Brian Leiter
It’s important to recognize that most of what any of us believe about the world depends on intermediaries, people who guide us as to what we ought to believe because it’s true. I believe in evolution by natural selection, but not because I did all the experiments in the lab.
The big crisis of the internet era is that it has eliminated a lot of the traditional intermediaries, such as the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or PBS or the BBC and so on. Those old intermediaries weren’t perfect, but they were better than what we have now. So I think we need better intermediaries that help people to sort out the world.
But again, I don’t anticipate a law being passed that shuts down Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh — we’re stuck with them. Which means we’re stuck with a public sphere filled with nonsense. So the short answer is that we’re screwed.
I think a great deal of this would not be problematic if people simply read more---in other words were more educated---better informed, less trained.
Interesting he only suggests shutting down Limbaugh and Hannity. That is everything in a nice little nutshell. "Shut down people on the right, they're dangerous and filling the air with nonsense..." that is an outright advocation of one school of thought...exactly what failing states do...
I'll agree with reading more though.
Read more history. Read what has worked, what hasn't. What countries have people left and what countries are people moving to?
What countries rely on other countries for help across all sorts of areas, and which countries are doing the providing?
The American way isn't perfect but it is the best to date. Capitalism has flaws but it works good enough to where folks can even entertain the notion of Socialism.
We are still a relatively young country/culture/society in terms of world history. In a couple of hundred years, we have done more than what other countries/cultures/systems have been able to do in thousands of years.
Again, no reasonable person is against government providing more for free or relatively inexpensive. However, simple math dictates that to provide more affordable healthcare, or xyz social benefits, the money has to come from somewhere and cannot possibly or fairly be offered to anyone other than tax paying citizens.
Libs have lots of great ideas. Never are those ideas followed with an accounting of which pots will be drawn from to pay for new pots.
"Cut the military"...yeah, great idea...the one damn entitlement that indiscriminately provides protection for all regardless of income or citizenship status, and a great way to get a government job that libs think should be provided to all...get paid, get healthcare, get an education, get vacations, get discounts out in the civilian world...Don't need a green new deal to offer lots of government work opportunities.
