VaultHunter101
(Flying: throwing yourself at the ground and missing)
#3403
That is not the same as leading the chant of “Lock her up!”, calling people traitors, suggesting that there really was a democratic pedophile ring in the basement of a pizza place, …
First I’ve heard of that. Right now, most of the democrats who were targets of those bomb packages are calling for things to be toned down, and emphasizing the need for civil debate. And (fortunately) some of the Republicans who’ve made statements on the matter are saying the same thing. I think MANY people have realised that the divisive rhetoric has gone way too far. But the majority of that rhetoric is coming from one source…
Nah, Nate was actually giving a 28% chance of a Trump victory, which was the highest of any model. From recollection the average of the polls were off by around 2%, which is not only low, but within the margin of error. That said, there were some serious misses on a more local level. Particularly Michigan’s results in the Democratic primary were so far off that I think they set some kind of record, and the midwest in general was missed by several percentage points in the general I recall.
Do you remember a few years back when Democrats ran an ad against Paul Ryan for his stance on healthcare? They showed him LITERALLY pushing an old lady in a wheel chair off a cliff. Personally, I laughed my ass off because it was hilarious. But one could easily say that that commercial is inappropriate because it could incite violence. My response would be: oh ■■■■■■■■.
VaultHunter101
(Flying: throwing yourself at the ground and missing)
#3406
Nope, never saw that. It’s the sort of thing I’d expect to see on an actual news satire program like “Not the Nine O’Clock News” (which gained a certain notoriety for their skits) rather than an actual political ad.
It would be nice if everyone decided that maybe it was time to nix all this nonsense from actual parties, and stomp down on partisan advertising by third parties too.
I can agree for sure that it’d be nice if we acted less like ■■■■■■■■ to each other. However, if you mean that we should “stomp down on partisan advertising” with the force of government… I’m gonna have to go all libertarian and tell you, and the FCC, that the 1st Amendment is more important than being nice to each other. (Yes, I think McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform is an anti-Constitutional abomination.)
I’m gonna go with “don’t hate the player, hate the game” on this one, Alex. True, Trump has taken political rhetoric to heights (right word?) that most people couldn’t possibly imagine. However, then again, recall that Eric Holder recently said that contra Michelle Obama, when the Republicans go low, we don’t go high - we kick 'em!
Again, yes that’s ■■■■■■ to say. But if a GOP candidate were to be assaulted with a knife, I’m not going to say that anyone other than the knife-wielder is responsible.
I really think there’s a lot more crazy in the world than most sane people realize.
VaultHunter101
(Flying: throwing yourself at the ground and missing)
#3410
Hmm… The problem seems to be that Trump is so completely oblivious to how his statements and actions affect anyone, that literally anything could happen as a result. For sheer volume of incendiary remarks, he has to hold some sort of record. (He’s probably got the one for most blatant lies told by a sitting US president.). I mean, you’re cherry-picking comments by democrats, but compared to Trump’s output they don’t amount to a hill of beans (and they’re not nearly as blunt).
For some reason, the whole mess reminds me of this historic (well, possibly) exchange:
Henry II - “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” Dudes go kill Thomas Beckett in the cathedral
Henry II - “Another fine mess you’ve got us in!!”
Joe Biden told the NAACP that Mittens was gonna put black people back in chains ("gonna put y’all back in chains!) in 2012.
We can say that statements from Democrats are cherry-picked and that Trump is indeed much more consistent with despicable rhetoric if that makes us happy. But this doesn’t mean that Democrats don’t engage in despicable rhetoric. However, to ignore - even if cherry-picked - Democratic shittery and excuse it, while placing blame for a nut doing nutty things on Trump is, IMHO… silly. Doesn’t seem like we can have it both ways here.
The truth is that politicians say stupid ■■■■ all the time. This doesn’t mean that violence, even when inspired by said stupid ■■■■, is the fault of whatever docuhebag is spewing the stupid ■■■■.
This is akin to blaming Hillary’s call for incivility for Antifa vandalism of a GOP headquarters in NYC. Yes, the vandals claimed that they did it because they agree, now is no time for civility. But in my opinion, to blame Hillary for that would be ■■■■■■■ insane. (I’m pretty sure Trump blamed her - of course, because he is insane.)
Just as I didn’t blame the shooting of GOP Congressmen on prominent Democrats saying that Republicans literally want poor people to die, I won’t blame Trump for someone putting bombs in the mail.
Of course the real problem here is that no one ever takes the time to shoot, punch, or bomb libertarians. Mostly because people tend to just smile and nod when I start out every political argument with “Taxation is theft!”
Inciting violence really isn’t comparable to a lack of ‘civility’, which I assume is a reference to the problems of observing political niceties as an enabler of dangerous bigotry. As it happens I’ve never seen much evidence of Hilary Clinton being uncivil, let alone endorsing a politician’s bodyslamming of a reporter, calling CNN the enemy of the people… and all the other Trumpian actions.
I saw a lot of right wing sites and pundits having a field day with this one. Even if that wasn’t taken out of context it’s hardly comparable to Trump’s statements, but it definitley is; he specifically and clearly disavowed any violence or illegal action moments later.
"When I say we, you know, ‘We kick ‘em,’ I don’t mean we do anything inappropriate. We don’t do anything illegal. But we got to be tough, and we have to fight for the very things that John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Whitney Young – you know, all those folks gave to us.”
In general I’m actually quite surprised that you think politics can’t incite real world actions, including violence - especially given previous arguments about the need for weapons for a potential future revolt against tyranny.
I don’t think I said it can’t incite violence, I said that we ought not put blame where it doesn’t belong. When clearly the blame belongs on the person doing the violence. … At least from my perspective.
Maybe blame isn’t really a subtle enough term for the response that’s needed here. A person pulls a trigger, plants a bomb; they do that as an individual, and sometimes have intervening factors like mental illness that provoke this, though that’s not confirmed about the suspect yet.
I haven’t seen anybody saying Trump should share a courtroom with the guy.
But individuals exist in a wider social framework which impacts their actions too. There are different opinions on how far that impacts individual behaviour but as a basic premise it doesn’t seem too outlandish to me.
If so, it’s not unreasonable to look at how the extreme rhetoric Trump has unleashed since he entered politics, which in its scope and viciousness doesn’t compare to what other politicians from any party suggest, impacts individuals and might sway their decisions, including about whether to commit terrorism. One of Kurt Vonnegut’s books - can’t remember which one, maybe Breakfast of Champions - has an ironic line about how Germans during Nazism committed acts because they were mentally sick, “full of bad chemicals”… Point being, lots of acts of violence could be traced to mental illness, but some have to be seen in a historical context too.
That kind of responsibility is complex and ‘blame’ doesn’t really seem sufficient and this case isn’t as simple as the guy who threw a bottle at the press during a Trump rally… but I definitely think his rhetoric and the culture of InfoWars conspiracy theories a lot of it draws from is pretty relevant here.
The problem isn’t that he’s responsible for what others do, it’s that he’s responsible for what he said. And as mentioned earlier, that’s a problem all on its own. We live in an age not merely of incivility, but one defined by enmity to others. That’s not a healthy place for political debate.
Re: Holder’s quote from above. Just want to point out that while yes, I didn’t add the part where he said not to actually kick anyone in the face, Michelle Obama came out the following day and said in not-so-many words that what Holder said was ■■■■■■■■. She is, of course, entirely correct.
I’m getting ready to leave early (it’s Friday, whatever) so I can’t give this the time it deserves. But lemme just say… Yay for Vonnegut!
Fortunately for me and my desire to leave early, I’m going to quote fellow libertarian Temet:
“The problem isn’t that he’s responsible for what others do, it’s that he’s responsible for what he said. And as mentioned earlier, that’s a problem all on its own. We live in an age not merely of incivility, but one defined by enmity to others. That’s not a healthy place for political debate.”
I agree with this 1,000 percent. I’m not going to blame a politician for the violence committed by her supporters, but I do think we should tone it the ■■■■ down.
I was reading something akin to what Temet said the other day. It’s not that we’re just not very nice to each other, but we believe that people who disagree with us do so because they are evil. Not because they haven’t thought about this or that, but because they are actually bad people.
I’ll also agree with you all that the rhetoric is in no way helpful. But I’m not going to say that Trump is to blame, because he, of course, is not.
It certainly makes for crappy and unproductive policy discussions, but what I was trying to articulate was that actively encouraging irrational hate against specific targets and endorsing violence from the political stage has real world, dangerous impacts. That’s not the same as saying “Trump made the guy send a bomb to CNN” but I still think this incident is one of a long string of signs suggesting that the relationship between hateful rhetoric and violent action really needs watching in the Trump era.
I think part of this is people talking past eachother, as I’m not seeing disagreement about such rhetoric being awful. Past that, I suspect that there’s a subtle point here about how much weight the espousement of hatred should have. To take it somewhat out of context, you could view it through the lens of other nations where there are members of hate groups who are involved in the actual government, who do not themselves engage in terrorism. Simply put, examining them from a legalistic viewpoint is mostly pointless, the law not only cannot deal with them, it should not. You can’t kill an idea with bullets. That however, doesn’t make what’s being said any better.
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loving-hatred
(Gone off comms, will update this when i feel like)
#3420
Civilization is in large part simply a communal agreement that certain behaviours are either appropriate or inappropriate. It seems to me that Trump has actually changed so many values for so many people, that certain people now feel free or emboldened to exhibit certain behaviours that they would not have done during the Obama era.
For example, 30+ years ago people would commonly drink and drive and was (almost) considered acceptable. Through concerted effort, society changed its tune. Is it now going to go the other way? That it’s acceptable to be bigoted or sexist or dishonest?
On another note, do you think Trump will achieve psych status alongside the likes of Faust and Don Quixote?
