Democratic Candidate 2020

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Bewildered
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bewildered » Sat Apr 11, 2020 7:51 am

secret squirrel wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 2:52 pm
dyqik wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 2:10 pm
secret squirrel wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 2:00 pm
I see a lot of people in this thread who definitely would have defended slavery.
That's because you are projecting onto other people. You just declared that you wouldn't vote against slavery if the alternative wasn't pure enough for you.
What kind of advanced dementia do you have that you cast voting for Biden vs Trump as voting to abolish rather than keep slavery? Voting for Biden is like voting for a 5% reduction in slavery. But by all means pat yourself on the back for it.
Well regarding slavery, I believe Abraham Lincoln was (public policy wise) a gradualist on slavery and therefore a moderate anti-slavery Republican. As I recall he did not run for election on the platform of ending slavery in the south, but rather to not allow it the new territories opening up in the west, and in the primaries he defeated more radical candidates who would have stood for immediate abolition. So one could say the analogy to your position with respect to slavery is refusing to vote for Abraham Lincoln because he would not stop slavery in the south. Of course he did end it, but only after the southern states rebelled because they saw his gradualist approach as a threat and wouldn’t accept the compromise position, not sure how easy that was to predict at the time of the election.

I have no idea if that fits with 5% and anyway don’t think it is a fair or particularly useful analogy for Biden vs trump though. I think* I would have voted for the Lincoln in the presidential election on the basis that his policy would avoid many people in the new territories enduring slavery and that it went in the right direction, even though it meant voting for someone whose policy platform was to leave chattel slavery legal in the south. I would also vote for Biden over trump on the grounds that it’s possible trump will do a great deal of harm and this is worth the compromise of giving a vote for a platform that is far from ideal and may be interpreted as support for some pretty sh.tty stuff. I do think there is a judgement call to be made though, and it depends on the particular circumstances, so I don’t think the historical analogies are that illuminating.

*of course this is all ridiculous speculation, very few of us will think we would have been pro-slavery, but unless there has been some radical change in the populations DNA, in those circumstances a large percentage of us would have.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bewildered » Sat Apr 11, 2020 8:09 am

secret squirrel wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 2:46 pm
dyqik wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 2:08 pm
You aren't making any sense here. The floating voters are those between Biden and Trump. Not the far-left over privileged a..eholes who are too busy being smug and pure to vote against the GOPs ongoing assault on civil rights and democracy.
Now see I'd like to be able vote for Biden, but this kind of toxicity from his supporters online is intolerable.
Hmm.. not sure it’s relevant, but I found this strange in the Corbyn saga. Centrists are supposed to be good at compromise and getting things done in the messy real world of the middle, but the reaction when the left wing has power (or some renewed influence as the case maybe here) is vitriol, boycotting and a refusal to compromise in any way.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by secret squirrel » Sat Apr 11, 2020 8:26 am

Bewildered wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 7:51 am
Well regarding slavery, I believe Abraham Lincoln was (public policy wise) a gradualist on slavery and therefore a moderate anti-slavery Republican. As I recall he did not run for election on the platform of ending slavery in the south, but rather to not allow it the new territories opening up in the west, and in the primaries he defeated more radical candidates who would have stood for immediate abolition. So one could say the analogy to your position with respect to slavery is refusing to vote for Abraham Lincoln because he would not stop slavery in the south. Of course he did end it, but only after the southern states rebelled because they saw his gradualist approach as a threat and wouldn’t accept the compromise position, not sure how easy that was to predict at the time of the election.

I have no idea if that fits with 5% and anyway don’t think it is a fair or particularly useful analogy for Biden vs trump though. I think* I would have voted for the Lincoln in the presidential election on the basis that his policy would avoid many people in the new territories enduring slavery and that it went in the right direction, even though it meant voting for someone whose policy platform was to leave chattel slavery legal in the south. I would also vote for Biden over trump on the grounds that it’s possible trump will do a great deal of harm and this is worth the compromise of giving a vote for a platform that is far from ideal and may be interpreted as support for some pretty sh.tty stuff. I do think there is a judgement call to be made though, and it depends on the particular circumstances, so I don’t think the historical analogies are that illuminating.

*of course this is all ridiculous speculation, very few of us will think we would have been pro-slavery, but unless there has been some radical change in the populations DNA, in those circumstances a large percentage of us would have.
I never intended slavery to be an analogy for the present situation, though the conversation kind of went in that direction. My only point is that abolition was initially a fringe ideal of fairly radical people who were mostly laughed at by right-thinking centrists. Even when the British did get round to getting rid of it in the colonies, it was all done with maximum concern for the slave owners, to the point of even paying them reparations. For another example, MLK was not a popular figure for the political center at the time. It was only much later that moderates claimed him as one of their own, after dropping his less convenient opinions down the memory hole.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by dyqik » Sat Apr 11, 2020 10:52 am

So we can add the history of abolitionism in the US to things that you don't know about. It was widespread well before US independence, let alone in the run up to the civil war. Pennsylvania and Massachusetts banned slavery in the late 1700s.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboliti ... ted_States

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by dyqik » Sat Apr 11, 2020 10:55 am

Bewildered wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 8:09 am
secret squirrel wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 2:46 pm
dyqik wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 2:08 pm
You aren't making any sense here. The floating voters are those between Biden and Trump. Not the far-left over privileged a..eholes who are too busy being smug and pure to vote against the GOPs ongoing assault on civil rights and democracy.
Now see I'd like to be able vote for Biden, but this kind of toxicity from his supporters online is intolerable.
Hmm.. not sure it’s relevant, but I found this strange in the Corbyn saga. Centrists are supposed to be good at compromise and getting things done in the messy real world of the middle, but the reaction when the left wing has power (or some renewed influence as the case maybe here) is vitriol, boycotting and a refusal to compromise in any way.
Er, that was the corbynite left wing's reaction to compromise, not the moderate left or center left's reaction.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by secret squirrel » Sat Apr 11, 2020 11:01 am

dyqik wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 10:52 am
So we can add the history of abolitionism in the US to things that you don't know about. It was widespread well before US independence, let alone in the run up to the civil war. Pennsylvania and Massachusetts banned slavery in the late 1700s.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboliti ... ted_States
I don't know why you think you're telling me something I don't know here. This doesn't clash with what I wrote at all.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bewildered » Sat Apr 11, 2020 11:39 am

dyqik wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 10:55 am
Bewildered wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 8:09 am
secret squirrel wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 2:46 pm


Now see I'd like to be able vote for Biden, but this kind of toxicity from his supporters online is intolerable.
Hmm.. not sure it’s relevant, but I found this strange in the Corbyn saga. Centrists are supposed to be good at compromise and getting things done in the messy real world of the middle, but the reaction when the left wing has power (or some renewed influence as the case maybe here) is vitriol, boycotting and a refusal to compromise in any way.
Er, that was the corbynite left wing's reaction to compromise, not the moderate left or center left's reaction.
I am talking about compromise with the other wing of their own party, in case that wasn’t clear*.

You think the centrists in labour acted in a conciliatory and compromising way with Corbin to get agreement and moderation of his policies?
To be fair a few did and one of them is now leader (if he really counts as a centrist), but I think the most well known and well established ones did the exact opposite, opposing Corbin in ways that were fair and principled and in ways that weren’t.

I don’t expect the left wing to be any good at compromise since they are more typically idealists / ideologues.

This is really another topic now though.

*though to be fair centrists were quite opposed to compromise on brexit which was another odd irony, while Cronyn really did occupy a centre ground position there.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Woodchopper » Sat Apr 11, 2020 1:25 pm

secret squirrel wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 11:01 am
dyqik wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 10:52 am
So we can add the history of abolitionism in the US to things that you don't know about. It was widespread well before US independence, let alone in the run up to the civil war. Pennsylvania and Massachusetts banned slavery in the late 1700s.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboliti ... ted_States
I don't know why you think you're telling me something I don't know here. This doesn't clash with what I wrote at all.
Yes it does. You're just making stuff up.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Woodchopper » Sat Apr 11, 2020 1:52 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 12:46 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 9:22 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Thu Apr 09, 2020 3:43 pm

It's true. I'm not taking success for granted - obviously any approach would be enormously challenging.

But I do think it's important to challenge the apparently forgone conclusions as to which approaches should be tried (especially as everybody seems to agree on the limited possibilities of the methods traditionally used by the Democrats).

Things do change by pressure. For instance, Sanders' Stop BEZOS Act had no chance of ever becoming law, but Amazon still started paying its employees $15/hour. The details of the bill didn't even matter as much as its existence and the controversy it generated. It's a small example of success, but it does illustrate a game plan: pressure your opponents into changing their behaviour, then get them on side to change legislation.

Start introducing bills and executive orders to hobble the fossil fuel industry, while ramping up rhetoric in public statements. By the time the legal dust has settled you've (potentially) already made progress on changing public, investor and corporate behaviour. That way the inevitable failure of your legislation doesn't preclude achieving your policy goals, whereas relying on the Republicans to support you straight off the bat is an obvious non-starter.
I think that the best strategy would be to focus upon the Democratic party at a local level. Fight for every county and district. The first aim should be to get get Democratic majorities in most state legislatures. Difficult, but not impossible. The most important aim once that has happened is to get rid of voter suppression and gerrymandering. Once that has happened the Democrats at least will both be more responsive to the electorate and in a position to control the Presidency, Congress and Supreme Court. It'll take at least 20 years, but at that point we could be looking at meaningful reforms to healthcare, student debt, welfare, gun control etc that will last longer than an election cycle. But why not, the Republicans have successfully implemented long term strategies. We are living in the result.

What it needs is a grass roots organization and party leadership which is united around that goal, and crucially, are willing to devote resources long term and not just every 4-8 years.

Call me a Leninist, but IMHO its the party that matters and a mass national party is the only way to achieve long term meaningful change.
I agree with all of this, FWIW, especially the bit in bold. I've certainly not intended to suggest that the party shouldn't be doing those things; my point is that it's not enough.

If the USA takes 20 years to drastically reduce its contributions to climate change, the planet is toast.

Twenty years is a generation. If I were a young USian saddled with insane quantities of debt, massive and growing inequality, unaffordable healthcare an increasingly f.cked climate, continuing mass incarceration and slavery (especially of minorities) and so on, I would find it hard to swallow that "we're working towards it gradually and hope to get there in 20 years" is the best the largest party in the country can manage. The difference between that and doing nothing genuinely isn't very significant if you need help now. It's throwing a whole generation under the bus. It's very difficult for young people to have hope for their lives when so many issues that affect them, such as inequality and the environment, are getting worse at a faster rate than politics seems able to keep up.

It's notable that the centre-right of the Democratic party tends to be older. It's a generation that didn't face the same problems to the same extent, has exacerbated them for the next generation, and won't be alive to have to cope with the worst consequences of climate change. They complain about young people's anger and mock their ambition, and then talk about the importance of building alliances, but apparently without actually offering anything of immediate tangible consequence, without listening, and without empathising.

So yes, great, let's chip away at electing more Democrats. But while they're working on that, what else are they doing?

Alternatively, if the Democratic party is determined to focus solely on winning elections, some other movement is needed to improve society and the environment. But if the Democrats want loyalty from the left they need to earn it, and being or supporting that movement seems to me a more promising approach than the kind of hostility seen currently.
Back to this.

It wouldn't be the case that nothing would happen for 20 years. Firstly, if you get large Democrat majorities in state legislatures then there will be lots of opportunities for reforms at the state level. For example, if California were to bring in free college tuition in public universities then other states might do the same.

Also, its not the case that it would take 20 years to get a Democratic President or congressional majority. They'd be elected and could make reforms. The problem is the Republicans reversing the reforms as soon as they retake power. So the 20 year strategy would be to remake politics.

Other groups could of course campaign for quicker reform. But as mentioned up-thread, they's need to be careful not to divert resources from the legislative strategy.

As for whether 20 years is too long, it seems pretty short to me. There's four Presidentuial elections between 1 January 2021 and 1 January 2041, which isn't many. In comparison it took Labour 18 years between its defeat in 1979 and victory again in 1997, and it will be out of power for 14 years at least (2010-2024).
Twenty years is a generation. If I were a young USian saddled with insane quantities of debt, massive and growing inequality, unaffordable healthcare an increasingly f.cked climate, continuing mass incarceration and slavery (especially of minorities) and so on, I would find it hard to swallow that "we're working towards it gradually and hope to get there in 20 years" is the best the largest party in the country can manage. The difference between that and doing nothing genuinely isn't very significant if you need help now. It's throwing a whole generation under the bus. It's very difficult for young people to have hope for their lives when so many issues that affect them, such as inequality and the environment, are getting worse at a faster rate than politics seems able to keep up.
Yes, it is a bleak prospect. But does anyone have a better plan? Hitherto all that's happened is that progress made at a federal level by a Democrat administration is erased when the Republicans take over.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by secret squirrel » Sat Apr 11, 2020 1:59 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 1:25 pm
secret squirrel wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 11:01 am
dyqik wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 10:52 am
So we can add the history of abolitionism in the US to things that you don't know about. It was widespread well before US independence, let alone in the run up to the civil war. Pennsylvania and Massachusetts banned slavery in the late 1700s.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboliti ... ted_States
I don't know why you think you're telling me something I don't know here. This doesn't clash with what I wrote at all.
Yes it does. You're just making stuff up.
What have I said that is wrong? My only claim about abolitionism is that it started fringe. Obviously it grew. I never made any specific claim about the timeline. I could understand it if people were arguing my claim was so obviously true and weak as to be irrelevant, but actually false? Come off it.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Woodchopper » Sat Apr 11, 2020 3:50 pm

secret squirrel wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 1:59 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 1:25 pm
secret squirrel wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 11:01 am


I don't know why you think you're telling me something I don't know here. This doesn't clash with what I wrote at all.
Yes it does. You're just making stuff up.
What have I said that is wrong? My only claim about abolitionism is that it started fringe. Obviously it grew. I never made any specific claim about the timeline. I could understand it if people were arguing my claim was so obviously true and weak as to be irrelevant, but actually false? Come off it.
The subject is the abolition of slavery in the United States.

The United States became independent in 1783. At that point four states had already passed legislation to abolish slavery, they were followed a year later Connecticut and Rhode Island, and 15 years after that by New York. As the US expanded westwards those Northern states ensured that new territories to the north of Kentucky and Virginia were free of slavery.

In the North, abolition was a popular and successful mass movement right from the first day the US was independent.

However, the problem for those northern abolitionists was that the southern states entrenched slavery and made it almost impossible for the northern abolitionists to prevent it.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by secret squirrel » Sat Apr 11, 2020 4:46 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 3:50 pm
secret squirrel wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 1:59 pm
What have I said that is wrong? My only claim about abolitionism is that it started fringe. Obviously it grew. I never made any specific claim about the timeline. I could understand it if people were arguing my claim was so obviously true and weak as to be irrelevant, but actually false? Come off it.
The subject is the abolition of slavery in the United States.

The United States became independent in 1783. At that point four states had already passed legislation to abolish slavery, they were followed a year later Connecticut and Rhode Island, and 15 years after that by New York. As the US expanded westwards those Northern states ensured that new territories to the north of Kentucky and Virginia were free of slavery.

In the North, abolition was a popular and successful mass movement right from the first day the US was independent.

However, the problem for those northern abolitionists was that the southern states entrenched slavery and made it almost impossible for the northern abolitionists to prevent it.
Look, I respect that you are someone who posts in good faith and generally has interesting and on-point things to say, but this feels like you're gaslighting me. What in the two sentences I wrote this about is incompatible with any of that?

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bewildered » Sat Apr 11, 2020 4:51 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 3:50 pm
secret squirrel wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 1:59 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 1:25 pm


Yes it does. You're just making stuff up.
What have I said that is wrong? My only claim about abolitionism is that it started fringe. Obviously it grew. I never made any specific claim about the timeline. I could understand it if people were arguing my claim was so obviously true and weak as to be irrelevant, but actually false? Come off it.
The subject is the abolition of slavery in the United States.

The United States became independent in 1783. At that point four states had already passed legislation to abolish slavery, they were followed a year later Connecticut and Rhode Island, and 15 years after that by New York. As the US expanded westwards those Northern states ensured that new territories to the north of Kentucky and Virginia were free of slavery.

In the North, abolition was a popular and successful mass movement right from the first day the US was independent.

However, the problem for those northern abolitionists was that the southern states entrenched slavery and made it almost impossible for the northern abolitionists to prevent it.
I think squirrel just said that people itt would have supported slavery (which is pretty inflammstory) and then it spiraled from there. I don’t see any particular reason to insist on the US becoming independent as the starting point. I don’t know enough about the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade to know if there was an earlier point that better fits what he said, but I struggled to see how dyqik’s post contradicted squirrel too.

Btw did you mean to call squirrel a liar when you said he was “just making stuff up”. Or you mean he is making incorrect assumptions about how things were?

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Woodchopper » Sat Apr 11, 2020 4:54 pm

Bewildered wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 4:51 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 3:50 pm
secret squirrel wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 1:59 pm


What have I said that is wrong? My only claim about abolitionism is that it started fringe. Obviously it grew. I never made any specific claim about the timeline. I could understand it if people were arguing my claim was so obviously true and weak as to be irrelevant, but actually false? Come off it.
The subject is the abolition of slavery in the United States.

The United States became independent in 1783. At that point four states had already passed legislation to abolish slavery, they were followed a year later Connecticut and Rhode Island, and 15 years after that by New York. As the US expanded westwards those Northern states ensured that new territories to the north of Kentucky and Virginia were free of slavery.

In the North, abolition was a popular and successful mass movement right from the first day the US was independent.

However, the problem for those northern abolitionists was that the southern states entrenched slavery and made it almost impossible for the northern abolitionists to prevent it.
I think squirrel just said that people itt would have supported slavery (which is pretty inflammstory) and then it spiraled from there. I don’t see any particular reason to insist on the US becoming independent as the starting point. I don’t know enough about the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade to know if there was an earlier point that better fits what he said, but I struggled to see how dyqik’s post contradicted squirrel too.

Btw did you mean to call squirrel a liar when you said he was “just making stuff up”. Or you mean he is making incorrect assumptions about how things were?
I certainly wasn’t accusing him of lying.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by jimbob » Sat Apr 11, 2020 10:36 pm

Bewildered wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 11:39 am
dyqik wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 10:55 am
Bewildered wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 8:09 am


Hmm.. not sure it’s relevant, but I found this strange in the Corbyn saga. Centrists are supposed to be good at compromise and getting things done in the messy real world of the middle, but the reaction when the left wing has power (or some renewed influence as the case maybe here) is vitriol, boycotting and a refusal to compromise in any way.
Er, that was the corbynite left wing's reaction to compromise, not the moderate left or center left's reaction.
I am talking about compromise with the other wing of their own party, in case that wasn’t clear*.

You think the centrists in labour acted in a conciliatory and compromising way with Corbin to get agreement and moderation of his policies?
To be fair a few did and one of them is now leader (if he really counts as a centrist), but I think the most well known and well established ones did the exact opposite, opposing Corbin in ways that were fair and principled and in ways that weren’t.

I don’t expect the left wing to be any good at compromise since they are more typically idealists / ideologues.

This is really another topic now though.

*though to be fair centrists were quite opposed to compromise on brexit which was another odd irony, while Cronyn really did occupy a centre ground position there.
Well it is difficult when you see someone leading you to electoral disaster.

Remember - even at his best, Corbyn came second to Theresa May.

Theresa May. An utterly hapless PM.
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bewildered » Sun Apr 12, 2020 1:56 am

jimbob wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 10:36 pm
Bewildered wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 11:39 am
dyqik wrote:
Sat Apr 11, 2020 10:55 am

Er, that was the corbynite left wing's reaction to compromise, not the moderate left or center left's reaction.
I am talking about compromise with the other wing of their own party, in case that wasn’t clear*.

You think the centrists in labour acted in a conciliatory and compromising way with Corbin to get agreement and moderation of his policies?
To be fair a few did and one of them is now leader (if he really counts as a centrist), but I think the most well known and well established ones did the exact opposite, opposing Corbin in ways that were fair and principled and in ways that weren’t.

I don’t expect the left wing to be any good at compromise since they are more typically idealists / ideologues.

This is really another topic now though.

*though to be fair centrists were quite opposed to compromise on brexit which was another odd irony, while Cronyn really did occupy a centre ground position there.
Well it is difficult when you see someone leading you to electoral disaster.

Remember - even at his best, Corbyn came second to Theresa May.

Theresa May. An utterly hapless PM.
Yes but at the time that one was widely seen as a good performance, and it did appear to refute the claims that he was an electoral disaster then. For sure I felt it demonstrated I had been too certain about conventional wisdom on electorability. Of course now the bigger loss later on has taken things in the opposite direction, though both elections occurred in rather unique circumstances and the latter was so dominated by brexit that it’s hard to seperate.

Anyway yes it’s understandable if you see disaster ahead that you react like that, but I could also say it is hard to compromise when you think the Tories are leading the nhs to disaster or killing people with austerity, but centrists are supposed to be the ones who can see past that, accepting reality and doing what is possible through compromise. My problem (from a pragmatic point of view) is that with Corbin what they did was derail him with attacks without removing him. The Tories have been typically a bit better at somehow finding compromise and feigning some semblance of unity until the time is right to stab them in the back and change leaders and direction. Though to be fair one reason May was so ineffectual was they were not doing that during her time as PM, because many people in the Tories both wanted to disrupt her her agenda and did not want to actually replace her.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Millennie Al » Sun Apr 12, 2020 3:40 am

secret squirrel wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 7:19 am
Further to the above, this article is relevant to the purity politics of the Liberal establishment.
While that is a very interesting article and contains much insight, it also says:
Any journalist with a sense of professional integrity — indeed, any human being with an ounce of what’s most evocatively called menschkeit — would have responded that (a) an anonymous twenty-something displaying a rude sense of humor in private communications is not “news” and that (b) the would-be informant should take a long look at himself or herself in the mirror.
However, as subsequent events showed, the item was quite certainly "news". It seems to me that this is suggetsing that when
  • Ben Mora is one of the good guys
  • Ben does something that will be seen as bad
  • we think that there will be an over-reaction to what he did
we should conceal what he did. This is wrong for two reasons. Firstly, if what he did is not bad or minor, then we are hiding an example of a good person doing this thing which helps correct the misapprehension that it is bad (and example of this is hiding the fact that someone is gay as if that means there is something wrong with them). We endorse the idea that people are either good or bad and that we should reasonably expect to find saints who do no wrong, however minor.

Secondly, it is a very dangerous path to follow as it is the path of "noble cause corruption" proven to have gone very wrong in cases such as where police were believed only to later be revealed to have framed suspects, and "good" religious men repeatedly raped children only for it to have been covered up.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Millennie Al » Sun Apr 12, 2020 3:42 am

Woodchopper wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 9:22 am
Call me a Leninist, but IMHO its the party that matters and a mass national party is the only way to achieve long term meaningful change.
If you think it's the party that matters, you're part of the problem. The party is irrelevant: it's the policies that matter. Lose sight of that and you descend into the partisan bigotry that prevents progress.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Millennie Al » Sun Apr 12, 2020 3:46 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 12:46 pm
If the USA takes 20 years to drastically reduce its contributions to climate change, the planet is toast.
What's wrong with toast? I like toast! Will there be marmalade too?

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Millennie Al » Sun Apr 12, 2020 4:01 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 1:46 pm
But seriously, given that the planet's future habitability depends on this view being incorrect,
The planet's future habitability is not in doubt. It has been a lot hotter than the most extreme alarmist predictions and our presence here today shows life did not go extinct.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Millennie Al » Sun Apr 12, 2020 4:03 am

Squeak wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 2:37 pm
Until the last couple of months, I would have agreed with you Dyqik. Covid does have the possibility of being sufficiently awful for the US to cause a step-change in political possibilities. Of course, that step-change could go on either direction.
It disproportionately kills the old, so it's fairly obvious which direction it is likely to go in when you consider the demographics of political opinions.

Millennie Al
After Pie
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Millennie Al » Sun Apr 12, 2020 4:05 am

secret squirrel wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 5:17 am
Honestly, I wouldn't vote for Biden.
Why do you support Trump?

secret squirrel
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by secret squirrel » Sun Apr 12, 2020 4:16 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Sun Apr 12, 2020 3:40 am
secret squirrel wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 7:19 am
Further to the above, this article is relevant to the purity politics of the Liberal establishment.
While that is a very interesting article and contains much insight, it also says:
Any journalist with a sense of professional integrity — indeed, any human being with an ounce of what’s most evocatively called menschkeit — would have responded that (a) an anonymous twenty-something displaying a rude sense of humor in private communications is not “news” and that (b) the would-be informant should take a long look at himself or herself in the mirror.
However, as subsequent events showed, the item was quite certainly "news". It seems to me that this is suggetsing that when
  • Ben Mora is one of the good guys
  • Ben does something that will be seen as bad
  • we think that there will be an over-reaction to what he did
we should conceal what he did. This is wrong for two reasons. Firstly, if what he did is not bad or minor, then we are hiding an example of a good person doing this thing which helps correct the misapprehension that it is bad (and example of this is hiding the fact that someone is gay as if that means there is something wrong with them). We endorse the idea that people are either good or bad and that we should reasonably expect to find saints who do no wrong, however minor.

Secondly, it is a very dangerous path to follow as it is the path of "noble cause corruption" proven to have gone very wrong in cases such as where police were believed only to later be revealed to have framed suspects, and "good" religious men repeatedly raped children only for it to have been covered up.
This is an interesting line of argument. I think an important consideration is that the amount of 'news' people can digest is finite, and a non-representative sample of 'true' events reported as news can be extremely misleading. It would be easy, for example, for a newspaper in a country of many millions to fill itself with true reports of crimes committed by immigrants. This would no doubt be extremely popular with a segment of the population.

I agree that there's an obvious sense in which the stories about Mora were 'news'. They were true, and of interest to a sizable group of people. When the author says they are not really 'news' he's using the word in a different, more idealistic way. There's no hope of pinning it down exactly, and I doubt there's even a fully coherent concept at the bottom of it, but it seems like most of us often have a vague sense of what the general 'truth' of a situation is, and we expect reported 'news' to reflect that 'truth', or at least not support a narrative that is counter to it. We can't view the Mora story without taking the context into account. Namely, that there were many people looking to support a narrative of abusive 'Bernie Bros', and while the Mora story didn't logically support that narrative, if you accept the author's version of events anyway, the story would be used to support it. In other words, the 'true' story would be used to support a 'false' narrative, and would therefore fail to be 'news' according to this idealized version.

In a rational world, a person's good and bad actions could be weighed in the balance together, and we would all have a good sense of the kinds of bad things a person who usually does good things is capable of, and we would act rationally with that knowledge. But the world is not rational, and we have only very imperfect information, so selective reporting of bad actions can be, and often is, used to overshadow everything else. But what you say on the other side is also true. We also have to be careful not to let our general sense of who is a good person get in the way of reporting their bad actions. There is no perfect solution. We can only comprehend the world at all in an extremely simplified way*.



*What even is the world without our simplifications?
Last edited by secret squirrel on Sun Apr 12, 2020 4:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

secret squirrel
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by secret squirrel » Sun Apr 12, 2020 4:17 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Sun Apr 12, 2020 4:05 am
secret squirrel wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 5:17 am
Honestly, I wouldn't vote for Biden.
Why do you support Trump?
I also wouldn't vote for Trump.

Millennie Al
After Pie
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Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:02 am

Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Millennie Al » Sun Apr 12, 2020 4:29 am

secret squirrel wrote:
Sun Apr 12, 2020 4:17 am
Millennie Al wrote:
Sun Apr 12, 2020 4:05 am
secret squirrel wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 5:17 am
Honestly, I wouldn't vote for Biden.
Why do you support Trump?
I also wouldn't vote for Trump.
I didn't sugest you would vote for him, I asked why you supported him. But in a first-past-the-post electoral system with only two possible winners, failure to vote for Biden is equivalent to half a vote for Trump, and certainly assists Trump more than voting for Biden would.

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