All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Tami]

It's not so much who voted for what bill, there are a lot of reasons why someone might vote for a bill then regret it later.

it's who is being hypocritical about it, holding others up to the fire for voting a certain way when they themselves also made the same or similar bad decisions.

[Mister Mets]

Dylan Matthews wrote an interesting piece for Vox on fractures in the left, perhaps a leftist VS liberal divide, encapsulated by the response to Joe Rogan's endorsement of Bernie Sanders. It does get to a lot of fault lines.

One question is the trans-community's feeling that they are seen as expendable in political disputes.

But the fight also reflects a sincere frustration in the trans community over transphobia being treated as marginal and forgivable; my colleague Katelyn Burns makes the point brutally and succinctly:

There’s not a single candidate in the field who wouldn’t sacrifice trans rights for enacting their signature piece of legislation.— Katelyn Burns (@transscribe) January 24, 2020

For some, discrimination has become the line that can't be crossed.

Most liberals have what I would characterize as a deontological opposition to discrimination. That is, they think that discriminating against or maligning someone on the basis of membership in a protected class — women, trans people, black people, and other racially oppressed communities, etc. — violates a rule that should be inviolable.
In this view, such discrimination (be it legal, or expressed through hate speech, etc.) is not just wrong because it has bad effects, or because it harms members of the groups in question; it’s wrong because we have a duty to treat humans as equals, and it is never acceptable to violate that duty, even when doing so seems politically expedient.

This mode of moral argumentation came through in the Rogan controversy when Sanders and Rogan’s critics took pains to stress that accepting a Rogan endorsement was not merely unwise but immoral, and that these two judgments were distinct. Accepting the endorsement was not wrong because it hurt more people (by amplifying bigoted speech against vulnerable people) than it helped (by increasing the odds that a pro-trans Sanders administration comes to power); it was wrong because it is wrong to coddle and amplify bigots, full stop.

One of the arguments for Sanders supporters is that mainstream Democrats have been comfortable seeking the endorsements of Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell, who they would argue have done tremendous harm.

There are a couple of ways to understand this backlash. Part of it is umbrage at the idea of equating a bro-y podcast host to someone with Powell’s résumé, particularly someone like Powell whose success in the military has deep historical significance to some in the black community. Part of it is an understandable objection to a white pundit using a black icon as an example in an argument.
But I think the core of this disagreement, between the Sanders fans and Klein on the one hand and Sanders’s detractors/Powell’s defenders on the other hand, is about whether we should have deontological or consequentialist standards in thinking about politics, and whether the standards we use when thinking about discrimination cases ought to be the same as the ones used in thinking about war and peace.

From a consequentialist standpoint, it is very difficult to construct an argument that Powell’s overall impact on the world is positive. By being an instrumental figure in the launching of the Iraq War, he contributed to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths. Trying to compare his moral legacy to Joe Rogan’s is like comparing Jeff Bezos’s net worth to mine. The damage done is just orders of magnitude deeper.

But the fact of the matter is that liberals normally don’t use that kind of moral language in thinking about war and peace — and they certainly don’t use it in trying to weigh discrimination harms against harms in war and peace. Talking about the harms of discrimination in purely consequentialist terms comes across as odd, so trying to compare a consequentialist case against Powell to the case against Rogan — which to many liberals is fundamentally different, and based on inviolable rules about discrimination — scans as a category error.

Sanders supporter Matt Breuning complicated the question by asking why there isn't similar outrage when it comes to negative attitudes against the poor. Matthews considers this.

Bracket, for a second, your opinions on whether this is a fair assessment of Emily’s List, or if you think Clinton’s comments qualify her as an “anti-poor bigot.” Bruenig is making a very important point: Liberals do not usually classify disagreements about welfare policy as disagreements about discrimination and bigotry, and thus do not tend to rule out people for statements about welfare in the way they will rule out people like Rogan as acceptable coalition members because of statements about black, trans, female, or gay people. Liberals have specific deontological rules about those forms of discrimination, and those rules don’t apply outside that sphere to questions like welfare policy.
You can interpret Bruenig’s argument as one for expanding the cases where absolute, deontological anti-discrimination rules apply, to cover cases regarding poverty and redistributive policy.

But the main objection philosophers have raised against deontological restrictions is that they’re overly rigid. Immanuel Kant, the originator of this school of moral philosophy, famously argued that it was immoral to lie in all circumstances, even to a murderer who’s asking for your friend’s whereabouts so he can kill her. Few people today think a rule that rigid is viable. But if we as a society accept more and more forms of discrimination and animus as absolutely unacceptable — adding poverty to the list, say — we are left with an ever-more-restrictive moral code that forces us into ever-thornier moral dilemmas.

[GindyPosts]

https://twitter.com/GregStohr/status...61932929601536

Give us your wealthy, your well-to-do, and those who likely won't be needing SNAP benefits or Section 8.

[Steel Inquisitor]

To put it simply...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/07/polit...ors/index.html

That sounds like something Tucker Carlson would say.

If you are calling for a party without the likes of Rogan in it, you should certainly ask yourself if the person who said what is in blue should have a place in the party.

Never mind that it's way worse than the Sander's quote that is supposedly going to hurt him.

Sanders' campaign has been fine associating and boosting people, like Rogan, with comments like what Biden said. Had Biden been a Sanders supporting shock jock he'd be getting an endorsement from the campaign as we speak. His surrogates are infamous for saying terrible comments, from racism to misogyny and more, that make Bernie look bad by association.

https://www.okayplayer.com/culture/j...t-podcast.html

Rogan has a large history of inflammatory statements.

[numberthirty]

Sanders' campaign has been fine associating and boosting people, like Rogan, with comments like what Biden said. Had Biden been a Sanders supporting shock jock he'd be getting an endorsement from the campaign as we speak. His surrogates are infamous for saying terrible comments, from racism to misogyny and more, that make Bernie look bad by association.

https://www.okayplayer.com/culture/j...t-podcast.html

Rogan has a large history of inflammatory statements.

What you just posted does exactly nothing to change what Biden said.

[Theleviathan]

The thing is, for the better part of the last year we've been hearing about how we need to run a candidate that can appeal to a broader demographic, that can reach those disaffected voters. Sanders is literally doing that without compromising his values, and now we get bungling attempts to knee cap him and concern trolling over being endorsed by neckbeards.

Look it's fine to not like Sanders or Rogan or whoever, but it's self defeating to pretend winning over the opposition or middle of the road folks is somehow a bad thing.

Whether he is compromising values is sorta the nexus of the debate. Or, at least, compromising the values he professes to share with the people he is appealing to.

I'm not pretending anything, I've stated my thoughts on the Sanders/Rogan thing and they are perfectly consistent. My beef with the Sanders people is if Rogan had endorsed Biden, anyone foolish enough to claim that the Sanders supporters wouldn't have pounced on that raw meat with serious vitriol is god damn delusional.

If you are a rare Sanders supporter who would've said "Hey, nothing wrong with Biden winning over the opposition,etc" - then kudos to you. You'd also be in the vast minority.

[Theleviathan]

Dylan Matthews wrote an interesting piece for Vox on fractures in the left, perhaps a leftist VS liberal divide, encapsulated by the response to Joe Rogan's endorsement of Bernie Sanders. It does get to a lot of fault lines.

Good piece. I have many problems with "woke" thinking, but chief among them are the sort of hard, "deontological" (as the author calls it) restrictions that make discussion or nuance impossible. A world without nuance and too much rigidity is a world destined for failure. The way parts of the left weaponize that rigidity is a self-inflicted mistake that limits their ability to make real change.

[Mister Mets]

Give us your wealthy, your well-to-do, and those who likely won't be needing SNAP benefits or Section 8.

I doubt this will be an unpopular policy, although very little of the discussion seems to be about the legal questions, which is all that should matter for the court.

Sanders' campaign has been fine associating and boosting people, like Rogan, with comments like what Biden said. Had Biden been a Sanders supporting shock jock he'd be getting an endorsement from the campaign as we speak. His surrogates are infamous for saying terrible comments, from racism to misogyny and more, that make Bernie look bad by association.

https://www.okayplayer.com/culture/j...t-podcast.html

Rogan has a large history of inflammatory statements.

Sanders doesn't seem to be boosting Rogan. It's the other way around, in terms of reach and messaging (it allows the Sanders campaign to brand itself as left-wing but not part of the unpopular cancel culture.)

[PwrdOn]

The thing is, for the better part of the last year we've been hearing about how we need to run a candidate that can appeal to a broader demographic, that can reach those disaffected voters. Sanders is literally doing that without compromising his values, and now we get bungling attempts to knee cap him and concern trolling over being endorsed by neckbeards.

Look it's fine to not like Sanders or Rogan or whoever, but it's self defeating to pretend winning over the opposition or middle of the road folks is somehow a bad thing.

Rogan and his fans aren't really political in the sense of actually having a coherent ideology, if you ever listen to his show he basically parrots the opinion of his guests whoever they might happen to be and whatever they might be saying, and I doubt there is any hard introspection or attempt at forming a rigorous and consistent set of beliefs there. And that description probably fits a significant chunk of young voters, particularly those living outside of large cities or who aren't peer pressured into subscribing to liberal orthodoxy. These people tend to lean right not so much because they love free markets or traditional values, but because they dislike how mealy mouthed and wishy washy the left can be sometimes, and conservative internet personalities easily exploit this by bombarding them with propaganda that appeals to their macho sensibilities. Of course, some of them have bought into this alt right nonsense wholesale and are beyond saving, but there are plenty that could potentially be swung to the left if we promote our agenda in a forceful and decisive manner, which many progressives would agree is exactly what we need right now. This isn't to say that courting the Rogan demographic will be easy or won't cost us some votes among other blocs, but frankly Democrats have tried over and over to build the big tent party by appealing to everyone, which ends up satisfying no one. And as long as we aren't compromising our own principles and pandering to their backwards views, but rather getting them to subscribe to our views and understanding how our agenda might benefit them as well, I really don't see what the problem is.

[Malvolio]

Good piece. I have many problems with "woke" thinking, but chief among them are the sort of hard, "deontological" (as the author calls it) restrictions that make discussion or nuance impossible. A world without nuance and too much rigidity is a world destined for failure. The way parts of the left weaponize that rigidity is a self-inflicted mistake that limits their ability to make real change.

Yes. If you can convince an enemy to come over to your side, do it. Don't let those who want the enemy to be the enemy forever tell you what to do.

[zinderel]

Washington Post journalist suspended after tweeting link to 2016 story on Kobe Bryant’s rape case hours after his death

In a follow-up to the original post she wrote: "Well, THAT was eye-opening.

"To the 10,000 people (literally) who have commented and emailed me with abuse and death threats, please take a moment and read the story - which was written 3+ years ago, and not by me.

"Any public figure is worth remembering in their totality even if that public figure is beloved and that totality unsettling.

"That folks are responding with rage and threats toward me (someone who didn’t even write the piece but found it well-reported) speaks volumes about the pressure people come under to stay silent in these cases".

In another tweet, she added: "If your response to a news article is to resort to harassment and intimidation of journalists, you might want to consider that your behavior says more about you than the person you’re targeting".

What’s the consensus here? Is it fair game to remind people lauding a dead celebrity of the things that are less laudable? Does the fact that his daughter died too make this less acceptable than if only he had died? Does she deserve to potentially lose her job for this?

I ask because this is far from the first time I’ve seen negative news about a Star who recently died. When Bowie died, we all got reminded that he had sex with an underage groupie, for example. But I haven’t seen a reporter get put on LEAVE while they decide if the reporter crossed some line...

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Washington Post journalist suspended after tweeting link to 2016 story on Kobe Bryant’s rape case hours after his death



What’s the consensus here? Is it fair game to remind people lauding a dead celebrity of the things that are less laudable? Does the fact that his daughter died too make this less acceptable than if only he had died? Does she deserve to potentially lose her job for this?

I ask because this is far from the first time I’ve seen negative news about a Star who recently died. When Bowie died, we all got reminded that he had sex with an underage groupie, for example. But I haven’t seen a reporter get put on LEAVE while they decide if the reporter crossed some line...

Kobe's infidelity is the 800 pound gorilla in the room, and while that sordid aspect of his past can't be ignored or swept under the rug (nor should it), for that reporter to bring it up mere hours after his death, while the wound of his passing was open and raw for his legion of fans was perhaps a case of poor judgment on her part. She should've known fans who loved Kobe would react irrationally, and if she didn't, she's an idiot, plain and simple. She could've waited a few days before bringing up Kobe's affair, it's not like she needed to scoop a rival news organization, those facts are already on the record. If social media existed forty years ago when John Lennon was murdered, and a reporter reminded fans via a tweet about his having walked out on Cynthia hours after he had been shot, would people have exhibited the same sort of vitriol like with Kobe? Meanwhile, should the reporter lose her job? Absolutely not, as for the suspension, again, her lack of decorum was as good a reason as any I suppose.

[jetengine]

She got suspended for causing the buisnesses brand harm via being a dumbass

[PwrdOn]

Washington Post journalist suspended after tweeting link to 2016 story on Kobe Bryant’s rape case hours after his death



What’s the consensus here? Is it fair game to remind people lauding a dead celebrity of the things that are less laudable? Does the fact that his daughter died too make this less acceptable than if only he had died? Does she deserve to potentially lose her job for this?

I ask because this is far from the first time I’ve seen negative news about a Star who recently died. When Bowie died, we all got reminded that he had sex with an underage groupie, for example. But I haven’t seen a reporter get put on LEAVE while they decide if the reporter crossed some line...

It's probably a good idea to let people process all the stages of grief before we start trying to analyze the legacy of a dead public figure, but of course that also means that breaking this implied covenant is the best way to stir up controversy and get clicks, this kind of stuff doesn't happen by accident.

[Tami]

Serious question: is this a parody or an actual thing?

Twitter Link with Video

I'd like to know as well.