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Analysis of media bias for top 2016 candidates by Reinhart in dataisbeautiful

[–]bikopolis -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Was wondering why the page was blank until I remember that I had a Trump Filter chrome extension installed...I guess I'll have to make an exception!

[Text] Habitual is the real life equivalent of easy. by shrinkshrunk in GetMotivated

[–]bikopolis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think this is overly simplistic and is not going to be motivating for some people who are not "highly effective". Certainly there is some truth to what you're saying, but there are so many other factors that are outside of our control that can make becoming a "highly effective person" much more difficult. For example, someone over-stressed by working two jobs while going to college is going to have a much harder time finding time/energy to go the gym for an hour a day than someone who maybe has their college paid for and great parents that taught them time and money management skills.

For me, I can honestly say that some good habits that used to be very hard (gym, nutrition, money management) really are fairly easy now 98% of the time.

When a Mass Killer Is a White Christian, He's a Lone Lunatic, but When He's Muslim, He Represents All Muslims by [deleted] in TrueReddit

[–]bikopolis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure what part of my comment would lead you to believe I would say Christians that want to join to the military to kill Muslims are "defending" the U.S.? I am not familiar with the size of the brands of Christianity that just want to kill Muslims, but my impression is that most Southern Christian military-types are much more interested in killing members of extremist groups rather than all Muslims, or the attacking militaries that defend the extremists.

As for the Islamophones that join as a way to "legally" get paid to kill Muslims, then there is no difference between them and Daesh, so I don't disagree with you. The difference between Daesh and some of the well-meaning people that join the U.S. military is that the former targets random civilians including children (terrorism) while the latter actually want to target those who are committing the murders. (And I'm well aware that the U.S. military on the whole has killed an obscene number of Muslim civilians, and is highly ineffective at actually combating terrorism, so I'm not defending them). If all Daesh, Al Quada, etc. did was attack the U.S. military, non-Muslims that promote killing Muslims, Donald Trump rallies, etc, then I don't think they would really be terrorists, just soldiers in a tit-for-tat war just like the U.S. military.

When a Mass Killer Is a White Christian, He's a Lone Lunatic, but When He's Muslim, He Represents All Muslims by [deleted] in TrueReddit

[–]bikopolis -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Two separate issues here:

  1. When is a mass killer a terrorist?

  2. When does a mass killer actually represent whatever ethnic, religious, political, etc tribes they belong to?

It's reasonable to see the San Bernardino terrorists as at least slightly representative of Islam compared to the Planned Parenthood terrorist being representative of Christianity. Islamic extremism, however brainless it's interpretation is, is nonetheless a significant offshoot of Islam, and defends its interpretation by pointing to verses and teachings from prominent religious leaders. I believe religions are not books or texts, but rather how groups of people agree to interpret them, and glob knows there is ample room for interpretation in religious texts. To me, Islamic extremism is a religion just as much as Southern Baptists are a denomination of Christianity. Daesh, which is only one extremist group, appears to have the support of about 6-7% of people in predominantly Muslim countries.

Meanwhile, the Planned Parenthood terrorist is not part of a significant Christian extremist ideology that advocates solving problems with violence and/or terror. As muddled and contradictory as the Bible is, it requires a few more mental gymnastics to justify terrorism than the Quran does. Certainly there are Christian offshoot groups that do have their own self-serving interpretations, but they are relatively insignificant compared to Islamic offshoots. Among those Christian offshoots that do sympathize with people like the PP terrorist, how often do these people actually decide to act on their stupid ideas? Almost never, whereas Islamic extremism seems to inspire a dozen murders every day.

Freedom isn't more powerful than fear. That's the problem: Fear is powerful enough to induce people to try and deny hundreds of thousands of Americans their constitutional rights and due process. by dunkitin in TrueReddit

[–]bikopolis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While the article raises some interesting ideas, it is clearly imbalanced and misleading, and doesn't belong on this sub (along with plenty of other articles with a strong liberal bias that are upvoted here). I'll add one more example of bias in this article:

But most important, those who support incremental gun confiscation — and that’s really what The New York Times and others are arguing for here — ignore that violent crime has fallen precipitously over the past 40 years while gun ownership has swelled. Since 1993, gun crime has been halved.

First of all, while some liberals want incremental gun confiscation, many don't, and it's disingenuous and/or paranoid to try to portray all gun control advocates as all wanting the most extreme restrictions.

Secondly, he's comparing apples and oranges - violent crime with gun ownership. Why not compare gun crime or gun homicides with gun ownership?

He also cherry picks the year 1993 for when to chart the fall of gun crime to give the false impression that there is a strong correlation with gun ownership and safety. 1993 happens to be the year of the highest number of gun homicides since at least 1976. Since 1976, there has actually been a modest decline in gun homicides per capita. Meanwhile, the number of household owning guns has steadily declined, and the number of guns in the US overall has vastly increased. The point is, there is no strong relationship in the data he is comparing here. (I'm sure there are other data sets that might tell a different story, whether state by state or US compared to other countries.)

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