Freedom of speech and protest

sptrawler said:

Firstly the media broadcasting anything isn't a privilege, it is based on a commercial decision or a regulatory requirement, if it is a private broadcaster they make a decision on whether they think it will appeal to their audience. That isn't a privilege, unless you are a needy person and will pay them to give you air time.

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sptrawler said:

The media has a lot of influence on public opinion, if it didn't companies, politicians etc wouldn't pay money to advertise and or appeal to the public for their custom or vote.

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sptrawler said:

In terms of "reinforcement", I think you prove my point, by highlighting media that has differing opinion to yours.

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sptrawler said:

... a large proportion of the population rely on the media to give them correct, accurate and unadulterated information.

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rederob said:

That anyone is given media airtime is in fact a "privilege" as it provides amplification of their expression, which gives their view an advantage over a person not granted similar. That privilege exists irrespective of the platform being private or public.
In fact, content - or what I have also called "expression" - is what has influence. Media and carriage services are simply "means."
That is not a logical expression. Reinforcement occurs by visiting media/carriage services that have similar themes. I visit a broad range of carriage services to sort fact from fiction, by and large.
And in Australia we trust our public broadcasters:
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I get most of my US news from PBS, European news from BBC and DW, and for China/Asia go to CGTN and SCMP.
In Australia we have cross media ownership laws which in simple terms are supposed to ensure no single commercial entity can brainwash the population: based on the fallacious principal that diversity of ownership equals diversity of opinion. As you note, influence can be bought, so diversity of opinion runs a poor second to commercial interest.
My personal opinion is that our ABC in particular has in recent decades been subject to increasingly intensive political pressure to promote the "government's" view, and that purely political appointments to the ABC board have not been helpful to its charter of impartiality. If the ABC were off limits to political interference, as the courts are, then its trust would grow and commercial outlets could ply the good the bad and the ugly as they saw fit.
And while on this topic, ACMA needs to be given real teeth if some of the crap that passes as news/journalism is to be cleaned up.

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SirRumpole said:

Yes of course you will take any bs that confirms your opinion.

Have you done any due diligence on anything you come up with ?

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wayneL said:

Oh yes, Joe... In fact every single person in the Democrats are paragons of virtue. All George Washingtonesque in a complete inability to be able to lie.

ROTFLMAO

Come on Horace, surely you are not that naive?

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SirRumpole said:

I don't think anyone is a paragon of virtue.

But looking at the record of Trump as President and an individual as opposed to Biden's record in Congress over most of his life, I make my judgement that on balance Biden is much more credible as a human being and as a politician.

We will see. He's been elected in a process that has seen the test of fairness in the courts so let's give him a chance.

Maybe we'll discuss this in 4 years and weigh up his performance.

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SirRumpole said:

I don't think anyone is a paragon of virtue.

But looking at the record of Trump as President and an individual as opposed to Biden's record in Congress over most of his life, I make my judgement that on balance Biden is much more credible as a human being and as a politician.

We will see. He's been elected in a process that has seen the test of fairness in the courts so let's give him a chance.

Maybe we'll discuss this in 4 years and weigh up his performance.

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IFocus said:

Nor can he repair the disfunction and disparity in regards to the distribution of wealth which clearly is a major underling cause of the current problems that no Trump support here is willing to address all preoccupied with the distraction of culture wars while power and wealth is silently filtered to the very few.
That would be socialism, surely the end of civilization...eh.

Ignorance is a sweet wonderful state of mind.

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sptrawler said:

I think the socialists have shifted their following mate, the only people I know who are strong left leaning laborites these days, are extremely rich.
It is strange, but obviously the working class believe they will get better recognition for effort, from the right side of politics.
Maybe the masses feel they aren't rich enough to support the rich and the poor? Maybe only the rich can see the benefits that the left promote, who knows.

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sptrawler said:

In socialist countries you only see the rich, the poor are too busy working their ar$es off, from what I have seen.

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SirRumpole said:

Good description of the US at this point in time.

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sptrawler said:

The other way of looking at it is, google a list of socialist countries and work out which one you would prefer to live in.
I've never lived or worked in the U.S, so it is difficult for me to give an opinion on what life is like there, the closest thing I can work on is that Judge Judy small claims show as it has no political leaning and is focused on day to day trivial matters.
From that it appears that people fight over minimal amounts of money, so money must be tight there, also it is obvious there is a social welfare system and a disability system of sorts, as Judge Judy appears to very critical of it. When from anecdotal evidence, I thought there was no welfare system, at all.
The other aspect of the U.S is, I don't see many fleeing it, but do note they as us in Australia and the U.K etc have an issue with people trying to get there.
So from that I find it difficult to reconcile that it is the hell hole, that many try to portray, but if you have been there and lived there, I will defer to your experience Rumpy.

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Bill M said:

Wow, this is a powerful speech and sums up my feelings on the matter.

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Bill M said:

Wow, this is a powerful speech and sums up my feelings on the matter.

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basilio said:

Have to say Arnie was one of the very good Republican leaders in US history.

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