"In other words, the vaccines work, but yes, some small number of people are going to get sick. The message here isn’t even disguised or nuanced: They want everyone to mask up, pretty much forever."
Who is "they" and why do "they" want people to mask up forever, to what end?
I apologize if I missed something here, but this feels like nebulous conspiracy theorizing without some more details. Are "they" the scary Elites I keep hearing about? Your local health departments? The reporters who wrote the story? And what is the expected outcome of this period of perpetual masking? I seem to always trip up when I get to the "Cui bono?" (who benefits?) part of this thread, and still have yet to receive an answer that makes sense.
This makes it hard to take the message of your (commendable) first half seriously - don't impugn bad faith motives to folks you disagree with - when you drop a nugget like the one above in the second half, and then call out "the Faucis of the world" in one of your closing paragraphs. Either deliver the details to substantiate how and why the other side is acting in bad faith, or save the conspiratorial thinking for its own post so that it doesn't negate the valuable message that you're leading with.
Okay, so Boston Globe reporters Kay Lazar, Camille Caldera, their editor(s), and the headline writer want people to wear masks indefinitely.
To what end? Do they get paid more when folks are masked more? Does one of them have a financial (or other) interest in a mask company? Are they all anti-social misanthropes, and achieve personal satisfaction when people are forced to shut themselves inside like they enjoy doing? Do they have a nemesis that owns a restaurant that masking will drive to poverty? Or something else?
I think that calling it propaganda would be a stretch. Perhaps the article ended up having a bias lean towards the left is a more explainable reason. But even that assumption of bias depends if these Boston Globe reporters were in favor of indefinite lockdowns. I don't know what their motivations are, but from having read from the Boston Globe off and on, I'd say that they have a typical left of center bias, not unlike the Washington Post, among other reputable news outlets. Newspapers and television news networks, being run by fallible individuals, do have biases that go one way or another. I would prefer to save the term propaganda to hard left sites such as the Daily Kos, the stuff peddled by Cenk Uygur, Media Matters, and hard right sights such as the Daily Stormer, Advance America, American Greatness, among others.
Don'tcha love it. Spends the first half of his blog preaching decency and then ends it in a conspiracy laden rant against "the fauci's of the world". Dude can't even follow his own advice for 10 minutes.
The Faucis of the world are paid to keep us safe from viral threats. That’s their entire job. They live for this like “the Pattons of this world” life for the next war because that’s what they do, fight in it. It’s not a conspiracy to say that Fauci and government officials like him are paid to err on the side of extreme caution. Take off your tinted glasses and read what I wrote not what you think I dog whistled.
"But if people continue to hold out on vaccines, those stories will become reality, and we’ll be back to lockdowns and mask mandates. Nobody wants that, except the Faucis of the world, who are paid to want it."
Don't gaslight us to try and pretend you didn't write what you wrote. Nobody wants to be back in lockdowns, they want people to take the freaking vaccine. This is just you again putting the blame on the people trying to do the right thing, while excusing those who are going to get us back in lockdowns.
What kind of sick outlook makes someone think that people live for 650,000 dead people.
I didn’t write that. I can’t even pretzel the logic to misinterpret what I wrote to say that. It’s a horrible thought. My meaning was the opposite of that. They want to win, by erring on the side of extreme caution.
Like what was mentioned earlier, there is plenty of more restrictive ways we could have fought this. Forced quarantines, actually fining people who broke lockdown. Jailing people who didn't mask.
You are right that their job is to protect Americans. It's politicians jobs to balance that with the freedom Americans enjoy so much they get stupid over it. But that isn't what you said, you said they WANTED the lockdowns. You were the one that painted them in this horrible light and then whined like a good little republican when someone calls you on it.
That is true. I don't think that there is anything particularly nefarious about Fauci. He's always been extra cautious. Granted, some are having a field day trashing Fauci, but unfortunately that is par for the course of discourse these days. I'm guessing that part of the motivation for him erring on the side of extreme caution is that there will always be people who are less cautious, to varying extents. It's more or less been the standard for the government, as it would look back if the Feds didn't offer sufficient caution and people died as a result. Fauci definitely isn't infallible by any means, but I don't think many people got it right at the beginning of the pandemic on. I get what you are saying Steve.
As far as self-negation goes, this is a minor one. I still keep popping over to The American Conservative see when "soft totalitarianism is going to destroy us all" Rod Dreher realizes that giving Victor Orban a mulligan for using Israeli spyware to keep tabs on Hungarian dissidents pretty much wipes out everything he's been preaching for the past couple of years[1]. But since Orban's passing laws to do with sexualities that Dreher's uncomfortable with, it's all for the Greater Good in the end.
True, Dreher is making a mistake giving cover for Orban. While I definitely have disagreements with him on policy grounds, as a populist-skeptic classical liberal, he's definitely one of the more sane and rational views among the populist right. He's one of several "common good" paleoconservatives that I keep up with, just to get a better feel for their takes on the issues. The populist right would be more potent if there were more Drehers, imho.
Great point. Though the "Faucis" had their way, we might all be welded into our abodes:
"Meanwhile shocking videos have been shared on social media in China showing residents being barricaded inside their own homes by groups of people using wooden boards and nails to keep their doors shut and prevent them from leaving."
"In one shocking video a metal bar appears to have been welded across a resident’s front door with gap wide enough that food can be handed to residents, but too small for them to leave."
"One person shared footage online writing: 'Two videos show all floors of a residential building in Jiangsu-China were blocked by welding fence because a confirmed case found in it.'"
"Another person said residents were being imprisoned in their own homes 'by the police,' sharing several videos of workmen sealing up doors with warning signs next to them."[1]
Kind of makes Americans' angst over masks look like penny-ante Chicken Little'ing.
That perspective is worth nothing for sure. Our present culture and attitudes have had us take a relatively laissez-faire approach to the pandemic, even compared to many countries with liberal democracies(i.e. Australia, New Zealand). I think my state was midpack or so when it came to the strictness of lockdowns. But even the more strict states(Washington, Michigan), paled in comparison to what was imposed in other countries that are well known for being free societies. I can agree with it being what you mentioned being "penny-ante chicken little'ing".
Regarding the Boston Globe article, while I'm glad that they mentioned that breakthrough infections are rare, I would like to see such mentions be made more prominent. I think that if they mentioned such in a subtitle, at the beginning of the piece, or devoted more words for it, that it would be helpful to the vax-hesitant and vax-skeptics who are someone near or on the fence on whether to get the vaccines.
How many people read past the headline? And how many read down to paragraph 927 where they bury the actual context? The problem isn’t that the article is misinformed on facts, it’s that it’s designed as propaganda.
Lack of decency is a problem but I agree with the premise that democrats need to be fought tooth and nail. If I saw any significant compromise on the part of democrats I might be persuaded otherwise. It's been that way since Obama was elected and the "moderate" Republicans have caved at every confrontation. Almost makes me appreciate Bill Clinton.
I thought I made it pretty clear that I was talking about meaningful compromises instead of Republican surrender as they have done since Obama. This thing called civility should work both ways. Maybe you haven't listened to Chuck, Nancy, Bernie, Raskin, Swalwell, Klobuchar, the "squad" and few dozen other democrats who have no interest in civility. You can say he same about outspoken Republicans but before Trump they were outnumbered by the surrender monkeys.
No, you did not. Frankly, you seem to think that any compromise on the part of Republicans is unacceptable - so why then should Democrats compromise (which they do and you fail to recognize)?
Just my two cents on this Curtis. As far as weak-kneed Republicans are concerned, that was probably the case in the 2000s, during the Bush 43 era, when many of them were embracing policies that ran afoul of my views as a strongly right of center, limited government conservative. I remember the days of rooting for and campaigning for primary challengers that were to the right of these Republicans(maybe not so on cultural issues, but certainly on fiscal/economic issues). I certainly didn't consider myself a moderate and still don't consider myself one today. I think the initial Tea Party movement in 2009-2012ish did much to push Congress in the right direction, by defeating weak-kneed members with strongly limited government conservatives dedicated to limiting the size of the government. That I supported. And those that survived primary challenges found some backbone and embraced this new direction. But what I've noticed is that there were some on the right who co-opted what I and many others felt was a noble cause, and used this movement to keep ginning up outrage for the sake of outrage's sake. Or as David Thornton would call it, "outrage du jour". And despite the Tea Partiers having successfully pushed the debate to the right by making possible policies that actually reduced spending, and put the brakes on Obama's agenda(leading to him being dragged kicking and screaming to the table by then Speaker John Boehner), some grifters and other folks on the right(some on talk radio, and those that claimed to be tea partiers) kept moving the goalposts to find a reason to gin up outrage against strong conservative congressional Republicans who had a backbone. And that was even before when Donald Trump parachuted into the political arena. As a result of this outraged based addiction, those who didn't outwardly show signs of outrage, were considered "the establishment", and spineless cowards. It didn't matter that they were firmly conservative when it came to policy. They just weren't screaming bloody murder at every chance to the cameras. It wasn't so much about policy anymore, as opposed to performatives designed to enrage the public.
Fast forward to today. Now, conservatism for many people is no longer based on what one's positions on policies are, but how loyal one is to a person, in this case Donald Trump. I consider myself a firmly right of center conservative. But many Trump supporters think that I'm a "squishy" moderate or even a progressive, because I don't get all worked up over the latest outrage and scream at Joe Biden all day. I just believe that this ginned up, constant outrage won't bring about conservative policies that I like and favor. I'm actually finding myself as being considerably more conservative than most, if not all Trump supporters, on policy matters.
If you show even the slightest whiff of criticism to Trump, you'll be considered a RINO, no matter how conservative one actually is. Just look at what happened regarding Liz Cheney. I mean she is a rock-ribbed conservative who is very devoted to policy. She even voted for Donald Trump twice. If you read her tweets and press releases, she regularly excoriates the Biden administration for their policies. But she is considered a RINO because she refused to accept the Big Lie, and had zero tolerance for Trump's post election behavior, including 1-6. She got booted as GOP conference chair, and the person who replaced her, Elise Stefanik, is far less conservative than Cheney is. But Stefanik licks Trump's boots and kisses up to him every chance she gets, while Cheney gets called a RINO.
When Senator Ben Sasse, of all people, is called a RINO, then you know the GOP has a major problem. Sasse is one of the most conservative of Senators out there. His sin to many on the right, is that he refused to mindlessly kowtow to everything former President Trump said and did.
You can be a solid right of center conservative, or a left of center modern liberal, and still be rational and sane. One doesn't have to be a moderate to be such. But unyielding sycophancy to a personality cult, especially for someone like Donald Trump, is irrational.
I do not disagree although I see it slightly differently. Trump has a ton of faults but they are, in my opinion, mostly personality related, not what he actually does because I agree with his policies. You don't, that's fine. The Russia hoax, the twisting of a joke about Russia having Hillary's e-mails, the Charlottesville hoax, the Mueller investigation, the Ukraine hoax, the sham impeachments were all contrived political theater and a number of Republicans abetted that crap and even repeated obvious lies.
I hate riots but by the standards of whoever considers the burning, looting, destruction and violence in major cities to be mostly peaceful protests, the January 6 disturbance in DC was truly minor. If that was an insurrection, so are the disruptions by Code Pink, the Kavanaugh protesters and other demonstrations that interfere with congressional or judicial proceedings by leftist groups. They differ only in scale.
And, I happen to like Ben Sasse and Liz Cheney but I think they sometimes are too anxious to be the center of attention and aren't always team players. Over the years I had very good employees that required counseling about that very thing. They can be team players without kissing Trump's rear. You're correct about Elise Stefanik.
Regarding the "Big Lie" I think Biden is the President and I doubt the election was stolen but I'm not totally convinced that the amount of cheating and irregularities was as minor as most never-Trumps believe.
I think there is nothing with fighting Democrats tooth and nail, if it involves fighting their policies. That is fair game. And vice versa. A rigorous debate on the merits of policy can be informative and be a good thing. Decency tends to denigrate when the debate becomes personal, and at least one side starts assuming bad faith motives on their opponents. The challenge is when you have personal attacks lobbed at you, is do we take the high road, or sling mud back at them? Self-restraint is required in this case, and its not always easy, at least for me. But I think it is good to practice keeping the level of decency, as I noticed that when my ideological opponents see that I don't retaliate in a personal attack, many of times they cease and even apologize. But you are right, by all means fight the policies. Just that the debate shouldn't end up being personal.
The issue is that it should be a policy by policy argument, and not just "Dems want it, so I'm against it". And: the position being taken in opposition needs to be based in decency as well.
Yeah, this "Dems want it, so I'm against it" is an unprincipled position rooted solely in partisanship. We've seen too much of that lately, especially in the Trump era, where politicians of all stripes have changed positions, just to spite the other.
If there is consensus on an issue, by all means support the position. I've seen many spirited debates on C-SPAN, where the emotions are high, and both sides are passionate on the issues, even calling out the flaws in each other's arguments, but it wouldn't denigrate to personal, ad hominem attacks. A couple of hours later, the members of Congress who fought, were teamed up on a different piece of legislation where they agreed. No hard feelings. Granted, human nature pretty much assures that not every debate will be 100 percent civil, but there is always room for improvement. Scuttling the other side's piece of legislation through heavy handed legislative maneuvers are fine too, if one feels it is the way to advance legislation that they've long wanted. They just have to remember to be careful when going scorched earth, as when the tables are turned, they can easily return the favor. It's a gamble one has to consider if they are an elected officeholder. I guess I should've specified that what I consider fighting "tooth and nail" is completely different than what has been occurring in the Trump era. I miss those days when people can have a spirited debate on substance, and walk away with the friendship and amicability intact.
Regarding decency, I'll admit that I constantly fall short, and sometimes don't end up adhering to the standards that I believe in and aspire to. It does take quite a bit of self-restraint and humility, which I don't always show, especially when I think the argument is off the wall crazy. Or that an argument is made due to intellectual laziness. I think that I'm a little better at being more decent in a political debate that before, but I don't always adhere to what should be the ideal. It is difficult when those you oppose approach everything you say in bad faith, after you made your points in good faith. Especially when your opponent misrepresents your position, plays the race card, and engages in strawman arguments in order to prop up a bad faith argument. But it is worth it though. If at least one person strives to show civility and decency, they can pull the others up along with them. Just my 2 cents.
"In other words, the vaccines work, but yes, some small number of people are going to get sick. The message here isn’t even disguised or nuanced: They want everyone to mask up, pretty much forever."
Who is "they" and why do "they" want people to mask up forever, to what end?
I apologize if I missed something here, but this feels like nebulous conspiracy theorizing without some more details. Are "they" the scary Elites I keep hearing about? Your local health departments? The reporters who wrote the story? And what is the expected outcome of this period of perpetual masking? I seem to always trip up when I get to the "Cui bono?" (who benefits?) part of this thread, and still have yet to receive an answer that makes sense.
This makes it hard to take the message of your (commendable) first half seriously - don't impugn bad faith motives to folks you disagree with - when you drop a nugget like the one above in the second half, and then call out "the Faucis of the world" in one of your closing paragraphs. Either deliver the details to substantiate how and why the other side is acting in bad faith, or save the conspiratorial thinking for its own post so that it doesn't negate the valuable message that you're leading with.
“They” is clearly the people who wrote the article.
Okay, so Boston Globe reporters Kay Lazar, Camille Caldera, their editor(s), and the headline writer want people to wear masks indefinitely.
To what end? Do they get paid more when folks are masked more? Does one of them have a financial (or other) interest in a mask company? Are they all anti-social misanthropes, and achieve personal satisfaction when people are forced to shut themselves inside like they enjoy doing? Do they have a nemesis that owns a restaurant that masking will drive to poverty? Or something else?
I’ll let the reader judge.
If I wrote this and you were the reader, what conclusion would you come to?
I agree it was intended as propaganda. It could be the authors are scared witless of a virus or that it's easy pickings for a subject to report on.
So, the goal of the propaganda is to have all of us as afraid of the virus as they are? What does that accomplish for them?
I think that calling it propaganda would be a stretch. Perhaps the article ended up having a bias lean towards the left is a more explainable reason. But even that assumption of bias depends if these Boston Globe reporters were in favor of indefinite lockdowns. I don't know what their motivations are, but from having read from the Boston Globe off and on, I'd say that they have a typical left of center bias, not unlike the Washington Post, among other reputable news outlets. Newspapers and television news networks, being run by fallible individuals, do have biases that go one way or another. I would prefer to save the term propaganda to hard left sites such as the Daily Kos, the stuff peddled by Cenk Uygur, Media Matters, and hard right sights such as the Daily Stormer, Advance America, American Greatness, among others.
Don'tcha love it. Spends the first half of his blog preaching decency and then ends it in a conspiracy laden rant against "the fauci's of the world". Dude can't even follow his own advice for 10 minutes.
The Faucis of the world are paid to keep us safe from viral threats. That’s their entire job. They live for this like “the Pattons of this world” life for the next war because that’s what they do, fight in it. It’s not a conspiracy to say that Fauci and government officials like him are paid to err on the side of extreme caution. Take off your tinted glasses and read what I wrote not what you think I dog whistled.
"But if people continue to hold out on vaccines, those stories will become reality, and we’ll be back to lockdowns and mask mandates. Nobody wants that, except the Faucis of the world, who are paid to want it."
Don't gaslight us to try and pretend you didn't write what you wrote. Nobody wants to be back in lockdowns, they want people to take the freaking vaccine. This is just you again putting the blame on the people trying to do the right thing, while excusing those who are going to get us back in lockdowns.
What kind of sick outlook makes someone think that people live for 650,000 dead people.
I didn’t write that. I can’t even pretzel the logic to misinterpret what I wrote to say that. It’s a horrible thought. My meaning was the opposite of that. They want to win, by erring on the side of extreme caution.
Like what was mentioned earlier, there is plenty of more restrictive ways we could have fought this. Forced quarantines, actually fining people who broke lockdown. Jailing people who didn't mask.
You are right that their job is to protect Americans. It's politicians jobs to balance that with the freedom Americans enjoy so much they get stupid over it. But that isn't what you said, you said they WANTED the lockdowns. You were the one that painted them in this horrible light and then whined like a good little republican when someone calls you on it.
That is true. I don't think that there is anything particularly nefarious about Fauci. He's always been extra cautious. Granted, some are having a field day trashing Fauci, but unfortunately that is par for the course of discourse these days. I'm guessing that part of the motivation for him erring on the side of extreme caution is that there will always be people who are less cautious, to varying extents. It's more or less been the standard for the government, as it would look back if the Feds didn't offer sufficient caution and people died as a result. Fauci definitely isn't infallible by any means, but I don't think many people got it right at the beginning of the pandemic on. I get what you are saying Steve.
As far as self-negation goes, this is a minor one. I still keep popping over to The American Conservative see when "soft totalitarianism is going to destroy us all" Rod Dreher realizes that giving Victor Orban a mulligan for using Israeli spyware to keep tabs on Hungarian dissidents pretty much wipes out everything he's been preaching for the past couple of years[1]. But since Orban's passing laws to do with sexualities that Dreher's uncomfortable with, it's all for the Greater Good in the end.
[1] https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/pegasus-end-of-privacy/
True, Dreher is making a mistake giving cover for Orban. While I definitely have disagreements with him on policy grounds, as a populist-skeptic classical liberal, he's definitely one of the more sane and rational views among the populist right. He's one of several "common good" paleoconservatives that I keep up with, just to get a better feel for their takes on the issues. The populist right would be more potent if there were more Drehers, imho.
One thing I think many have forgotten is that we've thus far avoided full-blown quarantines.
Great point. Though the "Faucis" had their way, we might all be welded into our abodes:
"Meanwhile shocking videos have been shared on social media in China showing residents being barricaded inside their own homes by groups of people using wooden boards and nails to keep their doors shut and prevent them from leaving."
"In one shocking video a metal bar appears to have been welded across a resident’s front door with gap wide enough that food can be handed to residents, but too small for them to leave."
"One person shared footage online writing: 'Two videos show all floors of a residential building in Jiangsu-China were blocked by welding fence because a confirmed case found in it.'"
"Another person said residents were being imprisoned in their own homes 'by the police,' sharing several videos of workmen sealing up doors with warning signs next to them."[1]
Kind of makes Americans' angst over masks look like penny-ante Chicken Little'ing.
[1] https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/coronavirus-residents-welded-inside-their-own-home/
That perspective is worth nothing for sure. Our present culture and attitudes have had us take a relatively laissez-faire approach to the pandemic, even compared to many countries with liberal democracies(i.e. Australia, New Zealand). I think my state was midpack or so when it came to the strictness of lockdowns. But even the more strict states(Washington, Michigan), paled in comparison to what was imposed in other countries that are well known for being free societies. I can agree with it being what you mentioned being "penny-ante chicken little'ing".
Regarding the Boston Globe article, while I'm glad that they mentioned that breakthrough infections are rare, I would like to see such mentions be made more prominent. I think that if they mentioned such in a subtitle, at the beginning of the piece, or devoted more words for it, that it would be helpful to the vax-hesitant and vax-skeptics who are someone near or on the fence on whether to get the vaccines.
How many people read past the headline? And how many read down to paragraph 927 where they bury the actual context? The problem isn’t that the article is misinformed on facts, it’s that it’s designed as propaganda.
Lack of decency is a problem but I agree with the premise that democrats need to be fought tooth and nail. If I saw any significant compromise on the part of democrats I might be persuaded otherwise. It's been that way since Obama was elected and the "moderate" Republicans have caved at every confrontation. Almost makes me appreciate Bill Clinton.
You agree lack of decency is a problem, then refuse to treat Democrats with decency. Nice.
I thought I made it pretty clear that I was talking about meaningful compromises instead of Republican surrender as they have done since Obama. This thing called civility should work both ways. Maybe you haven't listened to Chuck, Nancy, Bernie, Raskin, Swalwell, Klobuchar, the "squad" and few dozen other democrats who have no interest in civility. You can say he same about outspoken Republicans but before Trump they were outnumbered by the surrender monkeys.
No, you did not. Frankly, you seem to think that any compromise on the part of Republicans is unacceptable - so why then should Democrats compromise (which they do and you fail to recognize)?
Republicans have surrendered to the point that further compromise would make them democrats.
Just my two cents on this Curtis. As far as weak-kneed Republicans are concerned, that was probably the case in the 2000s, during the Bush 43 era, when many of them were embracing policies that ran afoul of my views as a strongly right of center, limited government conservative. I remember the days of rooting for and campaigning for primary challengers that were to the right of these Republicans(maybe not so on cultural issues, but certainly on fiscal/economic issues). I certainly didn't consider myself a moderate and still don't consider myself one today. I think the initial Tea Party movement in 2009-2012ish did much to push Congress in the right direction, by defeating weak-kneed members with strongly limited government conservatives dedicated to limiting the size of the government. That I supported. And those that survived primary challenges found some backbone and embraced this new direction. But what I've noticed is that there were some on the right who co-opted what I and many others felt was a noble cause, and used this movement to keep ginning up outrage for the sake of outrage's sake. Or as David Thornton would call it, "outrage du jour". And despite the Tea Partiers having successfully pushed the debate to the right by making possible policies that actually reduced spending, and put the brakes on Obama's agenda(leading to him being dragged kicking and screaming to the table by then Speaker John Boehner), some grifters and other folks on the right(some on talk radio, and those that claimed to be tea partiers) kept moving the goalposts to find a reason to gin up outrage against strong conservative congressional Republicans who had a backbone. And that was even before when Donald Trump parachuted into the political arena. As a result of this outraged based addiction, those who didn't outwardly show signs of outrage, were considered "the establishment", and spineless cowards. It didn't matter that they were firmly conservative when it came to policy. They just weren't screaming bloody murder at every chance to the cameras. It wasn't so much about policy anymore, as opposed to performatives designed to enrage the public.
Fast forward to today. Now, conservatism for many people is no longer based on what one's positions on policies are, but how loyal one is to a person, in this case Donald Trump. I consider myself a firmly right of center conservative. But many Trump supporters think that I'm a "squishy" moderate or even a progressive, because I don't get all worked up over the latest outrage and scream at Joe Biden all day. I just believe that this ginned up, constant outrage won't bring about conservative policies that I like and favor. I'm actually finding myself as being considerably more conservative than most, if not all Trump supporters, on policy matters.
If you show even the slightest whiff of criticism to Trump, you'll be considered a RINO, no matter how conservative one actually is. Just look at what happened regarding Liz Cheney. I mean she is a rock-ribbed conservative who is very devoted to policy. She even voted for Donald Trump twice. If you read her tweets and press releases, she regularly excoriates the Biden administration for their policies. But she is considered a RINO because she refused to accept the Big Lie, and had zero tolerance for Trump's post election behavior, including 1-6. She got booted as GOP conference chair, and the person who replaced her, Elise Stefanik, is far less conservative than Cheney is. But Stefanik licks Trump's boots and kisses up to him every chance she gets, while Cheney gets called a RINO.
When Senator Ben Sasse, of all people, is called a RINO, then you know the GOP has a major problem. Sasse is one of the most conservative of Senators out there. His sin to many on the right, is that he refused to mindlessly kowtow to everything former President Trump said and did.
You can be a solid right of center conservative, or a left of center modern liberal, and still be rational and sane. One doesn't have to be a moderate to be such. But unyielding sycophancy to a personality cult, especially for someone like Donald Trump, is irrational.
I do not disagree although I see it slightly differently. Trump has a ton of faults but they are, in my opinion, mostly personality related, not what he actually does because I agree with his policies. You don't, that's fine. The Russia hoax, the twisting of a joke about Russia having Hillary's e-mails, the Charlottesville hoax, the Mueller investigation, the Ukraine hoax, the sham impeachments were all contrived political theater and a number of Republicans abetted that crap and even repeated obvious lies.
I hate riots but by the standards of whoever considers the burning, looting, destruction and violence in major cities to be mostly peaceful protests, the January 6 disturbance in DC was truly minor. If that was an insurrection, so are the disruptions by Code Pink, the Kavanaugh protesters and other demonstrations that interfere with congressional or judicial proceedings by leftist groups. They differ only in scale.
And, I happen to like Ben Sasse and Liz Cheney but I think they sometimes are too anxious to be the center of attention and aren't always team players. Over the years I had very good employees that required counseling about that very thing. They can be team players without kissing Trump's rear. You're correct about Elise Stefanik.
Regarding the "Big Lie" I think Biden is the President and I doubt the election was stolen but I'm not totally convinced that the amount of cheating and irregularities was as minor as most never-Trumps believe.
Your perspective is skewed by your position on the political spectrum.
Glad yours is not.
I think there is nothing with fighting Democrats tooth and nail, if it involves fighting their policies. That is fair game. And vice versa. A rigorous debate on the merits of policy can be informative and be a good thing. Decency tends to denigrate when the debate becomes personal, and at least one side starts assuming bad faith motives on their opponents. The challenge is when you have personal attacks lobbed at you, is do we take the high road, or sling mud back at them? Self-restraint is required in this case, and its not always easy, at least for me. But I think it is good to practice keeping the level of decency, as I noticed that when my ideological opponents see that I don't retaliate in a personal attack, many of times they cease and even apologize. But you are right, by all means fight the policies. Just that the debate shouldn't end up being personal.
The issue is that it should be a policy by policy argument, and not just "Dems want it, so I'm against it". And: the position being taken in opposition needs to be based in decency as well.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
100 percent agree. Good points.
Yeah, this "Dems want it, so I'm against it" is an unprincipled position rooted solely in partisanship. We've seen too much of that lately, especially in the Trump era, where politicians of all stripes have changed positions, just to spite the other.
If there is consensus on an issue, by all means support the position. I've seen many spirited debates on C-SPAN, where the emotions are high, and both sides are passionate on the issues, even calling out the flaws in each other's arguments, but it wouldn't denigrate to personal, ad hominem attacks. A couple of hours later, the members of Congress who fought, were teamed up on a different piece of legislation where they agreed. No hard feelings. Granted, human nature pretty much assures that not every debate will be 100 percent civil, but there is always room for improvement. Scuttling the other side's piece of legislation through heavy handed legislative maneuvers are fine too, if one feels it is the way to advance legislation that they've long wanted. They just have to remember to be careful when going scorched earth, as when the tables are turned, they can easily return the favor. It's a gamble one has to consider if they are an elected officeholder. I guess I should've specified that what I consider fighting "tooth and nail" is completely different than what has been occurring in the Trump era. I miss those days when people can have a spirited debate on substance, and walk away with the friendship and amicability intact.
Agreed.
Regarding decency, I'll admit that I constantly fall short, and sometimes don't end up adhering to the standards that I believe in and aspire to. It does take quite a bit of self-restraint and humility, which I don't always show, especially when I think the argument is off the wall crazy. Or that an argument is made due to intellectual laziness. I think that I'm a little better at being more decent in a political debate that before, but I don't always adhere to what should be the ideal. It is difficult when those you oppose approach everything you say in bad faith, after you made your points in good faith. Especially when your opponent misrepresents your position, plays the race card, and engages in strawman arguments in order to prop up a bad faith argument. But it is worth it though. If at least one person strives to show civility and decency, they can pull the others up along with them. Just my 2 cents.