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On January 16 2018 15:43 Aquanim wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote: As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity.
Seems pretty straightforward. I don't think there is anything inherently inconsistent about supporting a minority candidate in one situation ( partially for the reason that they are a minority candidate) and not supporting a different minority candidate in another. Arguments for or against a candidate do not have to be absolutes. Do you disagree with these statements? People had other reasons why they believed Clinton was a better candidate than Sanders. People have other reasons to believe Cardin is a better candidate than Manning. It's entirely possible and probable that there are examples of influential Democrats treating Clinton's gender as an absolute reason to support her over Sanders. Since neither you, GreenHorizons nor the article author saw fit to provide any examples to consider I do not have anything more meaningful to say on that front at this point. Assuming such examples exist they would still not make my argument in the first paragraph invalid, they would merely demonstrate the unreasonability of some Democrats (on which point we probably do not disagree).
If you agree with the notion that it would be "unreasonable" for people to weaponize identity politics and be very disappointed in you for not voting for the minority candidate on their side while they're perfectly fine not voting for the minority candidate on your side when the situation is reversed, then you agree with 100% of Greenwald's message.
Edit: dog whistling would necessitate a crowd that agrees that it's better to vote for minorities as a rule. This article's core audience favored an old white man over a woman a year and a half ago. At some point you need your line of attack to be coherent.
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On January 16 2018 16:00 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 15:43 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote: As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity.
Seems pretty straightforward. I don't think there is anything inherently inconsistent about supporting a minority candidate in one situation ( partially for the reason that they are a minority candidate) and not supporting a different minority candidate in another. Arguments for or against a candidate do not have to be absolutes. Do you disagree with these statements? People had other reasons why they believed Clinton was a better candidate than Sanders. People have other reasons to believe Cardin is a better candidate than Manning. It's entirely possible and probable that there are examples of influential Democrats treating Clinton's gender as an absolute reason to support her over Sanders. Since neither you, GreenHorizons nor the article author saw fit to provide any examples to consider I do not have anything more meaningful to say on that front at this point. Assuming such examples exist they would still not make my argument in the first paragraph invalid, they would merely demonstrate the unreasonability of some Democrats (on which point we probably do not disagree). If you agree with the notion that it would be "unreasonable" for people to weaponize identity politics and be very disappointed in you for not voting for the minority candidate on their side while they're perfectly fine not voting for the minority candidate on your side when the situation is reversed, then you agree with 100% of Greenwald's message. Maybe that's what you thought his article says.
EDIT:
On January 16 2018 16:00 Nebuchad wrote: Edit: dog whistling would necessitate a crowd that agrees that it's better to vote for minorities as a rule. This article's core audience favored an old white man over a woman a year and a half ago. At some point you need your line of attack to be coherent. I don't think it would be hard to find Sanders supporters who would have resonance with the idea that "it's better to vote for minorities as a rule". (Although I'd have a hard time finding any who'd admit to it ITT in the context of the challenge having been laid down.)
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On January 16 2018 16:03 Aquanim wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 16:00 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 15:43 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote: As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity.
Seems pretty straightforward. I don't think there is anything inherently inconsistent about supporting a minority candidate in one situation ( partially for the reason that they are a minority candidate) and not supporting a different minority candidate in another. Arguments for or against a candidate do not have to be absolutes. Do you disagree with these statements? People had other reasons why they believed Clinton was a better candidate than Sanders. People have other reasons to believe Cardin is a better candidate than Manning. It's entirely possible and probable that there are examples of influential Democrats treating Clinton's gender as an absolute reason to support her over Sanders. Since neither you, GreenHorizons nor the article author saw fit to provide any examples to consider I do not have anything more meaningful to say on that front at this point. Assuming such examples exist they would still not make my argument in the first paragraph invalid, they would merely demonstrate the unreasonability of some Democrats (on which point we probably do not disagree). If you agree with the notion that it would be "unreasonable" for people to weaponize identity politics and be very disappointed in you for not voting for the minority candidate on their side while they're perfectly fine not voting for the minority candidate on your side when the situation is reversed, then you agree with 100% of Greenwald's message. Maybe that's what you thought his article says.
...Yeah duh of course it is. Luckily my belief here is based on Greenwald not quite making it a mystery what his article is about, so I feel fine with being a subjective viewpoint and I don't think it disqualifies me in this instance.
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On January 16 2018 16:06 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 16:03 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 16:00 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 15:43 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote: As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity.
Seems pretty straightforward. I don't think there is anything inherently inconsistent about supporting a minority candidate in one situation ( partially for the reason that they are a minority candidate) and not supporting a different minority candidate in another. Arguments for or against a candidate do not have to be absolutes. Do you disagree with these statements? People had other reasons why they believed Clinton was a better candidate than Sanders. People have other reasons to believe Cardin is a better candidate than Manning. It's entirely possible and probable that there are examples of influential Democrats treating Clinton's gender as an absolute reason to support her over Sanders. Since neither you, GreenHorizons nor the article author saw fit to provide any examples to consider I do not have anything more meaningful to say on that front at this point. Assuming such examples exist they would still not make my argument in the first paragraph invalid, they would merely demonstrate the unreasonability of some Democrats (on which point we probably do not disagree). If you agree with the notion that it would be "unreasonable" for people to weaponize identity politics and be very disappointed in you for not voting for the minority candidate on their side while they're perfectly fine not voting for the minority candidate on your side when the situation is reversed, then you agree with 100% of Greenwald's message. Maybe that's what you thought his article says. ...Yeah duh of course it is. Luckily my belief here is based on Greenwald not quite making it a mystery what his article is about, so I feel fine with being a subjective viewpoint and I don't think it disqualifies me in this instance. If I trusted Greenwald we wouldn't be having this conversation.
EDIT:
On January 16 2018 16:00 Nebuchad wrote: Edit: dog whistling would necessitate a crowd that agrees that it's better to vote for minorities as a rule. This article's core audience favored an old white man over a woman a year and a half ago. At some point you need your line of attack to be coherent. Also, I realised you baited me into an error here. Dog whistling doesn't necessitate an audience that agrees that it's better to vote for minorities as a rule. It necessitates an audience that resents the "old white guy" demographic. Do you claim that audience doesn't exist?
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On January 16 2018 16:08 Aquanim wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 16:06 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 16:03 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 16:00 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 15:43 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote: As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity.
Seems pretty straightforward. I don't think there is anything inherently inconsistent about supporting a minority candidate in one situation ( partially for the reason that they are a minority candidate) and not supporting a different minority candidate in another. Arguments for or against a candidate do not have to be absolutes. Do you disagree with these statements? People had other reasons why they believed Clinton was a better candidate than Sanders. People have other reasons to believe Cardin is a better candidate than Manning. It's entirely possible and probable that there are examples of influential Democrats treating Clinton's gender as an absolute reason to support her over Sanders. Since neither you, GreenHorizons nor the article author saw fit to provide any examples to consider I do not have anything more meaningful to say on that front at this point. Assuming such examples exist they would still not make my argument in the first paragraph invalid, they would merely demonstrate the unreasonability of some Democrats (on which point we probably do not disagree). If you agree with the notion that it would be "unreasonable" for people to weaponize identity politics and be very disappointed in you for not voting for the minority candidate on their side while they're perfectly fine not voting for the minority candidate on your side when the situation is reversed, then you agree with 100% of Greenwald's message. Maybe that's what you thought his article says. ...Yeah duh of course it is. Luckily my belief here is based on Greenwald not quite making it a mystery what his article is about, so I feel fine with being a subjective viewpoint and I don't think it disqualifies me in this instance. If I trusted Greenwald we wouldn't be having this conversation.
1) I don't believe you, earlier you quoted the article because you thought it said something else than it did, so I'm pretty sure it's more than mistrust that caused this conversation.
2) Your mistrust shouldn't lead you to believe that your opponent's actual position, behind the lies and/or embellishments, is incoherent.
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On January 16 2018 16:11 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 16:08 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 16:06 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 16:03 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 16:00 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 15:43 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote: As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity.
Seems pretty straightforward. I don't think there is anything inherently inconsistent about supporting a minority candidate in one situation ( partially for the reason that they are a minority candidate) and not supporting a different minority candidate in another. Arguments for or against a candidate do not have to be absolutes. Do you disagree with these statements? People had other reasons why they believed Clinton was a better candidate than Sanders. People have other reasons to believe Cardin is a better candidate than Manning. It's entirely possible and probable that there are examples of influential Democrats treating Clinton's gender as an absolute reason to support her over Sanders. Since neither you, GreenHorizons nor the article author saw fit to provide any examples to consider I do not have anything more meaningful to say on that front at this point. Assuming such examples exist they would still not make my argument in the first paragraph invalid, they would merely demonstrate the unreasonability of some Democrats (on which point we probably do not disagree). If you agree with the notion that it would be "unreasonable" for people to weaponize identity politics and be very disappointed in you for not voting for the minority candidate on their side while they're perfectly fine not voting for the minority candidate on your side when the situation is reversed, then you agree with 100% of Greenwald's message. Maybe that's what you thought his article says. ...Yeah duh of course it is. Luckily my belief here is based on Greenwald not quite making it a mystery what his article is about, so I feel fine with being a subjective viewpoint and I don't think it disqualifies me in this instance. If I trusted Greenwald we wouldn't be having this conversation. 1) I don't believe you, earlier you quoted the article because you thought it said something else than it did, so I'm pretty sure it's more than mistrust that caused this conversation. You've yet to demonstrate that I thought it said something other than it did. You've put forward the opinion that you think it means something different to what I do.
2) Your mistrust shouldn't lead you to believe that your opponent's actual position, behind the lies and/or embellishments, is incoherent. I don't believe his actual position is necessarily incoherent - but I do believe he will spin his summary of his position to be favourable to him.
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On January 16 2018 16:13 Aquanim wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 16:11 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 16:08 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 16:06 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 16:03 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 16:00 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 15:43 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote: As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity.
Seems pretty straightforward. I don't think there is anything inherently inconsistent about supporting a minority candidate in one situation ( partially for the reason that they are a minority candidate) and not supporting a different minority candidate in another. Arguments for or against a candidate do not have to be absolutes. Do you disagree with these statements? People had other reasons why they believed Clinton was a better candidate than Sanders. People have other reasons to believe Cardin is a better candidate than Manning. It's entirely possible and probable that there are examples of influential Democrats treating Clinton's gender as an absolute reason to support her over Sanders. Since neither you, GreenHorizons nor the article author saw fit to provide any examples to consider I do not have anything more meaningful to say on that front at this point. Assuming such examples exist they would still not make my argument in the first paragraph invalid, they would merely demonstrate the unreasonability of some Democrats (on which point we probably do not disagree). If you agree with the notion that it would be "unreasonable" for people to weaponize identity politics and be very disappointed in you for not voting for the minority candidate on their side while they're perfectly fine not voting for the minority candidate on your side when the situation is reversed, then you agree with 100% of Greenwald's message. Maybe that's what you thought his article says. ...Yeah duh of course it is. Luckily my belief here is based on Greenwald not quite making it a mystery what his article is about, so I feel fine with being a subjective viewpoint and I don't think it disqualifies me in this instance. If I trusted Greenwald we wouldn't be having this conversation. 1) I don't believe you, earlier you quoted the article because you thought it said something else than it did, so I'm pretty sure it's more than mistrust that caused this conversation. You've yet to demonstrate that I thought it said something other than it did. You've put forward the opinion that you think it means something different. Show nested quote +2) Your mistrust shouldn't lead you to believe that your opponent's actual position, behind the lies and/or embellishments, is incoherent. I don't believe his actual position is necessarily incoherent - but I do believe he will spin his summary of his position to be favourable to him.
I've yet to demonstrate that? Your initial line of attack was that the article was saying minority candidates are preferable in a vacuum to old white men, and you were arguing correctly against this idea. Faced with the realization that the article isn't saying that minority candidates are preferable to old white men, but is instead attacking the people who would weaponize identity politics and make that exact argument when the minority candidates are on their political side, you now say that Greenwald is dogwhistling and that you don't trust that what he writes is the same as what he believes. Those two positions aren't consistent with each other.
Edit: also, to be clear, the position that minorities are by default better than old white men is necessarily incoherent. It would lead you to vote for Mia Love over a democrat. It doesn't make sense.
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On January 16 2018 16:19 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 16:13 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 16:11 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 16:08 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 16:06 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 16:03 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 16:00 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 15:43 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote: As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity.
Seems pretty straightforward. I don't think there is anything inherently inconsistent about supporting a minority candidate in one situation ( partially for the reason that they are a minority candidate) and not supporting a different minority candidate in another. Arguments for or against a candidate do not have to be absolutes. Do you disagree with these statements? People had other reasons why they believed Clinton was a better candidate than Sanders. People have other reasons to believe Cardin is a better candidate than Manning. It's entirely possible and probable that there are examples of influential Democrats treating Clinton's gender as an absolute reason to support her over Sanders. Since neither you, GreenHorizons nor the article author saw fit to provide any examples to consider I do not have anything more meaningful to say on that front at this point. Assuming such examples exist they would still not make my argument in the first paragraph invalid, they would merely demonstrate the unreasonability of some Democrats (on which point we probably do not disagree). If you agree with the notion that it would be "unreasonable" for people to weaponize identity politics and be very disappointed in you for not voting for the minority candidate on their side while they're perfectly fine not voting for the minority candidate on your side when the situation is reversed, then you agree with 100% of Greenwald's message. Maybe that's what you thought his article says. ...Yeah duh of course it is. Luckily my belief here is based on Greenwald not quite making it a mystery what his article is about, so I feel fine with being a subjective viewpoint and I don't think it disqualifies me in this instance. If I trusted Greenwald we wouldn't be having this conversation. 1) I don't believe you, earlier you quoted the article because you thought it said something else than it did, so I'm pretty sure it's more than mistrust that caused this conversation. You've yet to demonstrate that I thought it said something other than it did. You've put forward the opinion that you think it means something different. 2) Your mistrust shouldn't lead you to believe that your opponent's actual position, behind the lies and/or embellishments, is incoherent. I don't believe his actual position is necessarily incoherent - but I do believe he will spin his summary of his position to be favourable to him. I've yet to demonstrate that? Your initial line of attack was that the article was saying minority candidates are preferable in a vacuum to old white men, and you were arguing correctly against this idea. Faced with the realization that the article isn't saying that minority candidates are preferable to old white men, but is instead attacking the people who would weaponize identity politics and make that exact argument when the minority candidates are on their political side, you now say that Greenwald is dogwhistling and that you don't trust that what he writes is the same as what he believes. Those two positions aren't consistent with each other. Maybe if I agreed with your supposed "realization" you would have a point. I don't. So you don't.
EDIT: To be clear, I agree that Democrats being hypocrites or however you choose to put it is part of the point of his article.
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On January 16 2018 16:25 Aquanim wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 16:19 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 16:13 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 16:11 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 16:08 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 16:06 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 16:03 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 16:00 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 15:43 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote: As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity.
Seems pretty straightforward. I don't think there is anything inherently inconsistent about supporting a minority candidate in one situation ( partially for the reason that they are a minority candidate) and not supporting a different minority candidate in another. Arguments for or against a candidate do not have to be absolutes. Do you disagree with these statements? People had other reasons why they believed Clinton was a better candidate than Sanders. People have other reasons to believe Cardin is a better candidate than Manning. It's entirely possible and probable that there are examples of influential Democrats treating Clinton's gender as an absolute reason to support her over Sanders. Since neither you, GreenHorizons nor the article author saw fit to provide any examples to consider I do not have anything more meaningful to say on that front at this point. Assuming such examples exist they would still not make my argument in the first paragraph invalid, they would merely demonstrate the unreasonability of some Democrats (on which point we probably do not disagree). If you agree with the notion that it would be "unreasonable" for people to weaponize identity politics and be very disappointed in you for not voting for the minority candidate on their side while they're perfectly fine not voting for the minority candidate on your side when the situation is reversed, then you agree with 100% of Greenwald's message. Maybe that's what you thought his article says. ...Yeah duh of course it is. Luckily my belief here is based on Greenwald not quite making it a mystery what his article is about, so I feel fine with being a subjective viewpoint and I don't think it disqualifies me in this instance. If I trusted Greenwald we wouldn't be having this conversation. 1) I don't believe you, earlier you quoted the article because you thought it said something else than it did, so I'm pretty sure it's more than mistrust that caused this conversation. You've yet to demonstrate that I thought it said something other than it did. You've put forward the opinion that you think it means something different. 2) Your mistrust shouldn't lead you to believe that your opponent's actual position, behind the lies and/or embellishments, is incoherent. I don't believe his actual position is necessarily incoherent - but I do believe he will spin his summary of his position to be favourable to him. I've yet to demonstrate that? Your initial line of attack was that the article was saying minority candidates are preferable in a vacuum to old white men, and you were arguing correctly against this idea. Faced with the realization that the article isn't saying that minority candidates are preferable to old white men, but is instead attacking the people who would weaponize identity politics and make that exact argument when the minority candidates are on their political side, you now say that Greenwald is dogwhistling and that you don't trust that what he writes is the same as what he believes. Those two positions aren't consistent with each other. Maybe if I agreed with your supposed "realization" you would have a point. I don't. So you don't.
That is impossible. You can't both dogwhistle something and clearly assert it at the same time.
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On January 16 2018 16:26 Nebuchad wrote:... That is impossible. You can't both dogwhistle something and clearly assert it at the same time. He's asserting that Manning is entitled to a Senate nomination on account of being a minority running against an old white dude (and the nebulous "historic value" and "important... progress" apparently implied by that), and dog whistling on the topic of old white dudes to convince people to agree with him. You can both dogwhistle something and assert something else.
edit: and so we don't run off into the bushes again, I'm not saying the above assertion is the only thing being said in the article.
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On January 16 2018 16:32 Aquanim wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 16:26 Nebuchad wrote:... That is impossible. You can't both dogwhistle something and clearly assert it at the same time. He's asserting that Manning is entitled to a Senate nomination on account of being a minority running against an old white dude (and the nebulous "historic value" and "important... progress" apparently implied by that)
No, he isn't. He's saying that if we follow the logic that the people he's attacking have been promoting in the past, for example in the context of Bernie vs Hillary, then she would be. Which is entirely true: if it's true that minorities are preferable to old white people, then she's entitled to that seat. Luckily you, me and Greenwald all agree that this line of thinking is not good, since we all agree that weaponizing identity politics is a pretty bad idea.
"the actual point of this article, which is the extremely inconsistent, self-serving way that centrist Democrats use identity politics: they give themselves license to support old straight white men at the expense of pioneering minority candidates when doing so advances their ideological agenda, whereas leftists who do so are vilified for doing the same thing (see the rhetoric from Clinton supporters in the 2016 Democratic Party primary about the misogynistic, malignant motives of Sanders supporters for how that works)."
On January 16 2018 16:32 Aquanim wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 16:26 Nebuchad wrote:... That is impossible. You can't both dogwhistle something and clearly assert it at the same time. He's asserting that Manning is entitled to a Senate nomination on account of being a minority running against an old white dude (and the nebulous "historic value" and "important... progress" apparently implied by that), and dog whistling on the topic of old white dudes to convince people to agree with him. You can both dogwhistle something and assert something else.
But that isn't "something else". That is the same idea.
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I'm less convinced than you that Greenwald actually means that "weaponizing identity politics is a pretty bad idea", as opposed to him thinking it's bad when his political opponents do it, but if you and I agree on the material issue (as opposed to unravelling the article) then I don't think there's much point in dissecting this further.
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On January 16 2018 15:37 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 15:10 mozoku wrote:On January 16 2018 13:58 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 13:51 mozoku wrote:On January 16 2018 13:33 IgnE wrote:On January 16 2018 12:55 ticklishmusic wrote: I'm not really clear on why Chelsea Manning is qualified in any way for a senate seat.
Also, I'd recommend looking at Ben Cardin's resume and voting record before dismissing him as just some old white dude. Other than being at least 30 years of age what makes one "qualified" for a senate seat? Are we not a country of citizen-legislators? Phrased in another way, I think we'd be much worse off in the direct democracy that seems to be the gold standard modern peoples aspire to. No, you'd be better off. It's true that you need a more educated population for it to work, but working to educate your population - or having incentive to have a more educated population - isn't actually a bad thing in the abstract. Knowledge is sexy. It isn't a matter of education. Even assuming someone is adequately educated and possesses enough technical knowledge to assess policy on their own (which arguably will never happen), it's impossible for a working person--or even a non-working person--to study all of the pertinent issues and come to a conclusion on them. Time is finite. Worse still, good leadership requires wisdom, a sense of fairness, and a degree of selflessness. In my experience, education isn't a reliable producer of any of those characteristics. Which is, by no means, a shot at education. Nothing else really develops those characteristics either. They just happen to be rare. I'm willing to acknowledge that such characteristics are relatively rare in the human population (maybe 1-2%), and probably always will be. I'm of the opinion that humans and human nature has changed little in the last several thousand years, and I see no reason to believe that we'll suddenly have an population-scale abundance (i.e. most people) of quality leaders in the foreseeable future. Given such characteristics are rare, the best way of governance is to elevate the people with such characteristics and insulate them, to an extent, from having their agency removed by the persistent specter of a 2- or 4- year election cycle decided nearly entirely by the very people unfit to rule/lead in the first place. The American republic used to approximate this model much better than it does in the present day, and I assert (and this is by no means the first time I've made this argument here) that this is probably a strong contributor to the mess that our politics is in today. I'm not arguing for the Chinese model where the rulers have effectively no accountability outside of violent uprisings--I certainly think the US government is much better for its people than China's is for its. But I think there's somewhere in between where accountability from rulers/government can be obtained without enabling the tyranny of the (mostly ignorant and selfish) masses. It is a matter of education. It isn't in the scenario that you describe here, but that's because the scenario that you describe here is overly demanding. We don't need this perfect level of study for that sort of system to work, we need a much more basic level of understanding. We also don't need to never make mistakes. I mean, it's not like there's this system where the ruler is perfectly educated on everything and never makes policy mistakes that we could turn to instead. If we remove those unrealistic goals, then a sufficiently educated population is enough to make the system largely preferable to alternatives. At least the mistakes in this system are our own, and they've been made honestly. The problem of choosing a system of government is a relative one; saying that one "works" (even assuming it does) says nothing about whether it's one society should choose for itself.
Direct democracy and governmental systems where leaders are effectively slaves of the popular whims (i.e. not that far from a direct democracy) will always be limited by the unfitness of the common man to make policy decisions. I have little doubt that, in a country of ~350M, there are ~500-600 citizens (roughly the number of elected leaders serving at the federal level) who are reasonable approximations of philosopher-kings that would willingly work together in the best interest of their country. On the other hand, I have serious doubts that there are, or ever will be, ~235M of them (roughly the count of the US voting age population). Given that, it's immediately obvious that an optimally structured republic should outperform an optimally structured direct democracy.
The issue thus becomes: what institutional barriers are keeping these philosopher-kings from becoming the country's leaders, and what factors might cause them to act against the nation's interest once they were in a policymaking position? Also, how do we handle the issue of accountability of the philosopher-kings once we insulate them from electoral pressures?
The obvious answer to the first two questions, in current Western governments, is the electoral system. Voters are mostly low-information, selfish, ignorant, and short-sighted. You assert that education will somehow fix this but, despite living in one of the most educated societies in the most educated time period in human history, I'm still making the unequivocal observation that the previous sentence holds true. I see no reason for that to change in the foreseeable future. While no system would be perfect for determining the most able rulers, I see no reason why a direct, equally-weighted vote of mostly ignorant people in an election would be the best method for finding and appointing government executives and legislators. There is infinite room for creativity here.
Part of the issue is that Western education systems indoctrinate youth with the idea that democracy and maximum citizen participation is essentially sacred. There's understandable utility in this because maximizing citizen representation is certainly better than nearly everything else tried so far and helps guard against would-be dictators/despots, but it produces this ironclad yet fairly unjustifiable notion that direct democracy (and its maximum representation siblings) is somehow the zenith of all potential government systems. We only really got rid of monarchies and emperors within the last 200-300 years, and government is probably the institution with slowest turnover of all societal institutions. Furthermore, the "experiments" in governmental systems are largely (and understandably) based on what has worked for others--meaning that not only are there relatively few data points, the data points that are available also have low dissimilarity. We haven't explored that many of the potential options yet. It's seems, contrary to the standard dogma, that it's quite unlikely that current forms of government are actually the most effective ones that humans will come up with assuming our species lives on for another several hundred or several thousand years.
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On January 16 2018 17:25 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 15:37 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 15:10 mozoku wrote:On January 16 2018 13:58 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 13:51 mozoku wrote:On January 16 2018 13:33 IgnE wrote:On January 16 2018 12:55 ticklishmusic wrote: I'm not really clear on why Chelsea Manning is qualified in any way for a senate seat.
Also, I'd recommend looking at Ben Cardin's resume and voting record before dismissing him as just some old white dude. Other than being at least 30 years of age what makes one "qualified" for a senate seat? Are we not a country of citizen-legislators? Phrased in another way, I think we'd be much worse off in the direct democracy that seems to be the gold standard modern peoples aspire to. No, you'd be better off. It's true that you need a more educated population for it to work, but working to educate your population - or having incentive to have a more educated population - isn't actually a bad thing in the abstract. Knowledge is sexy. It isn't a matter of education. Even assuming someone is adequately educated and possesses enough technical knowledge to assess policy on their own (which arguably will never happen), it's impossible for a working person--or even a non-working person--to study all of the pertinent issues and come to a conclusion on them. Time is finite. Worse still, good leadership requires wisdom, a sense of fairness, and a degree of selflessness. In my experience, education isn't a reliable producer of any of those characteristics. Which is, by no means, a shot at education. Nothing else really develops those characteristics either. They just happen to be rare. I'm willing to acknowledge that such characteristics are relatively rare in the human population (maybe 1-2%), and probably always will be. I'm of the opinion that humans and human nature has changed little in the last several thousand years, and I see no reason to believe that we'll suddenly have an population-scale abundance (i.e. most people) of quality leaders in the foreseeable future. Given such characteristics are rare, the best way of governance is to elevate the people with such characteristics and insulate them, to an extent, from having their agency removed by the persistent specter of a 2- or 4- year election cycle decided nearly entirely by the very people unfit to rule/lead in the first place. The American republic used to approximate this model much better than it does in the present day, and I assert (and this is by no means the first time I've made this argument here) that this is probably a strong contributor to the mess that our politics is in today. I'm not arguing for the Chinese model where the rulers have effectively no accountability outside of violent uprisings--I certainly think the US government is much better for its people than China's is for its. But I think there's somewhere in between where accountability from rulers/government can be obtained without enabling the tyranny of the (mostly ignorant and selfish) masses. It is a matter of education. It isn't in the scenario that you describe here, but that's because the scenario that you describe here is overly demanding. We don't need this perfect level of study for that sort of system to work, we need a much more basic level of understanding. We also don't need to never make mistakes. I mean, it's not like there's this system where the ruler is perfectly educated on everything and never makes policy mistakes that we could turn to instead. If we remove those unrealistic goals, then a sufficiently educated population is enough to make the system largely preferable to alternatives. At least the mistakes in this system are our own, and they've been made honestly. The problem of choosing a system of government is a relative one; saying that one "works" (even assuming it does) says nothing about whether it's one society should choose for itself. Direct democracy and governmental systems where leaders are effectively slaves of the popular whims (i.e. not that far from a direct democracy) will always be limited by the unfitness of the common man to make policy decisions. I have little doubt that, in a country of ~350M, there are ~500-600 citizens (roughly the number of elected leaders serving at the federal level) who are reasonable approximations of philosopher-kings that would willingly work together in the best interest of their country. On the other hand, I have serious doubts that there are, or ever will be, ~235M of them (roughly the count of the US voting age population). Given that, it's immediately obvious that an optimally structured republic should outperform an optimally structured direct democracy. The issue thus becomes: what institutional barriers are keeping these philosopher-kings from becoming the country's leaders, and what factors might cause them to act against the nation's interest once they were in a policymaking position? Also, how do we handle the issue of accountability of the philosopher-kings once we insulate them from electoral pressures? The obvious answer to the first two questions, in current Western governments, is the electoral system. Voters are mostly low-information, selfish, ignorant, and short-sighted. You assert that education will somehow fix this but, despite living in one of the most educated societies in the most educated time period in human history, I'm still making the unequivocal observation that the previous sentence holds true. I see no reason for that to change in the foreseeable future. While no system would be perfect for determining the most able rulers, I see no reason why a direct, equally-weighted vote of mostly ignorant people in an election would be the best method for finding and appointing government executives and legislators. There is infinite room for creativity here. Part of the issue is that Western education systems indoctrinate youth with the idea that democracy and maximum citizen participation is essentially sacred. There's understandable utility in this because maximizing citizen representation is certainly better than nearly everything else tried so far and helps guard against would-be dictators/despots, but it produces this ironclad yet fairly unjustifiable notion that direct democracy (and its maximum representation siblings) is somehow the zenith of all potential government systems. We only really got rid of monarchies and emperors within the last 200-300 years, and government is probably the institution with slowest turnover of all societal institutions. Furthermore, the "experiments" in governmental systems are largely (and understandably) based on what has worked for others--meaning that not only are there relatively few data points, the data points that are available also have low dissimilarity. We haven't explored that many of the potential options yet. It's seems, contrary to the standard dogma, that it's quite unlikely that current forms of government are actually the most effective ones that humans will come up with assuming our species lives on for another several hundred or several thousand years.
I don't really know how to answer this post, if there's a direction that you'd like me to go in please point me toward it. Democracy's pretty hip though, and the more direct it gets the better it is: I guess my education has done its job and convinced me that having some influence on the people who rule me is better than having no influence on the people who rule me, I did receive that conditioning. Even though Switzerland isn't a direct democracy, we're closer to it than most others are, and I certainly appreciate that my politicians have to sell me on most of the shit they're doing before they get to do it. Certainly helps with a lot, especially when I look at what happens in some other places like, say, the US.
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On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 13:59 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 13:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 16 2018 13:45 Aquanim wrote:In the meantime, do you intend to address this? On January 16 2018 13:35 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 13:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 16 2018 13:28 Plansix wrote: No, we got it. We just think it’s a really bad article. It might as well be an opinion peice, but tries to pass itself off as news. So you realize he doesn't think she should get the job because of her identity and Cardin shouldn't be replaced because of his, because I'm reading you guys as taking it as the complete opposite? I'm interested to see how you interpret this passage then: They’ve decided to do this presumably because they find Cardin’s centrist ideology and politics more appealing than Manning’s more radical politics, and believe that this trumps what could be the historic value of Manning’s candidacy. They’ve apparently decided to prioritize their own centrist ideology over the important gender, sexual orientation and trans equality progress that Manning’s victory would ensure. given that in the rest of the piece he has clearly set himself up as opposed to the establishment Democrats, and how much of an issue he makes of Cardin's "privilege". I tried the actual point of this article, which is the extremely inconsistent, self-serving way that centrist Democrats use identity politics If she was a neolib running for Bernie Sanders seat you'd see basically what he laid out on Cardin from the centrists. What consistent policy on identity politics do you think the centrist Democrats should adopt instead of whatever they're doing now? What don't you understand? The criticism of the article isn't that Cardin is a white male, the criticism is the weaponization of identity politics. As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity. Seems pretty straightforward. This would be a great point if the young trans woman in question wasn't also convicted of actual treason. Now whether or not you or I believe her act of whistleblowing was actually treasonous, the US court system found it to be, and it's not beyond belief that a large part of the US population, including the director of a Democratic think tank in Washington, believe she is treasonous scum (or in other words, a Russian stooge).
Jumping from "there is criticism on Chelsea Manning" to "there is criticism on her because she is a young transgender woman" is quite the bizarre leap.
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On January 16 2018 18:21 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 13:59 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 13:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 16 2018 13:45 Aquanim wrote:In the meantime, do you intend to address this? On January 16 2018 13:35 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 13:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 16 2018 13:28 Plansix wrote: No, we got it. We just think it’s a really bad article. It might as well be an opinion peice, but tries to pass itself off as news. So you realize he doesn't think she should get the job because of her identity and Cardin shouldn't be replaced because of his, because I'm reading you guys as taking it as the complete opposite? I'm interested to see how you interpret this passage then: They’ve decided to do this presumably because they find Cardin’s centrist ideology and politics more appealing than Manning’s more radical politics, and believe that this trumps what could be the historic value of Manning’s candidacy. They’ve apparently decided to prioritize their own centrist ideology over the important gender, sexual orientation and trans equality progress that Manning’s victory would ensure. given that in the rest of the piece he has clearly set himself up as opposed to the establishment Democrats, and how much of an issue he makes of Cardin's "privilege". I tried the actual point of this article, which is the extremely inconsistent, self-serving way that centrist Democrats use identity politics If she was a neolib running for Bernie Sanders seat you'd see basically what he laid out on Cardin from the centrists. What consistent policy on identity politics do you think the centrist Democrats should adopt instead of whatever they're doing now? What don't you understand? The criticism of the article isn't that Cardin is a white male, the criticism is the weaponization of identity politics. As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity. Seems pretty straightforward. This would be a great point if the young trans woman in question wasn't also convicted of actual treason. Now whether or not you or I believe her act of whistleblowing was actually treasonous, the US court system found it to be, and it's not beyond belief that a large part of the US population, including the director of a Democratic think tank in Washington, believe she is treasonous scum (or in other words, a Russian stooge). Jumping from "there is criticism on Chelsea Manning" to "there is criticism on her because she is a young transgender woman" is quite the bizarre leap.
It's genuinely weird to see people read stuff that's written by people on their left sometimes.
But yeah, for the record, you're right, that would be quite the bizarre leap. You could even go a little further and say that it would be "mindnumbingly stupid", I'd be inclined to agree.
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On January 16 2018 18:32 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 18:21 Acrofales wrote:On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 13:59 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 13:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 16 2018 13:45 Aquanim wrote:In the meantime, do you intend to address this? On January 16 2018 13:35 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 13:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 16 2018 13:28 Plansix wrote: No, we got it. We just think it’s a really bad article. It might as well be an opinion peice, but tries to pass itself off as news. So you realize he doesn't think she should get the job because of her identity and Cardin shouldn't be replaced because of his, because I'm reading you guys as taking it as the complete opposite? I'm interested to see how you interpret this passage then: They’ve decided to do this presumably because they find Cardin’s centrist ideology and politics more appealing than Manning’s more radical politics, and believe that this trumps what could be the historic value of Manning’s candidacy. They’ve apparently decided to prioritize their own centrist ideology over the important gender, sexual orientation and trans equality progress that Manning’s victory would ensure. given that in the rest of the piece he has clearly set himself up as opposed to the establishment Democrats, and how much of an issue he makes of Cardin's "privilege". I tried the actual point of this article, which is the extremely inconsistent, self-serving way that centrist Democrats use identity politics If she was a neolib running for Bernie Sanders seat you'd see basically what he laid out on Cardin from the centrists. What consistent policy on identity politics do you think the centrist Democrats should adopt instead of whatever they're doing now? What don't you understand? The criticism of the article isn't that Cardin is a white male, the criticism is the weaponization of identity politics. As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity. Seems pretty straightforward. This would be a great point if the young trans woman in question wasn't also convicted of actual treason. Now whether or not you or I believe her act of whistleblowing was actually treasonous, the US court system found it to be, and it's not beyond belief that a large part of the US population, including the director of a Democratic think tank in Washington, believe she is treasonous scum (or in other words, a Russian stooge). Jumping from "there is criticism on Chelsea Manning" to "there is criticism on her because she is a young transgender woman" is quite the bizarre leap. It's genuinely weird to see people read stuff that's written by people on their left sometimes. But yeah, for the record, you're right, that would be quite the bizarre leap. You could even go a little further and say that it would be "mindnumbingly stupid", I'd be inclined to agree.
Yet the article dismisses any and all policy issues and goes right to the "they support Cardin because he's an old white man (and Israel)", and completely ignore the very real reasons why anybody might not want Chelsea Manning anywhere near DC, despite her being a young transgender woman. In fact, the article goes to great lengths to avoid that issue.
If I were the Democratic Party I would be very wary of being associated with Chelsea Manning. There are better transgender heroes to champion the gender equality cause than one who a large part of the country mistrusts for reasons that have nothing to do with the one issue she is championing.
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On January 16 2018 18:32 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 18:21 Acrofales wrote:On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 13:59 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 13:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 16 2018 13:45 Aquanim wrote:In the meantime, do you intend to address this? On January 16 2018 13:35 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 13:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 16 2018 13:28 Plansix wrote: No, we got it. We just think it’s a really bad article. It might as well be an opinion peice, but tries to pass itself off as news. So you realize he doesn't think she should get the job because of her identity and Cardin shouldn't be replaced because of his, because I'm reading you guys as taking it as the complete opposite? I'm interested to see how you interpret this passage then: They’ve decided to do this presumably because they find Cardin’s centrist ideology and politics more appealing than Manning’s more radical politics, and believe that this trumps what could be the historic value of Manning’s candidacy. They’ve apparently decided to prioritize their own centrist ideology over the important gender, sexual orientation and trans equality progress that Manning’s victory would ensure. given that in the rest of the piece he has clearly set himself up as opposed to the establishment Democrats, and how much of an issue he makes of Cardin's "privilege". I tried the actual point of this article, which is the extremely inconsistent, self-serving way that centrist Democrats use identity politics If she was a neolib running for Bernie Sanders seat you'd see basically what he laid out on Cardin from the centrists. What consistent policy on identity politics do you think the centrist Democrats should adopt instead of whatever they're doing now? What don't you understand? The criticism of the article isn't that Cardin is a white male, the criticism is the weaponization of identity politics. As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity. Seems pretty straightforward. This would be a great point if the young trans woman in question wasn't also convicted of actual treason. Now whether or not you or I believe her act of whistleblowing was actually treasonous, the US court system found it to be, and it's not beyond belief that a large part of the US population, including the director of a Democratic think tank in Washington, believe she is treasonous scum (or in other words, a Russian stooge). Jumping from "there is criticism on Chelsea Manning" to "there is criticism on her because she is a young transgender woman" is quite the bizarre leap. It's genuinely weird to see people read stuff that's written by people on their left sometimes. But yeah, for the record, you're right, that would be quite the bizarre leap. You could even go a little further and say that it would be "mindnumbingly stupid", I'd be inclined to agree.
It's kinda blowing my mind to be honest.
I don't even know how to approach it at this point. It's kinda like when conservatives thought Colbert was real and not satire.
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On January 16 2018 18:49 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 18:32 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 18:21 Acrofales wrote:On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 13:59 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 13:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 16 2018 13:45 Aquanim wrote:In the meantime, do you intend to address this? On January 16 2018 13:35 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 13:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 16 2018 13:28 Plansix wrote: No, we got it. We just think it’s a really bad article. It might as well be an opinion peice, but tries to pass itself off as news. So you realize he doesn't think she should get the job because of her identity and Cardin shouldn't be replaced because of his, because I'm reading you guys as taking it as the complete opposite? I'm interested to see how you interpret this passage then: They’ve decided to do this presumably because they find Cardin’s centrist ideology and politics more appealing than Manning’s more radical politics, and believe that this trumps what could be the historic value of Manning’s candidacy. They’ve apparently decided to prioritize their own centrist ideology over the important gender, sexual orientation and trans equality progress that Manning’s victory would ensure. given that in the rest of the piece he has clearly set himself up as opposed to the establishment Democrats, and how much of an issue he makes of Cardin's "privilege". I tried the actual point of this article, which is the extremely inconsistent, self-serving way that centrist Democrats use identity politics If she was a neolib running for Bernie Sanders seat you'd see basically what he laid out on Cardin from the centrists. What consistent policy on identity politics do you think the centrist Democrats should adopt instead of whatever they're doing now? What don't you understand? The criticism of the article isn't that Cardin is a white male, the criticism is the weaponization of identity politics. As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity. Seems pretty straightforward. This would be a great point if the young trans woman in question wasn't also convicted of actual treason. Now whether or not you or I believe her act of whistleblowing was actually treasonous, the US court system found it to be, and it's not beyond belief that a large part of the US population, including the director of a Democratic think tank in Washington, believe she is treasonous scum (or in other words, a Russian stooge). Jumping from "there is criticism on Chelsea Manning" to "there is criticism on her because she is a young transgender woman" is quite the bizarre leap. It's genuinely weird to see people read stuff that's written by people on their left sometimes. But yeah, for the record, you're right, that would be quite the bizarre leap. You could even go a little further and say that it would be "mindnumbingly stupid", I'd be inclined to agree. Yet the article dismisses any and all policy issues and goes right to the "they support Cardin because he's an old white man (and Israel)", and completely ignore the very real reasons why anybody might not want Chelsea Manning anywhere near DC, despite her being a young transgender woman. In fact, the article goes to great lengths to avoid that issue. If I were the Democratic Party I would be very wary of being associated with Chelsea Manning. There are better transgender heroes to champion the gender equality cause than one who a large part of the country mistrusts for reasons that have nothing to do with the one issue she is championing.
"Why have so many establishment Democrats so quickly decided to back [a white dude over a trans woman]?"
This is a rhetorical question that is asked in the article. If your interpretation of the article was correct, he would then answer "Because they're transphobic bigots, booh". Instead the answer is:
"They’ve decided to do this presumably because they find Cardin’s centrist ideology and politics more appealing than Manning’s more radical politics, and believe that this trumps what could be the historic value of Manning’s candidacy."
Which is exactly what you say. The article agrees with the argument that you made against the article. So we all agree on why the centrist dems aren't backing Manning: because she wouldn't further centrist dem policy ideas as much as her opponent. Does Greenwald think that's bad?
"One can certainly make an argument that the license they’ve granted themselves here – to prioritize ideology and politics over identity – is a reasonable one."
So that's a no then.
"But one wonders whether they intend to maintain a monopoly on this license or extend it to others."
I see, so the problem is actually the attitude of people who would totally blame you for not voting for their transgender candidate, while they're totally fine not voting for your transgender candidate.
This may be a little too patronizing, I apologize. The text is quite clear though.
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On January 16 2018 19:05 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 18:49 Acrofales wrote:On January 16 2018 18:32 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 18:21 Acrofales wrote:On January 16 2018 14:07 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2018 13:59 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 13:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 16 2018 13:45 Aquanim wrote:In the meantime, do you intend to address this? On January 16 2018 13:35 Aquanim wrote:On January 16 2018 13:30 GreenHorizons wrote: [quote]
So you realize he doesn't think she should get the job because of her identity and Cardin shouldn't be replaced because of his, because I'm reading you guys as taking it as the complete opposite? I'm interested to see how you interpret this passage then: They’ve decided to do this presumably because they find Cardin’s centrist ideology and politics more appealing than Manning’s more radical politics, and believe that this trumps what could be the historic value of Manning’s candidacy. They’ve apparently decided to prioritize their own centrist ideology over the important gender, sexual orientation and trans equality progress that Manning’s victory would ensure. given that in the rest of the piece he has clearly set himself up as opposed to the establishment Democrats, and how much of an issue he makes of Cardin's "privilege". I tried the actual point of this article, which is the extremely inconsistent, self-serving way that centrist Democrats use identity politics If she was a neolib running for Bernie Sanders seat you'd see basically what he laid out on Cardin from the centrists. What consistent policy on identity politics do you think the centrist Democrats should adopt instead of whatever they're doing now? What don't you understand? The criticism of the article isn't that Cardin is a white male, the criticism is the weaponization of identity politics. As in, if the candidate of the person that is criticized by the article is from a minority, then it says something about their opponent that they're considering someone else instead (for example, Bernie supporters being sexist for not supporting Hillary); but now that the situation is reversed and the candidate of the opponent of the person is the one who is from a minority, then it's totally fine for the person with that attitude to support the old white guy on his side despite the opponent's identity. Seems pretty straightforward. This would be a great point if the young trans woman in question wasn't also convicted of actual treason. Now whether or not you or I believe her act of whistleblowing was actually treasonous, the US court system found it to be, and it's not beyond belief that a large part of the US population, including the director of a Democratic think tank in Washington, believe she is treasonous scum (or in other words, a Russian stooge). Jumping from "there is criticism on Chelsea Manning" to "there is criticism on her because she is a young transgender woman" is quite the bizarre leap. It's genuinely weird to see people read stuff that's written by people on their left sometimes. But yeah, for the record, you're right, that would be quite the bizarre leap. You could even go a little further and say that it would be "mindnumbingly stupid", I'd be inclined to agree. Yet the article dismisses any and all policy issues and goes right to the "they support Cardin because he's an old white man (and Israel)", and completely ignore the very real reasons why anybody might not want Chelsea Manning anywhere near DC, despite her being a young transgender woman. In fact, the article goes to great lengths to avoid that issue. If I were the Democratic Party I would be very wary of being associated with Chelsea Manning. There are better transgender heroes to champion the gender equality cause than one who a large part of the country mistrusts for reasons that have nothing to do with the one issue she is championing. "Why have so many establishment Democrats so quickly decided to back [a white dude over a trans woman]?"This is a rhetorical question that is asked in the article. If your interpretation of the article was correct, he would then answer "Because they're transphobic bigots, booh". Instead the answer is: "They’ve decided to do this presumably because they find Cardin’s centrist ideology and politics more appealing than Manning’s more radical politics, and believe that this trumps what could be the historic value of Manning’s candidacy."Which is exactly what you say. The article agrees with the argument that you made against the article. So we all agree on why the centrist dems aren't backing Manning: because she wouldn't further centrist dem policy ideas as much as her opponent. Does Greenwald think that's bad? "One can certainly make an argument that the license they’ve granted themselves here – to prioritize ideology and politics over identity – is a reasonable one."So that's a no then. "But one wonders whether they intend to maintain a monopoly on this license or extend it to others."I see, so the problem is actually the attitude of people who would totally blame you for not voting for their transgender candidate, while they're totally fine not voting for your transgender candidate. This may be a little too patronizing, I apologize. The text is quite clear though. I read this:
On January 16 2018 11:51 tomatriedes wrote:More idiotic conspiracy theories from the Clinton wing of the dems: Show nested quote +Centrist Dems Launch Smear Campaign Against Young Trans Woman, All to Keep an Old Straight White Man in Power
OVER THE WEEKEND, Chelsea Manning announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate by posting a video outlining the broad themes of her campaign. Manning, a whistleblower who served seven years in a U.S. military brig for exposing systemic U.S. war crimes, was held under prison conditions so brutal that the U.N. formally denounced them as “inhumane.”
While her whistleblowing made her a hero around the world, Manning has also now become an icon of LGBT equality and trans rights with an act of profound bravery that at least matches, if not surpasses, her whistleblowing. She announced her transition, and demanded the dignity and treatment to which she was entitled, while she was imprisoned in the middle of a sprawling U.S. military base, in a brig at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Since her release from prison, she has become a visible and outspoken advocate for the rights of trans people. She has used her position as a Guardian columnist to stake out a wide range of positions, including drafting a proposed law to provide protections for whistleblowers. She certainly has more political experience and activism than many other Senate candidates previously supported by the Democratic establishment (Al Franken comes to mind as one example). If elected, Manning would become the first trans woman ever, and the youngest woman ever, to serve in the U.S. Senate.
Manning’s opponent in the Democratic Party primary is one of the most standard, banal, typical, privileged and mediocre politicians in the U.S. Congress: Benjamin Cardin, a 74-year-old white, straight man who is seeking his third six-year Senate term. Cardin’s decades-long career as a politician from the start has been steeped in unearned privilege: he first won elective office back in 1966, when his uncle, Maurice Cardin, gave up his seat in order to bequeath it to his nephew Benjamin. With this dynastic privilege as his base, he has spent the last 50 years climbing the political ladder in Maryland.
Cardin has remarkably few achievements for being in Congress for so many years. One of his few distinctions is that he has become one of the Senate’s most reliable and loyal supporters of AIPAC’s agenda and the Israeli government, if not the single most loyal. In 2015, he joined with Lindsey Graham in kicking off the annual AIPAC conference, causing neocon columnist Jennifer Rubin to gush about how identical they sounded.
But Cardin’s crowning achievement came last year when he authored a bill that would have made it a felony to support a boycott of Israel – a bill that was such a profound assault on basic First Amendment freedoms that the ACLU instantly denounced it and multiple Senators who had co-sponsored Cardin’s bill (such as Senator Kirsten Gillibrand) announced that they were withdrawing their support.
Despite all of this, or perhaps because of it, establishment Democrats wasted no time in mocking and denouncing Manning’s bid to become the first ever trans woman in the Senate, instead quickly lining up in support behind the straight white male who has wielded power for decades. To demean Manning, many of these establishment Democrats invoked the primary tactic they now reflexively use against anyone they view as a political adversary: they depicted her as a tool of the Kremlin, whose candidacy is really just a disguised plot engineered by Moscow.
Leading the way in spreading this obviously deranged but acceptable-in-DC conspiracy theory was Neera Tanden, the president of the largest Democratic Party think tank in Washington. Last night, Tanden spread a viral tweet that strongly implied – without even pretending to have a shred of evidence – that the Kremlin had engineered Manning’s candidacy as punishment for Cardin’s hard-line position on Russia.
This conspiracy theory mocks itself. The idea that Vladimir Putin sat in the Kremlin, steaming over Benjamin Cardin’s report on Russia, and thus developed a dastardly plot to rid himself of his daunting Maryland nemesis – “I know how to get rid of Cardin: I’ll have a trans woman who was convicted of felony leaking run against him!” – is too inane to merit any additional ridicule. But this is the climate in Washington: no conspiracy theory is too moronic, too demented, too self-evidently laughable to disqualify its advocates from being taken seriously – as long as it involves accusations that someone is a covert tool of the Kremlin. That’s why the president of the leading Democratic think tank feels free to spread this slanderous trash.
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/15/centrist-dems-launch-smear-campaign-against-young-trans-woman-all-to-keep-an-old-straight-white-man-in-power/?comments=1#comments
So there are two options: (1) were talking about completely different articles. Or (2) tomatreides made a right mess of that article when he copypasted it from its source, and missed the actual point the article was making in order to copy-paste the bits that were a hackjob. Selective quoting at its best.
And no, I'm still not clicking through to the intercept to figure out which of these options it is.
I guess there is a third option, which is basically (2) but not attributing malice to tomatreides: the article makes both points and tomatreides quoted the parts that he thought were relevant and you and GH picked up on the more abstract criticism.
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