American Politics Thread: The Hunt for Blue November

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by mrdonkey

This kind of stance is fine for when someone makes a racist joke at a party. Not for when you see two people wearing swastikas on their faces at Walmart.

I certainly agree that it's an easier thing to practice in the former circumstance than the latter, I just don't think principles should be context dependent.

[OMG!WTF!]

Wearing a mask is seen as bending to the will of the state by a lot of Trump supporters. WalMart makes you wear a mask so by putting a swastika on it you're showing them that they are the Nazi's. The mask was supposed to be a symbol of fascism and what's coming for Biden voters. Even though Trump made a last minute change on mask use, the seed was planted and that's what grew.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

That's not lots of info. It's a sentence from a twitter video. Yet you seem absolutely certain about your judgments about what led these people to do this. That doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, there's plenty of evidence that they're doing a ####ty thing, there's just basically none about why they're doing it or who they are as people.

Look, it's not worth having a big debate over, I just find it very odd how sure everyone is that two specific individuals they've never met are a total lost cause and couldn't possibly be reasoned with, despite plenty of evidence that even people with very extreme viewpoints can be brought around. The level of immediate certainty people can justify is surprising to me.

EDIT: I guess surprising is the wrong word there. More like jarring enough I thought it was worthy of mention.

There are so many people with ####ed up ideas these days that it's more of an act of triage. I only have so much energy to engage with others and reason with them, and I wouldn't bother wasting my valuable time on these two. There are others who are more moderate that I can reason with, and I will take the time to do so. I have done so on many occasions, with many of my neighbors for example. I have a buddy down the street that loved Trump at the start of his presidency and didn't understand why I was so down on him. Now, he thinks he's an absolute fool and can't wait to be rid of him. That is in large part to the conversations we would have. We would find places where we already agree and go from there, often still butting heads over things, but understanding the other person's position. However, I continued the dialogue because it wasn't a complete waste of energy, and now that guy is voting for Biden in the fall.

I don't know what I would possibly have in common with those two in order to even start a conversation, so no, there's no place for a meaningful dialogue, nor is there opportunity to reason with them. You can't reason with people who are operating in a different concept of reality consisting of conspiracy theories and extremism.

So yeah, they're a lost cause. I'm surprised you think they can be saved.

[CroFlames]

Even if you're using the symbol ironically, why do you have one readily available??

These people are white supremacist scumbags and I'd bet my house on that.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

I'm surprised you think they can be saved.

I don't. I have no idea. I just said there's no way to draw those sorts of conclusions from a twitter video, hence my surprise that everyone is drawing them, and all drawing the same ones. Your response here (wherein you assume that if I object to people doing that, I must be convinced that the opposite is true) is symptomatic of the tendency I was talking about. People need to be a lot less sure of their assumptions about what's going on in other peoples' heads.

I do get your point about triage though, I totally agree with that.

[PepsiFree]

The classical liberal naivety will always suggest that anyone, regardless of their position, should be reasoned with. Fact of the matter is, not everyone can be reasoned with, nor does everyone deserve to be reasoned with. It's also not everyone's job to reason with every bad actor around. And while some people can be reasoned with, incessantly pointing out that fact like it's akin to elevated thinking is kind of boring tbh.

Yes, it's a blissful thought that every bad idea in the world can be reasoned out by someone with a philosophy, history, or political science degree. Blissful, but ignorant of how the actual world works. A position held by academics and thinkers who have never had to experience the world outside of books. It's wonderful to be naive and just sit around thinking about the world and how perfect it would be if it was how we thought it should be in theory, instead of having to live some actual experience of it in practice.

I just find it funny, I guess. Most people see a video of people wearing a swastika and have an adverse reaction to the video. But classical liberals: "Oh sure, yes, that's very bad but what's also bad is your reactions to the video!" I sometimes wonder what it must be like to be so far removed from the human experience or understanding regular human emotions and reactions that all you can do is come up with some philosophical theory or book you read once or some lazy resort to argumentative logic. How little must you understand other human beings that you always have to argue that their reactions, even to people wearing a swastika, aren't fair or logical or reasonable or whatever. Of course they aren't, always. Why would they be? It's called being a human being. Most human beings understand what that's like.

I also find it a little annoying that someone can watch that video and think "sure the nazi flag people were bad but UGH the guy's commentary!" like everyone, when confronted with people wearing nazi flags, should have a calm reaction and be prepared to reason with nazis. Because that's a typical part of your day, right.

Do people just forget what it's like to be a human being sometimes? We can reserve the capacity for understanding and reasonable doubt for the nazi flag people, but not for posters here or the person filming the video? Why?

[Senator Clay Davis]

"Hey guys, what is the most tone deaf way we can help people in a pandemic?"
"I know! Loosen the deduction rules for meals and entertainment!"

https://twitter.com/user/status/1287791571472195584

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

The classical liberal naivety will always suggest that anyone, regardless of their position, should be reasoned with.

Never said this.

Fact of the matter is, not everyone can be reasoned with, nor does everyone deserve to be reasoned with.

Never said otherwise.

It's also not everyone's job to reason with every bad actor around.

Never said it was.

Yes, it's a blissful thought that every bad idea in the world can be reasoned out by someone with a philosophy, history, or political science degree.

Never said this either.

I sometimes wonder what it must be like to be so far removed from the human experience or understanding regular human emotions and reactions that all you can do is come up with some philosophical theory or book you read once or some lazy resort to argumentative logic.

First time I've ever heard logical reasoning or reference to philosophical traditions called "lazy". I would argue the opposite - that knee-jerk reactions and unexamined assumptions are lazy.

How little must you understand other human beings that you always have to argue that their reactions, even to people wearing a swastika, aren't fair or logical or reasonable or whatever. Of course they aren't, always. Why would they be? It's called being a human being. Most human beings understand what that's like.

I would also suggest that constantly examining human behavioural tendencies rather than just taking them for granted would lead to a better understanding of human nature, not a worse one, but what do I know.

Do people just forget what it's like to be a human being sometimes?

I think the problem is that a lot of people just assume that what it's like for them is what it's like for everyone, and to the extent it's not, that difference demonstrates that there's something inherently flawed or wrong with the person who's wired differently from them. I guess in this case I can thank you for saving me the trouble of supplying a real world example of that.

[Swarly]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Even if you're using the symbol ironically, why do you have one readily available??

These people are white supremacist scumbags and I'd bet my house on that.

to be fair... from the video it looks like a red bandana mask with a white cloth poorly sewed onto it & the swastika drawn on with a sharpie or something. They aren't using nazi flags they had around their house or anything.

they may still be white supremacist scumbags, and at minimum are scumbags tho.

okay, I'm done defending nazis on the internet #F***2020

[octothorp]

I mentioned recently how important North Carolina could be as a swing state, not only because it would be a winnable traditionally red state, but also because there's a senate seat available there. Marist College (A+ rated by 538) released a poll today showing Biden up 7 and Cunningham up 9 over Tillis. Governor Roy Cooper, who's often butted heads with Trump over the Coronavirus handling, is at +20. They could also swing some house seats, as North Carolina voted roughly 50/50 in the 2018 elections, but due to a ridiculously gerrymandered map, Republicans carried the house delegation 10-3. But with a new, less-gerrymandered district map, Democrats are poised to pick up at least 2 seats there, and maybe more if those top-of-ticket numbers hold.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by octothorp

I mentioned recently how important North Carolina could be as a swing state, not only because it would be a winnable traditionally red state, but also because there's a senate seat available there. Marist College (A+ rated by 538) released a poll today showing Biden up 7 and Cunningham up 9 over Tillis. Governor Roy Cooper, who's often butted heads with Trump over the Coronavirus handling, is at +20. They could also swing some house seats, as North Carolina voted roughly 50/50 in the 2018 elections, but due to a ridiculously gerrymandered map, Republicans carried the house delegation 10-3. But with a new, less-gerrymandered district map, Democrats are poised to pick up at least 2 seats there, and maybe more if those top-of-ticket numbers hold.

I just came from there. There are a few Trump supporters there for sure, but nowhere near as many as I expected. Lots of people said they were voting for Biden, but this is anecdotal to my experience. I was up in Appalachia country too FWIW.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I think the problem is that a lot of people just assume that what it's like for them is what it's like for everyone, and to the extent it's not, that difference demonstrates that there's something inherently flawed or wrong with the person who's wired differently from them. I guess in this case I can thank you for saving me the trouble of supplying a real world example of that.

I think the problem is that some people see a video of people wearing nazi flags and their sole focus is on how its bad to assume things about those people, or that "the tendency to sort people into boxes and assume you know all about them despite having basically no information to go on is just strange," when anyone with a lick of human experience would know that's a pretty typical way human beings function. It's human nature.

If this is true:

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

constantly examining human behavioural tendencies rather than just taking them for granted would lead to a better understanding of human nature

Why are you constantly bewildered by human nature? You'd think some of that examination would pay off eventually, right?

[dobbles]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

The classical liberal naivety will always suggest that anyone, regardless of their position, should be reasoned with. Fact of the matter is, not everyone can be reasoned with, nor does everyone deserve to be reasoned with. It's also not everyone's job to reason with every bad actor around. And while some people can be reasoned with, incessantly pointing out that fact like it's akin to elevated thinking is kind of boring tbh.

Yes, it's a blissful thought that every bad idea in the world can be reasoned out by someone with a philosophy, history, or political science degree. Blissful, but ignorant of how the actual world works. A position held by academics and thinkers who have never had to experience the world outside of books. It's wonderful to be naive and just sit around thinking about the world and how perfect it would be if it was how we thought it should be in theory, instead of having to live some actual experience of it in practice.

I just find it funny, I guess. Most people see a video of people wearing a swastika and have an adverse reaction to the video. But classical liberals: "Oh sure, yes, that's very bad but what's also bad is your reactions to the video!" I sometimes wonder what it must be like to be so far removed from the human experience or understanding regular human emotions and reactions that all you can do is come up with some philosophical theory or book you read once or some lazy resort to argumentative logic. How little must you understand other human beings that you always have to argue that their reactions, even to people wearing a swastika, aren't fair or logical or reasonable or whatever. Of course they aren't, always. Why would they be? It's called being a human being. Most human beings understand what that's like.

I also find it a little annoying that someone can watch that video and think "sure the nazi flag people were bad but UGH the guy's commentary!" like everyone, when confronted with people wearing nazi flags, should have a calm reaction and be prepared to reason with nazis. Because that's a typical part of your day, right.

Do people just forget what it's like to be a human being sometimes? We can reserve the capacity for understanding and reasonable doubt for the nazi flag people, but not for posters here or the person filming the video? Why?

As one of the few posters that fits your description, I will take a short stab at where I am coming from....

Regarding the bold and my criticism of the cameraman, I will call it the 'Carol Baskin effect'. We all watched Tiger King earlier this year and lots of people piled on Carol as just as bad as Joe even though realistically she is nowhere near as toxic as he is. To me, the reason why is that we already knew Joe was a giant loser, so there was not much reaction when he lived up to expectations. However, Carol was more of a tweener. Many people started picking at her flaws and she suddenly became the heel of the movie.

So I see this as the same. The people with their masks are at best idiots and at worst racists. So we expect them to act horribly. The cameraman, in his role of 'exposer of evil', should be the good guy. But to me he just came off as annoying and kinda stupid as well. It isn't because he is equally as bad or that I have no empathy for him, I just feel he could have taken a different approach to maybe salvage the interaction.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I think the problem is that some people see a video of people wearing nazi flags and their sole focus is on how its bad to assume things about those people

Actually, that was far from my sole focus, if you'd looked at the last page you'd see what my initial reaction was, both to the notion that it was unamerican and what I thought of the people doing it. If this issue is anyone's sole focus, it seems to be yours.

or that "the tendency to sort people into boxes and assume you know all about them despite having basically no information to go on is just strange," when anyone with a lick of human experience would know that's a pretty typical way human beings function. It's human nature.

If you'll note, I actually explicitly edited my post to say that I wasn't surprised by this so much as I found it jarring, which, well, typical instantiations of human nature can be like that sometimes.

You're criticizing my point, while at the same time saying it's so obvious you don't understand why I even said it in the first place. If you're saying that my initial post was uncontroversial, I agree. All I said was that you can't tell much about the inner workings of a person's mind from a twitter video like that one, and there's no way to know if these people might be susceptible to reason, since there are innumerable examples of people who were able to be reasoned with and brought around, despite being incredibly extreme in their viewpoints. I wouldn't have thought that would be a tough sell. Yet everyone seemed to be behaving as if the opposite was the case, and I've now had to argue about it for the entire page, so I guess it's not that obvious.

Why are you constantly bewildered by human nature? You'd think some of that examination would pay off eventually, right?

"Bewildered" isn't necessarily the word I'd use, but whatever... I'd like to think that it has paid off, but there'd be no way for you to know that unless you'd known me for a long time.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

"Bewildered" isn't necessarily the word I'd use, but whatever... I'd like to think that it has paid off, but there'd be no way for you to know that unless you'd known me for a long time.

Maybe it's just a rhetorical habit, but you do come off as insufficiently cynical to convincingly portray that you have a deep understanding of human nature. Expressing constant surprise and disappointment at people acting illogically is illogical in itself.

[Acey]

It's very interesting which types of bigotry are considered far more repulsive and off-putting than others.

In this scenario, arguing with them is non-sensical, as I stated. Why even engage with them. Not trying to start a brawl in Wal-Mart is apparently "defending them". I've engaged racists before and ended up in jail.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Oh boy. Poor old guy needs help.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1287880895051907072

[TheScorpion]

Was just about to post that. Absolutely astounding grasp of reality on display there.

[Looch City]

I like how just throws "illegal" in there.

[getbak]

Someone tried to explain that the Twitter trends are personalized for you based on the algorithm, and now he thinks it's a Democrat conspiracy led by Bill Clinton's VP.