It's not strictly speaking a matter of being generous at this point.
2. When it comes to pedos and general issues of safety, that's largely a matter of out of control liberalism (and not me talking smack here) basically in being socially liberal the idea is to leave everyone alone until they are caught actually doing something that hurts someone else. Combined with of course rendering the police and law enforcement relatively powerless to check people out, profile, or behave proactively. This means we allow weirdoes to roam the streets more or less freely, while the authorities can't do anything about it until they have already hurt someone. This pretty much engenders paranoia. This has created an ironic environment where say someone will loudly speak out against profiling and using sociology in law enforcement, and lionize people who are innocent (or claim to have been) who were targeted simply for looking or acting the wrong way (being suspicious) or hanging around areas where they don't belong even if technically not illegal, at the same time these same people will lock their doors, not let their kids outside, and talk about how crazy the world has gotten. There is a connection. There is a certain irony in people who act like wanting to revert somewhat to the 1950s (the days of our grandparents, "The Greatest Generation") is anathema, but at the same time complain about public safety and point out all the problems.
With pedophilles in particular it becomes a touchy subject because of legislation that has made it so you can't act against someone for sexual orientation. Knowing someone is a pedo, or suspecting and wanting them checked out, doesn't matter, unless they are actually caught molesting a child or with kiddie porn (which can be hard to find) there isn't a lot you can do about it. Those older dudes watching the kids at the park with unusual intensity, or watching them swim at the Y or whatever, perhaps waiting for an opportunity (or not having the actual guts to act, until one suddenly does)? Nothing you can do about them.... hence more societal paranoia. Kids can't go to the playgrounds by themselves anymore as a result.
Of course there is also a culture war issue here as well, especially in terms of how we want to define "Pedo". You have the ultra moralists of course against regular folks, against the liberals. When you get to teenagers is where the topic becomes touchy since after all, we were all teens at one point, and we were all randy. We all probably read all kinds of sex stuff (especially with the allure of the forbidden) and so on. It's perfectly natural and you can't control it, though it leads to problems like teen pregnancy and the like. One major debate in society of course is whether to push for abstinence or sexual responsibility and distribute condoms and stuff in school (I favor the latter approach).
The thing is though that just because you get older you don't really stop being attracted to young, attractive, members of whatever gender your into. Relationships between adults and teens however are doomed for failure due to different emotions, levels of maturity, and expectations, as a result there is an age of consent. The laws exist because without them, you'd pretty much have a lot more broken homes, and emotional wreckage, not because only diseased people are attracted to teens. The term "Jailbait" exists for a reason, and one might also remember that someone obviously drew all those sexed up comic book characters and stuff you liked as a kid (to some it only becomes creepy later), not to mention the recurring popularity of teen experience movies, usually revolving around sexual antics and relationships (American Pie, Porky's etc...). Of course you find a lot of people who increasingly try and attack people as being "pedos" when really a pedo should be (and I believe is properly) defined as someone who is attracted to pre-sexual humans. That said the attraction aside, adults need to keep their hands off of teenagers (but when it comes to teens with other teens, I think society needs to lighten up, as it is part of growing up and learning about life).... at any rate you see battles about this constantly, especially nowadays with moralists getting bigger platforms than ever before. Your say seeing people go after comic artists because they might draw popular super heroines in lingerie or swimsuits (I remember the old Marvel Swimsuit issues fondly from when I was a lot younger as well).
3. When it comes to illegal immigrants there are a lot of issues involved. To be blunt though I think people need to just flat out stop mincing words, the issue is with Latinos coming into the country from south of the border. Other illegals are not present in enough numbers to represent the same kinds of problems and don't have the same history.
There is a lot there, and a lot of it comes down to where you are in the country. For example if your well away from the border states the impact is minimal for you, so you don't have to deal with the problems the same way. It becomes mostly an academic argument, and one that ivory tower liberals can easily make humanitarian arguments about devoid of the repercussions.
To be blunt most illegals coming into the country this way are doing it to flee poverty, and they have no real employable skills. They thus wind up becoming criminals and dregs of society, exceptions exist, but this is the general rule. When it comes to low end jobs and such, this easily available labor means that the people providing them avoid the pressure of becoming more competitive, since they can thus hire people who will live on the fringes of society as opposed to regular folks who demand a living wage. What's more, a lot of the jobs these guys compete for are things like contracting, you wind up with tons of Latinos for example hanging out outside places like Home Depot looking to hire out for projects, which creates a mess, but also means you wind up with a lot of shady people doing substandard work or taking the money and running, not to mention that when they do work properly they are in many cases cutting into the action of unions and certified contractors who pay a lot of money for their licenses and such.
These illegals also put pressure on the infrastructure and social services, especially when they are required to be provided. If it's not in your back yard, you don't care as much about a bunch of people who don't pay taxes putting wear and tear on your roads, or the risks involved in being hit by people driving uninsured vehicles.
There are a lot of other reasons as well, but there is also the issue of culture and history. See the US isn't even 300 years old yet, and the US fought border skirmishes, and even actual wars, to hold territory against Mexico. If your not from the border states you don't "get" this, but to people in those border states they do, being told they have to let the Mexicans in to live is kind of an insult. To a lot of people "Remember The Alamo" is just a historical footnote, mostly cool because of who died there, to others it has other meaning and still remains fairly relevant due to what that doomed battle symbolized and what came afterwards. Basically to let Mexicans into the country, especially the areas where they will settle, you need the people in these states to come around on their own to acceptance, you start forcing people to accept what could be considered a multi-generational enemy right then and there and it's a problem. The whole "Latin Pride" thing also doesn't help much either, when you have battles over the right to show the US flag in US schools on foreign holidays for fear of violence (and this is with LEGAL immigrants). Sure some states still fly the stars and bars, right alongside more traditional flags, but at the same time it can be argued that is part of American culture, and some states like Texas in particular have the right (they were never actually defeated, and even now it's a big matter of historical conjecture as to whether the US could have taken Texas back if Texas insisted on remaining independent rather than being talked down).
Basically the immigration issue is an example of problems with the Democratic philosophy and people are noticing the cracks. The US is supposed to be independent states that largely self govern, as the people in each specific area know what they want in that area and what is best for it. When some guy who has never lived in an area stats telling people who have lived there for generations what to do in their back yard that causes problems, especially when the guys making these proclaimations from on high might not have to deal with the problems. With illegal immigration you see part of the divide based on simple location (not just principle of the US being able to control it's borders). Arizona, Texas, etc... are the states who should arguably have the say on the security of the southern border, especially seeing as it's the people of those states who have spent generations defending it.
One of the reasons your seeing some waffling on social issues is because close to 15 states are in defiance of the US government in one way or another. Those paying attention for example notice that in Texas the governor sent the National Guard to secure the border in defiance of The President. This was immediately countered with him being attacked for the methods he used to try and get a drunken democrat out of office (which was admittedly dubious). That kind of thing is not a healthy sign, and I think a lot of people are realizing that there is a point at which some of the states are likely to just flat out say "no". A lot of attention was being paid to Scotland wanting to leavie the UK not long ago (though it decided to stay) specifically because it's seen as similar to some things we might be facing in the US soon over a large number of issues, illegal immigration is one of them. To put it into perspective, let's say Obama does what some people think he will and immediately legalizes millions of latinos, and then the border states where a lot of these people are simply refuse to recognize it and start throwing them out without federal authority anyway... that's not going to be a good thing. Consider also that The National Guard in Texas (and to a lesser extent Arizona) have already made it clear they are going to back the Governor as opposed to their commander in chief, and there are even divides in the actual military about what might happen in such a situation (a lot of bases are more likely to go with their state, rather than federal authority).
At any rate, that break down may or may not help you feel better. At the end of the day though ignoring it won't make it go away. Not anything I'm going to really discuss or argue, but I've been hearing a lot of this recently.
Oh and in closing, it might all be for nothing as well. Part of the waffling is also because there will be elections soon and the GOP is forecast as getting control of The Senate, which means really bad things for Obama, including a possible impeachment (though that could just be trash talking). Now, as someone who is a long time Republican I'll say I'm not holding my breath for this victory, as the GOP is infamous for falling apart when it makes these kinds of predictions, and honestly I'm not entirely sure of it's ability to get much done even with Senate control, it's easier to talk smack about what your going to do, than make it happen. That said given the forecasts I think the media is also trying to play a little less leftward because it knows that if it's seen as being totally hostile and the GOP takes over and actually DOES start cleaning house, it's going to be in an awkward place. If Obama gets impeached for example, most things that would do it, would also probably involve treason charges not being far behind, and probably the sinking ship USS Obama throwing other leftists under the bus left and right to try and save itself, and the media doesn't want to be seen as backing a losing horse if domestic nastiness breaks out.... but again, I wouldn't hold your breath, it's just them being cautious, I will be surprised if the GOP doesn't suddenly face all these razors edge upsets and stuff at the last second, or turn out to have been over-stating it's position. If that doesn't happen it will be almost unprecedented in my experience as I said (and again... this is in regards to my own party).
