But we know, with absolute certainty, from the Dominion lawsuit subpoenas, that Tucker Carlson was privately telling people that Trump was awful, while publicly saying the opposite.
His private texts include, "We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can't wait.”
And
"I hate him passionately. ... I can't handle much more of this”.
This isn’t that. To consider his, or anyone else’s, honesty I compare what they say to the evidence they present and contrast that against competing claims from other sources.
> So what you mean by "honest" is "they believe the same things as facts like I do, and draw the same conclusions?"
I think it means "I am a sucker with no critical thinking skills and fell for their propaganda".
The attempts to whitewash and normalize Russian assets such as Tucker Carlson also give pause. It's hard to believe someone can be this gullible, specially after being presented with facts and still doubling down on whitewashing the character.
So you are doing the same as all of us: checking the quality of evidence best we can and then weighing it best we can.
But then somehow you feel the need to make your opinion and the opinion of the people that somehow align with you (or vice versa) somehow more objective or ethically better by calling it "honest", or best aligned with the evidence (as if people could not disagree on the quality of evidence, or take into account other things) or the like.
That's the part I wholeheartedly disagree with you. We're all blind men touching an elephant.
Is there something special about you that has you convinced you’re not being tricked? Like do you think you have some exceptionally good bullshit detector? I’m genuinely curious about the mentality here.
What lead you to believe you can take two people like Tucker Carlson and MTG who are PRIMARILY known for spouting bullshit and you can somehow magically decipher the signal from the noise? Is it just the topic of Israel that you agree with them on? What are you actually comparing them against? I’d love to know more about what you’re describing looks like in practice because it sounds very handwavy at the moment and maybe it would be a better discussion with concrete details.
Because in this case most politicians are performing double speak and failing to directly answer questions about recent Israel conduct. Many of these politicians claiming in private what most of us are seeing in the news. It is refreshing to have at least some politicians step up to the plate and directly speak to the numbers and multitude of evidence.
Likewise consider the opposite. Until recently I really respected Buttigieg, but when asked about Israel he cannot answer the question. He hopelessly looks for a moderate safe way out and it looks really incompetent.
> do you think you have some exceptionally good bullshit detector?
> you can somehow magically decipher
It is abundantly clear that you are, in fact, trying to be rude.
> Be kind. Don't be snarky.
> Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
You were originally responding to:
> To consider his, or anyone else’s, honesty I compare what they say to the evidence they present and contrast that against competing claims from other sources.
Nothing about this requires extraordinary skill or "magic". Determining whether what Tucker Carlson said is true, works exactly the same way as determining whether what anyone else said is true.
I objectively answered your question to the best of my actual personal opinion. I just didn’t provide the subjectively baited answer you were hoping for.
I don’t understand in what universe you think you objectively answered it to the best of your ability when you literally didn’t respond to a single point in the question and just talked about another topic entirely.
It’s not a trick question… I really want to understand what lead you to think that you can take known bullshitters and somehow seperate the fact from fiction. It’s just really confusing I think to me and others in this thread how on earth you arrived at the positions you did?
You seem to be quite focused on the idea that Israel is committing genocide which isn’t a controversial statement for a lot of people but I don’t understand why you hold up Tucker Carlson over the ICC who have much more credibility on the topic and came to the same conclusion. Why MTG and not AOC for example if you mean outspoken politicians specifically? The thinking patterns just seem incredibly strange and I wanted to know what you’re actually thinking here.
Its a form of cognitive conservatism. You asked question A, and I gave you answer B, but you expected answer C. You cannot reconcile the gap between answers B and C, a dysjunct syllogism. The problem stems from one interpretation of a premise comprising multiple terms and an inability to consider alternate valid premises.
Another case of "Trying to play chess with a pidgeon".
"You can't play chess with a pidgeon. It will overturn all the pieces, shit on board and will be happy that he won". Scary thing is that a lot of people will root for that pidgeon ("Yeah, that pidgeon showed the master who's the boss!").
I have told you my opinion and you either are incapable of understanding it or choose to not understand it because diverging opinions aren't of interest to you. I am not trying to persuade you one way or the other, but agreement appears to be all you seek. I really don't care if you agree with me and I am not trying to convince you of anything. This seem lost on you.
The comment you're linking to was rightfully flagged and killed. Your characterization of "propaganda" is completely uncalled for.
The premises were explained before the questioning even started:
> I believe they are honest because they are pushing factual numbers and speaking in reference to eye witness accounts.
The entire point was that the claim
> privately telling people that Trump was awful, while publicly saying the opposite.
has no bearing on the assessment of honesty. It does not matter what Carlson's private beliefs or public opinions are. Facts are facts no matter who believes, disbelieves, claims to believe or claims to disbelieve them.
Whether numbers are factual can be objectively assessed. The truth of the numbers does not depend on who cites them. The eyewitness accounts cited objectively exist. What eyewitnesses claim to have happened is a matter of record, and it doesn't matter who cites those claims. That Carlson was "speaking in reference to" those accounts is objectively verifiable by cross-referencing what he says with what the eyewitness said.
The bit about Carlson's private tweets is irrelevant, and a textbook example of ad hominem fallacy.
Determining whether a claim is true does not depend on who made the claim. It takes no additional skill to make this determination if the source is generally unreliable, except in the case where the claimant is being used as an authority (so as to determine the legitimacy of that authority in context). But this isn't such a case. That's the point.
I guess to be fair you’ve actually provided an incredibly clear insight into how and why you end up thinking someone like Tucker is a reliable source of information. I don’t think in the way you intended to do so at all but I’m suddenly a lot less confused.
> I guess to be fair you’ve actually provided an incredibly clear insight into how and why you end up thinking someone like Tucker is a reliable source of information.
GP objectively did not make any such claim, and nothing about GP's words indicates such a belief. You are clearly not discussing in good faith; throughout the above thread you have repeatedly ignored very clear arguments, presented wrong understandings of very clear ideas, and wrongly attributed beliefs to the other party; all apparently in the service of judging what "side" others are on rather than engaging with their actual claims.
More a case of it’s very clear that you think you’re much more intelligent than everyone else around you thinks you are. Of course it’s a natural fit. You couldn’t have provided a clearer explanation with that response it genuinely made me laugh.
I do. What’s weird though is that you find that offensive, as if this is somehow a competition. It’s not. There is no prize, no winning. I am not selling anything or asking for any vote. I owe you nothing.
For the fifth or sixth time now, your lack of reading comprehension has lead to a situation where you responded to the post you wish was written rather than the one that was actually written.
I said I was laughing at you, not that you offended me. Those two things are worlds apart and the fact that you mixed them up once again is the precise reason why people are laughing at you here. The lack of self awareness is a spectacle at this point.
While you are laughing I continue to think you don’t know what this conversation was ever about. Laughing at your own invented strawman is a form of self soothing masturbation. Again, this isn’t a competition, except possibly only in your own mind.
> Because in this case most politicians are performing double speak and failing to directly answer questions about recent Israel conduct. Many of these politicians claiming in private what most of us are seeing in the news. It is refreshing to have at least some politicians step up to the plate and directly speak to the numbers and multitude of evidence.
Wait a minute, you were already faced with the fact that the likes of Tucker Carlson defend positions in public that they personally criticize and attack in less public settings.
And yet, even after being faced with that information, you still opt to ignore it and whitewash Russian assets such as Tucker Carlson as being this paragon of objectivity?
I'm starting to wonder what you are trying to do with this thread.
The problem here is that you are very clearly incapable of being able to do that and there’s a group of people very politely and patiently trying to point out to you the flaws in your own logic and your only response is to continue sniffing your own farts like you’re smarter than everyone else around you. It’s kind of embarrassing to watch.
I am skeptical of any numbers from a war zone with a public relations war going on at the same time. This appears to be generally admitted, as witnessed by quotes as the long standing and cross cultural "the first casualty of war is truth." [1]
So I'm curious. How do you know the numbers are factual and they eye witnesses are what they say they are?
Sure, so get foreign journalists in there so that we can all know for sure. Until such time I will retain the personal opinion that Israel is lying about everything.
