I certainly wont argue false equivalence, but academia is one arena that presents evidence in support of Cliff's argument.
Honestly, and I realize I'm speaking anecdotally, I think that's largely a fabrication by right-wing social media. I've had some pretty hard left profs who had no problem giving the hard right kids in the classes good grades on their papers and they were always given time to speak in classroom debates. I've also been marked down on papers in the past for being too polemic on the left in the academic arena and it made me smarten up a bit in that department (internet debates notwithstanding).
EDIT: I should also add that I've had idiotic hard leftists in my class call the staunchly feminist, socialist, organics-only prof a fascist, so yeah. Idiots gonna idiot.
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The rules on endorsements by public officials exempt the president and vice president.
Is this the issue you think he broke the law on? Or a different one?
Despite being shady ethically on pretty much everything, Trump has been very careful not to explicitly break any laws. If he did, you KNOW he would be immediately crushed in the media, and likely impeached even faster. I'm surprised he's been able to walk the line so finely. It's almost as though someone around him actually does know what they're doing.
Is this the issue you think he broke the law on? Or a different one?
Despite being shady ethically on pretty much everything, Trump has been very careful not to explicitly break any laws. If he did, you KNOW he would be immediately crushed in the media, and likely impeached even faster. I'm surprised he's been able to walk the line so finely. It's almost as though someone around him actually does know what they're doing.
Trump has not divested from his businesses has he? As far as impeachment is concerned, it's not going to happen until/ unless the GOP controlled congress decides it's time. Until then, they will carry on with business as usual.
Is this the issue you think he broke the law on? Or a different one?
Despite being shady ethically on pretty much everything, Trump has been very careful not to explicitly break any laws. If he did, you KNOW he would be immediately crushed in the media, and likely impeached even faster. I'm surprised he's been able to walk the line so finely. It's almost as though someone around him actually does know what they're doing.
Republicans would have to impeach him. Don't kid yourself, his staunch refusal to explain his business interests or provide proof of divestment would have a Democrat going through the impeachment process already. They have enabled him and have shown no interest in reigning him in whatsoever.
There is a lawsuit against Trump re: foreign payments and the Emoluments Clause. It wouldn't mean anything concrete but getting a court's judgment would be useful as ammo if nothing else.
But yeah they'll only impeach Trump if he was damaging the party's ability to hold onto power.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
There is a lawsuit against Trump re: foreign payments and the Emoluments Clause. It wouldn't mean anything concrete but getting a court's judgment would be useful as ammo if nothing else.
But yeah they'll only impeach Trump if he was damaging the party's ability to hold onto power.
Which a lawsuit like that could lead to a change in voters outlook
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and Public Citizen lodged complaints with the Office of Government Ethics, alleging that Conway violated federal ethics rules that bar federal employees from endorsing products and businesses. CREW officials say Conway also may have broken a federal law that prohibits the use of public funds for non-official purposes.
Asked about Conway's actions, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Thursday: "Kellyanne has been counseled ... on that subject." He would not elaborate.
Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, also called on the panel's Republican chairman, Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, to formally refer the Conway matter to federal ethics regulators for potential disciplinary action
lol
good to see people care.
Office of Government Ethics website breaks after Conway promotes Ivanka's brand
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The website of the federal government’s ethics watchdog has been inaccessible for hours, and agency officials say it’s because of surging traffic.
“We received a high volume of traffic and we are looking at ways to redirect traffic and add capacity,” a spokesman for the Office of Government Ethics said.
Attempts to reach OGE’s website have been unsuccessful since early Thursday morning. Several hours after the site became inaccessible, the agency tweeted, “OGE’s website, phone system and email system are receiving an extraordinary volume of contacts from citizens about recent events.”
Personally I believe that each situation is unique and so such "lines" are not something I even try to have. Rules of thumb at best.
But yes, I think if someone is clearly advocating violence against you, it's okay to punch them in the face. Not necessarily the most recommended option, but as a rule of thumb I'm okay with that.
Okay. So you've just advocated violence against, using one example, a Marxist advocating for armed rebellion. So they're allowed to punch you, too, right? See where I'm going with this?
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I am completely at loss as to what you're trying to say here. Are you seriously trying to argue that ethnic cleansing and massacres of socialists (which for those who don't know is what happened in Indonesia in the 60's) is fine if the state doesn't collapse afterwards?
No, of course not. You seemed to be suggesting that Marxism produced viable states that functioned in and of themselves whereas Nazism hasn't, which for you was an important distinction as to whether we can silence people for advocating Nazism but not for Marxism. My point was that if the problem with Nazism isn't so much the socialism aspect but the genocide, well, it's not the case that genocide can't produce a viable functioning state. So I didn't think that was a good reason for distinguishing between Marxism and Nazism and saying you can shut down one political viewpoint, but not the other.
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Nazism is essentially defined by three things
1) Fascism (or in other words radical authoritarian nationalism)
2) "scientific" racism
3) anti-semitism
To argue that there could be some form of Nazism without fascism and racism is simply absurd, not just historically but also if you look at the current Nazi movement.
That's fair enough, I agree, those things are incompatible with what we consider to be a free democratic society.
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Whether or not a particular anarchist is fundamentally opposed to democracy really depends on what kinds of anarchist you are talking about. Anarchism by it's nature is a lot of things, and simply saying "anarchists" doesn't really mean much.
Okay, fair enough. But you'd surely concede that there are plenty of anarchists out there whose political viewpoints are opposed to functioning democracy? Hell, we don't even need anarchists. Can we beat the crap out of freemen on the land? Those guys reject the very concept of government and social organization on the basis of the rule of law.
The point is that there are plenty of other ideologies that, if they took hold, would be completely contrary to what we call a free, democratic society. I was really just asking if you're also saying we can feel justified in shutting those people up, too.
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White supremacy / fascism on the other hand is a huge movement right now, with supporters in many governments.
This doesn't get anywhere with me. This was literally the basis for arguing that HUAC and McCarthyism, as just discussed above, were necessary. Soviet-style communism was gaining steam, we all agreed that it would be bad if communism became the norm, and so we needed to take extreme, illiberal measures to root communists out from our society. If you don't believe in principles rooted in a free exchange of ideas for those ideas you truly despise, if you don't support it when it's difficult, you don't support it at all.
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That's not what a Hot War and a Cold War mean. A Cold War is a non-violent clash of ideologies. A hot war is when people literally start to die.
I was analogizing to simply say that the struggle between ideologies should be held in the open with everyone's cards on the table. What do you believe and why? Let the best argument prevail.
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There's also the problem that as we have seen many times, the far right is in no way interested in debate. What you're suggesting is the ultimate liberal fantasy of how things should be done. If you listen to the current reactionary conservative movement, this is exactly the kind of "nonsense" they hate. As a rule of thumb, if you look at debates organized between liberals and conservatives, it's almost always the liberals who ask the conservatives to come around and be heard, and very rarely the other way around.
I agree, that's definitely been the case in my lifetime - not so much "conservatives", because I think you're continuing to mis-apply that term, but the political right wing has long been resistant to reasoned argument and evidence, and has been the political "side" best associated with anti-intellectualism. Partly that's because of its traditional and obnoxious marriage with Christian fundamentalism. I'm obviously opposed to any such incurious tendencies.
What I'm equally opposed to is the notion that because so many right-wingers are intractably irrational, that the left should cede the field of argument to them and start behaving likewise, which has been more and more the case in the past half-decade or so.
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People like Milo Yannopoulos especially are not interested in debate. They are only interested in free speech to the extent that they get a platform to rant from. They are in no way interested in providing the other side a chance to respond.
Can you support this? Because I have no idea whether or not it's actually true. Has the guy said that everyone who disagrees with him should shut up, or something? I have heard him twice - once on the Rubin Report, and once on a radio call in, and both times he gave the opposite impression - basically "everyone who disagrees with me is wrong and stupid, but they're entitled to be wrong and stupid".
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I think if you look at Putins Russia, you see a pretty clear blueprint of what is the conservative side. Strongly authoritarian central government, reactionary gender roles, oppression of minorities, white supremacy, militarism etc. In short, it's essentially fascism.
Right, so let's just call it what it is. Conservatism and facism are distinct things.
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The liberal side IS very much hodgepodge of different ideas that are mostly connected by a common enemy (conservatives) and the fact that they generally kind of support each other. So on that side you have everything from environmentalists to ACLU to black rights to trans rights and what have you.
Which have nothing really to do with liberalism, per se. This all worked more or less fine when the people who were advancing these policy positions were doing so for liberal reasons; when all our arguments were founded on liberal principles. As that's ceased to be the case, the label no longer applies.
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However, I see authoritarianism as more a symptom than a cause. I don't think the people who support Trumps authoritarian style do so because they like authoritarianism, but because they want Trump to protect their precious conservative ideals from liberals.
Oh, I agree completely. I don't think anyone embraces authoritarianism with their eyes wide open. It's always going to be out of anger, fear, or for some similar ulterior reason that in the instant moment seems so important that it's okay to compromise on some of your principles.
But it's the same for a large and growing contingent on the left, who want to protect people from having to hear views that they find odious or offensive or hurtful, and who want to suppress ideas that they see as counter-productive to the ultimately Marxist goal of equal outcomes for all identifiable subgroups or minorities. For those goals, they too are perfectly happy to compromise basic principles like freedom of speech or the open pursuit of scientific discovery.
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I also support the monopoly of violence, and I don't think punching a nazi threatens our democracy or legal system. If I felt like punching a Nazi I would personally rather stand trial to make it clear that I accept the punishment, in the tradition of civil disobedience.
I get where you're coming from but I just have to draw the line at hurting people for your beliefs. That's essentially terrorism. If assault is justifiable as civil disobedience, there's nowhere really to stand to criticize, say, protestors who want to attack Kinder Morgan execs, as those protesters may honestly and fully believe that fossil fuel production represents the greatest threat to human existence, far in excess of Nazism.
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There is just so much wrong in this that there's really no point in even responding to this. Let's just say that I consider this "third group" to be mostly intellectually too lazy to understand the issues, and are mostly people who are not threatened by things like poverty, imprisonment, violence or removal of civil rights.
Well, now you've followed up a request to not call people who disagree "children" with a post wherein you call people you disagree with "intellectually lazy". If you cant concede that someone can in fact acknowledge the problems of "poverty, imprisonment, violence or removal of civil rights" while failing to adopt your solutions to them, you're just end up... well, apparently, in a fistfight with your interlocutors.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
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In his first call as president with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump denounced a treaty that caps U.S. and Russian deployment of nuclear warheads as a bad deal for the United States, according to two U.S. officials and one former U.S. official with knowledge of the call.
When Putin raised the possibility of extending the 2010 treaty, known as New START, Trump paused to ask his aides in an aside what the treaty was, these sources said.
Trump then told Putin the treaty was one of several bad deals negotiated by the Obama administration, saying that New START favored Russia. Trump also talked about his own popularity, the sources said.
There's a thread for this deeper political/philosophical discussion now. Please, go use it.
Wonderful. I felt guilty scrolling past and skimming the long political posts. Give me the punchlines, err I mean Trump policies and strategical moves.
Such as, Conway pushing Ivanka Trump's product line. And, let's not forget Judge Gorsuch's comments on Trump's travel ban. Nothing like your nominee tossing you under the bus. At least Gorsuch appears to have integrity.
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