EPTOn January 16 2018 13:27 GreenHorizons wrote:
Yeah, definitely completely didn't get it.
Yeah, definitely completely didn't get it.
You wanna put some bones on this?
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Aquanim
Australia2849 Posts
You wanna put some bones on this? | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On January 16 2018 13:12 Nebuchad wrote: Luckily there'll be a primary where the voters get to decide whether she is qualified for a senate seat and whether Ben Cardin should be dismissed. It's also fun cause Danglars doesn't get to criticize us if she wins. She's quite the clown on Twitter. If she manages to win, it would be because the incumbent committed campaign suicide. Safe Dem Senate Seat in Maryland stays blue. Not a normal subject for my criticism. | ||
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
On January 16 2018 12:55 ticklishmusic wrote: I'm not really clear on why Chelsea Manning is qualified in any way for a senate seat. Also, I'd recommend looking at Ben Cardin's resume and voting record before dismissing him as just some old white dude. Other than being at least 30 years of age what makes one "qualified" for a senate seat? Are we not a country of citizen-legislators? | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12193 Posts
On January 16 2018 13:31 Danglars wrote: She's quite the clown on Twitter. If she manages to win, it would be because the incumbent committed campaign suicide. Have you seen her campaign ad tho? At Least She Fights (TM) Joking aside her appeal is basically that she's progressive rather than liberal. Not sure that'll be enough but with name recognition it could. She'll have to work that into her messaging without making it too obvious that this is what she's doing cause she's going to need some of the plansixes out there. | ||
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Aquanim
Australia2849 Posts
On January 16 2018 13:30 GreenHorizons wrote: So you realize he doesn't think she should get the job because of her identity and Cardin shouldn't be replaced because of his, because I'm reading you guys as taking it as the complete opposite? I'm interested to see how you interpret this passage then: They’ve decided to do this presumably because they find Cardin’s centrist ideology and politics more appealing than Manning’s more radical politics, and believe that this trumps what could be the historic value of Manning’s candidacy. They’ve apparently decided to prioritize their own centrist ideology over the important gender, sexual orientation and trans equality progress that Manning’s victory would ensure. given that in the rest of the piece he has clearly set himself up as opposed to the establishment Democrats, and how much of an issue he makes of Cardin's "privilege". | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23238 Posts
you didn't experience the "you're a Russian stooge"/"Your criticism is based on xism" that the people he's talking about experienced and so you have no first-hand relationship with what he's describing. The message: the actual point of this article, which is the extremely inconsistent, self-serving way that centrist Democrats use identity politics Is abundantly clear to those of us interacting with it daily, but I can understand why you wouldn't just accept it. | ||
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Aquanim
Australia2849 Posts
On January 16 2018 13:38 GreenHorizons wrote: you didn't experience the "you're a Russian stooge"/"Your criticism is based on xism" that the people he's talking about experienced and so you have no first-hand relationship with what he's describing. The message: Is abundantly clear to those of us interacting with it daily, but I can understand why you wouldn't just accept it. Whatever makes you feel warm at night, GH. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23238 Posts
On January 16 2018 13:40 Aquanim wrote: Whatever makes you feel warm at night, GH. Back at ya. | ||
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Aquanim
Australia2849 Posts
On January 16 2018 13:35 Aquanim wrote: I'm interested to see how you interpret this passage then: given that in the rest of the piece he has clearly set himself up as opposed to the establishment Democrats, and how much of an issue he makes of Cardin's "privilege". | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23238 Posts
On January 16 2018 13:45 Aquanim wrote: In the meantime, do you intend to address this? I tried the actual point of this article, which is the extremely inconsistent, self-serving way that centrist Democrats use identity politics If she was a neolib running for Bernie Sanders seat you'd see basically what he laid out on Cardin from the centrists. | ||
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mozoku
United States708 Posts
On January 16 2018 13:33 IgnE wrote: Other than being at least 30 years of age what makes one "qualified" for a senate seat? Are we not a country of citizen-legislators? Under the law, thirty years of age is pretty much it. That said, I'd much rather my political representatives be modern philosopher-kings then the present day's most eye-catching celebrities--and the fact that much of the electorate apparently either disagrees or is too ignorant realize that name recognition is orthogonal to governing competence makes we question whether self-governance is all it's chalked up to be. Phrased in another way, I think we'd be much worse off in the direct democracy that seems to be the gold standard modern peoples aspire to. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12193 Posts
On January 16 2018 13:51 mozoku wrote: Phrased in another way, I think we'd be much worse off in the direct democracy that seems to be the gold standard modern peoples aspire to. No, you'd be better off. It's true that you need a more educated population for it to work, but working to educate your population - or having incentive to have a more educated population - isn't actually a bad thing in the abstract. Knowledge is sexy. | ||
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Aquanim
Australia2849 Posts
On January 16 2018 13:49 GreenHorizons wrote: I tried If she was a neolib running for Bernie Sanders seat you'd see basically what he laid out on Cardin from the centrists. What consistent policy on identity politics do you think the centrist Democrats should adopt instead of whatever they're doing now? | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12193 Posts
On January 16 2018 13:59 Aquanim wrote: What consistent policy on identity politics do you think the centrist Democrats should adopt instead of whatever they're doing now? What don't you understand? The criticism of the article isn't that Cardin is a white male, the criticism is the weaponization of identity politics. As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity. Seems pretty straightforward. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23238 Posts
On January 16 2018 13:59 Aquanim wrote: What consistent policy on identity politics do you think the centrist Democrats should adopt instead of whatever they're doing now? One that doesn't jump on Trump for calling countries shitholes while simultaneously turning a blind eye to (or actively supporting) the exploitation of said countries to use a recent example. I'm so immersed in the whole thing it's hard for me to put myself in the perspective of someone who is skeptical this is a thing but may be convinced it is with supporting evidence. EDIT: Neb said it too, but that feels too much like just repeating myself so I 'm trying a different way of explaining it. | ||
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
On January 16 2018 13:51 mozoku wrote: Under the law, thirty years of age is pretty much it. That said, I'd much rather my political representatives be modern philosopher-kings then the present day's most eye-catching celebrities--and the fact that much of the electorate apparently either disagrees or is too ignorant realize that name recognition is orthogonal to governing competence makes we question whether self-governance is all it's chalked up to be. Phrased in another way, I think we'd be much worse off in the direct democracy that seems to be the gold standard modern peoples aspire to. So where do you get your philosopher-king certification? | ||
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mozoku
United States708 Posts
On January 16 2018 13:58 Nebuchad wrote: No, you'd be better off. It's true that you need a more educated population for it to work, but working to educate your population - or having incentive to have a more educated population - isn't actually a bad thing in the abstract. Knowledge is sexy. It isn't a matter of education. Even assuming someone is adequately educated and possesses enough technical knowledge to assess policy on their own (which arguably will never happen), it's impossible for a working person--or even a non-working person--to study all of the pertinent issues and come to a conclusion on them. Time is finite. Worse still, good leadership requires wisdom, a sense of fairness, and a degree of selflessness. In my experience, education isn't a reliable producer of any of those characteristics. Which is, by no means, a shot at education. Nothing else really develops those characteristics either. They just happen to be rare. I'm willing to acknowledge that such characteristics are relatively rare in the human population (maybe 1-2%), and probably always will be. I'm of the opinion that humans and human nature has changed little in the last several thousand years, and I see no reason to believe that we'll suddenly have an population-scale abundance (i.e. most people) of quality leaders in the foreseeable future. Given such characteristics are rare, the best way of governance is to elevate the people with such characteristics and insulate them, to an extent, from having their agency removed by the persistent specter of a 2- or 4- year election cycle decided nearly entirely by the very people unfit to rule/lead in the first place. The American republic used to approximate this model much better than it does in the present day, and I assert (and this is by no means the first time I've made this argument here) that this is probably a strong contributor to the mess that our politics is in today. I'm not arguing for the Chinese model where the rulers have effectively no accountability outside of violent uprisings--I certainly think the US government is much better for its people than China's is for its. But I think there's somewhere in between where accountability from rulers/government can be obtained without enabling the tyranny of the (mostly ignorant and selfish) masses. On January 16 2018 14:16 IgnE wrote: So where do you get your philosopher-king certification? See above. Philosopher-kings don't exist in reality, but most people would likely agree that, say, Abraham Lincoln (or maybe Jim Mattis for a more modern example) was much closer to one than Donald Trump or Chelsea Manning. Even in spite of his lack of sexy celeb appeal to voters. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12193 Posts
On January 16 2018 15:10 mozoku wrote: It isn't a matter of education. Even assuming someone is adequately educated and possesses enough technical knowledge to assess policy on their own (which arguably will never happen), it's impossible for a working person--or even a non-working person--to study all of the pertinent issues and come to a conclusion on them. Time is finite. Worse still, good leadership requires wisdom, a sense of fairness, and a degree of selflessness. In my experience, education isn't a reliable producer of any of those characteristics. Which is, by no means, a shot at education. Nothing else really develops those characteristics either. They just happen to be rare. I'm willing to acknowledge that such characteristics are relatively rare in the human population (maybe 1-2%), and probably always will be. I'm of the opinion that humans and human nature has changed little in the last several thousand years, and I see no reason to believe that we'll suddenly have an population-scale abundance (i.e. most people) of quality leaders in the foreseeable future. Given such characteristics are rare, the best way of governance is to elevate the people with such characteristics and insulate them, to an extent, from having their agency removed by the persistent specter of a 2- or 4- year election cycle decided nearly entirely by the very people unfit to rule/lead in the first place. The American republic used to approximate this model much better than it does in the present day, and I assert (and this is by no means the first time I've made this argument here) that this is probably a strong contributor to the mess that our politics is in today. I'm not arguing for the Chinese model where the rulers have effectively no accountability outside of violent uprisings--I certainly think the US government is much better for its people than China's is for its. But I think there's somewhere in between where accountability from rulers/government can be obtained without enabling the tyranny of the (mostly ignorant and selfish) masses. It is a matter of education. It isn't in the scenario that you describe here, but that's because the scenario that you describe here is overly demanding. We don't need this perfect level of study for that sort of system to work, we need a much more basic level of understanding. We also don't need to never make mistakes. I mean, it's not like there's this system where the ruler is perfectly educated on everything and never makes policy mistakes that we could turn to instead. If we remove those unrealistic goals, then a sufficiently educated population is enough to make the system largely preferable to alternatives. At least the mistakes in this system are our own, and they've been made honestly. | ||
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Aquanim
Australia2849 Posts
On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote: The criticism of the article isn't that Cardin is a white male... The author sure does harp on a lot about it, though. White supremacists aren't the only people who know how to dog whistle. + Show Spoiler + Centrist Dems Launch Smear Campaign Against Young Trans Woman, All to Keep an Old Straight White Man in Power Manning’s opponent in the Democratic Party primary is one of the most standard, banal, typical, privileged and mediocre politicians in the U.S. Congress: On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote: As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity. Seems pretty straightforward. I don't think there is anything inherently inconsistent about supporting a minority candidate in one situation (partially for the reason that they are a minority candidate) and not supporting a different minority candidate in another. Arguments for or against a candidate do not have to be absolutes. Do you disagree with these statements? People had other reasons why they believed Clinton was a better candidate than Sanders. People have other reasons to believe Cardin is a better candidate than Manning. It's entirely possible and probable that there are examples of influential Democrats treating Clinton's gender as an absolute reason to support her over Sanders. Since neither you, GreenHorizons nor the article author saw fit to provide any examples to consider I do not have anything more meaningful to say on that front at this point. Assuming such examples exist they would still not make my argument in the first paragraph invalid, they would merely demonstrate the unreasonability of some Democrats (on which point we probably do not disagree). In that case the problem isn't hypocrisy, the problem is their previous attitude was wrong. On January 16 2018 14:11 GreenHorizons wrote: One that doesn't jump on Trump for calling countries shitholes while simultaneously turning a blind eye to (or actively supporting) the exploitation of said countries to use a recent example. I am aware that happens and I would prefer they didn't do that. That isn't the same issue as how identity politics interacts with support for candidates, though. | ||
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