quote:I think Obama is hoping that he can win back his base through half-measures like this that don't require him to repudiate (or even attempt to publicly justify, since that'd require publicly discussing) his Bush-in-sheep's-clothing economic and military policies. But he does need to weigh that against the risk of waking up the Republican base.
Yes. Speaking only for myself, the biggest reason there's a chance I wont vote for Obama is because of Obama, not because of Mitt Romney. And if it were to happen it would be me not voting for Obama rather than me voting for another candidate.
[EDIT: calrification: I'd vote, but my motivation would be coming from the negative rather than the positive]
Hobbes
I'm glad to hear you'd vote. One of the chief problems with the current electorate and crop of candidates is that voter turnout is poor. Were voter turnout higher, regardless of how they voted, the field of candidates would benefit greatly, as would we all.
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Blayne Bradley
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If turnout was 100% Congress would shift so far left that the Democrats could implode into different left and center left parties and the Republicans would still be forever shut out of power.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Kate, I don't think you're in the target demographic for "Zero Punctuation" or the other one on the Escapist... um... oh right, "Movie Bob."
Anyway, they have game reviews and movie reviews, respectively, from people Blayne looks up to.
I only mention it because whenever games or films come up, Blayne invariably parrots opinions he heard from those two sources... sometimes attributed, often not.
So what I'm saying is, this isn't really new. The Daily Show is just presumably his current events "review" of choice.
This is pretty disengenuous and unnessasarily so; sure I like Bobs movie reviews because I enjoy the process of his reviews regardless of the review. IE: *How* not the *What* but I hold vehement disagreements with him on virtually everything else though it would be unreasonable to expect you to know of my posting elsewhere on this subject; it IS however equally unreasonable for you to automatically assume that I automatically agree or parot everything I see or hear from the people I "look up to" whatever that means man.
It is just the case that I actually get my American News from the Daily Show and Colbert with follow ups on Wikipedia and Al Jeezeirra; the remaining 50% of my news comes from seeing any interesting current events threads from the Debate and Discussion portion of Something Awful, which is 50% of my links and some from SDN.net.
Sometimes it provokes discussion, but not always.
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Blayne, why don't you diversify your news sources a little. Or at least acknowledge your source in the post. Otherwise it gives the impression that you as trying to pass off as your own the information that most of the people here saw on the Daily Show last night.
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Blayne Bradley
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I've begun posting from my phone fairly often, when I'm home I usually have added links and quote blocks.
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I don't know how you can stand posting from your phone that often. I tried it last week and found it to be a huge pain in the butt.
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Blayne Bradley
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Because people are just wrong on the internet and my distaste for fat fingering my phone is outweighted by my obsession with arguing with the internet.
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On another note, a recent defense policy article I read said that Norway is the only first world nation likely to increase defense spending in the next two years.
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Some sort of symbolism? I know a lot of African flags have black, red and green in them for purely symbolic reasons.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: I disagree. You don't ignore something like that, you speak out against it.
If he wants to burn effigies until the dogs come home so be it. If he actually threatens the president pay attention. If pundits get involved or legal action is contemplated he has an open and shut case and can easily obtain money by mischaracterizing the situation and calling himself a martyr. He has a history of these stunts he will drag this out until it stops being talked about whereupon he moves onto the next stunt. Railing against him is what he wants. If we ignore him then he will escalate or stop. We win if he stops he gets arrested if he escalates. So we win then too. It's probably a foregone conclusion this will be publicized so the cat's probably out of the bag.
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He already has plenty of publicity. I just want the conservatives here to know who is fighting on their side.
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This is so seldom true; even when it is, it is irrelevant. If what he is doing is hateful, bigoted, and propagating a discriminatory viewpoint, then it doesn't matter if it is a 'stunt' — give him ALL the attention he wants. Publicize what he is doing. Speak against it. Make sure the whole world knows quite clearly exactly what we think of his views. The more he 'wants us to bite,' the more he should be bitten — and, by association, any who won't distance themselves, those social forces which remain complicit with his brand of hate.
he only ends up being a helpful tool in moving us forward away from him.
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Kate: No conservative here counts this man as an ally.
Sam: There will never be a drought of hate long enough to starve this man. Sure we can ostracize those who side with him but by and large he is counting on being reviled and hoping those who listen to the right (not political right) news outlets will send him support. I have nothing but contempt for what he does. But I think trying to use he media to sckoosh him is to use gasoline to put out the fire. You'll never pour enough at once to put it out. Let his stupid effigy burn out and fade away.
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The point is not to starve a man, it is to starve the popular, comfortable transmissibility of ideas. You do not respond to toxic social ideas with passivity and silence and comfort and room to grow. You confront it, and make it be known in the discourse of the day for what reasons we rightfully revile his ideas, as opposed to just leaving his narrative sung without challenge and no clear and open opposition. A man like him does not get to control the discourse by acting like he 'wants the attention,' no matter the attention he gets.
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Don't they? They should. They promote the same ideas, support the same legislation, and vote for the same people.
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<edit2>Snideness aside, the thing that bothers me about this sentiment is the desire to judge the party by the extremists who wish to associate with it. The Westboro church doesn't represent Baptists (let alone Christians or the religious), al-Qaeda doesn't represent Muslims, and Terry Jones doesn't represent Republicans. I imagine you feel the Republican party welcomes or condones or at least winks at the overt racism and hatred of Terry Jones and his ilk, and I'm sure Sam can bring his list of racists who spoke at CPAC to prove the point, and there's certainly a kernal of truth to all that. But by the same token, it's true that the deranged Occupiers who wanted to blow up bridges and buildings in Ohio because of how much they hate corporate America also reflect an ugly reality within the Democratic party. Focusing on the extreme voices, attempting to convince the other side that they should be ashamed of themselves because of a small minority of bad actors, is not only unconducive to open and honest dialog, it is, I feel, small-minded and demonstrates a lack of generosity of spirit.</edit2>
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I am not suggesting that consrvatives in general approve his methods. Just his goals.
I could make an identical statement about the militant Occupiers. I don't however believe that such statements are useful, or morally positive. To me they seem to stem from the worst part of ourselves; the grasping need not only to demonstrate our own moral superiority, but to wallow in the moral inferiority of others.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I am not suggesting that consrvatives in general approve his methods. Just his goals.
WHICH of his goals do you think are generally approved of by conservatives? You'd have to match it up to a very exacting quote of the guy's intended policy, or whatever.
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Honestly that's a wide, wide net to cast for guilt by association. You would need to talk more to the issue of core motivations, logic about positions, justifications for his means, etc.
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"[/i]If he wants to burn effigies until the dogs come home, so be it. If he actually threatens the president, pay attention. If pundits get involved or legal action is contemplated, he has an open and shut case and can easily obtain money by mischaracterizing the situation and calling himself a martyr. He has a history of these stunts, he will drag this out until it stops being talked about whereupon he moves onto the next stunt. Railing against him is what he wants. If we ignore him then he will escalate or stop. We win if he stops, he gets arrested if he escalates. So we win then too. It's probably a foregone conclusion this will be publicized, so the cat's probably out of the bag.[/i]"
So what's DonaldTrump done this time?
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: He may also drink milk!
Honestly that's a wide, wide net to cast for guilt by association. You would need to talk more to the issue of core motivations, logic about positions, justifications for his means, etc.
Why? I am not saying they are the same or that they like or approve of them. I am saying that, at least about ssm, they are on the same side and working for the same thing.
We didn't like Stalin but he was our ally.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: We didn't like Stalin but he was our ally.
Right. And he's still your ally, isn't he, Kate? I mean, both of you support an expanding state, so, even if you have different methods, your goals are basically the same by my broad interpretation.
I think Sam and Peter (it is Peter, right? Tired of typing out your whole screen name) are right.
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"The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy." I forget where I heard that right now, tip of my tongue, but no. People working towards common aims are not at all necessarily friends, allies, or even neutral or apathetic with respect to one another. Stalin certainly never considered us an actual ally, so how on Earth could he be one to us?
Anyway, as others have said, this 'common goal association' thing is a pretty problematic stance for you to take, kmbboots. Unless you're willing to respond with peaceable agreement when someone trots out things like that for your positions-or do you think there aren't despicable lunatic fringes who could be associated with you, if the only standard we're using is this one?
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Blayne Bradley
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The Right has a greater obligation to denounce and deny those ostensibly campaigning on "their side" whose views are genuinely despicable even to them than the left is because of a long standing systemic imbalance in how the Right favors human rights abuses and war criminals within its ranks to fight the "common fight".
Pinochet's right hand man for instance works in a senior position in the CATO institute; the right has generally never denounced these people or their regimes that they signify, while on the left for every academic who allegedly is an apologist for Mao or Stalin there are rooms full of academics ready to criticize them.
It is more important for the right to denounce its fellow travelers because it generally doesn't ever do so.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: We didn't like Stalin but he was our ally.
Right. And he's still your ally, isn't he, Kate? I mean, both of you support an expanding state, so, even if you have different methods, your goals are basically the same by my broad interpretation.
I think Sam and Peter (it is Peter, right? Tired of typing out your whole screen name) are right.
<edit to remove an argument that may have led the discussion in an emotionally unnavigable direction>
As for the name, I usually prefer Senoj as a shortened version of my screen name, although you're right that it's Peter in actuality.
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Don't know if Dan is being serious or trolling but the goal of the 'left' isn't to expand the state, that has never been the goal; only an acceptable means to achieving greater egalitarian utility. If it could be reliably be done by making the state smaller there wouldn't be this discussion; but evidence says it cannot be done (re: China for a state with little to no safety net) by making the state smaller so that only leaves one alternative.
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I missed whatever you edited, but if it was also targeted at me, you probably didn't need to edit it. I wouldn't have been bothered. If you were letting me know you thought my post stepped over some sort of line (inferring this from Blayne's post because it looks like he may have seen yours pre-edit)... you may well have been right!
Kate, I apologize if my crack about Stalin offended you. I don't actually think you're ideological allies Stalin in any meaningful way. But I do think that your criteria for what might make groups into allies is woefully wrong.
(Blayne: I don't think I was "trolling," though my argument was certainly facetious.)
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No, I don't think Blayne's was in response to mine. I was trying to find a better example than Stalin of someone who ostensibly shared some of Kate's values but who, if the values were judged based on the character of that or those individuals, would indicate the values were offensive.
I removed my post for two reasons: 1) if I'm making the argument that such assertions are morally and logically offensive, it would be poor form to make such an assertion, even if it was to serve a contradictory purpose in the discussion and 2) the particular example I chose is one which I've come to realize can be extremely hurtful to some people, and I didn't feel the rhetorical point was worth the risk of possibly offending anyone's feelings in this particular way.
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No, I don't think Blayne's was in response to mine. I was trying to find a better example than Stalin of someone who ostensibly shared some of Kate's values but who, if the values were judged based on the character of that or those individuals, would indicate the values were offensive.
I removed my post for two reasons: 1) if I'm making the argument that such assertions are morally and logically offensive, it would be poor form to make such an assertion, even if it was to serve a contradictory purpose in the discussion and 2) the particular example I chose is one which I've come to realize can be extremely hurtful to some people, and I didn't feel the rhetorical point was worth the risk of possibly offending anyone's feelings in this particular way.
Ah, gotcha!
Yeah, I agreed with what I thought you might've said to me for similar reasons.
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No, I don't think Blayne's was in response to mine. I was trying to find a better example than Stalin of someone who ostensibly shared some of Kate's values but who, if the values were judged based on the character of that or those individuals, would indicate the values were offensive.
I removed my post for two reasons: 1) if I'm making the argument that such assertions are morally and logically offensive, it would be poor form to make such an assertion, even if it was to serve a contradictory purpose in the discussion and 2) the particular example I chose is one which I've come to realize can be extremely hurtful to some people, and I didn't feel the rhetorical point was worth the risk of possibly offending anyone's feelings in this particular way.
I think that would actually be a good exercise. I can't think of any of my allies in the fight for SSM that I wouldn't prefer over those on the other side. But I could be unaware of some.
Stalin is not a good choice because the only thing that we would have been allies over would be defeating Germany in WWII and I was not born yet. Had I been, he would have been my ally in that particular endeavor.
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Blayne Bradley
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Actually Stalin was allied to France back in 1938; both had pledged to defend Czechoslovakia; but the French and British had backed out on it.
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I just had a very discouraging discussion with 2 otherwise reasonable and friendly people, both whom I consider friends.
I am tired of people, friends or not, flat out stating that because I don't agree with them about a political view, I MUST not "know" what they know.
My IQ is at least 30 points higher than either one of them, I research my own views fairly well, I don't assume everything I read from a single source is correct or unbiased. I read faster, and have been reading comprehension than both of them combined. My education level is at least 4 years above either one of them.
I don't mean that all of that makes me automatically right, or better than them.
But it does mean I am not mislead, or a moron, or brainwashed.
I JUST DISAGREE WITH THEIR CONCLUSIONS!
(not to mention that well over half of their "facts" were not factual)
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quote:I am tired of people, friends or not, flat out stating that because I don't agree with them about a political view, I MUST not "know" what they know.
Oh man I love this. FAVORED VARIANT: "You could only possibly not be agreeing with me because you have not yet understood ____________ as well as I/we have."
Most common fill-ins for the insert-the-blank: free-market economics, the immorality of eating meat, the g.w. bush presidency, objectivism, marxism, the impending complete collapse of fiat currency, chemtrails, thatcherism, anarchy, men's rights advocacy, and current record holder, "israel's plight and history"
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I can't think of any of my allies in the fight for SSM that I wouldn't prefer over those on the other side. But I could be unaware of some.
Dick Cheney? Just kidding. In honesty, I went looking for examples of SSM proponents behaving badly, but the process made me feel dirty and so I stopped. If you feel strongly that you want examples I'll hold my nose and do it, but I'd prefer not to.
I'm wondering why you're selectively focusing on the SSM issue, though. I feel like my earlier provided example of the recently apprehended Occupy-inspired terrorists shows that there are people who (ostensibly) share your values, vote for your candidates, and support your legislation, but whose actions you wouldn't particularly like being forced (even passive-aggressively) to answer for. If you feel that tarring progressives with the bad actions of these individuals isn't right or nice or good or useful, what do you feel makes your analogous tarring of conservatives right, nice, good and/or useful?
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I don't actually have to look for opponents of SSM behaving badly; they are everywhere. Sure. Go ahead and count Dick Cheney - tepid as he is. How is he behaving badly about this?
Good heavens! How far left do you think I am? The recently apprehended alleged Occupy terrorists are not progressive; they are anarchists. Do you think that I am an anarchist? Do you think that anarchists are voting for President Obama?
I am focused on SSM because it is a cause that is important to me and because Hatrack is one of the few places I find people who are opposed.
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for/against ssm is just way too loose for me to make DAMNING ASSOCIATIONS between this crazy pastor and all anti-ssm folks, ON THE WHOLE. What is productive, though, is picking through his varied poisons and finding those which the anti-SSM movement just refuses, mostly, to move away from. It goes back to what I pointed out before: You need VERY SPECIFIC worded statements from him on the topics, and then compare them to the drek that 'preservers of traditional marriage' typically rely on (bonus points if they keep asserting that gay is usually the result of abuse, or that gay marriage will harm traditional marriage, or that you have to have a mother and father or the marriage is suboptimal for some psychosexual/psychogender reason invented by NARTH-level pseudoscientists).
Then you've got something.
With this? No, not so much.
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Why not? I think it is quite instructive to look at the people "around me" on an issue. If they are distasteful, I think that is useful information about the cause they are serving. Not that every good cause is served by only perfect people, of course, but looking for the where the drooling hate-filled lunatics collect is instructive.
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Kate, I'm not suggesting you approve the anarchists' methods, just their goals.
You can choose to rhetorically disassociate yourself from these young men, but whether they're "progressives" or "anarchists" is ancillary to the yardstick you gave above for judging their fitness as exemplars of the cause. Do they support the Occupy agenda? Yes. Do they want to see Mitt Romney elected? No.
These are some of your less savory fellow-travelers on the road to populist economic reform, whether you like it or not. If you don't feel it's fair to judge the morality of your economic legislative goals (as symbolized by the Occupy movement) by the methods of these Occupy sympathizers, I think you should afford others the same courtesy.
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quote:Good heavens! How far left do you think I am? The recently apprehended alleged Occupy terrorists are not progressive; they are anarchists. Do you think that I am an anarchist? Do you think that anarchists are voting for President Obama?
That is, at best, as subtle a difference as the one between the opponents of SSM that frequent this board and the people you keep bringing up and damning them for allying themselves with. No one before this wanted to cast you into the same group with them, it's you who have decided to judge a group by the extremes, as well as judge for others what group they belong to. This example was brought up as counterpoint when you challenged someone to do just that to you. Now it's been done and it's a little late to cry foul. If you want to make your litmus test who they vote for, for president it's a little late but I'm sure we can accomadate. You really think no one whose both insane and outrageously immoral voted for Obama?
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