Pangloss

No questions have been put to me in this thread that I have not answered completely and with clarity. I have not advocated ignoring hypocritical actions amongst the political leadership.

A perfect illustration of my point, complete with a straw man that you know is a straw man, the suggestion of underlying motives, marginalization, and even an accusation of illiteracy. Nice -- it never ceases to amaze me the way you can pop these things out like it's second nature. Of course intimidation doesn't really work on me, because unlike most folks here I can actually see your long and colorful infraction sheet! But I suppose others will read the above and find it to be of value, and they can't see your infractions, so your post could indeed have the desired effect on some. Who knows? Maybe I'm wrong and you're right. Maybe that IS the best way to change people's minds. You know, if nothing else this thread has demonstrated very graphically that the allure of "talk radio" is not limited to conservatives. Even very intelligent people can come to believe that intimidation and ostracizing ridicule is an effective way to change people's minds. I think I will bookmark this thread and offer it as evidence against the claim that only people of low intelligence are swayed by, for example, conservative talk radio.

You mean like your association of this individual's infidelity and the failures of the Republican Party? But no, I don't agree that there's no relationship between demonizing Republicans over ideological differences due to personal failures, and the overall degradation of American politics. And neither does anyone who ever complains about Conservative Talk Radio or the "Faux News Channel". Well IMO there is a huge difference between ostracizing people for breaking the law and ostracizing people for opinions they hold. So if you want to ostracize this governor for cheating on his wife, I'm right behind you, but when you go to call people names simply for thinking that it should be called a "civil union" instead of "marriage", then you won't find me behind you anymore. That's my right, just as it is yours to keep blasting the guy. I'm not saying you shouldn't be allowed to do it, I'm saying you should know that it comes at a cost. Scorn and derision aren't the best way to bring about changes in people's opinions. That's why I don't participate in it. But you certainly have a right to do so. Just as Rush Limbaugh does. Okay, I promise not to do that -- I'll stick with accurate comparisons and non-disengenuous, respectful discourse. I haven't suggested (and don't believe) that you just like to intimidate people for the fun of it. I know you better than that, and I hope I haven't given anyone that impression! Since we're on the subject, I'd like to ask you not to undermine other people's opinions by casting them in the minority view, or casting yours as factual or more objectively valid. Folks here are smarter than the average bear, and deserve equanimity in conversation.

Like so many things that happen in Latin America, it's an oddball situation. I wasn't aware of the angle of the supreme court ordering the military to depose the president -- that's interesting. Presumably the White House knew this when they declared the coup to be illegal, so I'll just have to wait and see how this shakes out. It is interesting that this put Obama, at least temporarily, on the same side of the fence as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Not a comfortable place to be.

Er, I'm confused... I thought I answered that question in my previous post. There were two parts to my answer to your question of why it's a bad idea for people to accept the use of scorn and ridicule as a means of persuasion: 1) Potential for backfire when public opinion differs from yours. 2) Intimidation doesn't change people's minds. That having been said, I'll happily state that sometimes ridicule can be effective in opening people's minds to the possibility that they may be wrong. It's a fine line, but it's one that pundits and political columnists have walked successfully for decades. The key is probably a matter of maintaining respect and listening to what people have to say, as we do here. (Such methods seem to be most effective when they are presented in a manner that the viewer can see as comfortably different from their own, but I'm just speculating there.) Obama talks about the value of listening and mutual respect in his book "The Audacity of Hope," which I quoted earlier, and I'm sure we've all heard him talk about this in his speeches and such. That's the interesting thing about the guy -- he actually means it, it's not just pandering. He actually sees open-minded conversation and mutual respect as a means to an end. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged There's a reason I quoted something that *actually happened*, as opposed to something that could happen in your worst nightmares. It's not a slippery slope if it's already taken place.

Be careful what you wish for. One year we're ostracizing racists and people who don't believe in global warming. But the next year we're ostracizing those heartless secularists who want to cut off Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. Public opinion is funny that way. But ultimately the most important question you need to be asking here is whether you want people voting your way because it's the right thing to do or because of fear and intimidation.

I don't know. Why don't you explain that to them, instead of trying to make them look bad for feeling as they do?

Has anyone checked this with Snopes yet? *runs for cover*

Even so, I fail to see how a personal failure in that department proves, in and of itself, that those grounds for objection are invalid.

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090629-710951.html So in a nutshell the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against the lower court decision in which Sotomayor participated in the majority view -- her position was overturned. Some things to bear in mind here: 1) Had Sotomayor already replaced Souter (and there'd been no conflict of interest), the decision by the Court would have been exactly the same, because Souter was in the dissent, expressing the exact same view that Sotomayor expressed. 2) The dissent is not an extremist position -- it's a disagreement between intelligent human beings. Three long-standing, well-respected (liberal) Supreme Court justices shared Souter/Sotomayor's view on this. 3) The overall percentage of Sotomayor decisions now overturned by the Supreme Court is something like two percent. Regarding the decision itself, I happen to generally share the view of the majority (and disagree with Souter/Sotomayor's side), but that's the larger issue not the details. It does sound from the news stories that I've read that the majority (conservative) justices are correct here and that this was a case of reverse discrimination. They acknowledged that the city was in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" position here, but felt that that was insufficient cause to throw out the test results that had produced no minority applicants. Ginsberg disagreed, saying that there was ample evidence that the tests were flawed, but there is no evidence of malicious (racist) intent by the test designers or applicants, nor do we really even know if the test WAS really flawed, we simply have suggestive evidence that it MIGHT have been. So, bearing in mind my distant relationship with the facts, it seems like the city should have gone with the results. But this in no way would bar me from supporting Sotomayor to replace Souter. My opinion, for what it's worth.

It's a different approach because it doesn't make a falsely suggestive comparison. We say "you're wrong to commit adultery", and not something like "these gay marriage opponents on grounds of marriage sanctity can't even keep their own zippers zipped up" (etc). Or: Not trying to rag on bascule for his opinion, I'm just saying there are consequences when large numbers of the voting citizenry start waving banners of that nature. You make things like Fox News and Air America, not things like gay marriage. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Nothing wrong with that, IMO.

You hold him responsible for his personal failures but stop short of raising any comparisons with issues he supported or groups he was a member of. The comparisons are false and nobody buys them as evidence of wrongness anyway, so making them only alienates the very people you're trying to win over.

I acknowledge your points. In my opinion that matters less than the larger problem that this sort of thing (this charge of hypocrisy based on a very loose association of only distantly-related political positions) perpetuates. The reason this is a bad road to keep repaving is that it doesn't actually teach lessons about morality and ethics. It teaches lessons about revenge. And the people you're teaching are going to demonstrate what they've learned the moment they win the next election, just as has happened with the last several elections with tactics ranging from stalled appointments to outright impeachment. I respect that this matters to you and empathize with that position -- it matters to me as well when these bastards betray our trust. And I agree that in general it's not unfounded to challenge a politician who is hypocritical in his political positions. And certainly Republicans have put themselves in the position of making this sort of thing more natural than having turkey at Thanksgiving. I just think there is a better way. Just because we find $90,000 in William Jefferson's freezer doesn't mean we have to accuse him of being a liberal hypocrite with all of his social causes and talk of helping the poor. He can just be a rotten bastard who took a bribe and shouldn't still be in Congress, end of story. My two bits, anyway.

Okay, that suggests that it's not the specific issues that are the focus of your ire, but the hypocrisy itself. In that case, one would assume that you don't limit the accusation of hypocrisy to specific political issues (e.g. Mokele applying the same standard to Al Gore in post #12). Therefore, since Republicans run the gamut of positions on political issues, I assume you agree with ecoli that Republicans are not the issue here, and disagree with bascule's point (which is the underlying purpose of this thread) that they are.

Regardless of source bias and conspiracy theory, the general points about Mousavi being questionably better than the current regime and the accusations of vote fraud (and corresponding questions over whether those claims are accurate) are generally sound and well-reported on in the media. Let's move the conversation back to those starting points, please.

That is an argument for continuing and supporting the politics of personal destruction. Why is that a good thing?

No, you're not, but bascule does not automatically extend his anti-Republican bias to each individual Republican. As I see it, he has a problem with the party, but he keeps an open mind about its members. I enjoy the challenge and appreciate the transparency of that approach. You have to bear in mind that something like 80% of this country feels exactly the same ways as Bascule (about one party or the other). Most of us just aren't willing to admit it. Gotta respect that, and it serves a useful purpose here in terms of discussion.

It's an interesting point, and I think you're right about the impact this sort of thing can have on voters. But I think that kind of generalizing does more harm than good, supporting and perpetuating the divisiveness that routinely runs roughshod over more important issues. And there's no functional reason for making the association -- as I'm sure you'd agree, you can't predict whether a politician will commit adultery based on what party they're in. So additional scorn doesn't seem to really gain us anything of value. As you said yourself, it doesn't fix anything. I think if we were less generalizing about politicians we'd be able to make a lot more progress. One of the main reasons President Obama struggles with conservatives is simply because he's a Democrat -- we all know this intuitively, right? The party brings a whole bevy of baggage to the politician, and our society is busily and happily teaching every citizen that that baggage is important. He could make exactly the same statements he's been making on a number of issues if he were a Republican and more conservatives would support him -- and fewer liberals would, for exactly the same reason. This makes no sense at all and we should be doing everything in our power to change it as fast as we possibly can, IMO. (This problem, by the way, is, much to my surprise, the central theme of President Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope", which I've been reading recently.)

What about a candidate who constantly harps on about the importance of global warming but drives a Hummer? Should we be harder on Al Gore because of his electrical bill due to the fact that he supports warning people about the dangers of global warming, or should we overlook or lighten his transgressions because his views are politically correct?

I wouldn't be harder on Democrats for failures on social issues of equality and social justice. You know, concurrent with the statement that you're harder on one party for failures on certain issues is the implication that you're lighter on them for certain other failures. Are you sure that's how "we" should be doing things?

JohnB, thanks for the interesting (and entertaining!) posts on this.

What is the rationale behind requiring people to vote? Is it something along the lines of producing a more engaged and invested population?

Reminder: Please begin Politics threads with a statement of opinion. Thanks.

I hope you'll forgive the tardy reply, but I've been offline for the last week. Thanks. I'm not familiar with any examples of US "weekend warriors" at the command level put in charge of international troop units. Perhaps at the operational level, i.e. for a specific event, I don't know. It's been my general impression that in order to even work on a theater-level command team (which is what I assume an international unit would report to) you have to be a career officer. But my impressions about these sorts of things have been wrong before. It's not so much the UK that concerns security people as it is countries like India or Taiwan, where purchases have major political implications. But yes, you're absolutely right -- once the decision is made to sell the item, then they certainly ought to have the repair manual! And I'm afraid examples like this abound. The unfortunate reality of modern American politics is that its main participants lag far, far behind where they need to be in terms of understanding science and technology, and this is particularly painful when trying to explain how to apply even the most fundamental security concepts to specific applications. In another thread here we're talking about "open source voting" -- mention that to an unbriefed American politician (from EITHER party) and you're likely to get a response along the lines of "but the right to an anonymous vote is protected by the Constitution!" (sigh) We have to get better at that sort of thing. Yup, I get it, it's frustration and a sense of your complaints not being heard. Many of us often feel the same way, and I don't think you should worry about backlash even if you get it. As annoyed as I get sometimes about foreign criticism of America, I vastly prefer it over an alternative like angry silence. I for one want our international friends to keep telling us EXACTLY what they think, every chance they get. Thanks for the interesting discussion.

I'm just back from vacation, deep in Southern Utah hiking trails and jeep roads, where I was tragically/happily disconnected from the news (pics in Gen Forum later this week, I promise). I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at the fact that there is actual substance to the charges of vote rigging (the stories I did hear tended to focus on the size of the demonstrations and the media blackouts). I have to say there's a stunning irony here in the way the "revolutionary" government is suddenly discovering that the will of the people can change, and maybe wasn't so firmly rooted in religious firmament as they believed. (Has anybody told Rush Limbaugh about this?) Anyway, to someone my age, to whom the phrase "America Held Hostage" belongs to Ted Koppel and not Rush Limbaugh, this is a fascinating turn of events.