December 18, 2014

The illiberalism of hypersensitivity

I would like to take a moment to share some observations about what is apparently a sensitive topic. The topic is so sensitive, however, that I feel I must preamble the [censored] [censored] out [censored] lest superior persons and others of highly refined sensibilities take this in the wrong spirit.

Point the first: I would like to express my appreciation for the people who conceived of, put into operation, and continue to maintain both with effort and money, this website.

Point the second: I acknowledge that this is your sandbox. You make the rules. For any who disagree, the highway is two doors down and to the left. Those who feel they are not afforded ample enough opportunity here to speak freely are perfectly free to go and design their own forum, fund it, maintain it, and market it so that they're not just standing on a soapbox pontificating to their cats.

Point the third: fair is fair. I actually quite like the jury system established here. It's as fair a policy as any to be found elsewhere, and far superior to most.

That said, I must also make clear that I am aware of this rule pertaining to posts in General Discussion.

Threads complaining about Democratic Underground or its members; threads complaining about jury decisions, locked threads, suspensions, bannings, or the like; and threads intended to disrupt or negatively influence the normal workings of Democratic Underground and its community moderating system are not permitted.

As I am aware of this rule, I should point out that I, by no means, intend this post as a complaint about jury decisions, even the one against one of my sillier retorts, or about locked threads, or suspensions, bannings, or "the like," whatever the like may be. This post is also not intended to disrupt or negatively influence the normal workings of DU and (even or!) it's community moderating system.

On the contrary, what I mean to do is prompt a discussion as to an issue that certainly plays a role in politics, the distinctions between liberal and illiberal approaches to the manner and mode of one's speech. I mean this as a "food for thought" post, and remain entirely open to the possibility that someone or many someones with whom I may or may not disagree may (or may not) support their case in a manner persuasive to me and/or others. As such, I hope this is received in the spirit of a community service.

Naturally, a post like this is triggered by some event(s). I recently noted that someone (not me) referred to, I'll assume, center-left Dems as *ahem* (quoting here, not lobbing the pejorative myself) "Vichy Democrats." It seems this offended some of highly refined refinement. As for me, I had a post hidden because I told someone in a manner I thought was clearly figurative to "go play in traffic." I'm okay with the post being hidden. I'm not complaining about that. I would, however, like to point out what I feel is abundantly ironic in such a way as, I hope, to cause some pondering and discussion.

My post was reported because, "This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate."

For the sake of consistency, I'll assume "or" is equally well served by "and/or." And, once again, I accept the "punishment," the system in place, the will of the jury, etc., &c, usw.

So here's my points to ponder, none of which I mean to be exculpatory in my own case.

What post here is not intended to be disruptive? A great many posts on a great many issues, one might assume, are intended to "disrupt" the status quo, perhaps even solely among DU readers/participants. Such posts are intended to disrupt a previous mode of thinking in favor of a different mode of thinking. Naturally, I don't mean trolling for trolling's sake. I simply refer to the very nature of political discourse and persuasive speech. My general hope when I click into DU is THAT I be disrupted.

Okay, that was the easy one. I would like to think that, at least in spirit, most of us would agree thus far, even if others might be able to make a far better case.

But what is hurtful? I would absolutely like to know what other participants here find hurtful. Personally, what I find hurtful are intellectually dishonest attempts to derail valid and pertinent discussion. Healthy and lively debate between opposing parties constitutes the very sinews of our republic, else, without that "social contract" connective tissue, we would merely have authority vested in the hands of one set of demagogues (clarification: I mean in government, not the admins of DU) at the expense of, well, everybody else. I find badgering repetition of the same tired question, a feeble attempt to simply bludgeon one's opposition into silence, if not submission, hurtful, not just to the public good, but to my own feelings. To be on the receiving end of such treatment is to be othered, shamed, silenced. I find ad hominem attacks, thinly veiled or otherwise, but in this case of the thinly-veiled variety, to be hurtful. Once again, it's an intellectually dishonest strategem solely intended to silence opposition.

Am I safe in guessing that a great many of us would find that behavior, if conducted by a right-wing demagogue to be an example of illiberalism?

I think all of the above observations on hurtfulness apply equally to rudeness. Or am I mistaken in thinking that attempting to shut down discussion with heavy-handed (and ham-fisted) rhetorical shenanigans instead of dealing honestly with an opposing view in the spirit of genuine rational discussion is rude?

And again re: insensitivity. One's words in the heat of the moment may be insensitive. Hell, that's a badge I generally wear proudly, right next to my Cynic's badge, and my Chocolate Starfish badge. Where, however, is the sensitivity in attempting to shame and silence one's opponent in civil discourse?

I must confess, the "over the top" distinction eludes me. It strikes me as an utterly subjective quality. To that extent, I defer entirely to the will of juries regarding my, or anyone else's, comments. It seems rather like a "luck of the draw" event. It's entirely possible, for instance, that a jury may have (didn't, but may have) unanimously decided that "Vichy Democrat" was fair game. It was just a matter of chance that the randomly selected jurors ruled the way they did. Personally, subjectively, what I find "over the top" is, once again, heavy-handed attempts at shaming and silencing, especially using transparently absurd ploys like, "are you even qualified to have an opinion?" further exacerbated by badgering. Who here would be permitted to have opinions on anything were expertise evidenced by elected/appointed position in government or advanced degrees and narrow specialization in [insert field here field] required before permission is granted by other commenters in the self-appointed role of Those Who Know Better?

Last but not least, "otherwise inappropriate" is a lovely catch-all wastebasket term that is far more palatable than implications of whimsy.

By my reckoning, so many posts and responses here and elsewhere would be subject to silencing if each were viewed through the connotations of the terms as I understand them that the Internet would be a veritable cricket farm were everyone to silence all the logical fallacies, all the intellectual dishonesty, all the petty demagoguery.

So, was telling someone to "go play in traffic" truly in breach of those terms. I concede. The jury ruled fairly (enough). But were I to have "alerted" the comment that prompted my dismissive retort, how seriously would that have been taken? In my defense, and I do remain unapologetic for the comment, I at least assumed enough of the person to whom I responded in that manner that they weren't so intellectually impaired as to actually go play in traffic.

I have learned my lesson, however. When faced with such brazenly dishonest rhetorical tactics, I shall either exercise my power to ignore, or simply proceed to call out their illiberal attempt at silencing opposition for what it is and suggest something far, far worse than playing in traffic, to wit, that maybe they'd perhaps be in better, and like-minded company, at The Blaze or someplace of that ilk.

Now that I've got that off my chest, what say you? That's actually the important part. How do you feel and what do you think when faced with that kind of shaming and silencing behavior? Do you or do you not find that form of discourse to be illiberal?

Postscript: as I'm uncertain as to whether this post is of the permitted speech variety, I should note that once I'm done preaching to my cats I can just as readily cross-post to my own blog/soapbox where I might catch the odd one or two views, or maybe at the other blog, where, over time, I'm fairly certain hundreds will view and have an opportunity to reply.

With sincere best wishes to all. Fight the good fight.

September 26, 2013

Is James “The Liar” Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, on the way out?

Every once in a while, I like to check the Federal Register. This is a vice I should indulge more frequently, apparently. This evening I indulged, and discovered this:

Designation of Officers of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence To Act as Director of National Intelligence
A Presidential Document by the Executive Office of the President on 09/25/2013

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, as amended, 5 U.S.C. 3345 et seq. (the “Act”), it is hereby ordered that:

Section 1. Order of Succession. Subject to the provisions of sections 2 and 3 of this memorandum, and to the limitations set forth in the Act, the following officials of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in the order listed, shall act as and perform the functions and duties of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) during any period in which the DNI and the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence have died, resigned, or otherwise become unable to perform the functions and duties of the DNI:...

This couldn’t get much hotter off the press if it tried, and it strikes me as a very big deal, indeed. Surely someone in the media caught wind of this, right?

Not that I can find.

A variety of news searches using Google turned up nothing on today’s presidential memo on succession for the role of Director of National Intelligence. For that matter, nothing came up about the memo when I search my news sources and blog roll in InoReader (the tool I use now that Google’s Reader is caput). That, however, is not to say that there wasn’t anything relevant out there.

Marcy Wheeler’s emptywheel had this fresh, new content today:

Senate Intelligence Committee Open Hearings: A Platform for Liars

So DiFi’s [Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA] idea of an “open hearing” is to invite two established liars. And for her non-governmental witnesses, one keeps declaring Congress NAKED! in the face of evidence the government lies to them, and the other tells fanciful stories about how much data NSA shares.

It’s like DiFi goes out of her way to find liars and their apologists to testify publicly.

I love it. For that matter, Ms. Wheeler starts the piece off strong with:

Pentagon Papers era NYT Counsel James Goodale has a piece in the Guardian attracting a lot of attention. In it, he says the first step to reform NSA is to fire the liars.

Excellent. Ms. Wheeler might not have mentioned today’s succession memo, but perhaps Mr. Goodale did over at the Guardian?

To reform the NSA, fire officials who lie

This article is also from today, and it’s an excellent bit of reportage. Mr. Goodale ends it on this note:

Obviously, if this culture seeps into popular culture, lies and deceits will be easily tolerated – and we will all be the worse for it. President Obama should focus on this issue before it is too late. But it is not at all clear that he cares about it any more than Congress or the Justice Department do.

Interestingly, he also makes no mention of the memo hot off President Obama’s desk.

If this were a reshuffling of succession rules for just about any other agency, it would probably be among the dullest things ever. With James “The Liar” Clapper at the center of so much controversy, however, should we see this as just a bit of housekeeping minutiae? Or should we expect to see an announcement of Clapper’s resignation soon?

I hope so. Part of me will cheer. The dominant, cynical side of me will just wonder who will be signing Clapper’s checks next. My gut says he’ll still be an intelligence insider, just on a private contractor’s payroll.

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Cross-posted from my blog, Ars Skeptica, with apologies if there are any formatting snafus or if I've run afoul of content/category guidelines somehow.

September 8, 2013

Introduction time

Hello, there. I found DU relatively recently, but even more recently added it to my newsreader. Since then I've come to enjoy the quality of posts here. I'm looking forward to more engagement in the future, including the times I get schooled. Little galls me more than the taste of my own Kool-Aid, at least once I realize I've been drinking it.