Russell Coker via luv-talk <luv-talk@luv.asn.au> wrote:

People on the right make up conspiracy theories about media bias and scientific bias because they reject facts. Reasonable people won't expect the media to agree with them all the time, intelligent people with good intentions can disagree about interpretations of evidence.

I've heard it argued (can't remember the source though) that the ABC consistently receive allegations of bias from both the left and the right. This is what I would expect, and I would interpret it as an indication that they're presenting interpretations from all sides where they can, while also seeking to uncover the facts.

The ABC is largely about education. People on the right hate education, thus they declare it leftist.

Some of them also hold very narrow views of education as primarily a means of preparing people to contribute to economic growth, rather than as preparing them to be good citizens in a democracy.

On Mon, 6 Jun 2016 12:19:25 PM Trent W. Buck via luv-talk wrote:

Russell Coker via luv-talk wrote:

...

https://votecompass.abc.net.au/

The ABC has a web site to allow you to compare your beliefs with the policies of the various parties.

I was very amused to notice that while there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Greens#Policy_positions and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_First_Party#Political_ideology

There is no corresponding section for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Labor_Party or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Liberal_Party which are largely devoted to history (i.e. the past).

This first-pass implication is that their ideology is so protean that they can't bear to articulate it :P

It's been a long time since the Labor party strongly advocated for workers. Gough Whitlam was probably the last Labor leader who did so. Both the major parties have few principles and pander to the lowest common denominator (EG the "turn back the boats thing") as well as pandering to the super rich. I could respect a conservative who said "we need to pay off the national debt so we must make the super rich pay tax too" or a conservative who said "we should invest in the country through education and research to develop business instead of raising taxes". But I don't think I've heard a conservative say either of those things. The ALP has some decent people in it, but overall they don't seem to do much good. Being less awful than Liberal isn't enough. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

On Mon, 6 Jun 2016 01:20:31 PM Andrew McGlashan via luv-talk wrote:

Wikipedia is a great resource, but it does rely upon people to care about issues to create content and others to help ensure the content is legitimate.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/25/us-congress-banned-editin... wikipedia-trolling While that is true there is a great deal of interest in political articles from politicians, above is one of many articles about the topic. I think it's reasonable to assume that any Wikipedia page about a major political party has content that the party generally doesn't disagree with much.

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I could respect a conservative who said "we need to pay off the national debt so we must make the super rich pay tax too" or a conservative who said "we should invest in the country through education and research to develop business instead of raising taxes". But I don't think I've heard a conservative say either of those things.

Yes, I can agree with all of that; but our national debt is low compared to many other countries -- so too are our fraudband speeds....

We recently had one of the nutty conservatives on this list arguing that out national debt was high and that we needed to cut government services.

And yes, I would prefer zero debt,

Whatever you are running, personal finances, a company, or a country you have some choices about the amount of debt to have. Obviously there are benefits to having money saved up. But the problem in politics is that when there is money saved up people elect conservatives who give it to the rich people in the form of massive tax cuts. I think that the best way of addressing this problem would be a constitutional change stating that the government should be the sole monopoly in the country. The government should own the electricty grid (can have private power stations), the water supply, and Telecom. When the government did own those things the users received better service and the profits subsidised government operations.

but it is never as bad as the LNP makes it out to be when they can continue to get away with blaming the ALP (and the Greens when they do that do is a bonus to them). The deficit tripled under this rotten government? But who cares, the media doesn't seem to give a toss.

Cowardly journalists who are scared to be accused of having a left-wing bias don't criticise conservatives.

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The ALP has some decent people in it, but overall they don't seem to do much good. Being less awful than Liberal isn't enough.

Perhaps so, but I think you see a great deal of honesty with the ALP that you never seem to see with LNP these days. Sure, ALP is far from perfect, but it's difficult to see a fair voice for them in ANY media, and sadly less so on the ABC than what is usually assumed and the abc is palming the vote compass issues off to other parties, so abc isn't even, themselves, fully responsible for the errors and problems in portrayal of facts.

-- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/