gulliver
gulliver's JournalArguing for bedrock values, not just using them to argue for us
I see a lot of folks from our side and in the media making arguments against the Republican strategy founded on what are assumed to be bedrock values. Those values include ethical behavior and commitment to truth, but they also include many other ideas such as respect for democracy and near-taboos against violence. Showing that someone's behavior or philosophy falls short in any of those areas is assumed to "defeat" that someone. Anything else would be an outrage.
The trouble with relying on "bedrocks" is that those bedrocks can be dismissed. The value of truth, for example, isn't final. It depends on a tacit acceptance that truth, in most circumstances, is "required policy." If truth is required, then proving someone to be a liar would be devastating to them. Lightning bolts would strike them. The evidence of Trump and, now, his many imitators in the Republican Party is that that's not the case.
In my opinion, we shouldn't solely resort to wielding bedrock values to defend our positions. If anything, it weakens those values to have an untrusted or even despised source (as seen from the Republican perspective) argue on their behalf. Instead, at least sometimes, we should support and pay homage to the bedrock values themselves instead of merely using them to support us.
A good example, as usual, came from President Biden in his recent speech. He did argue that the "election deniers" were a threat to democracy. But he didn't stop there. He further argued that their intended destruction of our democracy was un-American, unlawful, and a "path to chaos." He buttressed the value of the democracy bedrock by mooring it to other bedrocks. In other words, he made a case for democracy in addition to shining the spotlight on democracy's underminers.
One crucial thing Maher brought up last night about Dems and Republicans
In New Rules, Maher said of the Dem and Republican predicament, "It's like trying to win an argument in a marriage. Even when you're right, it still gets you nothing." I don't think it's the first time that analogy has been made, of course, so it really doesn't matter that it was Maher saying it. In fact, he's not married and never has been, so I'm not sure he's an authority on marriage arguments. But I have been both married and divorced, and his point does seem to me to have the ring of truth.
"What can we do to make (or keep) this right?" That's a question I've come to think bears keeping in mind when there is friction in a relationship, be it with a friend, spouse, parent, child, or co-citizen. I speak from painful experience. I can think of a lot of cases where I wish I had asked (or had been asked), "What can we do to make this right?"
We fight too much. We resent too much. We trust and respect too little. I sure hope we can get a handle on this.
What are the rules for weaponized phone cameras?
Here's a scenario. An old man is approaching a time when he should perhaps be thinking about surrendering his driver's license. He accidentally pulls out in front of a carful of young men. It's not a seriously dangerous move. The driver of the other car simply has to brake and slow down. But he's irritated that his legal right of way was infringed upon. The other young men in the car are pissed too. One of them spilled his coffee.
The young men start to yell at and curse the old man. They give him the one-finger salute from all four windows. Then, one of the young men decides to take it farther. He grabs the side of the open window and pulls his whole upper body through it. He shouts insults at the old man and gives him the finger.
The old man is now afraid. He sees his phone next to him on the car seat. The only thing he can think to do is point it at the young men and take a video of them, or at least pretend to. So, he does that.
Instantly, the young man whose upper body was outside the car sees the camera and pulls himself back into the car. The one-finger salutes disappear. The driver is now freaking out, because he was in a car with a bunch of young men who were arguably threatening an old man. He doesn't have video of the old man's stupid driving move, and, anyway, threatening an old man is not a good look.
The young men turn at the next signal and speed off. At a minimum, their time together was spoiled for a while. The driver is now worried, possibly for days, that his license plate will be turned over to the cops or the whole video could go viral.
Everyone knows that cameras are now weaponized. The old man was "in the wrong" in pulling in front of the young men. They were "in the right" until they decided to hassle and frighten the old man. The old man pulled a camera on them. Was he in the wrong?
What are the rules for weaponized cameras?
DeSantis and Abbott pump lifesaving liberal tears into Republican political gas tanks
(Washington)
Master liberal tear production wildcatters, Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott announced they had far exceeded third quarter production goals.
"For the price of a few bus and plane tickets," a jubilant DeSantis announced, "Greg and I have single-handedly doubled liberal tear production. Immigration fracking is the future."
Asked if DeSantis believed the liberal tear flood would arrive in time to help Republicans drown out the Democrats' advantages on choice and the preservation of American Democracy, DeSantis chuckled, "It's a little early to tell, but our numbers are looking good."
Seems like DeSantis and Abbott might be doing the migrants a favor
The migrants I have read about get to be with family or are treated well in their northern destinations. And it seems to me they might be more likely to be able to get jobs and maybe even more likely to win asylum. Indeed, if word gets around that DeSantis and Abbott are using their state's tax money to provide free transportation for migrants to cities of their choice, more migrants might decide to head north and cross the border.
Thanks, DeSantis and Abbott! You just improved the lives of migrants, cost your taxpayers money, and probably increased net successful immigration and border crossings! And you did it while exposing yourselves as jerks who try to use other people as political pawns. So smart!
On edit: Here's a WaPo link that is on point, imo. https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/07/migrants-dc-buses-texas/
"I didn't leave MAGA. MAGA left me."
It's great that people are starting to look at the state of our politics and get cold feet. What are we doing here? It doesn't have to be so much about political violence as mere chaos. We thought the pandemic broke a lot of things and made things stop working? Imagine the chaos if the monkeys who are fiddling around with the controls of our democracy screw it up. People really need to look at everything they depend on to keep their lives running as smoothly as possible and ask, "If democracy collapsed, would that still be there?" Don't it always seem to go...
I love the way Biden framed the issue, isolating the "MAGA Republicans." There was a lot of carping about it. On the right, the MAGA Republican priesthood shuddered and called for the entire Republican voter population to circle its wagons around MAGA. On the left, the usual few noisemakers obliged and cried, "All Republicans are MAGA Republicans." It was a spectacle.
"My Gosh," lied the MAGA priesthood. "Biden just said half the country is a threat to democracy!"
Well, no. Biden drove a wedge by creating two categories for Republicans to sort themselves into: 1) The democracy wrecking "MAGA Republican extremists" and, 2) "Mainstream Republicans who want to keep democracy." It's exactly what the democracy doctor ordered.
If I think of myself as a Republican who wants to keep democracy, who doesn't like the idea of chaos, who just wants to go to barbecues and play golf, who likes paychecks and retirement checks coming in on schedule, who thinks the clowns talking about civil war and breaching the Capitol in buffalo headdress have had their fifteen minutes, then I'm "mainstream." Even if I wore a red MAGA cap to a few little league baseball games and people thought I was a jerk, I'm mainstream now. I made my point, but I'm done. I'm putting away my cap. I didn't leave MAGA; MAGA left me.
Was the good guy with the gun really a good guy, or was this just another AR-15 murder spree?
I don't accept the "well, there's an example of a good guy with a gun," storyline. It doesn't hold water. I think we should at least try to untwist it before we have a bunch of the people who really deserve nothing but blame taking bows and basking in self-generated praise.
Three people were killed by a 20-year-old, nutty, broken young man using an assault rifle (Sig Sauer Model 400, supposedly). Isn't that just another murder spree to lay at the feet of the people who can't see the need for sensible gun control? It sure fits the pattern.
But what about the good guy, the hero?
Sorry. We don't know enough about him yet. It would be ironic if the "good guy" turns out to be an anti-gun-control absolutist who loves AR-15s. He might be a hero in that moment at the mall, while, simultaneously, unwittingly at 22, being an enabler-level accomplice to the crime.
On edit: And even if the young man turns out to be a clear hero (and I hope he does), that doesn't mean the guys who sing his praises and can't see their way to sensible gun control are heroes too. Their claim is only to the role of enabler.
I thought it was Ok for me to rob liquor stores!
There I was in the house watching TV with my family when, suddenly, I thought it would be great if we could have a new "OLED" big screen. We're frankly used to the best, my wife, offspring, and I, and our plain old 4K LED wasn't giving us the best black levels. That I can tell you.
Now, I could have paid for the set, I guess, but if I spent my money on an OLED, I wouldn't have the money for our vacation to Cancun. We're used to the best. I think I may have mentioned.
I'm a genius, so I hit on a plan right away. Just rob liquor stores. I could take the money I earned that way and add it to the old OLED fund until I had enough. Simple. The money is in the tills at the liquor stores. What else was there to think about? Problem solved.
I personally don't care about liquor stores. I don't drink, first of all. I take speed. I would never rob a fast-food joint or a bordello.
There was also "the law" and the "Ten Commandments," etc., so I did give those a lot of thought. Obviously, I would need a way around those.
No problem. I just got on some web sites and started telling people that I thought liquor stores were bad. They overcharged. They were unfair to the customers, especially people under 21. They were corrupt. Shouldn't someone go in and take their money and, well, maybe give it to charity? It's just a question. I "hoped" someone would give me the answer because, ya know, I didn't "know" liquor store robbery was "wrong."
Long story short, it worked, and, pretty soon, I had the names of some good, loving, community defenders. Most of the weaklings on the various sites told me I was nuts, and robbery was illegal and so forth, but a few "good" folks told me I was completely right. Robbing liquor stores was not only arguably legal (a couple of them were lawyers) but patriotic (we had a military guy). I even got support on the dark web from the Cosa Nostra and drug cartels.
I told the Cosa Nostra to stand by, but I invited the community defenders to my house to tell me their ideas. We met on my patio and invited the guy who mows my lawn and the mailman to sit with us. That's where we all "learned" it was Ok to rob liquor stores.
The lawn guy and mailman didn't think it was Ok, and they still don't apparently. They said robbery was illegal and wrong...blah...blah...blah. So, they did their jobs. I needed witnesses to the crazy, not agreement with it. I would have put it on TV if I could. (I would be great on TV, by the way, producers.)
The "crazy" people I had picked did what I needed. That's why I picked them. It was better than my expectations. Not only could I rob a liquor store, but I could get whoever I needed, insider or outsider, to help me. I could ask my neighbors to let the air out of the tires of the store security guards to keep them from being in the store. I could pressure the store employees to hand me the money in the till because I "owned the store," whether I had a title or not. If the Recorder of Deeds said I didn't have a title and didn't own the store, I could say the Recorder of Deeds was corrupt or a "never speed freaker".
The plan was great, as I said. My kind of genius is rare. I make Wile E. Coyote look like an idiot.
I went ahead and robbed a couple of stores right after the meeting on the patio. It didn't work as well as I hoped, unfortunately. Some of the security guards were there, and some cops showed up. The property title people weren't helpful. And you know what that means. I didn't get my OLED. That's the bad news about all of this.
Don't worry about me though. I'll figure out another way. I have a pretty solid chance of getting out of a prison rap. I picked a great, camera-friendly cast of people to tell me robbing liquor stores was Ok, and they work for nothing (as they've found out). Heaven knows I believed them. I'd never do anything illegal or wrong. Perish the thought.
I guess I don't have the right emotions
I heard Jake Tapper talking with someone on CNN yesterday about the Jan. 6th coup attempt. The topic was the fact that Trump and his Republican servants are now methodically working on the next coup attempt. They're installing stooges and messing with legislation in key states with the idea that, next coup, they won't have to worry about principled Republicans getting in the way. The coup will work next time.
My emotions were wrong when I heard that, I guess. Tapper informed me that that was "frightening." He blurted out, "that's frightening!"
Frightening?
I have to admit, I didn't go to frightened. I skipped right to angry. Crazy, right? I felt that feeling that, due to certain biological factors, can sometimes make us humans lean a little forward in our posture, clench our fists, and pull our upper and lower lips back a little. I didn't seem to feel that other feeling that makes people want to flee, the one Tapper mentioned.
I think "fright" on our side might be what the goons want. I don't recommend that feeling. Quite the opposite. To me, fright is what the Trump pawns should feel at the prospect of their actually trying to overturn an election if that time ever comes.
Cops, teachers, and health care workers: Is there any limit to how much crap they are given?
Just thinking about this lately. Cops, teachers, and health care workers seem to have jobs that are getting worse and worse as the nincompoopism pandemic spreads. Those professions are all downstream from human folly, selfishness, laziness, and ignorance. That's not a good place to be when production of those "culture pollutants" is at record levels (and climbing).
It's blindness, that's all. I'm not sure what the answer is. The work is allowed to become worse and worse, and the people doing the work are given more and more abuse by an ever more thoughtless "customer base." It's not sustainable.
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