Ron Paul and Glenn Greenwald love their mothers. We should end the practice.

[jpgray]

This insipid thinking crowds political discussion everywhere. If it had any validity, I don't suppose Obama could ever support an individual mandate supported by the Heritage Foundation, offered up by Newt Gingrich as Republican reform in the nineties, or brought to public policy by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts.

If you share in that thinking, you have company in all three of the above, since now that Obama supports and promotes the individual mandate, they hate and despise it as the worst kind of radical socialism.

To believe that an idea is only as worthy as its most evil messenger is not consistently applied. It is only used to inoculate against good ideas in our support of bad ones. Simply find someone wicked who supports a good idea that may embarrass us, then dismiss the idea as beloved of wicked people. What happens, though, when our leaders promote and support, as all of them do at some time, ideas that are as wicked as their awful promoters?

If you are so highly principled as to reject a good idea because it can once be found in an evil mouth, where are your high standards when our leaders embrace truly wicked ideas that whole battalions of awful people have promoted?

Take Obama's use of abominable Bush policy. Jefferson had a line about a loaf and half a loaf beloved of those who would defend bad policy. What Jefferson had in mind remained edible, however. On the increased powers of the executive authorized for the war on terror, we were offered the most black, moldy and poisonous of loaves. To scrape off the worst bits and offer it back up is not acceptable, noble, or remotely digestible. You do not solve problems of human rights by making the breach a nicer one, just as kindlier slave owners would not have amounted to progress on the atrocity of slavery.

And how amusing is it to be accused of wanting a dictator when you demand our leaders should everywhere and always endeavor to lay down dictatorial powers? In speech if in nothing else, that should be the absolute bottom standard of decency in a Democratic politician.

[quinnox]

1. Nicely done

I'm becoming a fan of yours. You have a way of turning a phrase. My favorite remains (of course) "morally bankrupt and contemptible" in a previous OP.

[nashville_brook]

2. Really good point

I look forward to your posts. Good stuff!

[ProSense]

3. Hmmm?

Ron Paul and Glenn Greenwald love their mothers. We should end the practice.

<...>

"If you are so highly principled as to reject a good idea because it can once be found in an evil mouth, where are your high standards when our leaders embrace truly wicked ideas that whole battalions of awful people have promoted?"

Do you mean "highly principled as to reject" health care reform:

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/100294294


Or "highly principled" to be able to compromise "your high standards" to embrace "a good idea...found in an evil mouth"?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/100296072

http://www.democraticunderground.com/100288476

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002101818


I mean, it works both ways, but the false equivalency here is that by characterizing it as "our leaders embrace truly wicked ideas" means it's OK to embrace "a good idea" that "can once be found in an evil mouth"

Indefinite detention of a U.S. citizen is wrong, and Obama agrees. FDR did it, but he isn't worse or equivalent to Ron Paul on the issues. Nixon started the war on drugs, and some hold him up as liberal.

A President defines policies and has to embrace the existence of some that he may or may not agree with. People condemned Clinton for not acting to stop genocide in Rawanda and for sanctions that enhanced suffering in Iraq, does that make Clinton's policies "truly wicked ideas" and therefore justify embracing the words of any of the RW fear mongers of the day who condemn him?

You can control who you herald, and you don't have to choose Ron Paul because "a good idea can once be found in an evil mouth."

You have no choice in Mothers. If you or your mother turn out to be "evil," there is a bond that may not be able to be broken.

Are those who choose to hype Ron Paul's propaganda going to transfer that logic to Rand Paul, who is now campaigning for his father?

"And how amusing is it to be accused of wanting a dictator when you demand our leaders should everywhere and always endeavor to lay down dictatorial powers? In speech if in nothing else, that should be the absolute bottom standard of decency in a Democratic politician."

Now that's funny, as it seems some have decided that the President's very detailed signing statement rejecting these powers, are nothing more than "trust me."

[Luminous Animal]

7. Wicked ideas like raining bombs on innocents. Its okay to embrace an evil idea when it comes from a

"good" mouth?

If you supported Clinton's policies in Iraq then you supported ideas from an evil mouth. If you support drones, then you support ideas from an evil mouth.

[MisterP]

4. that whole "now embrace Nixoncare/Gingrichcare/Hillarycare/Romneycare" way of thinking also shows up

on Nader: they blame him for '00, even though it has been shown, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Jeb and Katherine Harris purged and stole and sent astroturf rioters. They literally prefer Jeb and Harris to Nader!

They simply do not like progressives, but at the same time say that they're for progressive policeis, and say that progressives and their complaints will destroy those policies. Their thought process is that "only one party will pass progressive policies, so it's okay if it doesn't." That's how they're able to adore Dems pushing and passing reactionary policies while saying that demands for progressive policies are traitorous "emo-prog" "Firebagger" shit that undermines any chance of progressive policies. That's why they say that "real progressives"--their much-bandied "83%"--support Prexy, so anyone disagreeing must be a GOP mole. This contradiction is a product of the same thought process.

That's why they're okay with far-right policies coming from a Dem. That's why they're called conservative Democrats even when they say they're for progressive policies--becuase they put the policies themselves far down on the list.

There are also the smitten faction, the "he's doing his best" faction, and the "pragmatists" saying they'll grit their teeth: these all have their own thought processes and "mechanisms."

[JackRiddler]

5. Wow. You really can turn a phrase.

And put together an argument!

[Luminous Animal]

6. It is remarkable...

I just gave my daughter a Henry James novel to read and warned her that it was dense but the ideas are important and worth re-reading paragraphs to for the pure pleasure of the use of language.

And thus the OP.

[JackRiddler]

8. kick