Law prof Jonathan Turley explains:
“Objectivity Has Got To Go”: News Leaders Call for the End of Objective Journalism”
We have been discussing the rise of advocacy journalism and the rejection of objectivity in journalism schools. Writers, editors, commentators, and academics have embraced rising calls for censorship and speech controls, including President-elect Joe Biden and his key advisers. This movement includes academics rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open advocacy.
Columbia Journalism Dean and New Yorker writer Steve Coll decried how the First Amendment right to freedom of speech was being “weaponized” to protect disinformation. In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Stanford journalism professor, Ted Glasser, insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.” Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.” – February 1, 2023
If social juicest — as understood by the professor — is in conflict with objectivity, perhaps it is also in conflict with reality.
But now, will objectivity come to be seen as a constraint in science too? If so, trust will deteriorate too.
Public trust in media is way down: See Polls: Trust in mainstream U.S. media still in free fall:
A Canadian commentator has noticed a little-publicized fact about last week’s New York Times–Siena College poll of 792 registered voters. While the poll focused on the US mid-term elections next month, the information about how typical voters view mainstream media was most revealing. A majority not only don’t trust media but see them as a threat to democracy: … Media have come a long way since 1969 when an archived poll showed that Americans had strong trust in the press. – October 20, 2022
Perhaps the critical question isn’t whether traditional media are trusted but whether their model can even survive the tsunami of the internet.
You may also wish to read: In Big Tech World: the journalist as censor, hit man, and snitch. Glenn Greenwald looks at a disturbing trend in media toward misrepresentation as well as censorship.
Model? What model? Advertising dollars and getting more eyeballs is the goal. The internet is 90% junk. Unless someone knows where to go, and how to evaluate the information for credibility, the internet has generally muddied the waters.
The ideal should be to strive for objectivity in news reporting alongside freedom to advocate for whatever causes one is passionate about in opinion pieces.
Sev, there are other considerations also, duties to respect truth, innocent reputation [and wider duties to neighbour], honestly acquired property [including intellectual property], protection of especially minors from tainting or grooming opening up exploitation and abuse, responsible national security, and more. Striving for objectivity reflects duties to truth, right reason, warrant and wider prudence, also. KF
Relatd, those issues show the importance of education in first principles, including those of logic and in first duties as reasoning is morally governed. KF
Seversky states, “The ideal should be to strive for objectivity in news reporting alongside freedom to advocate for whatever causes one is passionate about in opinion pieces.”
LOL, Seversky, you do realize that your Darwinian worldview can support none of those things do you not?
As to “objectivity in news”, or ‘objectivity’ in anything else for that matter,,,
,,, Seversky, exactly how is an ‘objective fact’ suppose to be established within your Darwinian worldview in the first place?,, especially when Darwinists themselves hold that our perceptions, and/or beliefs, about reality are unreliable?
And Seversky, as to “reporting alongside freedom to advocate for whatever (social/moral) causes one is passionate about in opinion pieces.”
Exactly how are ‘freedom’ and social/moral ’causes’ to be grounded within your Darwinian worldview Seversky?
Within Darwinism you simply are a meat robot with no more control over whatever moral causes you may choose to advocate for than a leaf blowing in the wind has control over the trajectory of its fall.
Moreover, the altruistic morality that drives the ‘passion’ behind these social causes is itself antithetical to the ‘let the weakest die’ morality that is the ‘one general law’ of Darwinian evolution. (In fact, Darwinism is ‘systemically racist’ , and it is even biased against women, at its core)
Shoot, to see the ‘systemic racism’ that is built into the core of Darwin’s theory, you have to go no further than a natural history museum.
Specifically, the ‘artistic reconstructions’ in natural history museums are overtly racist in their portrayal of how humans supposedly evolved from some ape-like creature.
Of related note to these ‘systemically racist’ portrayals of human evolution,,,, there turns out to be far less ‘hard science’ behind the racist ‘artistic reconstructions’ for Human evolution than is believed by the general public.
So thus in conclusion Seversky, you may claim that, “The ideal should be to strive for objectivity in news reporting alongside freedom to advocate for whatever causes one is passionate about in opinion pieces”, but the fact of the matter is that your Darwinian worldview can’t ground any of those things. i.e. You have your epistemological feet planted firmly in mid-air!
In fact, your Darwinian worldview is actually antithetical to social causes in general, and is especially antithetical to social causes that are based on race and sex.
In short Seversky, If you want any of those things that you mentioned to be objectively true for your life, then you ought to become a Christian.
An essay by Nicholas Wade on the origins of the C19 virus. Don’t recommend purchasing because it costs $15.
https://www.encounterbooks.com/authors/nicholas-wade/
But it’s about news control of science.
An interview on Substack about the essay with Wade.
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/nicholas-wade-on-the-lab-leak-covid
An article about this topic.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/02/where-covid-came-from.php
Maybe UD will someday discuss Wade’s book “A Troublesome Inheritance” for its implications.
True, but inevitable. There was never really an alternative.
Relatd writes:
Translation: anything I disagree with is useless but anything I agree with is credible.
I don’t think that is at all fair. The problem of online misinformation is quite well-known.
But no one has any idea about what to do about it, because any attempt to curb or control or filter the proliferation of lies, omissions, half-truths, bullshit, distortions, and outright propaganda would be countered with accusations of “censorship” or limitations of “free speech”.
That’s not to say that freedom of speech and objective truth are necessarily opposed — after all, the best argument in favor of freedom of speech is that unconstrained dialogue is conducive to discovering objective truth.
But as long as there’s money to be made in proliferating bullshit, omissions, and lies, then truth doesn’t stand a chance.
(Aside: the “translation” gimmick is offensively passive-aggressive, and it’s always disingenuous.)
FP & PM1, first, language, given the broken window theory. Coarse language simply invites lawless behaviour. Next, opinion has nothing to do with objectivity, which is a matter of warrant adequate to credibly hold that a given claim, perception, argument etc is not merely a matter of someone’s error prone subjectivity (of which bias is a part). Loaded language, hostile tone, obvious fallacies of projection and personalisation, half truths and the like are fairly strong indications of a less than objective view. As for the misinformation problem, a good test is to ask your evaluation of say Wikipedia’s article on ID vs that of New World Encyclopedia. For cause, the former is notorious. A second, is, what is truth and what is objective truth, thence, what is knowledge. On that point, are there objective moral truths? Truths that are self evident, on pain of immediate absurdity on attempted denial? And more. KF
Jerry, sadly, $15 is cheap these days. KF
Fair enough, but neither is free of bias. It should not be a surprise to anyone that an online encyclopedia originated by Sun Myung Moon will be friendlier to ID than a crowdsourced project that draws on a wide variety of perspectives.
I’m always game to discuss epistemology, but I doubt that solving the epistemological problems that have vexed philosophers for millennia (assuming we could!) would be either necessary or sufficient for addressing the problem of online misinformation.
PM1 writes:
Then I suggest that you bring it up with the commenter who has frequently used it in this site.
Kairosfocus/3
As you say, objective reporting entails the considerations you list above but, nonetheless we can hold it up as an ideal to be striven for even if it is almost impossible to achieve.
Jerry/6
That may be Wade’s view but what makes you think it is any more credible than, say, the following?
I find it funny that there is criticism of something no one has read.
Wade’s theory has been discussed on UD before. C19 virus structure is one in 10^10000+ possibilities. So likely man made.
Aside: Seversky is getting like other UD commentators with long comment when he believes he has something. Nature of his comments and others show it is political beliefs that drive content of comments.
ID represents truth while anti ID represents emotional unjustified beliefs.
The argument for the allowing the greatest latitude in freedom of speech is that over time lies, hate speech, offensive speech and disinformation will be exposed and discredited for what they are and winnowed out of the public discourse. The weakness with that argument is that it assumes that the majority are concerned with discovering the truth as far as it is possible.
If, on the other hand, there are large numbers who are convinced they are already in possession of all the truth there is to be had in their cozy “bubble chamber” so anything else must be false and can safely be ignored, then that disinformation filtration process will not work. We see that in both in the case of religions and political ideologies. Not surprisingly, people prefer the certainties of those belief systems over the uncertainties that are offered as an alternative.
Verse:
“if all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
— On Liberty (1859) JS Mill
Seversky at 14,
News flash. There are standards. Standards in journalism. You don’t know what you’re talking about. These standards have been achieved. So quit you’re anarchist whining.
Related 18
What standards?
Vivid
Related 18
“These standards have been achieved.”
By who?
Seversky, since you are always bashing Christianity’s influence on society, this recent interview with historian Tom Holland may interest you.
Stephen Meyer also recently participated in an interview with Tom Holland
Seversky at 17,
Have you done ANY actual research? Any at all? Or are these musings from the latest episode of Life in Seversky-Land?
You have zero historical knowledge. And another thing – “Disinformation” is a fake word. People lie. They were lying before the internet. And there are people who don’t bother with the internet. So lies are spread on the internet. Fake ideas are spread on the internet. There are still worthwhile and credible sources of information but, for too many, the internet has taught them to be lazy. ‘I’ll read a 5 minute article on wikipedia.’ Yeah, and then what? You’re an expert now? You can have a reasonable conversation about whatever it is?
Before the internet, people lied. Realize that. They haven’t stopped lying or being prejudiced. “Exposing” lies on the internet automatically stops them? According to who? You? It’s obvious that the lies and falsehoods have not been stopped by anyone. The majority do want the truth. But the majority don’t know where to go or who to talk to to get it. So, some filter out the falsehoods and lies. They ignore large sections of the internet because what is there is false or useless. Some think “If I put up a website, people will flock to it.” Not if it’s full of junk.
Here’s where you go off the rails Seversky:
“Not surprisingly, people prefer the certainties of those belief systems over the uncertainties that are offered as an alternative.”
Is that how you live? You actually want uncertainty? From your doctor, your bank and everywhere else? You’re not making any sense.
You don’t want liberty. You want anarchy.
Origenes at 20,
Why do you believe as you do?
https://nationalpress.org/awards/sol-taishoff-award-for-excellence-in-broadcast-journalism/
Vivid at 19,
https://www.npr.org/ethics
Related 24
Thanks for the link unfortunately they violate their standards. NPR is a government funded far left propaganda machine.
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2022/09/16/medias-top-eight-hunter-biden-laptop-deniers-and-many-many-honorable-mentions/
NPR was number 7. Here is more.
https://thefederalist.com/?s=NPR+
Vivid
Vivid at 25,
My mistake. Look here:
https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
Breitbart and the Federalist calling NPR a propaganda machine, is nothing but two kettles calling the pot black….
Well, they certainly aren’t as credible as Fox News.
CD 27
Use a form of poisoning the well much? Here is a novel thought rather than poisoning the well tell us what articles are inaccurate
“Breitbart and the Federalist calling NPR a propaganda machine, is nothing but two kettles calling the pot black….”
Hmm where did the Federalist and Fox say that ,in the links I posted , that they were a propaganda machine?
Vivid
Isn’t it all a matter of perspective? If VB, Breitbart and the Federalist view NPR to the far left of their position then from the NPR position they must be far right.
Sev re. 2
Hell has frozen over, for once I agree with you does that make me far right?
Re 30 I am ok with the moniker hell JFK would be considered on the right ( not far right)judged by today’s standards, The following is some of the things I believe in.
FYI I am not a Republican. I view the two parties as somewhat similar to two mafia families fighting for turf. Politicians are in the power business the bigger the government, the more regulations the more power.
I am for the rule of law and it’s equal application
I believe it is self evident that all men are created equal
I am for legal immigration
I believe that laws should be constitutional
I am against foreign wars
I am against oligarchy’s
I believe in the right to life
I think the states should decide things such as abortion and gay marriage.
I believe that no one based on race or sexual orientation should be denied equal rights
I believe in limited Government
I believe in capitalism not the faux capitalism we see today. The marriage of government and big corp has a name, it’s called facism.
I am pro union.when the workers are the actual beneficiaries
I believe in sensible regulation to keep employers from taking advantage of workers.
If the above puts me in the far right category I gladly accept the moniker.
Vivid.
PM1, I did not ask about bias, but objective warrant. ALL of us have biases, all of us have worldviews, all of us are error prone, so the issue cannot be that these disqualify, or we are right back at the self referential self defeat issue — precisely what has been sidestepped when I pointed to the first principle pervasive nature of self referentiality on core, basic, hard questions. No, that is why I have emphasised that adequate warrant is the heart of objectivity. In this case, Wikipedia committed a breach of innocent reputation and commits gross libel, while NWE is on target. This is not an issue where one can play the neutral moderator standing aloof from six groping blind men card by suggesting all are equally dubious; the relativism involved in that tactic is itself self referential and self defeating. Instead, we start from first duties of reason, accepting that as responsible, rational, significantly free creatures, we are morally governed by first duties to truth, to right reason, to warrant and wider prudence, to sound conscience, to neighbour so too to fairness and justice. Injustice is invariably founded on material untruth, whether error, material gaps or outright lies. In this, first principles of reasoning include addressing deductive and inductive frameworks, including abductive inference to the best explanation. Which of course holds online just as much as across a table in a rum shop, or sitting on genteel verandahs, or in a board room, or a faculty lounge. KF
Sev, we agree as to principles. I am not so sure they are nearly impossible to implement, they allow us to grade sources and to hold sources accountable thus if we learn and practice [building a culture of wholesomeness], there would be a restoration of lawful conduct on the cyber frontier. For example, it is clear that many major media including the once great BBC, have fallen far and have much coming clean to do before credibility can be restored. As to the mismanagement of the as yet unfinished pandemic, complete with censorship tactics that bring science into disrepute, that is maybe case no 1 on what we have to face and address soberly to restore lawfulness. Given the dominance of the US, the poor state of defamation law there needs fixing: no, there is no right to undermine innocent reputation, including under false colours of freedom and opinion — we are duty bound to be cautious and respectful of neighbour and of warrant. As for grooming and wider desensitisation to the marketing of gross evil and exploitation, that needs to be exposed and frankly prosecuted. Fraudulent online advertising is just that, fraud; including collusion to promote product ratings. As to the many ideological agendas afoot, a sound comparative difficulties approach will help to sort such out. All of this points to needed education reform too. Where, education fraud (including, dressed up in lab or doctor’s coats) is fraud, too. KF
Relatd, the SPJ code is clearly sound in general. A challenging ideal. KF
FP, it is evident that you are indulging in personalities and attempts to poison the well. For example, you will see that I responded to the core concerns I have with PM1. I did not take up his talk point on “translated” as I thought it obviously flawed i/l/o what was already said. Yes, like other phrases or rhetorical hooks, it can be abused, but that is by no means a universal point. There is a legitimate boiling down, there is a taking the charitable view, there is taking a liberal interpretation, there is exposing the hidden or unrecognised danger or error, and there is “translating” — with sound warrant [something you again evaded on the way to loaded insinuation] — as a way to render some or all of these. The general principle is, necessary critique or even happy endorsement, alike, must face first duties to truth, right reason, warrant and wider prudence, etc. Are you prepared to endorse those duties, acknowledging them as pervasive first principles, thus self evident, branch on which we sit first duties? KF
Vivid, an interesting list. I can see why, though I do not necessarily agree with all [e.g. there is clearly a built in first law evident from and in our nature that is foundational to the due balance of rights, freedoms, duties, which we cannot vote in or out or rule in or out], and certainly, I view the left centre right political spectrum as an utterly outmoded model. The issue is that lawless oligarchy is the natural state of Government (as well as decrees and actions under colour of law), and that July 4, 1776 and Sept 17, 1787 mark a breakthrough of lawful, constitutional self government by a free people. If anyone cannot wholeheartedly endorse this, that is a warning sign. KF
Vivid/29
I re-read your posts @25 and 27 and realize that I mis-read your post @25. It was you that called NPR “a government funded far left propaganda machine.” That makes all the difference in the world. My apologies to Breitbart and the Federalist, both bastions of American journalistic integrity…….LOL
Vivid
Let me share with you a quick experience that illustrates how bias, to a large extent, is, at bottom, a matter of perspective.
In the mid 70s I spent two years in Swaziland teaching secondary science as a Peace Corps volunteer. Swaziland (now Eswatini) is virtually surrounded by the Republic of South Africa (RSA) which, at the time, was in the last throes of apartheid and there were ongoing massive riots in the townships like Soweto that elicited brutal responses by the RSA government.
It was common for PCVs to travel by hitchhiking in southern and east Africa and I was traveling to Johannesburg on one of my trips and got picked up by a gentleman of British descent. White RSA, at that time, was very polarized between whites of Dutch descent (Afrikaners) and those of English descent. To say they didn’t like each other would be a huge understatement.
In any event, we got talking politics and I “innocently” asked what it was like between the two white groups in RSA. The gentleman with whom I was riding responded (and this is verbatim because I will never forget it): “These Afrikaner bastards make Barry Goldwater look like a f**king communist.”
Although, like any other country RSA still has significant problems, it has normalized through a lot of compromise. On the surface, you would have viewed the problem as a black-white problem. But this is where perspective comes in: It was, in many ways a white-white problem and other outgroups were simply caught in the middle as pawns in a larger conflict. Not completely, but enough to make things really complicated. The white groups had completely different agendas.
It is unfortunate that the US appears to be moving in exactly the opposite direction. Those of us that came of age during the Vietnam War and civil rights eras have witnessed firsthand the resilience of the US. But someday, if people on both sides of the aisle don’t tone it down and start acting like adults, stop demonizing anyone and everyone with whom they disagree, we will see a decline from which we can’t escape. I am not as pessimistic as some on this blog, however, I am sick and tired of the bullshit from both the left and the right, Christians and “New” Atheists, you name it, I’m against it types, etc., etc., ad nauseum. Fortunately, being retired, I have the luxury of tuning out if I chose, but it is impossible to totally avoid……
if you have any objections to either be specific.
Otherwise it’s just nonsense. I don’t read either regularly but often see links to articles in each. Some of which I follow. As far as I can see the articles in the Federalist are usually well argued. Though like any compendium there will always be extremes.
My guess is that you will disappear and pop up in some other place to make derogatory comments.
CD at 38,
One man, one vote. It is incorrect to say the US, as a group of people, is moving in this or that direction. Everyone can say what they want. I ignore the obvious nonsense being peddled online.
Relatd
You need to wake up. Voter suppression has a long history in the US. For years a number of southern states were under a Congressionally mandated, Justice Dept. policy that required all redistricting and other voting requirements, such as IDs, literacy tests, etc. to be pre-approved by DOJ before they could be implemented. The Trump administration rolled back those protections under the pretext of massive voter fraud. The first two things to go were availability of absentee ballots and extended voting hours. Trump’s own AG, William Barr, noted that DOJ had decisively demonstrated that Trump’s claims were unsupported by any evidence. The myriad lawsuits filed by Trump and his toadies, have all been dismissed.
We would all like to believe in “one man, one vote. Unfortunately, politics is a very dirty game.
As Harvard philosopher George Santayana noted: Those that do not heed history are doomed to repeat it……
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-2020-strategy-is-to-prevent-as-many-people-as-possible-from-voting/2020/06/14/110271d6-ace3-11ea-94d2-d7bc43b26bf9_story.html)
CD re 38./ 41
Thank you for your very thoughtful replies, hope to post some comments after stock market closes.
FYI evidently you must be a subscriber to access your link so I was unable to read the article.
Vivid
CD at 41,
I vote. I know about voter fraud. Afterwards, things get passed and people get elected.
For the record, I did not vote for Mr. Trump.
CD, voter/electoral fraud was also a longstanding problem [ponder 1960] and is again a serious issue; the issue is suppression of evidence compounded by polarisation and abuse of censorship power of major media houses — see what is emerging on Twitter. KF
CD re 38/41
I agree that ones perspective plays a big role as it relates to bias and I am acutely aware that I come at many things with a whole pack back full of biases which I think is a necessary admission for everyone. To be aware that I do indeed suffer from observational bias is the first step in some sort of check and balance to how I view different perspectives that go against my bias. Let me give you an example.
The only social site I have is Twitter, I don’t do Facebook, Instagram, etc. Let’s say that I come to a tweet that says “ The alien invasion has been called off after viewing the Super Bowl halftime show” Well after viewing the show I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment but experience has shown me that whether this is actually the case i need to check the comments section. The best fact checker regarding any headline coming from Twitter will be the commentators that will point out to me the inaccuracy’s in the story. So I make it a habit to check the comments section before I send out anything I read on Twitter especially the ones that support my bias.
Regarding your extreme frustration with all the BS from both sides I give a hearty “Amen” and hope that I have not committed either a micro or macro aggression using that term to an atheist LOL
I have more to say but to often in the past when I write a long post sometimes it disappears so I will send my comments in chunks.
Vivid
KF
With due respect, the Kennedy-Nixon election was 60+ years ago. Even under the most rigorous standards applicable to election analysis, there was never any evidence of game-changing voter fraud in Texas and Illinois, the two states where it was alleged to have occurred. And once Watergate hit the fan, any lingering sympathy for Tricky Dick went right down the proverbial toilet………
CD continued
One of the most impactful books I have read was written about 175 years ago titled “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” Really a fascinating book that explores crowd psychology and how as a group we can believe the most incredibly stupid things. Think Tulip Bulbs, South Sea Bubble, Crusades, etc etc. Whole populations embracing crazy stuff fueled by common beliefs and tales that get amplified to an extraordinary level. Sort of like “All the experts can’t be wrong” In todays age with all the instantaneous dissemination of news, the echo chamber we inhabit, we are extremely vulnerable to believe in all kinds of delusions. So the first step in weaving through the bull shit is to recognize our individual vulnerability to not only embrace BS but actively throw it around ourselves.
This gets me back to information and verification. I personally subscribe to a couple of rules
. !) Believe what I see. Let’s take immigration as an example, some one says our borders are not open, really? What they are saying to me is “Don’t believe your lying eyes” Now I dont want this to degenerate into a policy disagreement on immigration, one can disagree on policy but dont piss on my leg and tell me its raining.
2) Do not believe anyone that has repeatedly lied to me. Example your Washington Post link. Sorry the WP, the NYT, CNN, MSNBC, ABC,CBS ,etc etc have lied to me to many times they are not a credible source of information. However I have found credible liberal people that do not agree with my worldview or my politics that would be described as to the left as credible. I am thinking of people like Matt Taibbi or Glenn Greenwald.
3) Do not poison the well based on the source of the information the only question to ask is the story accurate. You dont like Breitbart or The Federalist fair enough but when asked were the stories I linked to inaccurate you have so far demurred.
4) Always , always remind myself I have observational bias.
Vivid
CD continued
Last comment.
You talk about voter suppression. I have first hand experience and voter suppression goes both ways. The heart of our system requires that each individual vote counts sadly I have lost all faith in the system as it currently operates. You rightfully point out that politics gets down and dirty it is indeed war without ( hopefully) blood. However if we dont restore faith that our vote counts violence is on the way.
My story. I live in Maricopa County and like many traditional older voters I vote on Election Day. My wife and I go to our voting place, we are told you can’t vote because of a machine malfunction you have to wait. After waiting for an hour in line with hundreds of others we are told we have to go to another voting site. So we get in the car go to the next site and the line is two hours long. Many people gave up but we are stubborn people and waited for two hours to cast our ballot It took us a total of approximately 5 hours to vote.. Many people just gave up. This crap happened to thousands of Maricopa County voters on Election Day. Going to my rule number 1) I believe what I see. Our voting system is broken. I am still furious.
I think back to the Georgia election reform and how it was vilified by the media to such an extent that MLB withdrew the planned venue from predominately black Atlanta to lily white Denver all under the banner of some kind of racial equity BS. So MLB punished the blacks in the name of some kind of racial suppression and gave it to whites. Rule number one I believe what I see.
Done
Vivid
CD, I cited a case to show living memory reality. It patently continues despite denials, and that needs to be faced. KF
PS, I recall, years ago that RMN did not take up the matter legally as he was concerned about stability.
KF
Interesting that you attribute Nixon not pursing voter fraud litigation as too destabilizing. I’ve heard that, but the cynic in me attributes it to the fact that Nixon knew he would run again and didn’t want the taint that you see Trump piling up daily with his post-election shenanigans. Nixon was many things, but stupid wasn’t one of those things. He was a brilliant but extremely flawed person. I believe towards the end, he and Kissinger pathologically fed each other’s insecurities and grandiosities, fueled to a large degree by alcohol. Henry the K, managed to leave the building just in time, but he was to Nixon what Cheney was to W–opportunists that didn’t give a whit about the office, but only what they could milk it for, both fully aware that they were leaving their bosses to dangle in the wind….
There is nobody doubting that voter fraud happens. But there is no evidence that it is anything but small scale and inconsequential.
After the 2020 election I saw people argue for fraud using things like Benford law and scatter plots to support their arguments. Only to double down or get angry when the flaws in their statistical arguments were conclusively demonstrated.
But voter suppression is a different thing. Requiring photo-ID makes it more difficult for people on the fringe of society to vote. Restricting voting hours or mail-in votes penalizes those who have to work two or more jobs. Although, it could be argued, that this is getting closer to what the founding fathers intended. Only white land owning males should be able to vote.
Ford Prefect,
Also, photo IDs unfairly prevent citizens of other countries to vote in U.S. elections. Shouldn’t world opinion be expressed in U.S. elections, considering that North America was stolen from their original inhabitants, right?
The identical issue is that requiring photo-ID makes it more difficult for people on the fringe of society to drive cars or buy an airline ticket or travel to a different country.
If people don’t care about an election, they’re free to not cast their vote, so why shouldn’t people who feel very strongly about a candidate be able to vote multiple times?
And shouldn’t children also be able to vote? After all, elections affect them too, right?
-Q
CD, my comment is, your projection is admittedly cynical. I do not wish to get into a side debate on elections but simply note that there is in fact sobering evidence of manipulation and significant fraud, as part of a wider conflict that if it is not soundly resolved will end very badly indeed. I suggest you start with the election in 2004 in Ukraine that had to be abandoned, due to a fraud prone absentee ballot system, and follow up from there. The talk points on election security 101, sound ID of voters and sound chain of custody on ballots, are a tell, as I will next point out to FP, KF
FP, the talking point on undermining insistence on adequate voter ID is a telling example of how entrenched enabling of fraud has become. Sound voter ID and sound chain of custody on ballots (including sound scrutiny of ballot counting) are two foundational steps to sound elections and yet on flimsy grounds these have been widely undermined in the US. I assure you, here in the Caribbean, no one, is supposed to vote without id, and votes are secured and counted under scrutiny. As at now, any astute person will insist on in person, election day voting on preferably two photo ids, with paper ballots, manually counted under scrutiny, and in my region, UV indelible ink as a mark of having voted. The notion that responsible security on a critical mechanism of government is somehow racist is thus exposed as a cynical piece of defamatory, atmosphere poisoning agit prop. Where, there are no fractional ballots so software should bake in integer operations on same and should be open source, all bugs are shallow under enough pairs of eyes. Similarly, the Reichstag fire incident should be soundly taught in schools, as a capital example of subversion of a liberal democracy within living memory. There are no coincidences. KF
PS, the Benford pattern, demonstrably, can and does occur within one decade of scale. That needs to be acknowledged on observed fact. Once a result is due to product of multiple multiplicative factors, a lognormal distribution will emerge quite naturally. And normal curves are strong enough to emerge within thirty data points, as a reasonable expectation, the log simply moves from product to sum, leading to clustering around a peak with a bell shaped scatter. This is the root of the layman’s law of averages. Your dismissiveness shows ill founded hyperskepticism.
Generally, notice, that no one has been able to address the point that objectivity is not about bias disqualifies [such will disqualify us all, self referentially] but instead is about adequacy of warrant. KF
PS: Cf my comment at 10:
Kairosfocus writes:
And in spite of all the conspiracy theories, they have still not confirmed any widespread voter fraud.
Where I live there are three ways to cast a ballot at the polling stations.
1) government issued photo ID.
2) two pieces of ID with your name on it, and one must have your address.
3) be vouched for, in writing, by someone in the same voting district that has one of the two forms of ID above. A person can only vouch for one other person.
And for as long as I have been voting, I have never heard of any significant levels of voter fraud that resulted from this. So your chicken little impersonation, although amusing, had zero warrant.
FP, I can afford to wait. You need to see the case of Uk4raine 2004 as a yardstick. KF
Kairosfocus writes:
What’s more important?
1) Ensuring that no eligible voter is prevented from voting.
2) Ensuring that small scale voter fraud is impossible.
The reason I ask is that you can’t have both.
FP, false dilemma — a particularly pernicious fallacy.The second horn is impossible, and the first dubious, while the history of machine politics shows the vulnerability of elections to material fraud. Prevented, is highly loaded language. You have given a case in point of turning from objectivity. What can be done is to have free, fair, reasonably clean elections with low fraud and honest reporting. KF
PS, Wikipedia confesses on the 2004 Ukraine election,
Those who dismiss, ignore or neglect the lessons of history doom themselves to relive its worst chapters.
That’s enough to point out some of the issues.
Kairosfocus writes:
Your evasion is duly noted.
It has always been a balancing act. You can never completely eliminate the possibility of voter fraud. Any more than you can remove all possible impediments to casting a ballot.
What I find amusing is that after the 2020 election, almost all conspiracy theories about voter fraud had Trump being the victim. Yet the handful of confirmed incidents of voter fraud had Trump benefitting.
None of the Benford law and scatter plot misrepresentation, none of the voting machine, stuffed ballot box, late night deliveries and double counting conspiracy theories, resulted in a single confirmed incident of fraud. Multiple recounts and farcical examination of the rice content of mail in ballots failed to identify any indication of voter fraud.
At some point, serious claims have to be supported by convincing evidence. If they aren’t, and the same baseless claims keep being made, the people making the claims lose all credibility.
FP, projection, the false dilemma was exposed. Facts from a highly relevant case were identified. Your appeal to implied injustice in fact is therefore manipulative and uses a counsel of imagined perfection to achieve a well known target of rhetorical devices and debate, to make the worse seem the better case and the better the worse. As for the media and agit prop fed dismissiveness, I will note that your strawman targets miss the key matters by a long distance and show widespread, agenda serving institutional failure. Absentee ballots are inherently far less secure than in person voting, one needs an ID verification even to interact with an ATM or legally drive a vehicle, sound chain of custody is a well known anti fraud approach, voter rolls need to be clean, blackbox machines are no sounder than their sources, coding and networks, paper creates unique traceable artifacts [even a fold crease pattern, much less traces of bamboo fibres can help provide signatures before we get to micro particle inks etc . . . ponder the blue and red fibres that used to be in valid US Currency paper], phantom voters sourcing false ballots mixed into vote counting with lack of proper scrutineering can and credibly did lead to fraud-signature patterns in recent elections in the US, and in fact much was established and published that was willfully sidelined — something that is predictably going to end in fatal disaffection if unchecked. And, beyond, lies abuse of censorship power through clear public-private partnerships as say $45 bn was spent to publicly expose in a key case. But, all of this is to show the dangers involved in the now widespread anticivilisational undermining of the first principles and duties of reason, which, too, are first, built in law. It is no accident that, above, the point that while we all face biases, objectivity traces to warrant has not been focal to a thread that is precisely about the attack on objectivity. KF
F/N: I think it is worth the pause to put on the table a general argument on objective knowledge, thus warranted, credible truth:
Similarly, Willard and heirs:
Then, Collins:
That is how far we have fallen.
KF
F/N2: Pointing back to the OP, we can note on the pernicious effects of dismissing objectivity as a key journalism standard, blurring lines between reporting and agit prop:
https://jonathanturley.org/2023/02/01/objectivity-has-got-to-go-news-leaders-call-for-end-of-objective-journalism/
Of course, “social justice” is a euphemism for cultural marxist agendas of the Frankfurt School, now usually styled, Critical Theory or X Studies, where X takes a wide range of values.
The effect of this is to lead to breakdown of media credibility, which is in the end fatal for constitutional, lawful state democratic self government.
Beyond a certain point it is obvious, this is not a bug, it is a feature. There is clear intent to push ideology beyond the bounds of lawfulness and responsible truthfulness. To do this, other key institutions need to be twisted also, starting with education [especially in key academic and professional disciplines].
It is therefore utterly unsurprising to see the rot advancing steadily into medicine, technology and science. As for law, politics and government, the rot is obvious, the question is whether it is already a mortal wound.
If unchecked, none of this will end well.
But then, Machiavelli’s warning obtains, political disorders are like hectic fever. At first, easy to cure but hard to diagnose. Then, at length, when the course of the disease is manifest to one and all, it is far too late to cure.
And that is from a man whose reputation is worse than that of the Devil.
KF
Vividbleau/31
No, it makes you very sensible.
Agreed.
Agreed.
I don’t believe we are all created equal but we should all be entitled to the same basic human rights and equal treatment before the law.
Agreed.
Agreed
It depends on the war. I would say participation in WWII was justifiable, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, not so much.
Agreed.
With certain very narrow exceptions, agreed.
I would prefer there to be national standards on such issues for the sake of consistency
Or religious beliefs or lack thereof. Agreed.
Agreed.
I think a system which allows individuals or corporations to accumulate obscene amounts of wealth is wrong, especially because it also gives them a disproportionate amount of political influence.
Agreed.
Kairosfocus writes:
Are you capable of having a disagreement without resorting to personal attacks?
We were talking about US elections and you are claiming there was widespread voter fraud because of what happened in another country. The fact is tge the confirmed cases of voter fraud were very small in number and not a widespread or organized event. Why would we impose impediments to voting when there is not a problem to solve?
I remember a few years ago, done third world country was having their first democratic election monitored by the UN. The only real safeguards imposed were to place due on the individual after he/she voted to prevent multiple votes by the same person.
Sorry, I didn’t proof-read my comment before submitting it. The safeguard used in the third-world country was to place dye on the finger of each voter to prevent a person casting multiple votes.
FP, the Ukraine case establishes some of the means known to be available. In that context, mass absentee voting cannot be justified, given its known insecurity. Indeed, in these pages, I have put up excerpts from a US State Department report, in effect testimony before Congress on the matter, I need not go into the was it 1996 election in Pennsylvania that was reversed by court order due to cheating. So, it is a pointed question to ask why mass absentee voting was pushed for and pushed through; that by itself is a smoking gun, given that a review commission in the US also warned about it. As to ID documents, it is obvious that on matters where there is a concern, such is properly enforced, but for a fact I know this is not enforced in many key US jurisdictions, and above you tried to suggest it is suspect to insist on proper ID, belittling the question of opening the door to fraud. There is an abundance of good evidence directly on the US case, but of course it is sidelined. Vivid is a direct witness to what was done just a few months ago in Arizona; start with, who would be expected to vote in person on Election day proper (not election week) then go into why ballots were reportedly mis sized for starters. And, yes, indelible, UV sensitive ink would be helpful in the US. But, it is a waste of energy to try to rehash an issue with those who rejects objectivity; save, maybe to set record. KF
PS, in Caribbean jurisdictions, dye is just one of many safeguards, starting with scrutineers being present at registration, going through the whole election system, and more, as was already outlined. Having observers visibly dozens of feet away is already seriously sub standard. There is a lot more, but I will just do this, you all need an independent election commission starting at local and state level with due oversight by legislatures.
Documentation https://uncommondescent.com/darwinist-debaterhetorical-tactics/that-us-state-dept-report-on-the-fraudulent-runoff-2004-election-in-ukraine-knowing-how-to-steal-an-election/ how to steal an election. KF
F/N: Returning to focus:
https://iep.utm.edu/objectiv/
KF