by Doctor Science
The night Barack Obama was elected President I was super-tired (I’d been poll-working all day on the busiest day I’ve ever seen), but when he got up to speak I cried for joy. And I kept crying at random times for the next week, because I was so happy. I thought that the Civil War was finally over, you see, that a great weight had at last rolled off America’s shoulders.
I felt that we had *made* history, created it, built it with our own hands. That it had taken a solid year of work by thousands and then millions of people, plus a billion dollars or so, but we had, all together, pushed this monumental change up the hill and into reality. Barack Obama didn’t win the election, we all did — because the change was too great, the inertia of American history too heavy, for one person to change it himself.
Thinking things over that week, the benefits of democracy hit me hard. I could even seem some benefit to the messy, exhausting, hideously expensive American campaign season — because I don’t know if Obama could have won without all those months to change tens of millions of minds.
And now, once more, we’re making history. That’s why the Hillary Campaign made this video:
This has been, if anything, a longer road. To the point where I can imagine, at last, that the question, “Can a woman be President of the United States?” — is no longer a question.
We made this, this history. We built it, together.
I don’t get this fixation with plumbing. Sorry.
i’m pretty sure there’s more to it than “plumbing”.
Well, it’s pretty clear that, for some people plumbing is the issue. And it’s not a trivial portion of the electorate.
Just as, for some people (from what I can tell, often the same people), Obama’s permanent suntan was, and is, an issue.
I agree that it makes little sense to me, just as it does to McKinney. But that doesn’t mean the sentiment doesn’t exist.
The “fixation with plumbing” is in history and our experiences, McK.
I grew up hearing people laugh at the idea that a girl could grow up to be President. Hell, I grew up hearing people laugh at the idea that a girl could be good at math.
A “fixation with plumbing” meant that women had to fight to be legally recognized as fully human. Because of “plumbing”.
Mr Dr talked to a black man yesterday who said he was for Trump, because “women aren’t as good as men.” In so many words.
Whose fixation are you talking about?
History has a fixation with plumbing and perpetual suntans.
My last comment wasn’t in response to Doc Sci’s, since I hadn’t seen her comment when I posted, but it kind of works, both as a restatement of what she wrote and an answer to her final question.
Well, it’s pretty clear that, for some people plumbing is the issue.
an issue, sure. one that cuts both ways, too.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/us-election-2016-idea-of-earning-less-than-wives-makes-men-change-vote-from-hillary-clinton-to-a6992396.html
Wholeheartedly what Doc Science said at 10.55 above.
McKinney, you were awfully keen to protect women and girls in public restrooms. Was your urge to protect because of their “plumbing”? Why do you think women and girls need extra protection, McKinney? Could it be because of the way men view people with different plumbing? Could it be that these views need to be changed, and having women in positions of power is a start?
When Margaret Thatcher fell from power, a woman wrote into the lefty Guardian, saying that she had never supported Thatcher, or thought that her leadership helped women. However, she said that she was having to re-evaluate, because the day after the fall, her 7 year-old son asked her “Mummy, what are they going to call Mr Major?”, and when she asked him what he meant he replied “Well, they can’t call him Prime Minister, that’s a girl’s name”.
sigh….truly distressing, cleek.
The article cleek linked also said that being reminded of the pay gap made women (always likely to support Clinton) even more likely to back her, with a 10-point shift.
GFTNC: kids are just precious, aren’t they?
I recall hearing a story, from lo many years ago, of a kid being asked if they’d like to be President one day, and they replied “But..but..but…then I’d have to change my name to Kennedy!”
McKinney,
Forty-four dicks in a row is NOT a “fixation with plumbing”?
–TP
Snarki, I can’t tell if you’re mocking me – “precious” seems far outside your normal style! My point, like I guess his mother’s, is that that little boy, and presumably thousands like him, may have grown up with a subtly different attitude towards women, and what they’re capable of.
p.s. Partly on your continued recommendation, I have just ordered Redshirts, so may report in due course.
Hell, I grew up hearing people laugh at the idea that a girl could be good at math.
Sadly, you still hear this one.
And yeah, I saw the article cleek linked a while back, and it’s truly and utterly depressing. Unsurprising, but depressing.
GFTNC: not mocking. You’d KNOW if I was mocking. And yes, you have a great point about expectations and attitudes.
Whose fixation are you talking about?
History has a fixation with plumbing and perpetual suntans.
The fixation among some on the left that plumbing–or pigmentation–matters when doing a job that has nothing to do with plumbing or pigmentation. Voting for an African American or a woman or “your favorite identity goes here” *to make history* is the flip side of deciding against someone based on pigmentation or plumbing.
I get that it was bad in the bad old days. And if I didn’t, I’d have the progressive left around to remind me on a regular basis. I don’t need that because I lived back in those days, in the South, and saw it. Go back and watch an I Love Lucy episode and see what life was like for women back then, the assumptions about the sexes that permeated life back then.
But, we’re past that when it comes to national politics. We have an African American president. If Colin Powell had run 20 or so years ago, having a black president would have been old hat.
Today isn’t 8 or 16 or 40 years ago. We need to quit acting like things haven’t changed. Very few dispute that a woman can carry the ball. Conservatives like me loved M Thatcher back in the day. Conservatives like me can’t stand HRC for a broad range of reasons completely independent of her sex. For the record, we are equally or more aghast at the prospects of a Trump presidency.
Treating plumbing, pigmentation or some other identity marker as having some kind of intrinsic value separate from a person’s character, skills, intelligence, etc validates making invidious decisions for the same reason. You can’t have it both ways: women, as one example, can’t have ‘special positives’ as a result of plumbing and escape being saddled with ‘special negatives’. In other words, it makes no sense to maintain that non-white, straight male, identity connotes only positive attributes. Put differently, the business of imputing characteristics based on identity is racist/sexist.
McKinney, you were awfully keen to protect women and girls in public restrooms. Was your urge to protect because of their “plumbing”? Why do you think women and girls need extra protection, McKinney?
Any protection against sexual assault of women is, by definition, because of their plumbing. As well as privacy issues. Women and young girls need protection because they are, by a huge margin, disproportionately victims of unwanted male attention ranging from ogling/whistling to rape.
Forty-four dicks in a row is NOT a “fixation with plumbing”?
No, not when every option was a male.
But, if the best you can do is head counting, and if that is how we are going to pick our next president–because it’s a girl’s turn this time–then just say so.
I understand the argument that HRC is a better candidate than Trump because of experience, temperament, etc, that have nothing to do with being a woman.
What I don’t get is why it is ok to say “prefer X over Y because X is a woman” but not ok to say “prefer Y over X because Y is a man?”
Can a woman be president of America without being married to a male president first?
The point is why are they? If it is partly because of men’s attitudes to women, it will help if men (not enlightened ones like you, but all sorts of neanderthals of the male gender) start seeing women differently. And that will happen (OK is already happening to some extent) by slow incremental stages. Having a woman head of state will help, like Thatcher helped, irrespective of her politics.
Forty-four dicks in a row is NOT a “fixation with plumbing”?
No, not when every option was a male.
And why was that ?
What I don’t get is why it is ok to say “prefer X over Y because X is a woman” but not ok to say “prefer Y over X because Y is a man?”
Because up until now it’d never happened.
I’m pretty sure that most everyone here agrees that colour and gender blind choice is an ideal we’ll welcome. But to pretend that’s where we are now, and express surprise that the prospect of a woman president isn’t at the very least emblematic of change seems pretty perverse to me.
And I get that you’re not particularly fond of Clinton (not am I, particularly). It does seem curiously similar to the left’s disdain for Thatcher, though.
What I don’t get is why it is ok to say “prefer X over Y because X is a woman” but not ok to say “prefer Y over X because Y is a man?”
Because up until now it’d never happened.
Never? Perhaps not at the Presidential level. But it has definitely happened (in politics as well as other areas), and continues to happen, at other levels in the US. Less often, and change is not uniform geographically, but it still happens.
Did you really see none of that in Britain over Thatcher? (I don’t really have a handle on how relatively backward the US is in such matters.)
Voting for an African American or a woman or “your favorite identity goes here” *to make history* is the flip side of deciding against someone based on pigmentation or plumbing.
What if you voted for other reasons, but noted that history was still made?
Or, to put it another way, is celebrating the fact that the United States can no longer be said to be a country where a woman is categorically excluded from becoming a major-party presidential candidate the same thing as saying the woman who broke through that historical exclusion is a good candidate simply because she’s a woman?
I don’t know why this is so hard. It’s a first. And it’s something that was, for practical purposes, impossible in the past.
No, it’s not that past anymore. Progress has been made, even if things aren’t perfect. That’s the whole point, though. Saying things aren’t as bad as they were X years ago is an odd way to criticize a post celebrating the fact that things aren’t as bad as they were X years ago.
What I don’t get is why it is ok to say “prefer X over Y because X is a woman” but not ok to say “prefer Y over X because Y is a man?”
who is saying “prefer X over Y because X is a woman” ?
who is saying “prefer X over Y because X is a woman” ?
That straw fellow over in the corner.
The point is why are they?
The reasons run from rudeness/poor upbringing and ignorance at the ogling end of the spectrum to disordered personalities at the assaultive end. And a lot of stuff in between and having a woman president isn’t going to fix any of those issues.
But to pretend that’s where we are now, and express surprise that the prospect of a woman president isn’t at the very least emblematic of change seems pretty perverse to me.
I think we are there now and have been for probably 10 years give or take. I’m not expressing any kind of surprise about anything and I agree that HRC’s election–which I fully expect–is emblematic of the change in attitude toward female leaders.
What if you voted for other reasons, but noted that history was still made?
The history has already been made. That’s the point. I think I’m pretty clear–and you know this is my position–that I have no issues with any decision made on the merits.
who is saying “prefer X over Y because X is a woman” ?
That straw fellow over in the corner.
I was thinking real people, actually: Madelaine Albright and Justice Sonia Sotomayor are two of many, many women who’ve made precisely this argument since stating a preference for a women implicitly rejects a male. It’s practically an article of faith among the social justice crowd and no one turns any heads here at ObWi by dismissing opinions of ‘angry old white men’ based on the identity of the opinion holder. Identity politics is a big part of the left’s program. IIRC, Doc S made a pretty clear statement not too far back that HRC would never pick a white male as a running mate.
Straw men? Not even close.
Hey, wj.
By never, I meant never at the US presidential level; blame my clumsy phraseology (posting at work, with mind on other stuff – and before anyone gets on my case, I’m self employed, and not charging by the hour, so it’s my time…).
Thatcher’s case is interesting; she never got any kind of credit from the left, but half the Tory party (at the time) were uneasy about her too,because she was a woman. Which is a very different scenario.
I think Digby put it well
” … Hillary Clinton had won the Democratic nomination. And it seemed to dawn on them that it was an important moment worth noting. After all, it had never happened before. Ever.
For those of us of the female persuasion especially, this carries some emotional freight. Walking around in the world as a member of half the population with only 20% of the representation in government and 5% in the top jobs in business and a thousand other statistics that prove just how unequal you are in your own society feels … strange. Indeed, it’s mind-boggling. So it means something to a lot of women that a democratic process can produce a woman president. It’s bigger than just getting a job. It’s getting a job by a vote of a majority of the people — that’s the kind of validation that has teeth.”
digby says much more that is worth the read.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-different-kind-of-politics.html
Identity politics is a big part of the left’s program.
next time you come across a TV ad for a Republican politician, watch to see if he mentions that he’s “A Strong Conservative”. he probably will; it’s almost boilerplate. what do you think it tells viewers? does it tell them “i identify as a conservative. my values and perspective are those of a conservative. fellow conservatives can count on me to uphold our shared values” ?
also, look to see if the ad shows him hunting / fondling a gun. any chance he’s trying get gun owners and hunters to identify with him? that he’s telling them “i’m a member of your group. i have the same concerns. we will work together to preserve our common identity against all threats” ?
ask your party’s nominee if he has any issues with the identity of the judge who’s hearing his Trump U case. maybe check to see if he’s mentioned the identity of that judge in any recent statements. and maybe see if “conservatives” are backing him up.
Congratulations! I just wish she wasn’t a neoliberal, imperialist warmonger.
Just the fact of having them there seems to inspire other women and perhaps more importantly, normalize the idea of it for everyone. Apparently takes people actually seeing a woman perform a job traditionally held by men to prove they can do it.
Not being a woman, but being married to a successful woman, having a successful daughter, an even more successful daughter-in-law and having 3 out of 8 (it was 4 out of 9) of my law partners here in Houston be women, along the the top 5 associates in our office being female, reporting and working for far more women than men as clients, appearing before as many female judges as male judges and using far more female arbitrators and mediators than males, I don’t find any of this surprising. My surprise comes in seeing others being surprised.
It also happens that the more successful they are at getting their agenda passed, the more they are able to get men on board as well. Given the chance women are actually pretty good at politics.
And pretty good at pretty much anything they undertake given the requisite skill set, temperament, time commitment and opportunity. This isn’t new. I’m 62. I’ve worked with female peers since 1980. Thirty six years. I’m not unique by a long shot.
Cleek, let’s keep the goal posts stationary and stay on topic. You and BP raised the straw man argument. I shot that down. Now you are changing the definition of Identity Politics. *Identity politics* is all about race, gender and culture (oddly defined), not about philosophy. Black conservatives are conservatives who are black. Black tells me nothing about someone other than pigmentation. I know HRC is a woman and my initial preferred candidate was Carly Fiorina. They are different people because they see the world differently. I have no issue with anyone self describing as conservative, moderate, liberal, whatever. That’s what most of us want to know. And it has nothing to do with identity.
McKinney, if you think that rapists are pretty much all disordered personalities at the assaultive end, and that their willingness to rape has nothing to do with their general view of women, it’s hard to know what to say. I doubt there would be many women, of whatever political persuasion, who would agree with you, and I think it adds to the degradation of the intellectual fabric to dismiss concerns such as these, and the people who profess them as Social Justice Warriors obsessed about so-called Identity Politics without considering the possibility that there may be some (even partial) merit in what they say.
Regarding willingness to vote for a woman just because she’s a woman, I can never forget my Republican friend in 2008 who informed me that since Hillary had lost the primary, many women would transfer their allegiance to Palin. I almost fell down laughing.
Walking around in the world as a member of half the population with only 20% of the representation in government and 5% in the top jobs in business and a thousand other statistics that prove just how unequal you are in your own society feels … strange
I am relatively certain that some study will look back someday and recognize that these statistics don’t actually talk to equality.
The changes in what various people want to do come quicker than the acceptance of those changes. I can tell you my grandmother did not feel less equal, she felt that the dozens of things that she did with an incredibly full life were every bit equal to those things my grandfather did. Culturally they divided up the things that needed to be done differently than we divide them up now. Not that there weren’t women always that chafed against the cultural norms, as there were men who would have liked to pursue things culturally unacceptable.
In the middle there were a few generations where the roles and expectations changed faster than humans can cope well with change. Different than the Civil Rights movement, the feminist movement was as much about convincing women as it was about convincing men.
So, this is a milestone event, recognizing at the highest level that there are always fewer exclusionary attributes. In my lifetime we have had the first Catholic President, the first female VP candidate, the first Mormon Presidential candidate, and probably some more. And now the first woman Presidential candidate. All things to celebrate.
Now we just need a competent one.
I don’t find any of this surprising. My surprise comes in seeing others being surprised.
McK, I have similar experience (the CEO and Founder of the start-up where I work is a woman; and an immigrant from India as a child). As are half the technical staff — it’s an IT company. Plus my mother having been a manager at AT&T (in the 1940s, when such things just didn’t happen) and my grandmother an RN.
But let’s face it, our experience is not typical. Moreover, it’s not typical of a lot of self-described cultural conservatives. It doesn’t really matter what kind of jobs the men have, even technical or managerial ones; they just don’t see women at work, except in clerical positions.
I think it really is an identity issue for them, because just as we have trouble imagining a workplace where women are not peers, they have trouble imagining their workplace being like that. In their world, women “just don’t do things like that.”
Just speaking for myself, you can absolutely disagree with and deplore just about everything Thatcher did and stood for, yet admire her for being “one tough broad”.
The history has already been made.
What do you mean? Since Hillary Clinton became, more or less officially, the first major-party candidate for President of the United States – you know, like, last night?
I don’t really know what your point is here. Was Doc Sci somehow in the wrong for writing this post when she did? If so, is that because you can conceive an alternate universe in which Hillary won in 2008, just as you suggested Colin Powell could have become the first black president years before Obama did, making the actual historical events in this universe not historic because they conceivably could have happened sooner?
I mean, you don’t have to be excited about it, but does that make people who are excited about it wrong somehow?
if you think that rapists are pretty much all disordered personalities at the assaultive end, and that their willingness to rape has nothing to do with their general view of women, it’s hard to know what to say. I doubt there would be many women, of whatever political persuasion, who would agree with you, and I think it adds to the degradation of the intellectual fabric to dismiss concerns such as these, and the people who profess them as Social Justice Warriors obsessed about so-called Identity Politics without considering the possibility that there may be some (even partial) merit in what they say.
First, you are putting words in my mouth. I gave a range of behaviors and a range of causes. As for rape, however, a lot turns on how rape is defined. The definitional gray area ends (for me) at a variety of points depending on context. As a general statement, rape/sexual assault is an intentional act in which non-consensual sex is the expected outcome from the male’s perspective. Whether the act is accomplished by force, threat, blackmail, drug, alcohol, whatever, the pivotal element is that a man takes it upon himself to have sex with a woman fully expecting that she will not consent. Parenthetically, this is a non-exclusive example of rape.
A man who takes it upon himself to have sex with a woman against her will is, in my opinion, very likely to be disordered (See DSM IV), or to have pronounced features of various relevant disorders, or in some instances, to be so mentally limited as to not really comprehend the need for consent. I do not think men–in the liberal west, in these times–rape women in this context because of the general attitude toward women except when their general attitude toward women is shaped by their various disorders or features of disorders.
I’m guilty of a lot of things, but being indifferent to crimes against women, the elderly, the infirm, the exposed, the challenged? Not me. Just the opposite. If I disagree with you as to why men in the west commit horrible crimes against women: some degree of disordered thinking etc vs a generalized low opinion of women having nothing to do with some degree of disordered (or disassociative)thinking, I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would be offended by that.
Historically and in many cultures, taking women against their was and is fair game. I assumed the context of your question was ‘current times, current location.’
But let’s face it, our experience is not typical. Moreover, it’s not typical of a lot of self-described cultural conservatives. It doesn’t really matter what kind of jobs the men have, even technical or managerial ones; they just don’t see women at work, except in clerical positions.
I do not agree at all. Not even a little bit. I’m in the courtroom, or at another law office, or at a client’s office everyday if not several times a day. Women have been peers, bosses, clients and partners of mine for decades. Women in law and business are ubiquitous.
What do you mean?
I mean, you don’t have to be excited about it, but does that make people who are excited about it wrong somehow?
I mean I don’t get the fixation with plumbing or pigmentation. I wasn’t amazed when Colin Powell was Secretary of State and Condoleeza Rice was National Security Advisor. I don’t get people who think being female, black, what have you is a qualification or reason for supporting someone.
If Carly Fiorina was the Republican nominee and if she got elected, I’d be happy, but it wouldn’t have anything to do with her being a woman.
And I think the Doc’s post has a lot to do with identity politics. I’m not a fan of that outlook.
I shot that down.
well, i know you think you did.
and, let me point out that you erected that “identity politics goalpost”.
*Identity politics* is all about race, gender and culture (oddly defined), not about philosophy.
no, it’s about identity, however the group in question defines it.
I have no issue with anyone self describing as conservative, moderate, liberal, whatever. That’s what most of us want to know. And it has nothing to do with identity.
it has everything to do with identity. because how you “self describe” is how you identify yourself. and when you make your identity the basis for your politics you are engaging in…
Cleek, we are splitting hairs. I think your take on identity politics is closer to what I’ve always thought of coalition politics. Regardless, if we can’t agree on a definition, it’s hard to move beyond that.
Well McKinney, some slight degree of misunderstanding. I thought your “all disordered personalities at the assaultive end” meant that you thought that all rapists/assaulters had disordered personalities. Actually, that doesn’t seem all that far from what you think, as explained in 04.52 above.
I very much do not think you are indifferent to crimes against women, the elderly, the infirm, the exposed, the challenged. It is crystal clear that you are not. But I think what your definition of rape leaves out is the fact that many men, rather than “fully expecting that she will not consent”, don’t care whether she consents or not, because they do not see her as a person with agency, or equal capacity: their attitude is that women exist for the convenience of men, and can be assaulted, insulted and threatened with impunity. Powerful women, by definition, are a threat to this kind of thinking, which is why, for example, almost any prominent woman on twitter is regularly threatened with rape and injury, in these “current times, current locations”.
I wish only disordered men thought this way, but I don’t believe it is so. Attitudes to these matters have slowly improved, but in your country and mine we have high-profile cases currently in the news where rapists who raped unconscious women still claim that it wasn’t rape, and plenty of people agree with them.
I don’t think having a woman President will get rid of these attitudes overnight. My Thatcher example was to show that boy-children born under the regime of a female Prime Minister or President may grow up with a different and less contemptuous attitude towards women.
fine. but since it sounds like you want basically define IP to mean “the stuff liberals do”, then saying “identity politics is a big part of the left’s program” is a tautology.
” But I think what your definition of rape leaves out is the fact that many men, rather than “fully expecting that she will not consent”, don’t care whether she consents or not, because they do not see her as a person with agency, or equal capacity: their attitude is that women exist for the convenience of men, and can be assaulted, insulted and threatened with impunity.”
I would be inclined to agree with this statement if I understood a definition of “many men” in context. What proportion of men would be included in many.
the fact that many men, rather than “fully expecting that she will not consent”, don’t care whether she consents or not, because they do not see her as a person with agency, or equal capacity: their attitude is that women exist for the convenience of men, and can be assaulted, insulted and threatened with impunity. Powerful women, by definition, are a threat to this kind of thinking, which is why, for example, almost any prominent woman on twitter is regularly threatened with rape and injury, in these “current times, current locations”.
Ok, we may not be on the same page when I talk about “features of a disorder”. Having deposed and interviewed a lot of psychiatrists and psychologists, my take on conventional psychiatric thinking is that everyone exhibits behaviors that, unchecked and unmitigated by compensatory offsets, would be a “feature” of a disorder. Usually, to diagnose a disorder, a stated number of features have to be diagnosed under circumstances within parameters spelled out by the DSM IV.
If someone has a particular feature of a sociopathic disorder, for example, that inhibits his/her ability to see members of the opposite sex as human, or fully human, that feature can look to an observer like part of an attitude.
A man who sees women as “a person with[out] agency, or equal capacity” and who can be “assaulted, insulted and threatened with impunity” isn’t just a boor; he is ill to some degree. The thought process, if you can call it that, by which someone plans and executed on any kind of assaultive behavior is not that of a rationale, adjusted personality. I’m not saying people who do that are excused or that they lack agency. They know what they are doing and they know they are not supposed to do what they are doing. Yet, they do it anyway and don’t–are not capable of caring–how it injures their victim.
I am talking about the discrete topic of rape/sexual assault carried out regardless of consent and despite lack of consent. This is one subset of many behaviors.
Let’s take a lesser but plainly offensive and out of bounds act: casually slapping a woman’s buttocks. That scene is played over and over again in movies, and it suggests that some circumstances allow this kind of liberty. I’ve seen this happen only once and that was more than forty years ago. But, it strikes me as the product of a lesser form of the attitude you imply above. I have no idea how prevalent that attitude is. I suspect there is a high socioeconomic correlation.
As for prominent women being threatened anonymously with rape, I am very comfortable projecting that the vast majority of assholes who do that have, at a minimum, features of one or more psychological conditions.
A lot of what I used to think was people just being assholes is actually documented by the DSM IV as being something more than that. Does that excuse them or make them any less of asocial douche bags? Not in my book. They are fair game for all manner of ass-whippings if you can ever get them to come out in the open.
Oh Marty, I don’t have a definition, and I knew that when I wrote it. But more than enough, that’s for sure. What are the US rape statistics?
You don’t have this attitude, probably partly because of what you saw when you were young and the effect it had on you, and McKinney doesn’t have it either because he too is a decent guy, and moreover sees many smart, capable women in positions of authority during his working life, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of them out there, maybe fewer than there used to be but still a damn sight too many.
And while discussing rapists, we are forgetting the many, many men who insult, despise and threaten women, but don’t do anything about it. I stick by my point: having a female President will affect the attitudes of boys growing up, and make it harder for them to think of women as lesser.
the pivotal element is that a man takes it upon himself to have sex with a woman fully expecting that she will not consent.
I don’t think that this is correct in a significant portion of the cases. There was a recent case in this area of a student athlete at Stanford named Brock Turner who raped a fellow student. (It is all over the news because he got a slap-on-the-wrist sentence of 6 months.) I came across a column, by someone who lives in the Dayton, Ohio suburb where he grew up, noting that a lot of kids there never get told “No.”
I think that, if you have that kind of life experience, the possibility that someone could say No to you and mean it (assuming that they are even conscious) is simply inconcievable. It isn’t a matter of, as you put it, expecting to be told no and not caring. It is a matter of being unable to expect anything but yes.
Does that constitute a mental disorder? I am having trouble believing that a psychologist would make such a diagnosis (absent being hired as a witness for the defense, of course).
I stick by my point: having a female President will affect the attitudes of boys growing up, and make it harder for them to think of women as lesser.
Particularly if she is a competent and successful president.
I mean I don’t get the fixation with plumbing or pigmentation. I wasn’t amazed when Colin Powell was Secretary of State and Condoleeza Rice was National Security Advisor. I don’t get people who think being female, black, what have you is a qualification or reason for supporting someone.
If Carly Fiorina was the Republican nominee and if she got elected, I’d be happy, but it wouldn’t have anything to do with her being a woman.
And I think the Doc’s post has a lot to do with identity politics. I’m not a fan of that outlook.
Then you don’t think there’s anything historic about the first black president in a country that once allowed the legal enslavement exclusively of black people? You don’t think there’s anything historic about the first woman major-party presidential candidate in a country where women once weren’t allowed to vote or own land?
Then you don’t see that what you call “identity politics” is the recognition of the historical exclusion of particular groups of people and that said exclusion is what created that which you call “identity politics.” Essentially, anyone who advocates for or rejoices in the increased rights and opportunities of people who have been discriminated against is the real discriminator.
Perhaps that’s not where you’re coming from, but it’s hard for me not to see it that way. You appear to be hostile to someone being happy about these firsts in our history, rather than simply not being particularly happy about them, yourself. It’s not that you’re not openly celebratory, but that you go at least a little out of your way to poo-poo the idea.
And while discussing rapists, we are forgetting the many, many men who insult, despise and threaten women, but don’t do anything about it. I stick by my point: having a female President will affect the attitudes of boys growing up, and make it harder for them to think of women as lesser.
My head exploded with trying to process these two points that evoke a completely different reaction.
First, lets not forget the many women who insult, despise and threaten men, they are incredibly good at doing emotional damage while “not doing anything”.
Second, I think that having a view of successful women does impact the view boys, and girls, have of women. I think that encouraging boys and girls to have a diverse set of people they look up to is instrumental in shaping a world view that allows them to see themselves being successful, and happy and cared for and worthy of all those things.
[Does that constitute a mental disorder?
Reread the part about ‘features’.
I don’t think that this is correct in a significant portion of the cases.
I don’t think the rape in question is representative of the class of assaultive behavior I was addressing, which as I made clear, is on a range of behaviors.
To illustrate, many of us have difficulty, to one degree or another, with impulse control and that difficulty can be mitigated or aggravated by environmental and other factors. I didn’t research the details of the specific offense your linked to, so I don’t know whether the rapist was impaired when he assaulted his victim. I don’t know if he played a role in bringing about her intoxication. And, I’m not a qualified mental health care professional. It looks to me–hip shooting–like an opportunistic and to some degree impulsive act that may have been in part due to some degree of impairment. In other words, it was volitional but not a premeditated act of the type I tried to describe upthread. What kind of kid the rapist is ordinarily is hard to say. What he did merits a hell of a lot more than 6 months probated.
Then you don’t think there’s anything historic about the first black president in a country that once allowed the legal enslavement exclusively of black people? You don’t think there’s anything historic about the first woman major-party presidential candidate in a country where women once weren’t allowed to vote or own land?
No, not really. Because the history that allowed that to happen had already been made. By the mid-90’s, both a black and a female president were simply a matter of time. The relatively modern history I think of as “historic” began in 1954 and ended in the mid to late 90’s.
Essentially, anyone who advocates for or rejoices in the increased rights and opportunities of people who have been discriminated against is the real discriminator.
No, not at all.
You appear to be hostile to someone being happy about these firsts in our history, rather than simply not being particularly happy about them, yourself.
Not ‘getting something’ is not the same as being hostile to something, although I am hostile to the notion that sex, gender, culture or skin color carry with it some inherent or intrinsic value. I don’t think I’ve said anything different on the topic.
McTX: But, if the best you can do is head counting, and if that is how we are going to pick our next president–because it’s a girl’s turn this time–then just say so.
McKinney,
I will not insult you by assuming you were sober when you wrote that.
Now, about this “identity” versus “coalition” business:
Is “Christian” an identity, in your view? Or is it a coalition?
You can dismiss the question if you like, but whenever people start to argue about definitions, my first impulse is to examine specific examples. If you and I (or cleek and I) point to the same flower and disagree about whether it fits the dictionary definition of “rose”, we are giving each other a hint about our own definition of “rose”. That can only help, if our goal is to communicate with each other.
–TP
Yeah, well, my wife and I had already conceived our kids and she had already gestated them, but we were still excited when they were born.
So because we didn’t go straight from slavery to a black president in an instant, just “feh?”
Let’s ask a professional:
“Joe the Plumber,” the Ohio workingman who came to symbolize U.S. taxpayer frustration in the 2008 presidential election, is still angry. And like many angry voters, he likes insurgent Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump — in part because the New York billionaire dated attractive women.”
‘What did Joe (the Plumber) say? According to the upper-middle class business owner, “Wanting a white Republican President doesn’t make you racist,’ it just ‘makes you American.”’
I stick by my point: having a female President will affect the attitudes of boys growing up, and make it harder for them to think of women as lesser.
Particularly if she is a competent and successful president.
Congress will surely help her with that.
… I am hostile to the notion that sex, gender, culture or skin color carry with it some inherent or intrinsic value.
I’m hostile to the notion that people should pour gasoline on me and light me on fire. Since no one has suggested such a thing, I’ve kept that to myself.
“No, not when every option was a male.”
Every option could have been an electrician or a blacksmith too, and it would still have been about the plumbing.
As Abigail Adams said to John Adams, with some heat:
“When I read your Constitution, I want to call a plumber.”
“I am hostile to the notion that sex, gender, culture or skin color carry with it some inherent or intrinsic value.”
I’m sure this is true, as it is with Marty, which is only proof that we need some conservative Republicans to argue with around here.
😉
Much of the Republican primary debates involved
laying pipe:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-election/a-new-low-for-the-republican-debate-the-size-of-trumps-penis-20160304-gnawji.html
I’d counsel Hillary Clinton to show up at the Fall debates with an adjustable pipe wrench.
Even some of the dickless are dicks:
https://fearofignorance.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/ann-coulter-on-womens-suffrage/
Ann Coulter should be obscene and not heard.
In that last link, Coulter even fantasizes about pipes and plumbing:
“If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine …”
One of personal fantasies is Ann Coulter drinking Draino.
McKinney
Just curious, did you ever appear before Ruby Sondock either as a judge or arbitrator? At 90 she’s still at it and she doesn’t look a day over 75!
by the mid-90’s, both a black and a female President were simply a matter of time.
That may be true in some sense. But I submit that, to rather a lot of our fellow citizens, such a future was (and is) no cause for anything but regret. Or horror. Assuming that they could wrap their heads around the idea at all — until reality, in the form of an election (with Obama) or nomination (with Clinton; and I’m not sure but that some will not accept reality until after the election) forced them to do so.
McKinney, we may not share their view. But it cannot be denied that it, and they, exist. And their numbers are not trivially small – – as the Trump campaign (and Trump’s past birther campaign) demonstrate.
“identity politics” are what non-default types engage in.
and what’s the deal with Jackie Robinson? nobody remembers the name of the first white guy to win Rookie Of The Year. skin color, shmin color, i say.
Is “heterosexual” an “identity” or a “coalition”, also, too?
I, for one, look forward to the 2024 election, when the Demonrats nominate a transgender Native American, and the Trupublicans nominate a small lump of green putty they found in their armpit.
I don’t get this fixation with plumbing. Sorry.
LOL.
Anyway, I just thought I’d take a moment to offer a shout out to Margaret Chase Smith, who ran a credible campaign for POTUS as a (R) in 1964, and Shirley Chisholm (a woman AND black) who did the same as a (D) in 1972 IIRC.
Neither received the nomination, but they ran, and both were placed in nomination at their conventions.
Chase Smith’s “Declaration Of Conscience” is good reading, to this day. I recommend it to you all.
God, I miss those sensible, decent (R)’s of yore. Whippersnappers of today like to yap about “Burkean conservatism”, those folks walked the walk. They salted their privilege with a true sense of responsibility. They grasped the “oblige” part of noblesse oblige.
But I digress. In any case, we all stand on the shoulders of giants, whatever it is we do.
As far as fixations with “identity”, all politics is identity politics.
All politics is identity politics.
Political life, and the political process, is the negotiation between different groups of people to secure their various interests. And what defines the boundary of the “group” is some common sense of identity.
Preferably by peaceful means, but not everyone is as lucky as we are in their political heritage and institutions.
Black, white, male, female, urban, rural, young, old, rich, poor, educated, not so educated, professional, blue collar, married, single.
Soccer mom, Joe six-pack, urban elite, heartland American.
All identities.
All politics is identity politics.
Less than 100 years ago, women couldn’t even vote. Because of their “plumbing”.
Yes, it’s a big f**king deal that Clinton is the (D) candidate for POTUS, and I can only believe the McK is being deliberately contrary in disputing that.
I think that encouraging boys and girls to have a diverse set of people they look up to is instrumental in shaping a world view that allows them to see themselves being successful, and happy and cared for and worthy of all those things.
What Marty said.
He didn’t call in The Plumbers for nothing:
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/Funny-Presidential-Quotes/a/Richard-Nixon-Quotes.htm
Regarding differences in plumbing anatomy: Vive la Difference!
Notwithstanding that, (or maybe withstanding it) you know, here’s another difference between men and women, typified by the invocation of plumbing on this thread.
Human anatomy was the farthest thing from Doc Science’s mind when she wrote this post.
Because she’s a woman.
I mean, there’s a side of me that wishes women (That side of me recedes as time passes, like my hairline) thought about human plumbing in everyday conversation as much as it is on the tip of men’s tongues (oh, stop!) at all times, but that’s not how most women roll.
A cigar is just a cigar no matter how many times Groucho waggled his at Margaret Dumont.
Only a guy could read Doc’s post and fear that he is about to be roto-rootered … again.
Only a guy — and here I am — could read
“We made this, this history. We built it, together”, and think, well, there they go again, kicking me in the junk.
The double entendre was NOT supplied by Doctor Science.
True, we’ve experienced a bit of a vagina monologue these last couple of decades, and hooray for that, but what do we think that the preceding eons of human history was — some kind of penis “dialogue”!
Also, vagina and penis are metaphors in that context, ya know?
That said, all ye who seek hope, enter here. I give you “Hon”:
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=photo+of+hon+by+niki+de+saint+phalle&fr=mcafee&imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.maedchen-bremerhaven.de%2Fniki_phalle-Dateien%2Fslide0005_image010.jpg#id=5&iurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.maedchen-bremerhaven.de%2Fniki_phalle-Dateien%2Fslide0005_image010.jpg&action=click
I just happen to be reading a couple of books about the artist Niki de Saint Phalle.
There was a bar therein, along with an aquarium, a a planetarium, and a 12-seat cinema showing films starring Greta Garbo.
The installation no longer exists, but if it did, McKT and I would be sitting at the bar.
So would Marty and the rest of us.
Donald Trump and his ragtag bunch of Republican identity hate political followers wouldn’t be.
They’d be rousting Jews and Mexicans out of the museum bathrooms.
Now, about this “identity” versus “coalition” business:
Is “Christian” an identity, in your view? Or is it a coalition?
Fair question. When used in the political context, “I am a strong Christian and will vote my values”, it’s an identity. Not a recognized identity for the purpose of Diversity, but an identity nonetheless.
I’m hostile to the notion that people should pour gasoline on me and light me on fire. Since no one has suggested such a thing, I’ve kept that to myself.
Then you probably think that the slice of the Left that fixates on Diversity is way off base.
Just curious, did you ever appear before Ruby Sondock either as a judge or arbitrator? At 90 she’s still at it and she doesn’t look a day over 75!
Judge Sondock swore me into the bar in November, 1980. I appeared in her court often back in the 80’s and have since mediated with her a dozen times or so. Was not aware she is still active. Good to know.
But I submit that, to rather a lot of our fellow citizens, such a future was (and is) no cause for anything but regret. Or horror.
No offense, but this is thinking in cliche. Sarah Palin is the darling of the very people to whom you impute this thinking. If McCain had won–he was never in the running–the troglodytes would have beat the Progressives to the punch.
and what’s the deal with Jackie Robinson? nobody remembers the name of the first white guy to win Rookie Of The Year. skin color, shmin color, i say.
Yes, that is a good example of ground-breaking history. Then and now, two very different times.
All politics is identity politics.
Political life, and the political process, is the negotiation between different groups of people to secure their various interests. And what defines the boundary of the “group” is some common sense of identity.
Preferably by peaceful means, but not everyone is as lucky as we are in their political heritage and institutions.
Black, white, male, female, urban, rural, young, old, rich, poor, educated, not so educated, professional, blue collar, married, single.
Soccer mom, Joe six-pack, urban elite, heartland American.
All identities.
All politics is identity politics.
This is a not-so-subtle form of tuo quoque. It inferentially concedes that the Left, or a good portion of it, practices a very definite form of Identity Politics known as Diversity, and then seeks to excuse that practice by saying ‘everyone does it’. I don’t buy it.
Diversity on the Left consists of three basic elements: sex/gender, race and Culture (as defined by the Diversity specialists). Diversity permeates politics on the Left and much of academia, both as a spoils system and as areas of purported academic inquiry (black studies, women’s studies, etc).
Diversity on the Left is an arbitrary, limited category of selectively defined, historical victim-hood with the ostensible goal of remediation. These are the “Identities” that make up left wing Identity Politics. Diversity is the opposite of inclusive because its goal is to secure participation based the Left’s self-selected factors regardless of any other factors. When a Leftie decries the lack of Diversity, he/she means the lack of color or sex/gender. Nothing else is ever meant.
Yes, it’s a big f**king deal that Clinton is the (D) candidate for POTUS, and I can only believe the McK is being deliberately contrary in disputing that.
Really? This is a big surprise? No one saw this coming? I did. A female president has been only a matter of time for some time. That HRC has now secured what has been a foregone conclusion since 2008 is barely noteworthy. She was supposed to have won back in 2008. That was the plan. This whole Kabuki play is silly. This act of historical drama has been in the works for at least a dozen years. A bunch of lefties running around, congratulating themselves for doing what they set out to do with no real dissent until Bernie came along is just silly. But for Bernie, HRC would have run unopposed. That’s not swimming against the tide of history and overcoming structural obstacles, that’s a preordained outcome. And, in this case, preordained by conscious, single-minded planning and execution by HRC and the DNC for years.
I, for one applaud the GOP’s steady progression in going from nominating “once divorced” old straight white men (Reagan, McCain), to “twice divorced” old straight white men (Trump).
Baby steps.
I, for one applaud the GOP’s steady progression in going from nominating “once divorced” old straight white men (Reagan, McCain), to “twice divorced” old straight white men (Trump)
So, you want to match Bill and Hillary’s marriage against Trump and McCain? Go for it.
Really? This is a big surprise? No one saw this coming?
Who said anything about a big surprise (or anything about being a good candidate only because of plumbing, while we’re at it)?
Were you surprised on your wedding day, or had you planned it for some time? Did the fact that you knew it was coming make you roll your eyes with boredom?
There comes a moment where the thing you’ve been working for (not necessarily you, McKinney) actually happens – not just becomes possible or likely, but happens. Call it culmination or fruition or whatever.
Hillary didn’t win the nomination in 2008. She won it in the last few days.
No one is shocked by it. Some people are just excited because it’s not just a possibility but a reality.
I can’t help but think you’re being particularly dense about this for some reason. Sorry.
That HRC has now secured what has been a foregone conclusion since 2008 is barely noteworthy. She was supposed to have won back in 2008.
foregone conclusions don’t usually take two attempts and several years of hard-fought battles.
“So, you want to match Bill and Hillary’s marriage against Trump and McCain? Go for it.”
I’m all for matching success against failure, the living against the dead.
foregone conclusions don’t usually take two attempts and several years of hard-fought battles.
Right. And from the OP:
This has been, if anything, a longer road.
If someone were to say, “Even though this is historically significant, I can’t get too excited about it because I really dislike Hillary Clinton” I could at least understand it. This sooner-or-later inevitability and historical-vacuum plumbing-obsession stuff, not so much.
If someone were to say, “Even though this is historically significant, I can’t get too excited about it because I really dislike Hillary Clinton” I could at least understand it. This sooner-or-later inevitability and historical-vacuum plumbing-obsession stuff, not so much.
That’s just diversity for you. Not everyone sees things the same way. I don’t remember a post here at ObWi back when Palin got the nod saying, “I really don’t like her, but history is being made”.
I’m not criticizing. I didn’t think her plumbing mattered then and I don’t think it matters now.
History was made in 1984, when Geraldine Ferraro ran as Veep candidate with Mondale. That was a pretty big deal.
But, since 1984, a female has had the potential to assume the presidency. HRC’s deal is a coronation, from the viewpoint of someone not in the lefty fold. Not a hard fought battle until Bernie came along and even then it was a foregone conclusion. On the historical scale, I give it a 3. A ‘first’ but a ‘first’ that everyone saw coming 8 years ago.
McTX: Diversity on the Left consists of three basic elements: sex/gender, race and Culture (as defined by the Diversity specialists).
Okay, McKinney: now I have to assume that you’re writing this stuff sober.
Your contempt for “Diversity on the Left” must have a flip side. What is it? Approval of “Uniformity on the Right”, or what?
Or do you merely object to the 3 particular “elements” as you reasonably accurately define them?
Would you contempt for “The Left” go down if us lefties included “Christian studies” in our demands, or made a big deal about plumbers being under-represented in a Congress full of lawyers?
Aside from acquiescence in the status quo ante, wherein every important institution in society was almost entirely composed of hetero Anglo men, what can “The Left” do to get out from under your “Diversity” bashing?
–TP
I don’t remember a post here at ObWi back when Palin got the nod saying, “I really don’t like her, but history is being made”.
Because?
History was made in 1984, when Geraldine Ferraro ran as Veep candidate with Mondale. That was a pretty big deal.
———————
HRC’s deal is a coronation, from the viewpoint of someone not in the lefty fold.
You’ll get no argument from me that she was the establishment/DNC pick in both 2016 and 2008. But, even then, the fact that a major party would choose to “coronate” a woman is evidence of real progress, and that voters would ultimately support is as well.
And it finally happened, recently enough that the time that has passed since can still reasonably be measured in hours.
Aside from acquiescence in the status quo ante, wherein every important institution in society was almost entirely composed of hetero Anglo men, what can “The Left” do to get out from under your “Diversity” bashing?
Time permitting, I would do a guest Post on this topic.
But, even then, the fact that a major party would choose to “coronate” a woman is evidence of real progress, and that voters would ultimately support is as well.
And it finally happened, recently enough that the time that has passed since can still reasonably be measured in hours.
I get that y’all are glowing about this. To me, a done deal isn’t progress. It is the result of progress that was made years ago. But, I’m repeating myself.
The ‘big boys’ quit excluding women back in the 80’s. Picking someone to make history whose leading qualification is marriage to a former president as an entree into the senate and then a presidential appt as SecState really doesn’t seem all that much of a much. Not to me, a ‘small c’ conservative outsider. But, hey, Party On!
History is TX Repub’s electing and reelecting African American and Hispanic Supreme Court justices in state wide races. And sending a female to the US Senate. As a Republican.
What’s historical about that is that no one noticed or commented on it.
I don’t get this fixation with melanin content. Sorry.
I suppose it is too late to play a tune for Bernie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCBgBXZeORc&list=RDcCBgBXZeORc&index=1
If, as has been asserted, the ‘coronation’ of ms. Clinton is ‘no big deal’, then it is easier to segue to “women’s rights is also a done deal” and “there is no need to discuss feminism any more” and “if you do, you are just engaging in identity politics”.
Naughty us.
McKinney No, not at all.
And yet:
McKT: What I don’t get is why it is ok to say “prefer X over Y because X is a woman” but not ok to say “prefer Y over X because Y is a man?”
McKT: Treating plumbing, pigmentation or some other identity marker as having some kind of intrinsic value separate from a person’s character, skills, intelligence, etc validates making invidious decisions for the same reason. You can’t have it both ways: women, as one example, can’t have ‘special positives’ as a result of plumbing and escape being saddled with ‘special negatives’. In other words, it makes no sense to maintain that non-white, straight male, identity connotes only positive attributes. Put differently, the business of imputing characteristics based on identity is racist/sexist.
McKinney, at the risk of flogging this dead horse to Dodge and back: we are rejoicing in the milestone of a member of a previously discriminated against group achieving something hitherto never achieved by a member of that group. It is not to do with HRC’s “characteristics”, as you put it, it is because she belongs to the group “women”. You have appeared to be saying at various stages that this makes us sexist, because we are implicitly discriminating against the group “men”.
Hip hip hooray! (meant completely sincerely)
speaking of historic women, it’s a bit of a tradition in Rochester NY for women to take their little “I Voted” stickers and stick them on the gravestone of Susan B Anthony.
if Clinton wins in November, i imagine that stone is going to be absolutely covered.
I don’t get this fixation with melanin content. Sorry.
You are right. I’ll dial it back.
Naughty us.
So, the parade of horribles. Work place discrimination exists in a variety of forms. We need anti-discrimination laws and they need to be enforced. Conceding this does not concede that we need Social Justice Hall Monitors and surprise on-the-job visits from the Diversity Corp to keep everyone in line. You, and others (except TP), attempt to soft pedal the fixation on the Big Three. It’s there. And it’s way over done. Way over done. And very divisive.
You have appeared to be saying at various stages that this makes us sexist, because we are implicitly discriminating against the group “men”.
I don’t think I’ve been unclear at all. I’ve identified a number of aspects of the Diversity fixation that are discriminatory and racist. I’ve done so in aid of questioning the hoo-rah surrounding this entirely predictable event. And, if my point isn’t as clear as I thought it was, even if the celebration is, itself, benign, a lot of the intellectual baggage underlying the celebration is anything but benign.
Let me put it a different way. If my candidate, C Fiorina, got the nomination on the Repub side, the last think I’d think about was that she was a woman *other* than to take some comfort that the righties had stolen a little of the lefties’ thunder. In terms of history or ‘one small step for woman, blah, blah, blah’, not, not a big deal. Not today. Back then, yes, but not today. Still, that’s just me. Party on.
For no real reason other than it’s lunchtime.
I can understand a more specific objection to the excitement over HRC’s nomination simply because she started her campaign shaming women who were not for her. There was a lot of “vote for me because I am a woman” and if you’re a woman you should want me to win. Both broadly implied and specifically stated.
In fact, it takes a little of the luster off of the historical event that her negatives are so high and she ran essentially unopposed and still managed to make a race out of it. Bernie created a lot of noise, but the race was called based on super delegate count after NY.
Hillary is the heir apparent in the Clinton dynasty. I am not sure she cracks it open for another woman.
I feel a lot the same way about Obama, I am not sure either one of them blew a very big hole in the glass ceiling. He was the black candidate that was only blackish, and groomed in the Chicago machine to be the black candidate that the white people could get behind. And he really only had to beat Hillary.
So I believe that history is yet to be made. It needs a woman/person of color to go through a 6 or 7 person primary season and win the debates and beat strong challengers, then take it to the other parties candidate in the general to solidify that gain.
HRC’s deal is a coronation, from the viewpoint of someone not in the lefty fold. Not a hard fought battle until Bernie came along and even then it was a foregone conclusion.
Yes, and it was expected to be a coronation in 2008. And not at all expected to be hard fought . . . until Obama came along.
Foregone conclusions are not always what they seem in retrospect.
Hillary is the heir apparent in the Clinton dynasty. I am not sure she cracks it open for another woman.
I wish I had said this and everything else in this comment with one exception:
So I believe that history is yet to be made. It needs a woman/person of color to go through a 6 or 7 person primary season and win the debates and beat strong challengers, then take it to the other parties candidate in the general to solidify that gain.
I would run this up my historical scale from HRC’s 3 to a 7. We may be a decade or so from having a large enough base of sufficiently experienced females for female candidates to be the norm and not the exception.
The foregoing was not meant to be perjorative. Men are currently over-represented at the upper echelons of business and politics. That is changing and will continue to change and with that change, there will be more highly visible female heavy hitters in all manner of public life and commerce, setting the stage for more and more women to compete for the presidency.
If my candidate, C Fiorina, got the nomination on the Repub side, the last think I’d think about was that she was a woman *other* than to take some comfort that the righties had stolen a little of the lefties’ thunder.
I’m seriously curious about this. What did you see in Fiorina that made you prefer her? I not only watched her Senate campaign in California, I was close by when she was nearly destroying Hewlett-Packard. And I’m trying to figure out what the attraction might have been. What had she accomplished, or what had she advocated that others did not?
Can you help me out here?
I get that y’all are glowing about this.
Honestly, I’m not all that excited about it, myself. Despite the historic nature of a woman becoming a major-party presidential candidate, Hillary is, policy-wise, in line with the general status quo of the last several decades – a status quo I’m not thrilled with. I’ll be voting for her come November, in no small part because Trump’s candidacy is an utter absurdity, but I’m not terribly enthusiastic about the choice.
All that said, I understand that her presumptive nomination is a big deal historically and why people might be excited about, so I see no need to begrudge them that. I’d probably be joining in the hoopla were, say, Elizabeth Warren the nominee. (I’m sure you’d love that, McKinney!)
“And, in this case, preordained by conscious, single-minded planning and execution by HRC and the DNC for years.”
It’s about time the Democratic Party became an organized political party.
“He was the black candidate that was only blackish …”
Mano-manischevitz
Willie Horton was the authentic black Democratic candidate preferred by Republicans.
I full expect Hillary Clinton to be referred as “mannish” by some fake Republican CIA operative between now and November because she is alleged to have worn a strap-on during State Department briefings.
(I’m sure you’d love that, McKinney!)
It would give us something to talk about. First Native American President!!! History in the making!!!!
It’s about time the Democratic Party became an organized political party.
If the Repubs had the Dem’s discipline and organization, either Trump would have never gotten the nomination or he’d be the next president.
I full expect Hillary Clinton to be referred as “mannish” by some fake Republican CIA operative between now and November because she is alleged to have worn a strap-on during State Department briefings.
I’d be hoping, if I were an HRC fan, that Repub operatives and everyone else won’t someday be referring to HRC as ‘Defendant.’
I’d be hoping, if I were an HRC fan, that Repub operatives and everyone else won’t someday be referring to HRC as ‘Defendant.’
i believe Mr Trump has already claimed that title.
i believe Mr Trump has already claimed that title.
He’s been under indictment? Did not know that.
Are you talking about a civil lawsuit? Meh. Bill beat him to that decades ago.
The foregoing was not meant to be perjorative. Men are currently over-represented at the upper echelons of business and politics.
Understood…and…YES. That’s why extremists like me will continue to keep the heat on.
Understood…and…YES. That’s why extremists like me will continue to keep the heat on.
No need. It’s a self correcting problem if the adults among us will remind the youngsters now matriculating to shut up about safe places and ‘get your ass to work’.
Well, that’s the problem. It’s not necessarily “self-correcting”, and/or many see the self correcting process as not proceeding fast enough….after all, it’s a problem, no?
How would you like to be told, “Yes, we know your wages are 80% of your male fellow workers, but we’re working on it. Trust us.”
You’d probably run screaming to some shyster lawyer.
And yelling at people to “get to work” is simply over the line. 🙂
Are conservatives secret Stakhanovites?
Perhaps we could have a guest post on that!
It seems like, if the problem(s) was “self-correcting,” it would have corrected itself already. Which, manifestly, it has not.
Yes, there have been significant strides made. But the problem is nowhere near fixed. Plus, I’m far from convinced that this sort of problem is really self-correcting. Where is change inherent in the problem or its obvious impacts?
Absolutely in favor of McTx doing a guest post no matter the topic.
we know your wages are 80% of your male fellow workers
Does this statistic take into account differences in experience, skill, occupation, education or hours worked?
No. Of course not. If it did, the numbers would be much different. Nor does it address the virtual congruence of wages comparing like to like until age 30, when statistically significant numbers of women leave the job market to have children. Women with children work less hours than men, whether out of choice or necessity.
It is illegal to treat men differently than women in the work place and vice versa, ditto race, etc. Same pay for the same job, assuming all else is comparable. Until women quit having children and quit wanting to stay home with them, differences will persist.
As more women forego children or use nannies (but no “mannies”, I note), more women will have the time available to compete for the upper echelons of their chosen careers. It is happening already. I see it and anyone in a position to observe the executive suite and two layers below sees the same thing.
The left is behind the times. Again. That won’t keep the activists from cooking the books and coming up with BS stats to keep people stirred up.
My colleagues are ready, willing and able to take a good class representative who can demonstrate disparate treatment by sex for the same work. They live for that kind of thing.
Absolutely in favor of McTx doing a guest post no matter the topic.
I’ll work on that. Thanks. It would be fun.
This is a not-so-subtle form of tuo quoque. It inferentially concedes that the Left, or a good portion of it, practices a very definite form of Identity Politics known as Diversity, and then seeks to excuse that practice by saying ‘everyone does it’. I don’t buy it.
You may not be seeing the same right-wing identity crap some of us are, and that may well be a class issue. Some objection to capital-D Diversity that you mention takes the form of “This is discriminatory because it’s favoring certain groups and not others”. Some objection, however, takes the form of “They’re attacking white straight Christians (possibly with “males” tacked on)! They want to make non-whites dominant, Christianity illegal in public, normalize homosexuality so our kids get corrupted, (and possibly impose a matriarchy)!”
The individuals making these claims typically argue that racism and sexism are solved problems and have been for decades. They argue equal rights under law for LBGT is religious discrimination against Christians. They take seriously crap like “war on Christmas”.
The right in the US has its own Identity Politics, even if they don’t take the form of being pro-Diversity; they tend to be reactive and define themself in terms of “not that”, but there is an typically-unstated “but instead this” which does get stated in certain contexts. Not all of the right approves of this, nor engages in this. Likewise, not all of the left supports or engages in Identity Politics. This observation is not a tu quoque; it’s a counterassertion to the claim that Identity Politics is a problem limited to the left wing, and that fixing it can be accomplished merely by changing left-wing behavior. Identity Politics, even under a narrow definition, are really f’n common in American political discourse. Getting away from them would require a great deal of housecleaning on the right as well as the left. It’s not fine because both sides do it, it’s worse because both sides do it, but it verges on poisoning the well when one side claims it’s a serious problem while simultaneously and contra reality denying that they are doing it (or in the extreme, that they can do it).
It is illegal to treat men differently than women in the work place and vice versa, ditto race, etc. Same pay for the same job, assuming all else is comparable. Until women quit having children and quit wanting to stay home with them, differences will persist.
It’s illegal for restaurateurs to pay tipped staff less than untipped federal minimum wage unless they receive tips equal or greater than the difference between tipped and untipped minimums. It is common for them to do so. Likewise, it is illegal for mandatory “tipping out” policies to include management or untipped staff in the payout pool, but this is not rare either. Forbidding employees to disclose their earnings to each other is flatly illegal, but it’s extremely common in both high-end and low-end jobs.
Illegality means nothing without meaningful regulation and enforcement, and that’s something that is sorely lacking in this area. If management (male or female) chooses to “mommytrack” their female employees because they assume that they’re going to cease being good employees IOT become mothers eventually, they’re not going to publicly document it – or document it at all – unless they’re really, really dumb.
There is enough subjectivity in managerial decisionmaking that it’s trivial to dismiss pervasive gender-based inequalities in wages as the result of individual performance or choices, but that doesn’t make them go away.
Can this be proven? Typically in all but the most egregious cases, no. And that’s exactly why the problem isn’t “self-correcting”.
NV, there is some common ground here, but some difference as well. The common ground: I do not understand how gay marriage impairs my religious beliefs. Yet, many on the religious right, or the self-appointed spokespeople thereof, make precisely this argument. I don’t have to look too hard to find anti-Christian bigotry on the left, but I also don’t have to look too hard to find loud cries of victim hood among vocal Christian victims. So, I take your point. And, I agree that there some on the left who are very uncomfortable with Identity politics and the social justice movement.
To me, “Christian” is such a nebulous concept, it cannot be equated to race or sex/gender. It’s more like an interest group, e.g. unions, the elderly, etc. Further, policies that affirmatively favor Christians as opposed to others are plainly unconstitutional.
For me, the key difference is that the Left’s Diversity and social justice adherents drive lefty policy and drives it in a big way. Being secular, demands for Diversity don’t implicate the First Amendment. Idiots calling for a more Christian gov’t *do* run afoul of the constitution.
I’m not aware of any large, identifiable conservative movement that advocates for affirmative gov’t action in a way that compares to the Diversity Left. By this, I mean relief specific to a particular group. Example: Calling for tax cut, while self interested, is a call for universal, not specific relief.
And, I’m not trying to dig anyone by using caps. It’s a means of using a term in a non-generic way and imputing a specific meaning.
So, if the point is that there are *interest groups*, right and left, who angle for a nose in the trough, no doubt. And maybe that was Russell’s point upthread and I was too dense to see it.
But I don’t equate interest groups to the three part diversity lodestone that holds sway on the left. That ‘diversity’ informs all manner of lefty policy and thinking.
I’m not aware of any large, identifiable conservative movement that advocates for affirmative gov’t action in a way that compares to the Diversity Left.
That’s kinda a matter of demographics. The perception is that if the Diversity Left’s affirmative gov’t action can be eliminated and become de facto verbotten, then things will go back to being how they’re “supposed to be”, which is described as vast amounts of undeserving individuals suddenly vanishing into obscurity because they’re only there because of inequitable entitlements. Like I said, the right-wing version is reactive more than proactive. It doesn’t suggest it needs affirmative gov’t action beyond rolling back any Diversity entitlements because at that point, things will go back to being how they’re “supposed to be” by dint of social structures and demographics. It’s usually subtle. Sometimes it’s not, but it usually is, and in any case it frames itself as reacting IOT undo injustice carried out by the gov’t rather than injustices carried out by society (part of the narrative is very commonly that these gov’t-mandated injustices are so unpopular and/or prejudicial that the only way they can be carried out is by gov’t mandate, though sometimes the faceless leftwing media is the villian instead of the gov’t). It’s actually appears entirely in keeping with left-vs-right perspective differences as far as it goes.
I’m guessing, McKinney, that you aren’t opposed to each and every policy or proposal that recognizes discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion, etc.
If I’m right about that, discussing capital-D Diversity and social justice in highly general and abstract terms isn’t really going to get us far, just like discussing gun control at a highly general and abstract level doesn’t get us very far. It only convinces either “side” that it vehemently disagrees with the other.
Once we get down to specifics, though, we end up finding there’s far more overlap in our individual opinions than we previously thought based on our right/left, liberal/conservative, Dem/Rep self-identifications.
You almost always end up sounding like one of us commies once the rubber really meets the road.
There is enough subjectivity in managerial decisionmaking that it’s trivial to dismiss pervasive gender-based inequalities in wages as the result of individual performance or choices, but that doesn’t make them go away.
Can this be proven? Typically in all but the most egregious cases, no. And that’s exactly why the problem isn’t “self-correcting”.
How a food service operation handles tips does not equate to raise/promotion policy as one goes up the food chain. You assume widespread, pre-emptive mommy-tracking, and that is unsupported by the evidence. Wages/salaries are congruent through age 30. It is only after age 30 that a disparity kicks in. It is a rare person who can take a 5-10 professional sabbatical and make up for lost time such that she/he is competitive with the higher end achievers who didn’t take time off.
As I mentioned yesterday, I have three female partners here in Houston. I did not mention that all three work part time. Two have kids at home, one has a disabled husband. All three do excellent work. All but two of us are paid on exactly the same formula, which is tied entirely to productivity and client ownership. I and the other equity partner are paid on a different formula using similar metrics.
A fair question would be: how many equity partners are female vs male? The answer, very generally, is that men outnumber women at this level significantly. The footnote to that statistic is that for men to make equity partner, they must have a minimum of 750K a year in portable business. That requirement does not apply to female equity partners. So, in effect, we have a rule that discriminates against male partners and in favor of female partners.
In no small part because I’ve been at ObWi for quite a while, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get a handle on diversity at the upper end of the food chain. I think, if the issue was reviewed systematically, we would find that the generations/age cohorts behind mine are far more diverse by sex and by ethnicity and that the younger the cohort, the more diverse they are.
With that diversity comes a much, much reduced opportunity for any alleged structural discrimination since women and minorities would be asked to discriminate against other women. Does anyone really think white men forcing women and minorities to discriminate against other women and minorities is a widespread problem?
The left is behind the times. Again. That won’t keep the activists from cooking the books and coming up with BS stats to keep people stirred up.
You mean, like these books?
Charbroiled!!
Link fixed!
Here’s some more data cooked up by some real identity driven feminist lunatics!
All so “alleged”! Well done. Cooked!
we know your wages are 80% of your male fellow workers
Does this statistic take into account differences in experience, skill, occupation, education or hours worked?
No. Of course not. If it did, the numbers would be much different. Nor does it address the virtual congruence of wages comparing like to like until age 30, when statistically significant numbers of women leave the job market to have children.
Well, yes and no. Controlling for the job being done, and for experience, the wage gap is “only” 8% (women earn 92% of what men in the same jobs with similar experience get). Yes, that is much different. No, that isn’t a trivial level of discrimination.
Note that this is seperate from the very strong tendency for women to be working in jobs which are lower paid, regardless of the gender to those doing the work. That may be a cultural issue, rather than one of straight discrimination. It may reflect the prejudices of teachers, which guide what kinds of classes girls take and what they see as their “nature” future.
The right in the US has its own Identity Politics, even if they don’t take the form of being pro-Diversity
I think perhaps the difference is this. On the left, we have people demanding “diversity” in the sense of “including people who do not look, talk, behave, like me.” It can be identity politics for those being included, but it is rather the inverse of identity politics on the part of those who want others included.
In contrast, identity politics on the right tends to be a matter of “I don’t want others to be included in the things that I have.” It is exclusive rather than inclusive.
To take the religious example (you can do similarly on race, or wealth, or various other categories), Christians on the left tend to call for those of other faiths to get the same treatment as Christians. Christians on the right tend to object to those of other faiths getting the same treatment as they do. Islam is getting the most differential treatment now, but the “war on Christmas” nonsense started long before Islam was on anyone’s radar.
You almost always end up sounding like one of us commies once the rubber really meets the road.
I only wish that were true. The legal battles were won years ago. It takes a while to educate and infiltrate enough women/minorities to square things away. We don’t need more laws, we need more time. Women, because they have babies and for some reason seem unusually attached to the little salamanders once they pop out, are never going to pull even with men. Even with record high numbers of women remaining single.
A secondary reason is career choice. Nursing and teaching don’t pay like construction and computers. Or STEM. It’s good, steady work with more job security, but not great pay. Good, but not great.
As an aside, if your a moderate, why the Bern? He’s pretty far out there.
I read BP’s first link. It is pretty typical of how an advocate creates the appearance of neutrality to rig numbers. First, you find an unfootnoted statement like this, “, but about two-thirds of the gap is not explained by potential experience, age, race, education, industry, or occupation.”
Aside from the fact that this assertion is not accompanied by any f’ing evidence or a cite or anything, the very next section discusses the impact of having children on a career. See the problem? Allege that “other factors” can’t explain a wage gap but conveniently leave out one of the most critical factors, i.e. the decision to have a child.
BP, back in the 70’s, one of Houston’s trial legends was told by his client, a highly skilled, cutting edge engineer (in a patent case) that the plaintiff would never be able to find a qualified expert witness who could give the testimony needed to win the case because the testimony would just be too incredible. The lawyer asked the engineer if he’d ever noticed how, after a rainfall, Houston’s drainage ditches would fill up with tadpoles. As expected, the engineer was well aware of that seemingly irrelevant phenomena. The lawyer then said, “I promise you that for not a whole lot amount of money, I can find a fully qualified expert who will swear that frogs don’t fuck.”
I deal with ‘expert witnesses’ all the time. They are, all too often, shameless, lying advocates. That is equally true of people with an ax to grind and a need for “evidence” to support their point. Just as an aside, I’m currently dealing with an engineer who is testifying against a windstorm insurer I represent. Rain is excluded from coverage under the policy unless it enters a building through a wind-created opening. The expert admits there are no wind-created openings. You’d think that would be game over. You’d be wrong. He theorizes that the wind, a Cat One hurricane, temporarily lifted the entire roof off of every building in the plaintiff school district just long enough for water to enter each building, then dropped each roof back down, in perfect position, leaving no damage or evidence of having lifted. Every building. Under oath. No shit.
Another thing I run into a lot are articles written by experts that are really advertising. These articles appear in professional journals that are, quite often, no more than medium grade bird cage liner.
I put your article in that category:no evidence, no footnotes, is conclusory, not factual and self-impeaches by pretending to consider “all” factors while consciously omitting critical factors.
All so “alleged”! Well done. Cooked!
Did you, by any chance, take a minute to see if there were any noticeable analytical flaws?
Hint: do you think engineering degrees make more, less or the same than education or women’s studies degrees? Just asking?
I think perhaps the difference is this. On the left, we have people demanding “diversity” in the sense of “including people who do not look, talk, behave, like me.” It can be identity politics for those being included, but it is rather the inverse of identity politics on the part of those who want others included.
In contrast, identity politics on the right tends to be a matter of “I don’t want others to be included in the things that I have.” It is exclusive rather than inclusive.
WJ, you continue to speak in cliche. Seriously, even the lefties here agree that left wing diversity turns on three factors: sex/gender, race and Culture (with a specific meaning). As for “identity politics on the right”, who is saying ‘I don’t want people included’? Seriously. This is just rehashing a very lame talking point from a not very effective lefty.
I put your article in that category: no evidence, no footnotes….
I put your conclusion in the category as pre-biased (good enough for Trump, good enough for me!), hurried, and utterly without redeeming merit.
So there you go.
There were these things called “links” (aka, footnotes/cites) and a bibliography (aka “sourcing”). What have you provided? Anecdotal evidence, surmise, conjecture, and triple A rhetorical gymnastics.
At least the courtroom tales are entertaining. So thanks for those.
You admit to the ongoing existence of (some degree of) gender discrimination, yet you remain miffed at the actions of those who press hard to close that remaining (and significant)gap.
And of course, anybody who brings up these facts is dismissed for “engaging in Identity Politics, q.e.d.”
But let us not get away from this: The real living women experiencing that gap suffer or are short changed as a result.
But the exuberance of a few college kids (you know, the VAST LEFT) gets your pants in a knot. Go figure.
(PS: Thanks for fixing the link, Slarti).
WJ, you continue to speak in cliche. Seriously, even the lefties here agree that left wing diversity turns on three factors: sex/gender, race and Culture (with a specific meaning). As for “identity politics on the right”, who is saying ‘I don’t want people included’? Seriously. This is just rehashing a very lame talking point from a not very effective lefty.
Obviously I need to work on my clarity!
First, what we see on the left are individuals who are not members of the given identity group advocating for including members of those groups and treating them equitably. (Yes, there are also people who argue for treating them preferentially. But those aren’t, as far as I can see, a majority.) Have you seen much (or any) of that on the right?
Second, who is saying “I don’t want people included”? Need we start with those advocating for Trump’s proposal to prohibit Muslims from entering the country. All Muslims, note — including those who might be, for example, Ministers of the British government. It’s not hard to find other examples (based on religion or race or identity), if you look.
Third, I suppose I am “a not very effective lefty” in part because I tend to be a conservative rather than a lefty. (Not, admittedly, as the term “conservative” is (mis-)defined by the conservative parts of the Republican Party. But on any definition which was in use before the mid-1980s.)
I suppose I should left the liberals here defend their own points. But is there something wrong (outside the courtroom, of course) with admitting that the other guy actually has a good point?
You admit to the ongoing existence of (some degree of) gender discrimination, yet you remain miffed at the actions of those who press hard to close that remaining (and significant)gap.
I’m out of gas. It’s been a long, but pleasant day. Humans are fallible. We have laws adequate to the task.
And of course, anybody who brings up these facts is dismissed for “engaging in Identity Politics, q.e.d.”
Which facts? I think you are mixing my comments. Almost everyone opposes discrimination; the fault line is fairly clear: decision making driven by the left’s view of diversity is bad stuff, bad for everyone, divisive and unconstitutional. It is worst for its purported beneficiaries: forced/coerced hiring, forced promotions without regard to merit, skill, hours worked, etc will accomplish nothing good.
Ok, I think we all know where I stand.
Duty calls. It’s been fun. McKinney out.
Almost everyone opposes discrimination
If only. If only.
(Well, maybe if you include those who oppose discrimination against themselves. Even when they are not, in fact, discriminated against. Just no longer discriminated in favor of as much as they used to be.)
5 Quick Facts About the Gender Pay Gap: Do women still earn just 79 percent of every dollar men make? A look at what’s really going on with the gender wage gap
briefly:
the tu quoque fallacy is an attempt to discredit someone’s argument by turning it back on them. most commonly, by claiming that they do the very thing they are accusing you of.
that wasn’t the point I was making.
when I say “all politics is identity politics” I’m not saying “yeah, but you do it to”.
I’m saying that advocating for, and negotiating between, the interests of different demographics within the polity as a whole is *what politics is*.
Denigrating one party, or one point of view, because they practice “identity politics” is like saying they are “cooking” because they are “making food hot”.
Further, it’s like saying that making food hot is some illegitimate kind of cooking.
It’s jargon.
If you have some substantive issue with (D)’s advocating for gays, or blacks, or women, that’s all good. Have your say.
Saying that there is something inherently illegitimate about (D)’s advocating for the interests of gays, or blacks, or women, is nonsensical.
McKinney may not agree, but I’m beginning to think that He, Trump’s recent fulminations against Judge Curiel were not a gaffe. Neither were they mere illustrations of his not-so-secret racism. I’m beginning to think that maybe He, Trump only entered the race so as to make himself too important for litigation over his fake “university” to harm his “brand”.
I only mention this because there are civil suit and there are civil suits, and McKinney (who surely knows better) did a little tu-quoquing earlier, w.r.t. Bill Clinton and the carnival barker currently carrying the GOP standard into battle against the forces of Political Correctness, Diversity, and The Left in general.
–TP
We have laws adequate to the task.
No thanks to today’s Republicans.
Second, who is saying “I don’t want people included”?
Don’t forget marriage. Definitely don’t forget marriage.
Tony,
My theory is Trump is simply demonstrating his willingness to stand up to ‘identity politics’.
“People say you can’t say that?” He yells.
“Well, here, I’m saying it, and it’s not ‘racism'”.
You’ve seen his angry defense of this I assume. Pure Archie Bunker. His supporters lap it up. It’s a stick in the eye to the “identity police”. Shows he has balls.
Liberals tie themselves in knots explaining why it was indeed an example of racist behavior.
But then, liberals are never going to vote for him in any event.
But the vast unwashed middle? Maybe this is something they don’t mind too much hearing.
To me, it’s just pure privileged assholery.
“I agree that HRC’s election–which I fully expect–is emblematic of the change in attitude toward female leaders.”
then what the hell are you on about in this thread?
what you said here is, as far as I can tell, Doc S’s point.
Second, who is saying “I don’t want people included”?
You aren’t. But you identify with a decent ethos, like we do. We accept you.
I can’t think who else:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2016/06/playground-bully-for-president.html
It is illegal to treat men differently than women in the work place and vice versa, ditto race, etc.
which means it can’t and never happens. as with all laws, the prohibition is sufficient to prevent violations. as all lawyers know.
then what the hell are you on about in this thread?
liberal premature gloat.
For “liberal gloat” wouldn’t we expect something like “conservative [something unhappy]”? But conservatives, much as they dislike Clinton, aren’t losing much of anything, at least at the Presidential level, this time around.
It’s not like Trump is their champion – if anything, the real conservatives are even more appalled by Trump than liberals are. When Trump goes down in flames, they can fall back on their standard response: the candidate wasn’t conservative enough. And it will be more true than usual.
At worst, some of them will have to live with a woman doing something that they don’t consider properly “women’s work”. But they’ve been dealing with similar feelings these past eight years. Over time, the pain dulls.
Really just came here to say that McKinney is a fucking moron.
And I’m here to say he’s not.
Yeah, no. He’s stubborn as anything and can be an absolute pain to argue with, but he’s certainly nothing resembling a moron.
Seconded (thirded even, as snagglepuss would say). He’s no moron, and talking to each other means none of us live in an echo chamber.
Why u change your name to hack on McKinney, Julian?
Oh. Name change was prior.
You should send him an email or something, though, telling him what you think of him.
McKinney’s not a moron. He’s evil. They aren’t the same thing.
Thanks Count, NV, GFNC and especially John Not McCain. Yes, I am evil.
which means it can’t and never happens. as with all laws, the prohibition is sufficient to prevent violations. as all lawyers know.
Of course it happens. Along with murder, DUI, using a private email server to transmit classified information (poking fun, not thread-jacking) and perjury. For example, quid pro quo sex stuff. Any takers on that one? I kid.
On a serious note: Title VII, like most civil statutes in this general class, sets a series of standards and limitations and affords a remedy for those who claim to be aggrieved when they have sustained a loss as a result of a deviation from the standard or a transgression of established limits. Laws like this anticipate violations. That’s why they spell out the remedy.
No thanks to today’s Republicans.
Maybe, but it isn’t as if today’s Repubs were around 30 years ago or whenever Title VII was passed (40 years ago?), so this is the kind of charge no one can really answer.
If you have some substantive issue with (D)’s advocating for gays, or blacks, or women, that’s all good. Have your say.
Saying that there is something inherently illegitimate about (D)’s advocating for the interests of gays, or blacks, or women, is nonsensical.
If that’s all Diversity stood for, I’d be a Dem. It isn’t. But, I’ve had my say and repeating won’t add value.
Don’t forget marriage. Definitely don’t forget marriage.
Fair point. The asterisk I would add is that it wasn’t that long ago that our president’s stated position was that marriage was between a man and a woman as was the current Dem presidential nominee. So, the exclusionary leanings in that instance were bipartisan. I concede that a number of brave politicians on the left have now found their voice and I further concede that many on the right remain afflicted with laryngitis.
if anything, the real conservatives are even more appalled by Trump than liberals are. When Trump goes down in flames, they can fall back on their standard response: the candidate wasn’t conservative enough. And it will be more true than usual.
At worst, some of them will have to live with a woman doing something that they don’t consider properly “women’s work”.
Yes and no. Agree that many on the conservative side of things can’t stomach and will not vote for Trump. Put me in that box. Trump carries TX regardless of my vote, so this isn’t exactly a profile in courage. Conservatives are fine with a female president. They love Palin. Again, I don’t and others I know feel the same way.
OK, just got a call from my malpractice carrier. She says ‘get back to work.’ Y’all have a great weekend. Particularly John Not McCain and Sig.
it wasn’t that long ago that our president’s stated position was that marriage was between a man and a woman
Thus demonstrating that our current President is, in fact, quite conservative. (Unless you only get your info from Fox news, conservative talk radio, etc., of course.)
Sig et al, I think you may have been mislead by the fact that this is a thread which earlier saw Russell seconding something from Marty. It’s enough to make one believe that the usual left/right splits we see are not happening. At least on parts of this topic.
Really just came here to say that McKinney is a fucking moron.
If that were true, he wouldn’t be one of my favorite people to argue with. Well, I guess assuming I’m not also a moron.
Hmmm… I’m going to have to think about this one for a while.
I’d like to see McTX slow jam it back at sig:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziwYbVx_-qg
Identify.
I, Tony P., being of sound mind and reasonably sober at the moment, am so looking forward to a guest post by McKinneyTexas, that I promise to suspend all other recreations (including but not limited to paying ones) to read it carefully and quibble with it as required.
–TP
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/06/no-secretary-state-ever-used-stategov-email-account-until-john-kerry
Here’s a list of the 67 (68 minus John Kerry) who the Republican Party wants to indict.
https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/secretaries
If they only plan to jail the living ones, count to six.
If they only plan to indict Democratic ones since 1790, figure it our for yourself.
OK, just got a call from my malpractice carrier. She says ‘get back to work.’
Sounds like a 9:30 tee time to me, oh Evil One. Enjoy the round.
Really just came here to say that McKinney is a fucking moron.
Well, if you really mean that, then job done, and you have no need to trouble us again. Which would be a relief all round, I think.
McKinney isn’t a moron, and if I knew him personally, I’m sure we’d get along okay. In my area of the US, I run into a lot of people who have similar sensibilities (including the profession, income, golf, handgun …. ). and they’re pleasant people in most respects.
However, he has a real problem with women’s rights, which is surprising since he says he has professional daughters. Or maybe not so surprising since millennial children don’t really get a lot of the struggles of McKinney aged professional women.
It’s all good – I don’t hate McKinney personally, and realize that obwi has become a weird good-old-boy (with a couple of non-boys thrown in) club, but I don’t really get the hate posts in defense of McKinney who, in fact, is really dismissing the concept that a capable (as opposed to Sarah Palin, Donald Trump) person is the first woman to be nominated by a major party for President.
By the way, I’m proudly, unabashedly, with Her. Yes, and I was an Obamabot, not a Hilbot, before.
I realize the value of “falling in line” and don’t consider it an affront on my special snowflakism.
I realize the value of “falling in line” and don’t consider it an affront on my special snowflakism.
Then, of course, you understand and respect those people who are “falling in line” with Trump, realizing the value and all. So we shouldn’t hear anything more from your side of the fence about “those” people who were originally against him that come out to endorse him. Right?
Of course not, although becoming a Hilbot is only different in degree from becoming a Trump supporter.
Of course not, although becoming a Hilbot is only different in degree from becoming a Trump supporter
No, it’s a bit different in that I can very passionately endorse most of Hillary’s positions. Whereas with Trump, I can only agree with Elizabeth Warren’s incredible indictment last night. I’m pretty sure that Elizabeth Warren can speak for me quite well. Although I’d be happy to answer any specifics.
Oops. Sorry italism.
Oh, and as for the “peace people” are concerned, I would be happy to defend Hillary’s “hawkishness”.
…right, because it’s all about feeling like a special snowflake…
https://www.academia.edu/26019145/_The_Lesser_of_Evils_Illustrated_
Nv, got through the click, not further. Maybe you believe in it enough to make the argument for Trump?
Dragons are great, but I’m wondering where you find this crap.
“You should send him an email or something, though, telling him what you think of him.”
You don’t think I got my point across?
dude, McK is not, remotely, a moron.
Ah, so you looked at the picture but couldn’t be bothered to read the article? It’s far from flawless, but it does a lovely job of dismissing the tired, patronizing “not voting for my candidate is voting for the other one” line you and yours are lazily pushing.
As to where I got, from an ethics professor from my undergrad cohort who is a colleague of the author.
And really, “a dragon”? You’re neither old enough nor young enough for Godzilla to be alien pop culture knowledge to you.
(Although looking over the version I linked above, the illustrations are kinda annoying. I read it a day or two ago and there was only the first illustration, and the columns were tighter. I’m not sure I’d’ve had the patience to read it in its “visually enhanced” format. Still, I suppose it’s treating the argument it’s addressing with an appropriate amount of dignity…)
(I’m pretty sure the likes of us are not the target audience, though…)
the menu is crackers or glass shards. guess i’ll just starve. that’ll show … someone.
dude, McK is not, remotely, a moron.
Cantankerous, stubborn, innumerant, wrong in most respects, but honorable nonetheless (and a fellow golfer). But moron? You can’t be serious.
“dude, McK is not, remotely, a moron.”
Read his 12:29 pm comment from June 8 a few more times and try saying it with a straight face.
the menu is crackers or glass shards. guess i’ll just starve. that’ll show … someone.
The menu is corks or glass shards. Guess I’ll just order corks (and hope I don’t choke on them, or starve) to make sure the menu doesn’t change.
Read his 12:29 pm comment from June 8 a few more times and try saying it with a straight face.
Just did that – went back and re-read said comment – on your instigation. McK is wrong – as he is so often – but in a reasoned and reasonable way, as one might expect from an attorney. If I had more energy I’d join the effort of others to delineate the various ways in which he is wrong, but I’m old and in any event I would rate the chances of anything I might say changing his mind somewhere between slim and none. Or lower.
You’re more than welcome to join the rectification campaign, or if you can’t be bothered, just scroll on by.
But describing McK as a “moron” is (how can I put this?) moronic.
I also don’t have the energy to defend diversity (or as McT scrives, ‘Diversity’) largely because it seems like such a self evident good. At least if you think that Darwin was correct, as I do. Given that any environment is going to have a lot of different challenges to the entities in that environment, having diversity in the entities is essential. That’s how evolution works. So anything that supports diversity without overly harming individuals? Yeah, sign me up.
Things are self correcting _because of_ diversity. Diversity is what gives an organism or a group the ability to survive. If you want to have an argument about the degree of diversity, (cause at a certain point, things can get too diverse, thereby undercutting or negating group solidarity) that is certainly worth a chat, cause finding the sweetspot is always challenging, but problems with ‘Diversity’? Please.
“but in a reasoned and reasonable way, as one might expect from an attorney.”
It’s this part I disagree with.
I apologize. He is not a moron on all subjects. He is a moron on this one.
Our society, controlled almost entirely by white men, systematically murdered, raped, enslaved, abused, and otherwise marginalized large groups of people for centuries (if we limit ourselves to just the colonies and the U.S.). While things have improved we are still bad to those groups of people, and we know they still disproportionately suffer. The point of race, gender, and orientation diversity is to make amends for our sins against those people and try to make them whole. It also arguably helps even those people who haven’t been discriminated against by exposing them to points of view that have been wrongly marginalized.
The fact that a woman has been able to overcome the immense power of misogyny in our society (and I’m not even saying the U.S. is unusually bad) is a sign of progress, which is worth celebrating, EVEN IF you don’t think there’s any reason to believe a woman would lead any differently from a man.
Of course, many studies show women do lead differently from men and in ways we should encourage, so there’s also that tending to prove McK wrong. Possibly it’s because of the massively different social experience woman have growing up, getting educated, and entering the workforce?
Plus there’s the fact that a woman president makes other appointments of women vastly more likely, presents an immensely powerful role model to literally billions of people, encourages more women to get involved in politics, etc. etc.
In short, every possible available piece of evidence militates in favor of celebrating this advance and seeking to make more similar advances.
Let’s drill down a little deeper into what McKT said that’s so stupid:
“Treating plumbing, pigmentation or some other identity marker as having some kind of intrinsic value separate from a person’s character, skills, intelligence, etc validates making invidious decisions for the same reason. You can’t have it both ways: women, as one example, can’t have ‘special positives’ as a result of plumbing and escape being saddled with ‘special negatives’. In other words, it makes no sense to maintain that non-white, straight male, identity connotes only positive attributes. Put differently, the business of imputing characteristics based on identity is racist/sexist.”
Before I give you the answer of how we can recognize that nonwhite and non male people are different from white male ones without falling into the trap of becoming racist/sexist, I am going hum the Jeopardy theme to myself for thirty seconds.
They have different experiences in the world because they are treated differently by society. Those experiences shape their personalities and decisionmaking strategies. I agree that in a theoretical society with no history (a history which extends to the present day) of disproportionately murdering and raping these people (and not letting them vote) it is possible there would be no reason to expect them to behave differently from white men. We do not live in that world.
You see, this is why I called him a moron (overbroadly). I am confident that McKT would never, ever, ever fall for an argument this unbelievably stupid if he were litigating it. For example, McKT, what if you were suing a company for sex discrimination against women? Let’s say you had over two dozen named plaintiffs in a company with 100 employees, and they all could credibly prove sexual assaults, sexual harassment, and adverse employment outcomes that were explicitly linked to gender. Then the company’s defense attorney points out the company’s president is a woman. I think I can be pretty confident your response would be “so what.” And you’d be right, because it’s ALL THE OTHER EVIDENCE that would matter quite a bit more.
McKT is committing a common sin: binary thinking. In his view, either racism exists or it doesn’t. If it exists, there can be no black president. Thus, under modus tollens, if there can be a black president, there can be no racism.
This is, of course, idiocy. Complex social phenomena aren’t binary, and racism can be very very very bad and yet not bad enough to prevent an event from occurring even once. For example, it is possible, even likely, that the steadily decreasing whiteness of the U.S. is primarily responsible for making Obama’s election possible (that, plus Bush being so abysmally unpopular and damaging that the Republicans were going to lose if we ran the Phillie Phanatic).
“But, we’re past that when it comes to national politics. We have an African American president. If Colin Powell had run 20 or so years ago, having a black president would have been old hat.”
Just as an aside, this is the first time I’ve seen someone say “First black president? Pssh, that already basically happened theoretically 20 years ago. I’m over it.” How many other records does this apply to? Do you have any evidence that he would have won? Why didn’t he run? Maybe he thought he would lose? Massive social progress is being treated as a retroactive given without any evidence. I hope you don’t practice like this.
to make sure the menu doesn’t change.
the menu-changing selection phase just ended.
Sig, I would just point out that in your argument you want to have it both ways. You want to celebrate massive social progress that you say is not proven by having a black president or a woman nominee. And you don’t have to pick one, it just makes Mcks argument seem like another reasonable point on a spectrum of responses. As for evidence, everything in this thread is opinion, including every word you wrote.
“Massive social progress” does not equal “there is no racism.”
“Read his 12:29 pm comment from June 8 a few more times and try saying it with a straight face.”
if that was the only thing he’d ever said or written, your argument might be more persuasive.
yeah, Sig, your 8:15 is more like it.
“he’s a moron” – not a very interesting comment, and rude, to booy.
“here’s why what he said is wrong” – much more interesting, and it gives the rest of us something to engage with.
thanks for the expanded version.
when oh when will that half empty glass get full?
the menu-changing selection phase just ended.
It absolutely did not. That’s entirely the point. Pretending that primaries are the only part of an election where anyone of a given political leaning has a choice is part and parcel to holding non-centerists hostage to a pro-status-quo centerist establishment. Just because the skinflints at the table declared we’ll not be ordering crackers off the food portion of the menu (“Too expensive, and food makes me gassy!”) doesn’t mean that tomorrow’s chef’s specials will be significantly different than today’s cork and glass if we choose to be obedient little children and fall in line with the self-proclaimed adults at the table chiding us to join them in shouting “Cork! Cork!” at the top of our lungs when the server finally arrives to take our collective order.
“You want to celebrate massive social progress that you say is not proven by having a black president or a woman nominee.”
If you are 50 years into a 70 year prison sentence, you have made massive progress while still having many problems ahead of you.
“And you don’t have to pick one, it just makes Mcks argument seem like another reasonable point on a spectrum of responses.”
why does it do that
“As for evidence, everything in this thread is opinion, including every word you wrote.”
you can’t possibly mean that
It absolutely did not.
it absolutely did.
like it or not, the system we have is going to make Trump or Clinton the next President. nobody else is relevant to the outcome.
“corks”
At least you had wine before choking. But I guess vinegar can come with corks too.
“straight face”
I start the day with the opposite of a straight face just to be ready for all blogging eventualities, not to mention reality.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0SO80r3H1xXhmEAErpXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEycnM3NmhuBGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQjIyNDJfMQRzZWMDc2M-?p=Greek+Maks+of+Tragedy+and+Comedy&fr=mcafee
I’ll go back to McTX’s question: “Who is trying to exclude anyone?”
Well, not McTX, to my knowledge. But the guy leading the Republican Party, who McTX is NOT voting for, sure likes him some exclusion, as do his followers by their own testimony — the Republican establishment, with few exceptions, owns him now, because nothing, not even blatant racism and sexism, is going to get between them and their hatred of taxes and government — (I’m very comfortable calling THEM “morons”, because I’m not going to practice the political correctness they demand and act as if their points of view have any validity — poor babies), with the twist maybe that he will hire a woman if she has large breasts or will install glass ceilings so he can run downstairs and peer up their skirts as they figure out from the executive suite how to carry out his orders to f*ck would-be college students out of their savings.
Plumbing matters to Trump. But I doubt it would stop any of the women Trump hires from being ruthless, lying bastards to close a sale, or cheat thousands of contractors and employees out of wages and benefits.
Yet they sit down to pee, which just goes to show how little plumbing matters.
And yet I’m quite sure, contra McTX, that Doctor Science really doesn’t care about the physical plumbing.
“McKT is committing a common sin: binary thinking. In his view, either racism exists or it doesn’t. If it exists, there can be no black president. Thus, under modus tollens, if there can be a black president, there can be no racism.”
I think this is about right. We can have hard-win social progress and, as we have obviously experienced, see the racist — or sexist, or homophobic — rats come out of the woodwork in response to it, and I’ll defer to no one in condemning the Republican Party, and the old southern-dominated Democratic Party in their day (oh look, some of them are the same people), for their blatant recruitment of haters of all stripes.
F*ck them, and this latest outbreak of racist, sexist crap from the top of the Republican is a disgrace. I was going to add “this late in the day”, but maybe it’s not.
Frankly, it should be met by violence. Yes, it should. There is no excuse any longer.
McTX often makes the point around here that we shouldn’t judge the behavior of historical figures by the standards of today, which is somewhat true else I would have to disown at least one beloved deceased grandfather for his racist views.
So regarding that, and plumbing, I’m very comfortable placing Abraham Lincoln beside Sarah Death Palin, Ann Coulter, and Carly Fiorina and knowing which three of the four are the ruthless dicks, for somewhat different reasons for each, none of which has to do with which pipes they run their water through.
I called Clinton a bit of a blockhead here the other week, and I share the fear of some here that she might get her man-hands all over foreign policy, so there is that.
She may well be incompetent and corrupt. But we’ve put up with those two traits from men for four billion years without generalizing from the particular and excluding we men as a class, so what’s the rub now?
Pass the crackers.
Attila the Hun! Yeah, he’s bad alright, but let’s not exclude men from the leadership class just because of his behavior.
Trump emulates the f*ck, along with Kim what’s his face Jung, and Putin
Elizabeth Warren, on the other hand: Pocahontas.
I think she should yell “Geronimo” and plant an ax head in his skull and burn his wagons. Go full Comanche on him.
McTX is no moron. And that goes too for the few conservatives who remain with us. Which is why I regret that we don’t have better representatives of the moron class at OBWI, so they could read what I just wrote without lurking.
I’m not going to chase them over to Redstate, for cripes sake.
Make sense of all that. I giveth and I taketh away.
NomVib–
How do you envision third party voting working? I read your link and sympathize with it. I think about 90 percent of the lesser evil arguments I’ve seen over the past 16 years are BS or worse, but there’s a kernel of truth I can’t get around–I don’t see how, unless tens of millions of people, more than Perot got, vote for a third party that it will do any good and it can of course help the greater evil win. I have also seen some claim that Trump would be the less effective evil , but that’s a huge risk. I like the idea of the Sanders mail list being used as a nucleus for some sort of progressive movement, but don’t know how that would work in detail. It won’t change things in November.
So I will probably vote for Clinton, though maybe not, since I can’t see how my state could go for Trump. But I could go on for paragraphs explaining why I disregard most of the lesser evil arguments that I’ve seen– for one thing, most of them try to deny the evil even exists, which means they are not making an argument designed to win votes as they claim, but just doing the usual aggressive chest pounding that all primates engage in during election season.
The main problem with lesser evilism is never mentioned by most lesser evilists–if the vote of a single person matters that much, then it matters in more than one way. A Clinton vote doesn’t just help defeat Trump–it is also seen as an endorsement of Clinton. This is why so many of the lesser evilists usually go to great lengths Clinton-splaining about why Clinton is actually wonderful, she is just like Sanders except that Sanders is evil, single payer won’t work because it s too costly, voting for the AUMF was excusable because it was a crazy time (that’s Krugman), but gosh, she has so much foreign policy experience, she’s not a militarist or anyway it doesn’t matter or maybe it’s good and you must be a dupe of the Republican lie machine and why do you hate women so much? My favorite argument of all time–voting for Nader in 2000 means you have the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis on your hands and this is why you should vote for Clinton.
The real lesser evil argument is that both stink, but Trump is an incredible risk. He might not be as bad as he seems, but then again, he might be worse.
When arguing for a third party, you have to make one critical decision: Do you care if it will actually work?
If you do want it to work, you don’t start with a third party (or independent) candidate for President. You start at the local level. You work up to the local candidates for the state legislature, and then for Congress. Then you work on Governors and other state-wide offices (and Senators). Only then do you have a chance of actually accomplishing something nationally.
Of course, it’s more exciting to try to start at the top. But it doesn’t work. Over and over again, it doesn’t work. You lose the Presidential campaign. And then . . . nothing. Nobody elected to lower level offices in the next campaign. Nothing.
I understand the urge to start high, especially when you think you are faced with two unpalateable Presidential choices. But if you haven’t built the infrastructure, all you will succeed in doing to undermining the less bad of the candidates you dislike. And there is virtually always one who is less bad — no matter what fanatic argues that they are no different.
Donald,
I agree that FPtP makes it difficult for third parties to develop enough momentum to become credible contenders, not least as you point out because they’re inevitably blamed for other parties’ electoral failures and subsequently for causing whatever unpleasant policies followed that failure. If your party cannot get enough influence and power to be credited with successes, but the media and establishment are only too eager to credit you with their own failures, it is incredibly difficult to gain any momentum at all. Obviously, that’s by design.
I think there’s actually something very telling about the current electoral cycle that is useful for showing the fallacy of lesser-evilism, in a way that responds to cleek’s dismissive claim that everything’s done and nothing can change. The Tea Party did not quietly toe the line when the Republican establishment told them to do so. And as a result, they’ve reshaped the electoral landscape more to their liking. In the interim, the establishment choices of McCain and Romney failed to win with the backing of merely those who agreed with their positions (rather than only finding them less noxious than Obama’s). In the short term, they suffered the many (subjective) horrors that Obama inflicted upon their ilk, but they’ve gained strength despite it – and by voting in obstructionist partisans downticket, they mitigated Obama’s “damage”. Admittedly, Trump is no Obama, in so far as there is no way he’ll suffer from Obama’s quite-damning fault of making a mountain of concessions before ever even sitting down to negotiate, so the short-term price for long-term gain would likely be higher. But their success makes fairly clear that the way to change a party’s platform in future elections is not to be silent, obedient lackeys of the party establishment.
Ofc, all that is about shifting the ideological center within the Democratic party, not about making third parties viable. Honestly, we need structural change for them to truly be viable. In the short term, however, fighting the “you’re to blame for our failures and their sins” narrative is critical. If third parties hope to exist in the current system, it is absolutely critical for them to refuse to be the duopoly’s whipping boys. Nothing but a vote for Trump is a vote for Trump; any claim to the contrary is ultimately fallacious unless you accept the idea that the Democratic party is by default owed the vote of all citizens. If progressives ever want to have a voice of their own rather than being a faint echo of the liberal voice, they cannot support liberals unreservedly. As long as they do so, they’re enabling the liberals who would blame progressives as a first preference rather than owning liberal failures at the polls, and they’re accepting the implicit claim that they’re not entitled to have a voice of their own.
all voting is a choice between evils, because there will never be a perfect candidate – except in the case of the narcissist who votes for himself. every candidate includes a compromise of some sort.
Jill Stein thinks the government should fund homeopathic medicine. Gary Johnson, libertarian, is ridiculous.
cleek’s dismissive claim that everything’s done and nothing can change.
oh FFS the primaries are over. the candidates have been chosen. the next President will be either Trump or Clinton. no amount of purity posturing is going to change that.
The Tea Party did not quietly toe the line when the Republican establishment told them to do so.
the Tea Party won its place at the table by supporting and then electing Republican Representatives and Senators in such numbers that the rest of the party couldn’t ignore it. it didn’t pretend that the Presidency was all there was to it and then threaten to let Obama win if it couldn’t gets its way.
I suppose if we were to generalize about the American people from the particular three main candidates running in November, we would have to conclude that we, ladies, and gentleman, all of us, are pretty much full of sh*t.
I don’t believe there is a bathroom anywhere that Americans, any of us, should be permitted to use.
Maybe if we excluded ALL Americans from everything, exclusion would finally seem palatable.
I loved that Samantha Bee characterized Trump’s suitability as a candidate by saying that he was a just a peg f*cking the hole for fun.
Gary Johnson’s bonfides for President seem limited to the fact that he wears his underpants backwards AND on the outside of his trousers.
Hey, how come nobody’s objecting to Sapient’s realize that obwi has become a weird good-old-boy (with a couple of non-boys thrown in) club, but I don’t really get the hate posts in defense of McKinney?
Most of us disagree with McKinney, about most things, but he engages, and pretty civilly at that. Of course it’s true that he’s a successful, well-off, middle-aged white man in a professional job, who for example doesn’t get the concept of White Male Privilege (“what is water?”), but that’s just the failure of imagination which I sometimes think is the main thing that separates the right from the left. He’s clearly a decent guy, and as I’ve said before ad nauseam, while we’re talking to people of different views, it makes it harder to demonise and dismiss them.
And why a good-old-boy club, anyway?
I’m good, but not old, for one thing. I am weird, however.
I couldn’t figure out what “hate” posts in defense in McKinney were being referred to.
I’m probably in agreement with sapient on many issues, but I observed other people arguing/objecting with him/her (has this been settled, not that it matters?), and knots get tied.
Which him/her are you referring to, Count, and has what been settled? I am majorly losing the plot….
that’s just the failure of imagination which I sometimes think is the main thing that separates the right from the left.
That’s very charitable. He was adequately defended already, and he defended himself too, which is why people probably dropped the subject. I think he is probably “a decent guy” in the sense that he cares about his family and friends, maybe gives to causes he believes in, and doesn’t violate his local code of conduct. I know nothing else about him other than what he says here.
On occasion, regarding some issues, I agree with McKinney more than the other people commenting here. In other words, I have been on his side from time to time.
But “failure of imagination” doesn’t explain why he would support the Texas Republican Party, or the national one. He says he’s not going to vote for Trump, but he has made positive statements about Senator Cruz in the past. In what world are Cruz’s sensibilities “decent”? (Don’t want to claim that McKinney actually supported Cruz for president, because I don’t think he usually commits to supporting anyone.) I don’t think McKinney is a moron (which was used as a rude and meaningless epithet). But in this forum he rarely (never?) supports his assertions with any evidence. Despite having daughters with careers, he doesn’t seem to empathize at all with the plight of women who still face wage discrimination, preferring to ignore that it’s attributable to anything but voluntary maternity. He denies that pregnancy is a medical condition that might be best avoided by some women.
It certainly doesn’t take much imagination to consider what it must be like for people who have no health insurance, and have medical problems. Or no job. Or who are undocumented because their parents came to this country to try to make a living. Etc. No, he’s not a monster, but many of the social policies he supports are blatantly harmful.
Calling out the comment as violating the posting rules, etc. was completely appropriate. Instead McKinney receives testimonials as to his intelligence and “decency”. Perhaps it goes without saying that we’re all “decent”? I think the reaction is because he is seen as an appropriately respectable member of what has come to feel like an old boys’ club. Maybe that’s completely off-base. It’s just my impression.
Didn’t mean to threadjack, or to in any way impugn the integrity of anyone here.
Re: binary attitudes and racism
Was anti-black racism defeated with the Emancipation Proclamation?
Was it defeated with the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendment?
Was it defeated with Brown v. Board of Education?
Was it defeated with the Civil Rights Act and other legislation from the 1960s?
Was it defeated by electing Obama?
Seems to me that there were plenty of people, at each stage, whose attitude was “there, we fixed it. We’re done now”. Those who say the same thing now are ignoring the history of the past 150 years.
Due to having only iPhone access, I’ve held off responding, and thanking. I will respond to Sig’ lengthy comment substantively, no hard feelings. Sapient, I’ve said more than once I wouldn’t pour raw sewage on Ted Cruz if he was on fire. I cannot think of one thing he’s ever said that didn’t make me want to vomit. His condescending arrogance revolts me. I don’t know you missed that. Re abortion, I do not think pregnancy is a per se threat to a woman’s health justifying abortion. I’m not a pro life absolutist but I am pro life.
My thumb is cramping. Hope to get to a computer tomorrow.
Sapient, I thought that he said after the first debate that he wouldn’t support Cruz under any circs because of his opposition to abortion with no exceptions, and I’m pretty sure he objected to other things about Cruz, who is I agree appalling in every way. He (McKT) said at the time, and has repeated here, that he supported Fiorina, and would have been happy to vote for her as President.
I agree with every word of that paragraph. But I personally know people who are right wing Republicans (old friends since childhood), not unkind or evil, who nonetheless cannot seem to understand any problems usually encountered by poor people, until they experience them themselves (e.g. difficulty getting medical insurance for child with Hepatitis B pre-ACA).
I don’t get the old boy’s club thing, but it doesn’t matter, I don’t need to. You’re right, it probably goes without saying that we’re all decent – I’ve certainly never seen any evidence to the contrary.
him/her referred to sapient. Referred to as him these past few years here, but never settled in my mind. Again, not that it matters.
sapient:
“He says he’s not going to vote for Trump, but he has made positive statements about Senator Cruz in the past.”
Regarding McKinney’s opinion of Cruz, that’s just plain wrong. I forget his standard insult of Cruz, but it’s one of those Texas ones wherein if Cruz read it, he’d feel like his belly had been slit open and he was kicking his spilling viscera down the trail to his next political rodeo.
Regarding some kind of club around here, I have a feeling most of us, despite having each others’ backs, with notable exceptions, would not care to join a club that wanted us as a member.
The members only folks fled to Redstate long ago.
I’m reminded of Ringo Starr long ago thinking he was the odd man out in the band at one point and knocking on the other three Beatles’ doors and saying so to each of them and each one looking at him and saying “Really, I thought it was you three who were against me!”
Anyway, MCTX and sapient have each enjoyed their ration of sh*t at our hands in the past, but despite that, I like both of you, whether either of you like it or not.
But, yeah, MCTX is wrong about some things.
“raw sewage” … there it is
I did miss or forget McKinney’s presidential preferences, and I apologize to you, McKinney, for that significant oversight, and for attributing to you things that you didn’t say. I haven’t been reading this blog very closely lately, and it’s not the first time that I’ve been wrong about your attitudes.
GfNC, I also know well-meaning, good people who are Republicans. What I am not saying,, and what I have not said, is that McKinney deserves abuse. What I do think is that it’s easy and understandable to be exasperated by a point of view that seems to perpetuate societal suffering, and to get angry. I understand because I get angry, too.
The conversation was about the fact that Hillary Clinton (whom I admire) is the first woman candidate for President, and I am thrilled. I admired (and supported) Obama in 2008, and felt a similar thrill (and my support for him has been constant) that he was the one to break the racial barrier. I wouldn’t have felt the same about Fiorina, or about Ben Carson. But I am tremendously pleased that competent people whose policies I endorse are breaking these boundaries. McKinney sees a bunch of successful women all around him, and thinks it’s no biggie. That’s fine. It is significant and meaningful to a lot of people though. To me.
“I agree with every word of that paragraph. But I personally know people who are right wing Republicans (old friends since childhood), not unkind or evil, who nonetheless cannot seem to understand any problems usually encountered by poor people, until they experience them themselves (e.g. difficulty getting medical insurance for child with Hepatitis B pre-ACA).”
Seconded.
despite that, I like both of you, whether either of you like it or not.
Thank you. I now feel part of the club.
I’ve forgotten what the secret handshake is.
The secret handshake.
I’m in!
GftNC,
I can’t speak for the reason why others didn’t address sapient’s remark, but it’s the same reason I didn’t address McT’s definition of ‘Diversity’ -both are just designed to get a reaction and are not really asking for any kind of discussion.
Sapient does the same thing by seizing on your use of the word ‘decent’. After defining it in a way that suits his argument, he then takes us to task for not fitting his definition, which seems to be not calling out McT enough. Given that McT started this off with an 8 word comment, I think he has been called out quite a bit.
Whatever you think I meant, lj, it’s fine with me that you think that.
On the subject of diversity though, I thought that the recent article in The New Yorker was really interesting. I find these times very confusing. I am definitely old school in a number of ways. And yes, I would love a reaction.
The “diversity” discussed in that article is essentially neo-Leninist in character. As it notes in passing, class is very often ignored in intersectionalism, and the activists described are showing an absolute blindness to it. An hourly wage for activism? Really? They’re attending an expensive private university. They are receiving resources and opportunities that many will never come near having. But it’s not enough; they must be compensated for what they have freely chosen to do in their spare time, and academic rules must be reshaped so as to penalize their decision to prioritize extracurricular activities over academics; they must receive credit for completing work they have not done. The system must bend over backwards to actively support their efforts to dismantle it and rebuild it to their liking – not their needs, mind you – their liking. Impatience and entitlement, with an unhealthy dash of authoritarianism, plus modern technology to make organizing easier and bring more voices to bear in lockstep pursuit of their agenda.
Identity politics’ tendency to ignore class in favor of “inherent” identity markers is one of its most toxic characteristics. This all reeks of would-be intellectual vanguards demanding they be set up as the directors of society simply because they chose to adhere to an ideology that states that they’re entitled to such a role. It’s noxious, and too many universities enable it with their “student as customer” administrative style. It’s getting worse, and I can’t be optimistic about where it’s leading.
*so as to avoid penalizing
what NV said.
What NV said.
In recent years at various universities, there’s been blizzards of special snowflakes.
Some pundits are predicting that, come next fall, there’s going to be some real pushback against such antics.
It’s not like we haven’t seen this kind of nonsense before. I recall first hand Berkeley in the late 1960s. There was rather a lot of demand that the university rearrange things to suit the political fashions of (some of) the students. Mostly the university declined.
As I recall, the only significant change was the creation of an Ethnic Studies department. Which, as far as I could tell, didn’t do much worthwhile but didn’t do any particular damage either. I dare to hope that this time around will see something similar – no major damage, but perhaps some minor adjustment.
Hope, but not expect. Unfortunately, as NV notes, there is currently a fashion for “the student as customer.” A construct which ignores the obvious detail that the students are there at all because someone (albeit perhaps not them) is aware that they don’t know everything.
It occurs to me, however, that there may be a path to a solution here. The university could do as these “students” demand… with two caveats:
1) they would be required to pay substantially higher fees, thus allowing a reduction for those who are there to get a real education.
2) their eventual degree, if any, would be slightly different. Perhaps a BN (Bachelor of Nothing). (Rather a pity that BS is already in use for something real. Ah, well.)
It would have the additional benefit of providing a great example of “Be careful what you wish for; you might get it.”
I have a hard time seeing Oberlin falling into the ‘student as customer’ camp of admin buzzwordery.
But the MBA mindset has infested and degraded many parts of society, so perhaps so.
The kids will make noise, some worthy of attention, mostly not. Come sempre.
I thought it was interesting that Heller drew a distinction between older and younger millennials. I have also noticed an appreciation by older millennials (more so than younger0 of the improvement in the economy since the 2008 crisis. With that experience, and 9/11/2001 and its aftermath, they know what bad news is.
Identity politics is essential to the Republican message, has been for decades. The Republican party promotes the idea that their voters are the real Americans (that’s identity) as opposed to all those other unworthy people. The people stigmatized as unworthy has changed according to need. There was a period when rightwing hate radio and Republican politicians routinely attacked Democrats with smears in a deliberate effort to stereotype all Democrats in contrast to the real true hard working Americans who would , of course, vote Republican because that’s what real Americans would do, not like those people with New York values that eat arugula and drive Priuses and are out of touch with the real America. Then there was the “pro-life ” period and the clear implication that anyone not “pro-life” had lousy moral values. Then there was the “pro-family” period with the talk of the “gay agenda” and good straight American families being destroyed by gay marriage. ANd all along there’s been the use of an updated version of George Wallace’s “niggers on welfare” slogans to demonize the poor. It’s all identity politics, the cynical appeals to hate, fear and prejudice to create a base of supporters who vote Republican out of a sense of identity, the identity of being more truly American than all those other people who aren’t part of Sarah Palin’s pockets of real America. And if anyone objects to this, then they get dismissed as engaging in identity politics!
I got to the office early this morning to do two things. First, it’s a total mess and today is my last chance to clean it before being either on the road with work or on vacation. After cleaning up, I was going to respond in detail to many of the comments here, first thanking many of my long time friends and friendly adversaries for the kind words, then to Sig, then to Sapient.
But when I fired up the computer I saw that 50+ gay people had been murdered and another 60+ wounded in Orlando. I’m pretty confident that *this moment* is not the moment to continue this discussion, not that it isn’t a discussion worth having because it certainly is.
I may well guest post on the topic working off of Sig and Sapient’s comments, and also NV’s 6/11 at 11:37and LJ’s initial observations. It will be up to the front pagers whether to post. It won’t be short and I will endeavor to shelve my tendency toward heavy-handed sarcasm. I’m traveling light, w/o a computer (otherwise I might as well stay at the office), so it will be July before I check back in, hopefully with something useful to say, even if most here will find it outside their viewpoint.
What an awful thing to wake up to. This is the kind of soft target opportunity to which our open society is particularly open. A horrific tragedy that I suspect is not the last of its kind.
Y’all be safe, well, etc.
I have a hard time seeing Oberlin falling into the ‘student as customer’ camp of admin buzzwordery.
The part describing how they handled the “problematic” theater prof is what convinced me on that score. Even if they don’t use the buzzwords, they’re still adopting the behaviors.
I thought it was interesting that Heller drew a distinction between older and younger millennials.
Trying to draw broad inferences about large swathes of demographics can have some value, but it really only works insofar as the lumped-together people all shared common cultural experiences. Rapid changes in certain technologies has led to more narrow bands of “common experience” among demographic cohorts than with previous generational groups, and it is as you say only amplified when events occur that lead to dramatic changes in social outlook. If we want to make even semi-meaningful sweeping generalizations about generational behaviors, we probably need to narrow the range to something tighter than the current “millennial” designation.
Oh, yeah, that just popped up on my computer’s news app. I’m having trouble finding anything to say that doesn’t sound trite, so… yeah. Ugh.
This is the kind of soft target opportunity to which our open society is particularly open. A horrific tragedy that I suspect is not the last of its kind.
I suppose it would not be trite to underscore this. Our society is indeed very susceptible to this sort of thing, and we are likely to see more of it. There is a very popular public perception of terrorism as blowing things up (indeed, our legal definitions buy into that notion as well), but most terrorism around the globe is carried out with firearms, and that sort of terrorism doesn’t need a lot of preparation or resources. It just needs a crowd, and a conviction that whatever cause drives the terrorist to act is more important than their own life, and certainly more important than those of their victims.
Just found out about Orlando from ths thread, so I read the NYT account. Nothing to say except that it’s horrible. I was going to post something lighthearted when I came here, but not now.
1. LJ and Count, and Snarki way back: thanks for your responses.
2. NV you have said so many interesting and thought-provoking things in the last 24 hours, but the following comment finally makes sense, at least, of your current decision not to vote HRC in November.
I still think you’re wrong, because (as in Nader/Bush/Gore) I think Trump could do so much damage that any theoretical long-term progressive gain/change becomes irrelevant, but at least I understand your thinking.
3. What Wonkie said, at 11.01 today.
4. I don’t know what to say, from abroad, about the latest of these horrible extended firearms killings, without running the risk of threadjacking to gun rights (the first thing in the mind of any foreigner hearing about these things in the US). It’s terrible. I’m sorry. It’s impossible to know what else to say…
I think Trump could do so much damage that any theoretical long-term progressive gain/change becomes irrelevant, but at least I understand your thinking.
A decision to allow Trump to win would be tragic, especially considering that the Supreme Court is at stake. There’s no understanding why a “progressive” would justify “thinking” that would allow that to happen.
It’s impossible to know what else to say…
Sorrow, anger and frustration are the only responses that I can come up with. I’m feeling all three.
Spoken like a true liberal. I wouldn’t expect the likes of you, who praise politicians like Clinton and Obama not as merely satisfactory but ideal, to understand.
Spoken like a true liberal. True dat.
NV, I guess I’m probably a liberal too, and whilst I don’t think politicians like Clinton and Obama are ideal, I believe they are a damn sight better than any of the currently possible alternatives, and they are more likely to achieve change that benefits the people most of us seem to care about most. One of the main things about Hillary is that she is smart; I think that means she will have learnt from some of Bill’s mistakes regarding the social welfare safety net, and from her own regarding Iraq among other things. Also, as I think it was you who said earlier, she had better have learnt from Obama how not to negotiate.
I used to use the liberal vs left distinction, but while I see some validity to it, it’s also confusing to people. Plus the term ” leftist” has bad connotations in the US and I don’t see that changing anytime soon, even if I don’t like the fact.
On foreign policy many ” liberals” supported going into Vietnam and a generation later, Iraq, and then Syria ( via proxies) and Libya, but you could also be a liberal and oppose all those things without having super radical views. In fact, my current favorite writer on foreign policy is Daniel Larison at the American Conservative, so anti- militarist idiocy doesn’t have to be a left right thing at all.
On Syria, Patrick Smith just put this up —
http://www.salon.com/2016/06/12/our_syria_policy_is_still_a_mess_these_are_the_dots_the_media_refuses_to_connect/
Still nothing to say about Orlando.
Wj – comments not working on open thread. At least not on my iPhone and is why I can’t fix
Thanks, Ugh. No idea what the problem was, since the website said Open . . . even though it wasn’t But Closing and then Opening seems to have fixed it.
I saw Tom Brokaw on tv this morning saying he was a long time gun owner and he believed that something needed to be done about guns in America.
I couldn’t agree more.
Then he posed the question as to how we got to the point in America that when we have a conflict or problem we just grab a gun?
The answer, in my mind, is pride and a lack of respect for life.
We have slowly degenerated as a society to the point where every and any slight seems to require retribution. We pride ourselves on standing up for what we believe, beyond any rational interpretation of that.
Most people play that out in words, on blogs and in Facebook memes “showing” those others, I can’t begin to count the headlines in my Facebook feed that read “X person annihilates Y person in three words”.
Then there are people who will play out that retribution to it’s ultimate possible conclusion.
But we have encouraged that in word and deed for most of my lifetime. We glamorize those who act against all odds, who stand up for their beliefs against all opposition. That’s great.
Then we make anti-heroes a staple of our most important films and stories. The cross section of these societal inputs make action in the face of perceived evil an acceptable outcome.
There is little else that could explain the frequency of these events. As Tom said this morning, my experience also, he grew up in the Midwest where everyone had a gun. No one did this. Certainly in Texas where I grew up it seemed everyone had a gun. And to get one was simply a trip to the gun shop.
The proliferation of guns is not the root cause of this wave of hateful violence. It is the modern equivalent of lynchings, more widely distributed because we hate more things more violently. We should control the free access to guns, but that will only slow a tide that seems to grow as we become a more divided people. The more divided and hateful we become, the more people on the fringe will believe that defending their beliefs with violence is acceptable.
There’s no understanding why a “progressive” would justify “thinking” that would allow that to happen.
Sapient, it behoves all people who want to change the world to understand the thinking of all relevant players. When Mandela was in Robben Island and all of his fellow ANC prisoners were reading Marx etc, he was reading the literature of Afrikaner nationalism. When he was challenged about it, he said you had to understand it, in order to drive a wedge within it and bring it down.
Sapient, it behoves all people who want to change the world to understand the thinking of all relevant players.
Good sentiment. Not always so simple to effectuate when people seem not to acknowledge certain realities. For example, I fail to understand people who don’t seem to acknowledge the significance of appointing Supreme Court nominations, who can either further or frustrate progress for a generation. My failure, I’m sure.
For example, I fail to understand people who don’t seem to acknowledge the significance of appointing Supreme Court nominations, who can either further or frustrate progress for a generation.
I agree with you, that’s certainly one of the most vital issues facing you all. I’m hoping that people who think like NV does will reconsider before November, for this and many other reasons.
I think Marty makes a valid point, though I won’t guess whether this helps explain the rise in mass shootings. But there is a lot of glamorizing of anti- heroes, for instance. I could just be the older guy talking about the good old days, but it’s my impression that there is more of this now than there used to be. Again, though, that’s just my vague impression.
I can’t speak to the percentage of anti-heroes these days vs the past. But I seem to recall that James Dean’s career was rather a while ago.
I think that means she will have learnt from some of Bill’s mistakes regarding the social welfare safety net, and from her own regarding Iraq among other things.
Her stance while at State WRT her preferred course of action in both Syria and Libya strongly suggests otherwise. Alas.
For example, I fail to understand people who don’t seem to acknowledge the significance of appointing Supreme Court nominations, who can either further or frustrate progress for a generation.
This argument is presented every electoral cycle. There’s always the threat of long-term judicial appointments. and it’s always too important to do anything but swallow our principles as we loudly and unconditionally cheer on the conservative establishment wing of the Democrats’ preferred candidates (and no critiques of them after the fact are allowed either, as that just makes us useful idiots for the Republicans, and ingrates, and how dare we?).
Again, I have not forgotten the lesson of ’33 – but I’ve also not forgotten the lesson of ’37. The center left is closer to the center right on a depressingly large number of issues, and pretending that they have the best interests of the left-proper at heart is tantamount to wearing blinders whilst stabbing yourself in the heel.
But I seem to recall that James Dean’s career was rather a while ago.
That’s really not the same sort of anti-hero though. That’s an anti-hero who is rejected by society, etc. not an anti-hero who recognizes that society is too soft to “do what needs done”, which is more along the lines of modern anti-heroes. It’s outcast vs. vigilante.
We have slowly degenerated as a society to the point where every and any slight seems to require retribution.
[…]
It is the modern equivalent of lynchings, more widely distributed because we hate more things more violently.
I see this on FB, but on some other (more anonymous) social media sites it’s even more obvious. Their communities live for finding an acceptable target for a lovely little two-minute hate. They don’t want to bother with due process; they don’t want to bother with anything that could delay the gratification of come-uppance. “Play stupid games, get stupid prizes.” Etc. And if they can do more than simply cheer on the idea of those deemed guilty suffering, so much the better: online shaming and harassment gives the same visceral satisfaction as a lynch mob but with less personal investment.
Too many of us have devalued notions like innocent until proven guilty, and too many of us have declared the justice system to be incapable of punishing bad people quickly or harshly enough. And yeah, our pop culture glorifies it. Mix that in with the increased tribalism and dehumanization of those outside our echo chambers, and it’s surprising things aren’t worse than they are. All we really need for that, I suppose, is a major and enduring economic downturn to deprive a large number of individuals of hope of things getting better, and we may end up seeing a whole lot of nihilistic idealist would-be saviors who decide to do what it takes to make things right…
(Why yes, I am a cynical pessimist!)
Her stance while at State WRT her preferred course of action in both Syria and Libya strongly suggests otherwise. Alas.
Yes, but she knew she would be running for Pres in the future, and that it would stand her in better stead with most of the electorate, including those doubtful about electing a woman, to be seen as a hawk. Cynical calculation yes, an actual indication of how she will act, I’m not so sure. And even if she was completely sincere, and if she were to intervene militarily in some foreign theatre, you can be damn sure her intervention would not be as incompetent and therefore doomed at the outset as Dubya’s, not to mention Trump’s *shudders with horror*!
The idea that she would advocate going to war to improve her electoral prospects is far worse than sincere hawkishness. FWIW, though, I’d say her hawkishness looks quite sincere.
In case that wasn’t clear, if it was a cynical calculation, you’re correct that it is not a good indicator as to how she’d act as CiC. It would underscore a willingness to use military action for personal political advantage, and it would show a lack of restraint and disbelief that necessity should drive military intervention, but it would give no sign whatsoever as to what she would consider to be sufficient cause to go to war. That’s not a good thing. Again, though, signs point to her being a sincere hawk, FBoW.
“you can be damn sure her intervention would not be as incompetent and therefore doomed at the outset as Dubya’s”
One of the prime problems with modern US hawks, including Clinton, is a refusal to understand that “incompetent” is not a necessary component of “therefore doomed” in many interventions in the Middle East.
Not a necessary component. But certainly a contributor to making such intervention both less likely to succeed (however defined) and more expensive in lives and treasure.
Yeah, by antihero I mean romanticizing violence. I am not at all sure about this, but my impression is that in the old days with popular entertainment the hero was good at violence, but would refrain from killing the captured bad guy because it would be the wrong thing to do, whereas now, I think it would be considered more edgy and glamorous to kill the bad guy. The Jack Reacher movie vs. say, almost any episode of Bonanza. Bonanza romanticized violence too and of course had other problems, but in almost every episode it seemed the moral was the good guys never killed someone if they could capture them and hand them over to the law.
This is anecdotal as hell, of course. But since I’m on this level, I was horrified at what Peter Jackson did to Denethor in Return of the King. Tragic figure in Tolkien, a weasel in Jackson and when he kills himself the audience in the theater where I saw it cheered. Tolkien would have been disgusted. That’s the sort of crassness in popular entertainment I meant.
As I admit, I sound like some late middle aged guy whining about the good old days, so this may all be crap.
I’d prefer to think of the good old days as Maverick – where the hero was good at violence. But would go to extreme lengths to solve problems without recourse to it.
Unfortunately, it was exceptional even at the time. However it made a huge impression on me… perhaps precisely because it was unusual. But today? Nothing like it, even as an exception. And the world is a poorer place for it.
wj: the ‘responsible adults’ of today were raised on Tom & Jerry.
Are you sure it wasn’t Roadrunner and Wily Coyote? That sometimes seems closer to their expectations of how things will work out.
Dr. Who is an example of someone in popular entertainment who usually tries to solve things without violence, with some exceptions. It’s apparently a guilty reaction to his original incarnation when he was something like a typical American TV or movie hero.
Of course Dr. Who isn’t made in America.. It’s nice that he is popular here.
NV: (and no critiques of them after the fact are allowed either, as that just makes us useful idiots for the Republicans, and ingrates, and how dare we?)
I know that’s sarcasm, NV. So you ought to consider this: between Hawkish Hillary and Daffy Donald, who is more likely to react positively to criticism? By “criticism” I don’t mean opposition from the other party; I mean condemnation from your own partisans.
–TP
The violence in Roadrunner vs. Coyote is almost entirely one-sided, and backfires on its instigator.
Tom & Jerry is mutual assured destruction.
Actually, I’m starting to feel silly about my pop culture theorizing.
Basically, Western civilization collapsed when Bugs bunny was replaced by ninja turtles. That’s the takeaway here.
TP, that’s an easy question but an irrelevant one, since I was referring to voter-level partisan criticism directed at those to their left who dare to find fault in establishment Democrats once elected. You might recall we were treated to such criticism here at ObWi following Obama’s election…
In the most cowardly way possible, yes.
Also: in violation of our rules. But you can feel free to disregard those, because you are special.
“In the most cowardly way possible, yes.
Also: in violation of our rules. But you can feel free to disregard those, because you are special.”
I can’t count on two hands the number of times I’ve substantively responded to regular posters here and been utterly ignored, so I decided to try a different tactic, and it nearly worked–I almost, almost got an answer out of one of you. It looks like I shall be disappointed again though.
Based on the frequency with which those rules are violated, I had no idea anyone took them seriously.
Actually, many of us take the rules seriously.
Have you considered that maybe you get few responses is because you aren’t saying anything worth paying much attention to? And that your view of what constitutes a “substantive response” isn’t quite universal. Just a thought.
I considered it and it’s not what was happening. Got any other bright ideas?
Well, by your own words, they aren’t responding. To the point that you say you feel compelled to be personally obnoxious in order to force a response. So what’s your explanation for why people aren’t responding?
A couple of people responded after you got serious, stopped insulting and wrote more thoughtfully and substantively. This is merely justification for unacceptable behaviour after the fact.
Well Sig is a new name, the previous names were Grumpy and Julian, neither of whom has made enough of an impact to have me devote any kind of attention to. So, congratulations, you have your response. The next time you feel the need to engage in personal attacks to get a reaction, I’ll bounce you. That is a response and I believe it is substantive. Hope that was the one you were looking for.