SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
From the I've-heard-enough-and-won't-take-it-anymore department, http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39024648
The BBC reports that former Congressman Rush Holt, now part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), is the spokesman for a movement "standing up for science".
His remarks reflect growing concern among researchers that science is disregarded by President Trump.
Scientists across the US plan to march in DC on 22 April.
[...] "To see young scientists, older scientists, the general public speaking up for the idea of science. We are going to work with our members and affiliated organisations to see that this march for science is a success."
Mr Holt made his comments at the AAAS annual meting in Boston as President Trump appointed a fierce critic of the Environmental Protection Agency as its head. Scott Pruitt has spent years fighting the role and reach of the EPA.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday February 21 2017, @11:23PM
A 1D line is plenty explanatory. It's a mix of liberty and rule. Liberty is individual freedom and rule is restraint. Social conservatism is just another part of rule as it demands conformity. To me, I don't see how you can be anti-authoritarian yet promote social conservatism as is the case with libertarianism. You can't desire individual liberty while simultaneously rejecting social liberalism, social justice and ultimately, change. You either have liberty and evolve or you don't and you die. A libertarian is simply a conservative who wishes they could be more openly liberal (sorry libertarians). Though in reality, the few people I have met who claim to be libertarians are democrats who don't want to admit they are democrats among conservatives. As for the left-anarchist, anarchy is the definition of selfish extremism which includes lawlessness and eschews the altruistic goals of the left. An anarchist follows no laws and therefor respects no other man but himself. Again, that can't exist. I haven't met any true anarchists because everyone believes in some form of cooperation which implies some rule is necessary to keep the peace. Even the drifter punk I met who doesn't pay taxes and lived on peoples couches or park benches respected the law to an extent that he was not completely lawless (e.g. he didn't steal and worked for his money).
I look at it like this: a single axis with a person on each end. To the extreme left is an individual devoid of rule, an anarchist. To the extreme right is an individual who is the rule, a tyrant. Both only care for themselves. The middle is a person who has both liberty and is ruled evenly. Moving left from center the individual is granted more liberty and distributes rule among more people until you have anarchism where each individual is their own rule. To the right the individual is granted less liberty and rule is concentrated to fewer people until we reach the individual ruler, the tyrant. More ideally, you want to be just left of center and have more liberty and distributed rule, aka a democracy. This benefits the people and ensures that the rule will favor the people. Of course it also establishes boundaries such as basic law and a justice system. It is also a compromise between more extreme liberties (bordering lawlessness) and rule where there has to be some sort of control and organization.
The USA was founded left of center in contrast to the far right rule of the monarchy. This is free thinking liberalism in action. But it wasn't perfect. We had to make amendments and modify our laws and constitution as the liberal thinkers fought to fix the ills of society. We freed the slaves, gave women the right to vote, equal rights for all peoples, and marriage for the gays (to name a few). And we still have a long way to go as rule and its tools have sought to subvert liberty in favor of rule.
The problem is both the dems and the reps have both gone over the middle line to the right. Both seek more rule thanks to the corruption of capitalism which itself is a far right concept (rule through money and economics). This is why corporations have more power then the people and lobby for favorable laws. This is why we have corruption. This is why we have widespread surveillance. This is why we fight wars for oil. This is why our social programs are under attack. This is also why we have insane arguments over gun laws and conspiracies. This is why we have people pushing christian agendas into law. This is why women are denied the right to abortions. The ruling peoples have sought to subvert the people for decades in order to gain more control over them. They have unfortunately done a great job by demonizing liberalism, the very foundation of this country and its freedoms. It's time we recognized that liberalism is the true salvation of America. And not the demonized mess it has become but true free thinkers who made America great by advocating for change from the revolutionary war right up to today's fight for social justice and against the true establishment, the greedy, power hungry peoples of America.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @12:44AM
To the extreme left is an individual devoid of rule, an anarchist
First, Anarchy is not "without rules"; it's "without RULERS".
Anarchy is moving the making of rules as close as possible to those most affected by those rules.
Anarchy is NOT synonymous with "chaos"--as so many have been led to believe.
Next, your rotation of the political palate by 90 degrees from the standard notation [politicalcompass.org] isn't doing anyone any favors in understanding things.
The USA was founded left of center
In your twisted model, that would be "without rule".
That's nonsense.
USA was set up with a wealthy ruling class writing the rulebook (the founding documents).
You don't have to look very hard in those to see the celebration of Plantation Capitalism where a tiny few benefit and everyone else is subordinate; in some cases, people are even property of the landed gentry.
both the dems and the reps have both gone over the [here, had you used standard nomenclature, you would have said the horizontal center line].
I don't think that the majority of either of those parties was EVER on the other side of that line.
...well, maybe The Party of Lincoln when they got the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments passed.
...though there are exception in those that give me pause e.g. no slave labor except in prisons--which Jim Crow took advantage of bigtime.
Both seek more rule thanks to the corruption of capitalism which itself is a far right concept (rule through money and economics)
No. According to your twisted model that would make Capitalism a **governmental** form instead of an economic form.
While those who embrace Capitalism often are -also- Authoritarian, your attempt to turn the political palate into a 1-dimension thing is a horrible, confusing notion.
Lamestream Media pulls this crap continually and some folks buy into their bogus 1-dimensional Left/Right terminology.
It appears that you are repeating their swill.
I suggest that you view Corporate Media with a jaundiced eye.
They are all too often trying to confuse you.
In this case, it appears that they have succeeded.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @01:19PM
The political scale is relative so, in the public's mind, the Democrats are "left" and the Republicans are "right". Simplifying things in this way enables both parties to become more authoritarian without the public really noticing as there is still their team "left" or "right" to vote for. Saying there is no difference between Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney or Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, and Barack Obama just perpetuates more problems and allows the political spectrum to keep drifting to the upper right.