US Politics Mega-Blog - Page 68

On November 05 2018 01:15 IgnE wrote:
I don't think Jordan Peterson is an idiot. He at least thinks about what he says. And the fact that people like him so much could be optimistically interpreted as an unmet need for deeper thought.

But if you are conservative, and you wanted to point to a recent "public intellectual," you might point to Isaiah Berlin. I'd even watch a conversation between Buckley and Peterson.

On November 05 2018 04:30 IgnE wrote:
I just find his discussion of "ideological possession" quite unintentionally hilarious. He's so unself-conscious about lapsing into exactly what he calls "ideological possession" whenever he is talking about non-conservative intellectual figures.

On November 05 2018 04:33 Jockmcplop wrote:


Yes, also his hatred of identity politics is interesting when juxtaposed with his teary outbursts about how hard life is for young men in the West because of the feminists.

On November 05 2018 04:30 IgnE wrote:
I just find his discussion of "ideological possession" quite unintentionally hilarious. He's so unself-conscious about lapsing into exactly what he calls "ideological possession" whenever he is talking about non-conservative intellectual figures. He fundamentally misunderstands ideology because he is so self-blind, at least in this domain.

On November 05 2018 04:38 xDaunt wrote:

It’s hard to take him seriously on the feminism thing after advocating that Kavanaugh should have stepped down after being confirmed.

On November 05 2018 04:46 IgnE wrote:
I actually sympathize with him a bit. He at least repudiates the all embedded in phrases like "white men's tears" even if he implies an all to "feminists." This is just an aspect of his self-blindness. You should refuse this "all" for every essentialist identity construction.

On November 05 2018 04:46 IgnE wrote:


He was right though.

On November 05 2018 05:25 IgnE wrote:
Oh, so in this instance we can interpret DoJ investigation as evidence of the fact, but in the Russia scandal we cannot? Come on. There won't be any convictions, pleas, or confessions.

Upon further investigation I am not sure what you are even talking about. Are you talking about accusations made by "Jane Doe" that had little to do with anything, and nothing to do with Peterson's conclusion? Or are you talking about the main accusations made by Ford?

On November 05 2018 05:29 xDaunt wrote:

Two of them already did confess. Avenatti and Swetnick haven’t, but I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.

On November 05 2018 05:56 IgnE wrote:


Totally irrelevant to the main reasons why Kavanaugh should have withdrawn.

On November 05 2018 06:34 xDaunt wrote:

Not really when you consider that those "main reasons" were all directly related to the baseless accusations made against him, whether it be the accusations themselves or his reactions to them.

On November 05 2018 06:56 IgnE wrote:


Please connect the dots for me then between DoJ investigations of some irrelevant people and the accusations of Ford, with all that followed from those particular accusations.

If you would like to retract your statement entirely and admit that "four people" being referred to the DoJ has absolutely nothing to do with whether Peterson was right or not, but would instead like to pursue a separate line of argument, namely, that you still don't believe Ford and don't care about the perceived legitimacy of a supreme court justice, then be my guest.

Having said all that, I would like also like to point out that I am not claiming that the opinion I put forward—the alternative I offered—is or was correct. I am accustomed, as a research scientist, to generating hypotheses: “this is what everyone thinks the problem is, but maybe it’s this, or this, or this, or this” or “here is a potential solution, but here is another, and another, and another” and “let’s discuss these various possibilities and test them.” It is very easy for me to forget that in these heated and impulsive times thoughts and simulations are immediately regarded as canonical opinions, indelibly defining personality and character now and forever.

In the spirit of noting that I am not necessarily correct, here is a list of some reasonable objections to my suggestion (some of which I had considered prior to responding, some of which were brought to my attention afterward): Withdrawal on the part of Kavanaugh would be:

-read as an admission of guilt on his part;
-embolden those who would use reputation destruction as a political maneuver;
-weaken the general and vitally important idea of the presumption of innocence;
-indicate weakness on the part of the Republicans at a key moment prior to the November elections;
mean that an innocent man has been successfully pilloried by a mob;
-validate the use of allegations of past behavior well past any reasonable expiry date as a weapon;
-destroy the Republican opportunity to choose a Supreme Court Justice;
-hand the Democrats an unearned victory;
-embitter a large percentage of the conservative base, who would regard the withdrawal as a betrayal; -and, last and perhaps least, violate my own adage “don’t apologize if you haven’t done anything wrong.”

This is by no means a complete list of objections, but might be considered reasonable representative and somewhat in the steel man spirit.

These are all valid points, and one or more of them (or even all of them) may well constitute the proper basis for forward movement on the part of Kavanaugh and the Republicans. Time will tell.