It's interesting that they aren't being as forthright. It's almost as if they have little faith that either defense Mr Deco has put forth--"Nuh-uh, can't make me!" and, "Any Democratic nominee is a left-wing extremist!"--would play well with voters, who are all, apparently, aspiring DNC press flacks.
Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) are not holding the line. Last I saw, Ayotte and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) were saying they'd meet personally with Garland, but didn't support hearings. So it can't be that comfortable for them.
So far, I don't think I've seen any Republicans in the Senate make an argument that even approximates the one Art Deco is putting forth. All of them are making a silly process-based argument about election years.
C’mon, North, it’s not as if the Democratic caucus never bottled up a Republican nominee and it’s not as if Ted Kennedy and Howard Metzenbaum never orchestrated a campaign of defamation against a Republican nominee either.
You should have no difficulty naming a defenestree, then.
You mean by making it politically uncomfortable for Republican caucus in the Senate, who are so profoundly committed to the righteousness of their actual position that they won't even state it?
Obama needs the co-operation of the Senate to put his nominees on the court, which he’s not getting because Democratic presidents haven’t nominated anyone minimally decent since 1962.
If the Senate Republicans are so certain of this, why are they reluctant to hold hearings for Garland? Surely they should be slavering at the chance to rip such a transparently egregious hack to shreds, and re-emphasize to the American people just what kind of black-robed tyrants Democratic Presidents want to inflict on the American people. It's an election year after all!
But it’s not ‘their job’ to confirm his appointments.
No one has suggested otherwise.
They are free to, for example, hold hearings and then vote to disconfirm. That would do a good job of supporting their contention that they have discharged their Constitutional responsibility with regards to Garland, and Obama could send them a new nominee, and we could move on from there.
Or they could try selling the line that they can do whatever they want and because nobody can force them to do otherwise there's no room to criticize them for not doing their jobs. This is exactly the sort of argument that voters just love to hear from incumbent Senators, and I can't imagine why Mark Kirk and Jerry Moran are shying away from such a winning message.
Criminal court proceedings aren’t supposed to protect women or really anybody else. In the ideal common law case the sole star at the trial is the accused. The question is whether or not this person is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The assumption is that the accused is innocent and that it is better to let a guilty person go free than punish the accused. This is what criminal court proceedings are supposed to be about.
Sure.
But in that case, there hardly seems to be much room for outrage or even objection to Ms Hall's proposed course of action. People taking perfectly legal action to protect themselves from probable abusers, or even impose negative social consequences on them, can hardly be said to be acting unjustly simply because those probable abusers would be acquitted in a court of law.
We'll see. My understanding is that the, "They aren't doing their jobs!" line of attack has a history of being a reasonably effective among swingy constituencies, the Senate map for the GOP is already looking pretty ugly, and the counter-arguments just aren't that good.
Joe Biden[1] said something that maybe supports the GOP position 23 years ago. Yeah, OK, so?
[1] Biden, of course, is known far and wide for never making an ill-considered remark.
Not morally, no. I suspect it will turn out that they are politically obligated to do so, given the slow trickle of defections we're seeing from Republican Senators who are actually up for re-election.
Surely, though, if Garland is such a left-wing radical that it's imperative that he not be seated on the Court, it should be easy for the Republicans to demonstrate this in hearings, and justify rejecting him via an up-and-down vote.
You seem to be suggesting that, "Are people talking about this?" is a good way to measure a trend, but all my experience suggests that it's an absolutely terrible way to measure trend. It's also, well, extremely reminiscent of what people were saying in the '90s about discourse on college campuses, though I suppose some of the alleged pieties were different.
So we're supposed to worry that, three or four times a year, something on some campus will blow up in a way that supposedly narrows acceptable discourse to a tiny yet constantly shifting band because it upsets a few dozen students. We can tell that discourse has been narrowed because there will be a huge number of people explaining how ridiculous the students are being everywhere from Twitter to major newspapers.
I think you're lumping three very different things together.
Criticizing "political correctness" is so common that it falls just short of ubiquitous. I find such criticisms tend to be silly and annoying, with a strong tendency towards the self-refuting, but the people who have most annoyed me with them are nothing like white supremacists.
"Modern liberalism", sure, there's more overlap, but there still isn't a ton of signal there if you mean "modern liberalism" in the sense of broadly capitalist societies coupled with welfare states and liberal democratic forms of government.
Criticism of egalitarianism, though, seems to overlap a lot more heavily.
Maybe it's the President who's being oversensitive here, then?
Or, you know, maybe he's issuing a meaningless statement in order to avoid further annoying communications with a double-handful of kids freaking out over nothing much. This is something that college Presidents have been known to do as well.
Just under 8000 undergraduates attend Emory. This means we're talking about half a percent getting upset about "Trump 2016" being chalked on the sidewalk. This doesn't strike me as a dangerous epidemic of oversensitivity here.
Jaybird:
I am also saying that a very, very good way to not address these criticisms of modern liberalism, egalitarianism, and political correctness is to point out that some of these criticisms are shared by white supremacists and other very, very bad people. This turns the topic into white supremacists and the other very, very bad people rather than the criticisms.
But it's also a way (good or not) to limit the scope and reach of the white supremacists. For many people[1], maintaining strong norms against white supremacists, and maintaining strong norms against forming coalitions with white supremacists are both very important goals. On the other hand, the likelihood that white supremacists[2] have come up with worthwhile criticisms of modern society is very low.
So of course a lot of people are going to reply like that. Why shouldn't they?
[1] I.e., the ones who aren't white, or have friends and family members who aren't white, or belong to any of the other long list of targets of neo-Nazi wrath.
[2] That is, people in the grip of a completely corrupt ideology that prevents them from dealing reasonably with the most basic questions of fact.
If you don't care which they do, why say anything at all?
It seems kind of strange to want to make an argument, but stop short of wanting to make a convincing argument--especially when that more convincing argument is also more accurate.
I'm assuming that the goal is to convince people who don't see serious problems with liberalism and political correctness to treat those legitimate complaints as if they are, indeed, legitimate complaints.
Some of them, indeed, should endeavor to avoid tying these criticisms together.
Yeah, this is where I have a lot of problem with the line of argument that this is a "natural response" to liberals and PC police and the like pushing people around--that's precisely the same argument the white nationalists themselves make. It's not even plausible that it's true--white nationalists and their ideological forebears have been arguing that for, roughly, ever, and you can't explain a variable with a constant.
There may be good arguments out there. I think I can see a jumping off point from Damon's first comment that is at least worth considering. But this line of argument is really counterproductive if you want to avoid the smudging.
Easier to get smudgy and smudge the legitimate criticisms as being necessarily tied together with white nationalism and, therefore, being necessarily illegitimate in the first place.
OK, but isn't that tying something that people who want to advance the criticisms and advocate change to address them should endeavor to avoid?
This line of argument seems to be doing the opposite of that to me.
Damon:
You seem to be under the impression that their “wrong-ness” means they won’t be successful in recruiting more to their side.Right/wrong has nothing to do with it.
No, it means that their stated grievances are extremely unlikely to indicate anything about the sort of social changes that would effectively de-fang them. This means that making public policy changes to appease them solves no actual problem.
On “Morning Ed: Politics {2016.03.28.M}”
Given his reasoning, he wouldn't be worse off staying at home or flipping a coin.
On “Linky Friday #159: Dolphins & Killer Whales”
It's interesting that they aren't being as forthright. It's almost as if they have little faith that either defense Mr Deco has put forth--"Nuh-uh, can't make me!" and, "Any Democratic nominee is a left-wing extremist!"--would play well with voters, who are all, apparently, aspiring DNC press flacks.
"
Thanks for conceding the point with such grace.
"
Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) are not holding the line. Last I saw, Ayotte and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) were saying they'd meet personally with Garland, but didn't support hearings. So it can't be that comfortable for them.
So far, I don't think I've seen any Republicans in the Senate make an argument that even approximates the one Art Deco is putting forth. All of them are making a silly process-based argument about election years.
"
C’mon, North, it’s not as if the Democratic caucus never bottled up a Republican nominee and it’s not as if Ted Kennedy and Howard Metzenbaum never orchestrated a campaign of defamation against a Republican nominee either.
You should have no difficulty naming a defenestree, then.
"
Maybe because they’ve got other things to do with their time than hold pro-forma hearings for a man they have no intention of confirming.
It's obvious that nothing would appeal less to Republican Senators than an opportunity to sit at a big table and talk about how awful Obama is.
Some people are busy.
Uh huh. That must be it. They're too busy to hold hearings, and too busy to even come up with a justification that passes the giggle test.
"
Deal with it.
You mean by making it politically uncomfortable for Republican caucus in the Senate, who are so profoundly committed to the righteousness of their actual position that they won't even state it?
'Cause that sounds like a good plan!
"
Obama needs the co-operation of the Senate to put his nominees on the court, which he’s not getting because Democratic presidents haven’t nominated anyone minimally decent since 1962.
If the Senate Republicans are so certain of this, why are they reluctant to hold hearings for Garland? Surely they should be slavering at the chance to rip such a transparently egregious hack to shreds, and re-emphasize to the American people just what kind of black-robed tyrants Democratic Presidents want to inflict on the American people. It's an election year after all!
"
But it’s not ‘their job’ to confirm his appointments.
No one has suggested otherwise.
They are free to, for example, hold hearings and then vote to disconfirm. That would do a good job of supporting their contention that they have discharged their Constitutional responsibility with regards to Garland, and Obama could send them a new nominee, and we could move on from there.
Or they could try selling the line that they can do whatever they want and because nobody can force them to do otherwise there's no room to criticize them for not doing their jobs. This is exactly the sort of argument that voters just love to hear from incumbent Senators, and I can't imagine why Mark Kirk and Jerry Moran are shying away from such a winning message.
On “I’m done – Kira Hall speaks out on the context of sexual assault”
Criminal court proceedings aren’t supposed to protect women or really anybody else. In the ideal common law case the sole star at the trial is the accused. The question is whether or not this person is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The assumption is that the accused is innocent and that it is better to let a guilty person go free than punish the accused. This is what criminal court proceedings are supposed to be about.
Sure.
But in that case, there hardly seems to be much room for outrage or even objection to Ms Hall's proposed course of action. People taking perfectly legal action to protect themselves from probable abusers, or even impose negative social consequences on them, can hardly be said to be acting unjustly simply because those probable abusers would be acquitted in a court of law.
On “Linky Friday #159: Dolphins & Killer Whales”
We'll see. My understanding is that the, "They aren't doing their jobs!" line of attack has a history of being a reasonably effective among swingy constituencies, the Senate map for the GOP is already looking pretty ugly, and the counter-arguments just aren't that good.
Joe Biden[1] said something that maybe supports the GOP position 23 years ago. Yeah, OK, so?
[1] Biden, of course, is known far and wide for never making an ill-considered remark.
"
Not morally, no. I suspect it will turn out that they are politically obligated to do so, given the slow trickle of defections we're seeing from Republican Senators who are actually up for re-election.
Surely, though, if Garland is such a left-wing radical that it's imperative that he not be seated on the Court, it should be easy for the Republicans to demonstrate this in hearings, and justify rejecting him via an up-and-down vote.
On “Ordinary Times Wants You!”
Different online spaces serve different purposes. You don't have to condemn or eschew explicitly partisan fora to find value in non-partisan ones.
On “How Not To Strawman”
You seem to be suggesting that, "Are people talking about this?" is a good way to measure a trend, but all my experience suggests that it's an absolutely terrible way to measure trend. It's also, well, extremely reminiscent of what people were saying in the '90s about discourse on college campuses, though I suppose some of the alleged pieties were different.
"
So we're supposed to worry that, three or four times a year, something on some campus will blow up in a way that supposedly narrows acceptable discourse to a tiny yet constantly shifting band because it upsets a few dozen students. We can tell that discourse has been narrowed because there will be a huge number of people explaining how ridiculous the students are being everywhere from Twitter to major newspapers.
On “Challenges to the Alt-Right and Identitarians”
I think you're lumping three very different things together.
Criticizing "political correctness" is so common that it falls just short of ubiquitous. I find such criticisms tend to be silly and annoying, with a strong tendency towards the self-refuting, but the people who have most annoyed me with them are nothing like white supremacists.
"Modern liberalism", sure, there's more overlap, but there still isn't a ton of signal there if you mean "modern liberalism" in the sense of broadly capitalist societies coupled with welfare states and liberal democratic forms of government.
Criticism of egalitarianism, though, seems to overlap a lot more heavily.
On “How Not To Strawman”
Maybe it's the President who's being oversensitive here, then?
Or, you know, maybe he's issuing a meaningless statement in order to avoid further annoying communications with a double-handful of kids freaking out over nothing much. This is something that college Presidents have been known to do as well.
"
Just under 8000 undergraduates attend Emory. This means we're talking about half a percent getting upset about "Trump 2016" being chalked on the sidewalk. This doesn't strike me as a dangerous epidemic of oversensitivity here.
On “Challenges to the Alt-Right and Identitarians”
But it's also a way (good or not) to limit the scope and reach of the white supremacists. For many people[1], maintaining strong norms against white supremacists, and maintaining strong norms against forming coalitions with white supremacists are both very important goals. On the other hand, the likelihood that white supremacists[2] have come up with worthwhile criticisms of modern society is very low.
So of course a lot of people are going to reply like that. Why shouldn't they?
[1] I.e., the ones who aren't white, or have friends and family members who aren't white, or belong to any of the other long list of targets of neo-Nazi wrath.
[2] That is, people in the grip of a completely corrupt ideology that prevents them from dealing reasonably with the most basic questions of fact.
"
They either will or they won’t.
If you don't care which they do, why say anything at all?
It seems kind of strange to want to make an argument, but stop short of wanting to make a convincing argument--especially when that more convincing argument is also more accurate.
"
I'm assuming that the goal is to convince people who don't see serious problems with liberalism and political correctness to treat those legitimate complaints as if they are, indeed, legitimate complaints.
"
Some of them, indeed, should endeavor to avoid tying these criticisms together.
Yeah, this is where I have a lot of problem with the line of argument that this is a "natural response" to liberals and PC police and the like pushing people around--that's precisely the same argument the white nationalists themselves make. It's not even plausible that it's true--white nationalists and their ideological forebears have been arguing that for, roughly, ever, and you can't explain a variable with a constant.
There may be good arguments out there. I think I can see a jumping off point from Damon's first comment that is at least worth considering. But this line of argument is really counterproductive if you want to avoid the smudging.
"
Easier to get smudgy and smudge the legitimate criticisms as being necessarily tied together with white nationalism and, therefore, being necessarily illegitimate in the first place.
OK, but isn't that tying something that people who want to advance the criticisms and advocate change to address them should endeavor to avoid?
This line of argument seems to be doing the opposite of that to me.
"
No, it means that their stated grievances are extremely unlikely to indicate anything about the sort of social changes that would effectively de-fang them. This means that making public policy changes to appease them solves no actual problem.
"
So shouldn't people who agree that those criticisms are legitimate do everything possible to disassociate them from white nationalism?
If that's impossible, don't the people defending "modern liberalism, egalitarianism and political correctness" kind of have a point?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.