Perhaps it's too early SM, but do try and connect the dots.

Bonmot,

It's a bit rich that someone like yourself who has either argued directly, or implied, that the media should filter out anti-AGW opinion.
Should now try to position himself as a champion of media diversity/plurality!

It's rather like a wolf running for the position of sheepdog.

BM,

I also agree with Turnbull, but not with you. The issues regarding quality of journalism is important but separate from federal laws criminalizing discussion of certain topics.

Journalists should be held accountable not to publish factual inaccuracies, but should only be held to account when what they say is proven wrong not simply against majority opinion. Otherwise only prevailing opinion would be permitted. For example the holocaust is a fact, whilst the scope and effects of AGW are subject to a wide range of opinion.

Freedom of expression means that opinions should be allowed to be expressed without censorship, and that banning of publications should only be limited where there is direct harm such as child porn, and DIY bomb making etc.

Your history on this issue would indicate that either you don't understand the issue, or simply would prefer to curb dissenting opinion.

Squeers
The intellectual left and mainstream psychology have always questioned the use of IQ as a useful measure of anything, except for diagnosis.

Who knows why the Canadians psychologists decided to undertake this effort – perhaps it is an underhanded method of ‘forcing’ conservatives to make the effort required to understand that their reliance on IQ as an explanation for white ‘supremacy’ is flawed, as it surely can be used to denigrate their own supporters.

It seems to me to be a good thing that they did venture into such a murky and controversial issue, as conservatives are now rising to the bait and having to acknowledge that there could be a problem with a lot of the IQ research that they have used to justify their behaviour.

The information I have about the MRI study that shows differences in brain ‘shape’ does not indicate that this researcher is involved in any conspiracy to discredit conservatives.

"The research was carried out by Geraint Rees director of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience."

"It was commissioned as a light-hearted experiment by actor Colin Firth as part of his turn guest editing BBC Radio 4's Today programme but has now developed into a serious effort to discover whether we are programmed with a particular political view.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/brain-shape-shows-political-allegiance-271822

So Squeers ‘facist left’ may be a completely legitimate term, but there is no evidence that such a group or movement is at the bottom of these two publications as Graham, using his amygdala rather than his frontal lobes, suggested.

As you said, the labor bogan was courted by the right and they abandoned ‘the left’ during the Howard years; so now they belong to the conservative right.

But who knows what a conservative is these days; historical analysis is useful but conservatives need to clarify what they believe in and how they can reconcile the divide between the two parts of ‘the right’; libertarianism and conservatism.

On the subject of "bogan mentality" - what ever exactly that is, here's an article by Joe Bageant on what he terms is the pervading "cultural stupidiy" that has been cultivated in modern America. Bageant comes from the sort of small-town, flag-waving environment that is particularly susceptible to the sort of thinking he criticises. He's been dubbed a "leftneck" because of the contrast between his roots and his ability to critique it from ouside.

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/12/america-y-ur-peeps-b-so-dum.html

I always love a thread that features bogans!

'Leftist ways of thinking do require more complex reasoning and a more rigorous type of evidence.'

That really had me falling off my chair!

Is it a more complex reasoning because it is so hard to twist the facts into the ideology and explain away their contraditcion with common sense I wonder?

It strikes me that kind of statement is very ironic when the topic at hand is the arrogance and 'blindness' of the right. Was it just me or were people also bashing Fox News while quoting The Guardian?

Squeers,

' the media is surely a barometer of popular sentiment,'

That's always been my position.

When it comes to the media, I don't care who owns what, because the market decides what the content is. People generally read what will reinforce what they already believe. I remember reading a gloating article by Gerard Henderson after the 2001 election, explaining the daily life of a left wing Greens/Alp supporter, reading the Herald and New Matilda, cycling to work from Surry Hills, it was quite an amusing characature. But he had a point, in that these people were left absolutely gobsmacked that the coalition won because everything they read and everyone they met reinforced their opinion about, oh, something like... 'Leftist ways of thinking do require more complex reasoning and a more rigorous type of evidence.'

Which brings us to the Bogans. Those bloody bogans are 'happy to consistently vote against their own interests'? IS it possible to be more arrogant than to thnk you know what's best for people.

What amuses me is the left knows what's best for bogans, but doesn't think the right knows what's best for aboriginies, and cant see the double standard.

Maybe aboriginies require more complex reasoning than bogans.