This is why the dementia theory is very persuasive to me. He was probably always a sociopathic narcissistic racist bully, but now he's a demented sociopathic narcissistic racist bully. It also explains why I think he's failing so spectacularly, since he can't admit to himself he needs help.
I think that's right, and I worry that people will use it to let voters off the hook. "Oh, it wasn't crazy to vote for Trump in 2016; who could have known he'd go downhill so fast after the election?"
2: Has he gone downhill since the election, though?
I don't think so, but I think people will claim he did as an excuse, just like they did with Reagan.
Does it matter whether we let regular voters off the hook? So long as they are willing to be convinced to do differently in the future? "You made a mistake. Let us welcome you back to the world of rationality."
I guess Reagan isn't really parallel. Just that people denied that he was suffering from dementia when in retrospect it seems clear that he was.
What I mean by letting them off the hook is that they'll be able to blame how badly Trump turned out on something that wasn't apparent during the election, and so deny that voting for him was a mistake. Leaving them comfortable doing the same goddamn thing again next time.
Is that so complex, grammatically? The long sentence is a bunch of joint ifs, a parenthetical, and a single then. Sounds almost as rambly as he gets today.
It means he had to hold three or four ideas in his head from the start of the sentence to the end of the sentence. I don't think he can do that now.
I don't like what this thread has done to the sidebar's aesthetics. That is all.
One thing I think about sometimes is, suppose he were a useful idiot on the side of good instead of evil? Suppose Trump, and all his uncanny ability to connect in the gut level with uninformed voters - were being fed lefty propaganda and getting whispers from lefty Rasputins instead of Bannon?
Of course I would have voted for him, compared to, say Bush Sr. I just wonder if I'd be more honest about it when he acted like the way he always would.
Actually, I tossed the "Bush Sr" clause in at the last second, and now that seems like a tough comparison. Lefty-fed Trump vs. Bush Sr? I think I'd still go lefty-Trump.
9: I don't think you have to hold multiple ideas in your head at once to produce that. The thought-flow goes: "if he hadn't done a bunch of stupid stuff, [cite a few stupid things as they pop to mind], he could have won." Not that it's indicative of dullness - we all likely utter sentences like that - but it's long without being complex.
The "and they were real bad days" is a simple amplifying digression that happens to be characteristic of how he often adlibs today off of prepared texts.
If Bush Sr. had said ninjas were trying to disrupt his daughter's wedding, would you have voted for Perot?
"Ninjas have disrupted the president's daughter's wedding! Are you a bad enough hombre to vote third party?!"
13. The bar has fallen so low, we're impressed if he's able to say the alphabet without getting distracted and losing track before the letter M.
I bet the Trump position on photoshopping his daughter's head on the picture of a naked woman is more nuanced than the Perot one.
People said the same thing about W's governor debate performances, but you'd think by now we'd have some confirmation in W's case.
With W, wasn't it a hamfisted attempt to be folksy and Texan?
-Letting Trump voters off the hook is actually a good thing since it'll make them less likely to vote Trump in 2020 if they have a way of doing so that doesn't involve admitting they made a bad wrong vote in 2016
-As we learned with GWB, mocking Republicans for being stupid/unable to speak properly doesn't work because it comes off as and in fact kinda is effete snobbery. But beyond that, I think it's completely crazy to think that anyone could win a U.S. presidential race without being very smart, and I've always assumed Trump speaks the way he does because small words are easy to understand.
There's lots of different kinds of intelligence.
Isn't W pretty anchoritical these days?
I'll bet Trump is way on the right side of the mental whateverness distro. The counterargument would be he doesn't seem to like to read books, if you trust that ghostwriter Anthony guy, but I think that can happen for high-mental whateverness people who grow up in households where reading isn't really a thing.
I'll bet Trump is way on the right side of the mental whateverness distro.
Penn Jilette doesn't think so. I don't particularly agree with Penn's politics, but I'm inclined to believe him on this.
Not going for a joke, and just trying as hard as I can to tell the truth. I think he doesn't really have strong convictions and sense of right and wrong and he's not really really smart. He's not stupid. He's not a dumb guy, but he's not smart like presidents are smart. We make jokes -- everybody makes jokes except me -- about George W Bush not being smart. He's smart, he just is. Obama's smarter, probably. Obama's smarter than Clinton, probably. Almost certainly. But they're up here, you know, and if we're talking about it, you're wherever you are but you're not smarter than Obama. None of us are. Even smart guys you know aren't there. Trump isn't one of those people.
I think he doesn't really have strong convictions and sense of right and wrong and he's not really really smart.
This was Regan, also. Republicans have a type.
At least Reagan knew enough not to become the hapless tool of the Russians.
26:. Reagan didn't have strong convictions?
Reagan didn't have strong convictions?
Absolutely not. He started out as a Democrat and union head, but figured out it was more advantageous to his career to become a mouthpiece for the right. He road all the way to the Presidency by being the guy that power and money wanted him to be.
And he was successful because he was able to appear as if he had convictions. He was an actor, after all. But he really didn't know much about policy, much less care about it.
Didn't Reagan personally write that Goldwaterite speech that became a sleeper hit?
I have no idea, but this reminds me of a thought I had about pro-capitalism and the people who commit it from right of the political center. I seem to recall they always used to have a positive message about how economic activity wasn't zero-sum, like government stuff. Everybody could win and be happy. That's all gone now. I wonder if the recession killed it or if Trump just buried under a pile of shit?
A rising tide lifts all boats, they said, fully aware that a lot of people on low ground will never have boats.
It's original to 33, as far as I know.
I've seen it attributed to fake accent.
I will always remember back in the late 90's when I was at a faculty meeting where Paul Volcker had been invited to speak. In the question and answer session afterwards, one of the faculty members asked if Reagan understood anything he was doing. Paul Volcker just got this little smile and said "He was heck of a guy".
if reagan didn't have sincere racist views, somebody bannoned him for his speech at the start of his campaign--from the location at philadephia, mississippi to the "young bucks buying steaks with welfare checks." I suppose he could have been atwatered? but for old people like that I charitably default to the view that they've always been racist and it's too late to change now.
Can you just imagine if Obama had said something like this?
Ah, well, you see, Obama was articulate. Well known for it.
Another slant on REagan: Bob Conquest (PBUH) who was himself exceptionally smart, said that Reagan was the only politician he had known who actually listened to what intellectuals had to say. Others (Thatcher, eg) just waited till you had finished so they could put you right, but Reagan, he said, was interested. I found this astonishing, but Conquest was truthful. Bats about the Anglosphere, of course, but we're all wrong about something important.
That would actually make sense for someone who was fairly bright but professionally motivated by cynicism. That is, an adult who works in politics for ideological reasons has worked out beliefs that she cares about, and is going to be listening to an intellectual to fit them into a pre-existing structure or reject them. A bright guy who's just up there reading his lines can be genuinely interested in something new every fifteen minutes.
(I think by the time he was president, he was senile or close to it. But that doesn't mean he'd always been an idiot.)
I would like to point out that 42 could also be explained by "acting," which how he made his money before he went into politics.
I was going to say. I'm sure Reagan did a very good impression of someone who was interested in what intellectuals had to say. But did his actions imply that he actually listened to them and changed his views accordingly?
Reagan was talked about as a potential president for a long time. I went to an exhibition at the Cartoon Museum in London, and there was one cartoon from the late 1960s which was supposed to be "Stamps of the Future" from IIRC 1980 (it was about decimalisation) - and one was "Inauguration of President Reagan".
Why did Trump's wife and daughter dress up like old-school Italian widows before going to see the pope?
That is deeply strange. His wife is wearing some sort of veil.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/24/donald-trump-vatican-meeting-pope-francis
It says "black dress and veil, as is customary but not mandatory". Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton did the same. (Hillary tied hers under her chin, making her look rather like my granny.)
Tom Lehrer lyric from TWTW (so 1964/65).
Hollywood's often tried to mix
Show business with politics,
From Helen Gahagan
To Ronald Reagan,
But Mister Murphy is the star
Who's done the best by far.
IIRC he voices the Reagan line as an incredulous question to laughter from the audience.
The good Trumpoid news this morning is that it seems that Lieberman* is no longer under consideration for FBI. The bad news will be whoever they move onto next.
*Trump choosing Lieberman's law firm to defend him played a role I assume.
Why would a clear conflict of interest prevent him from appointing somebody to investigate his clear conflicts of interest?
I like 43 as an explanation.
49: it's a thing that women generally wear for church, if conservative, or to meet the Pope if grand. Mantilla? Not mantissa, in any event. I think it's just convention, though it's very widely observed.
Did anyone else catch the lovely thing where the Pope appeared to be asking Melania if she fed her husband "pizza" -- subtweet, "Jesus, look at the size of him" -- but was actually asking if she gives him a Slovenian delicacy made with hazelnuts and crushed dormice spelled potizza in Italian. Buggered if I'm going to look for the unicode.
40: I love urls that parse weird, like Obamato.
More evidence of Reagan starting out smart, if malevolent/opportunist: he personally wrote most or all of the daily radio addresses he made between 1975 and 1979. His library apparently has 679 of them in original longhand form on legal pads.
But did his actions imply that he actually listened to them and changed his views accordingly?
I don't think intellectuals had much effect on his thinking. On the other hand, watching a TV movie changed his whole outlook on nuclear proliferation.
We should be glad he didn't live to see "Game of Thrones."
"Mr. Gorbachev, do NOT tear down this wall! Winter is coming."
If this is the current events thread: any reactions to this just-dropped WaPo story about the use of dubious Russian sources in the Clinton email investigation?
This one particularly unsettles me. A source that had provided other bullshit?
After the bureau first received the document, it attempted to use the source to obtain the referenced email but could not do so, these people said. The source that provided the document, they said, had previously supplied other information that the FBI was also unable to corroborate.
Were they really only worried about optics at the FBI? The basic murkiness of the evidence is unnerving.
It's still possible they were actively trying to destroy America.
JFC: the GOP House candidate in Montana just literally, literally attacked a Guardian reporter trying to talk to him. Witness: "All of a sudden I heard a giant crash and saw Ben's feet fly in the air as he hit the floor." Apparently audio-recorded; law enforcement investigating.
Trump also told the Emoluments Clause to go fuck itself.
OT: My phone is trying to write responses to my emails. The singularity!
I single-handedly stopped The Matrix.
Now you need to evaporate into light and spread your source code throughout the internet.
66 Totally viral. Lots of folks have already voted, but there are still enough to make a difference out there.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/24/media/montana-gop-greg-gianforte/index.html
73: Assume you saw the Fox news crew's report that backed up Jacobs and not the campaign's ludicrous statement. They were the news crew in the room when it happened.
At that point, Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him. Faith, Keith and I watched in disbelief as Gianforte then began punching the man, as he moved on top the reporter and began yelling something to the effect of "I'm sick and tired of this!"
Just now getting to it but holy shit that WaPo story on the fake document the Russians planted with the FBI.
Also, Sessions.
Contrast the campaign statement.
"After asking Jacobs to lower the recorder, Jacobs declined. Greg then attempted to grab the phone that was pushed in his face. Jacobs grabbed Greg's wrist, and spun away from Greg, pushing them both to the ground. It's unfortunate that this aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist created this scene at our campaign volunteer BBQ."
I saw the Fox story, yes.
No telling what happens now.
Not to worry, the sheriff is apparently a Gianforte donor so I'm sure justice will be served.
Unbelievable yet all too believable.
A thing to push I think is that it was in response to a question on the CBO score. I liked John Dingell's* take:
All of these things having been said, that body slam is the only substantive GOP response to questions about the CBO score I've seen today.
*Who is a great twitter follow.
How can you donate a Gianforte? You need it to poop.
Our local paper has just rescinded their (total bullshit, mass cancellation inducing) endorsement of Gianforte. If either of the other two Lee Enterprises papers follow suit, that'll be a big damn deal.
And now he's charged with misdemeanor assault.
I retract 81. The sheriff even addressed the donation when announcing the charge.
And now the Billings paper has followed suit.
What happens if he wins and then resigns?
New special election!
If he wins, he won't resign. He'll do some sort of bullshit anger management, probably at his church. And there's no chance the House wouldn't seat him.
Yes. That was an amazing thing to wake up to.
His Wikipedia page contains the subheading "Aging and how retirement is unbiblical"!
Pulling endorsements just confirms the worst fears of his supporters, that all the established press is liberal and they've just been hiding it for years. Now it's all in the open and if voters pick Gianforte there will be no stopping authoritarianism. If reporters had just backed off, democracy wouldn't be in such peril. #slatepitch
Key lesson there: never send a reporter to cover the election of any politician that he couldn't take in a fight. Ben Jacobs needs to get down the gym a bit more, or they need to shift him to an older or weaker candidate.
Meanwhile over here, the press - and I mean the serious press - is going ape over US leaks about the Manchester bombing. There are all sorts of comments about the UK authorities starting to withhold terrorism information from the US if the US government can't be trusted not to spew it all to CBS and the New York Times.
Top story in the FT. The BBC is now reporting that the police have stopped sharing info on the investigation with the US.
97, 98 Fish rots from the head down and all that.
96: You've got to be careful though - remember when John Prescott belted that guy?
97: It's not like I really have a dog in this fight, but it sure does seem like most of the people we pay to keep secrets are utterly inept at that task. Whistleblowing is great, and I don't much care about the sanctity of investigations or whatever, but I do think the over-reliance on anonymous leaker sources does all journalism a disservice. Is there even anyone in the US mediasphere today who could do I.F. Stone-style reporting based on reading through publicly available govt documents? Sure doesn't seem like it. Maybe some public radio reporters or something.
Is there even anyone in the US mediasphere today who could do I.F. Stone-style reporting based on reading through publicly available govt documents?
This is what David Farenthold got his Pulitzer for. Well, not reading through government documents specifically, but publicly available documents and just working the phone on Trump's lies about charitable giving.
I'm feeling a little sympathetic towards Mr. Gianforte. Having people shove microphones in your face is fucking unpleasant and it's a damn obnoxious thing to do, all the more so when it's a gaggle of them. You do sign up for it when you run for office, so I think he should most definitely be picking up trash on the side of the highway for a while, but it's still an obnoxious thing to do. When they do it to private citizens my feelings are much less ambiguous - punching a reporter sticking a mic in your face should count as "he had it coming."
103 is just wrong. I mean, yes, reporters are assholes, but the reporter had an very legitimate need, even more than usual for candidates for public office. There were maybe a dozen hours between the CBO report about Trumpcare and the election, it's very obviously salient to every voter, and the candidate was transparently trying to avoid not answering before people voted. A press that didn't push in that situation to make it clear that the candidate was evasive is a press that failed.
Trying to avoid answering, that is.
Yeah, Moby is right. The content of the question pissed Gianforte off, not a paparazzi-esque reporter.
I made it clear that Gianforte should not get off. I'm merely pointing out that ambush interviewing is obnoxious. It's part of what you sign up for when you go into politics, but it's still obnoxious. It's not hard to see how a question you perceive as obnoxious coming on top of already obnoxious behavior might push someone over the line.
I don't think the question is perceived as obnoxious. Its perceived as dangerous. He up and hit a guy because his candidacy depends on not telling the truth about his vote on Trumpcare.
Right. Gianforte is trying to keep a lie going for the last 24 hours, and this guy is threatening to expose him as a fraud, which he sees as a threat. He wasn't weary of overbearing reporters.
I'm trying to use the "up and ..." construction more as part of my outreach to the working class.
Also, even the conservative Fox reporters who witnessed the event seem to agree that the reporter wasn't aggressively pushing his way in.
108 may be correct. Hiding from their shameful votes is increasingly important to the right as they betray their supporters.
Not punching people for (arguendo) being obnoxious is an extremely low bar to clear, especially for public figures, not an amazing act of restraint. Normalizing it seems like another step toward Duterteism.
Some things are objectively rude but also conventionally need to be accepted because larger principles are at stake. Good journalism is one, panhandling is another.
When they do it to private citizens my feelings are much less ambiguous - punching a reporter sticking a mic in your face should count as "he had it coming."
Oh, please. So, for example, a journalist doorsteps a slum landlord and asks him why he won't fix the sewer lines in one of his properties, he punches her, and togolosh is standing there shouting "Well done! Put the boot in! The bitch had it coming!"
I realise it doesn't necessarily tell the whole store, but if you listen to the audio, the reporter sounds quite calm and measured, not insistent and interrupty, and Gianforte seems to just abruptly pop a gasket. It really does seem to escalate from normal conversation to shouty tantrum out of the blue.
story, I meant. But if the whole store is interested, it should listen to the audio too.
(By "good journalism" I meant not that you could punch bad journalists, but that the stenographic style tends to be much politer.)
115: I'm not cheering, but if you behave obnoxiously sometimes you get punched. Invading someone's personal space and shouting questions at them is obnoxious, is it not? If the journalist in your example asked politely there's no issue. If she's sticking a mic in his face and yelling questions while obstructing him from going about his business and won't leave him alone I have no sympathy for her if he snaps. That's not the same as cheering, but there's such a thing as 'fighting words' and 'fighting actions' and I submit that being a member of the press does not give you free licence to invade people's personal space, yell at them, and prevent them from going about their business, regardless of what you suspect they may or may not have done. Obviously it's better to refrain from violence, but I recognize that people have limits and when you push them past those limits the consequences are sometimes violent.
I find 119 a pretty obnoxious statement, to be frank, with the redeeming feature that it justifies my impulse to kick togolosh in the head for writing it.
but there's such a thing as 'fighting words' and 'fighting actions'
Oh, Christ. No, there isn't, not in the sense you mean. There is no sort of "fighting words" that she can use, other than a reasonably credible threat of immediate physical harm to you or another person, that justifies you (legally or morally) punching a journalist in the face just because she's come up to you and asked you some questions in a public place.
If she's sticking a mic in his face and yelling questions while obstructing him from going about his business and won't leave him alone I have no sympathy for her if he snaps.
What makes this different from a justification for domestic abuse is, apparently, the lack of a marital relationship, and the microphone. Because she just KEPT NAGGING and she WOULDN'T SHUT HER DAMN MOUTH.
120: If I was invading your personal space and yelling it at you I wouldn't be able to object. For this reason I refrain from invading people's personal space and yelling at them. Also because i have no desire to, but still.
121: I think you are envisioning a very different approach from the one I am. If she simply walks up to the guy and asks if he'd be willing to answer questions that's one thing. If she gets in his face, obstructs him, and generally acts the way ambush journalists do that's another. It may not meet your threshold for a punch in the face, and it doesn't personally meet mine, but I'm not going to judge those for whom it does cross the line.
122: Not even close.
It may not meet your threshold for a punch in the face, and it doesn't personally meet mine, but I'm not going to judge those for whom it does cross the line.
Well, that's a deplorable abdication of moral responsibility and you should be ashamed of yourself.
122: Not even close.
No, it's pretty close. I mean, if a woman was getting in her boyfriend's face and just generally being obnoxious... that'd make it OK for him to punch her, right? I'm not saying you'd do it yourself, but you wouldn't judge a man for whom that crossed the line?
Key lesson there: never send a reporter to cover the election of any politician that he couldn't take in a fight. Ben Jacobs needs to get down the gym a bit more, or they need to shift him to an older or weaker candidate.
Ignoring the fact that by lying there and taking it Jacobs made it into a better news story, Gianforte is both a tech zillionaire and, from photos, probably at least twenty years older than Jacobs. Punching a really rich guy you're two decades younger than doesn't strike me as a recipe for success even if he started it. (Making punching rich guys back a more expensive proposition is half the Koch's agenda!)
I think the media is going to have to get much more obnoxious as the administration is closed and hostile to open inquiry. Given that Trump is also prone to attacking the media as an enemy and that his supporters lap that shit up, I don't see any reasons to provide either with a scrap of cover based on hypothetical cases where they might have a valid reason to complain about the media.
125: Yeah, 96 was not entirely serious. I don't think political correspondents should be planning their day on the assumption that the politicians they cover could go feral at any moment.
Yeah, 96 was not entirely serious.
Great. Now you tell me.
On the other hand, if Gianforte got beaten up by a liberal journalist, that might have lost him the election right there.
Unfortunately, a majority of votes had already been cast before the assault.
Gianforte is both a tech zillionaire
Why am I not surprised? Are all tech zillionaires scum, or just the ones we hear about?
I mean, if a woman was getting in her boyfriend's face and just generally being obnoxious... that'd make it OK for him to punch her, right?
How is an personal relationship in which people have implicitly agreed to allow the other person intimate contact (among other things) even vaguely similar to the relationship between mutually hostile strangers?
Are all tech zillionaires scum
I have lately been feeling more and more persuaded by the particular case in favour of steeply progressive taxation that argues that when a society allows some members to become obscenely rich, in puts itself at risk of dangerous levels of influence by scumbags and nutjobs. I certainly don't resent some people getting to buy more and better shit than I do as a reward for some combination of talent, work, and luck. But if the rewards are so big that they can buy themselves an idiot president or underwrite decades of fake science to help burn up the world, then every talented, hard-working lucky bastard has to be viewed as a real potential hazard, to say nothing of just the lucky ones.
I don't think that works -- can't people in a relationship explicitly withdraw permission for a partner to engage in intimate contact? That is, if we were talking about sexual access, the answer's obvious. But if you're allowed to withdraw permission for your partner to touch you sexually, surely you can withdraw permission for your partner to 'get in your face' to whatever level is allowable to a stranger.
At which point, if you couldn't hit your partner for it, you probably shouldn't hit a reporter for it.
124: Is there ever a situation in which it is OK to punch someone in the face? Short of self defence, that is. Is initiating violence always wrong? No such thing as unbearable provocation?
Short of self-defense and the reasonable defense of others, I really don't think there is.
I can come up with weird situations where the provocation would seem 'unbearable', but they mostly come down to slippery definitions of what's really violence? That is, there's a continuum from getting in someone's way to forcibly confining them, and at some point that's violence which you're entitled to defend yourself against -- that sort of thing.
137: Is there ever a situation in which it is OK to punch someone in the face? Short of self defence, that is.
Easy one: no. Self defence, or defending others against harm.
Is initiating violence always wrong?
Yes, unless it's the only way to pre-empt a reasonably credible threat of physical harm. If I'm convinced that you're about to harm me (or someone else) and there's no other way for me to stop you, then it's OK for me to initiate violence. Otherwise, yes, it's always wrong.
No such thing as unbearable provocation?
No. Not for someone who is a mentally competent adult.
Wait, I thought we had a punching Nazis exception.
Now I'm trying to remember what the first mate actually said to Billy Budd to set him off.
135
I'd take it even further, excessive money, like excessive power is fundamentally distorting to your personality and should be avoided for the good of society. It's hard to do the right thing when there would be essentially no consequences for doing the wrong thing and when you never have to hear someone tell you no. For every Warren Buffett and Bill Gates (and remember Bill had to be convinced to be good after many years), there are a hundred Peter Thiels and Greg Gianfortes and Donald Trumps.
The trouble with taking the position that "violence is morally OK if someone has made you really, really angry" is that it's a terribly subjective criterion, and it gives the most licence for violence to the most easily enraged.
I can readily imagine someone being absolutely furious - really pulse-pounding, frothing, seeing-red rage - at seeing a bare-headed woman walk into a mosque while still wearing shoes, or seeing a protestor spray-painting graffiti on a war memorial. I still would not condone punching her, not even in the mealy-mouthed way of "well, I wouldn't think it's right myself but I certainly won't condemn him for doing it".
I feel like we should have a Buzz Aldrin punching conspiracy theorists exception, too. I mean, if that was wrong, I don't wanna be right.
Wait, I thought we had a punching Nazis exception.
Imminent threat. That's still OK.
136 is interesting. We generally tolerate much higher levels of invasive behavior from people we have close relationships with, and the whole thing is usually implicit. Explicitly withdrawing consent to be touched by an intimate partner ought to be enough on one level, but I think you have to take history into account. You don't get to reset the relationship to complete stranger status just by saying a few words. Even if you break up completely you still have a connection. There's also the fact that intimate partner violence has a large psychological dimension that's not there with a stranger. There's greater harm in getting hit by someone you are emotionally close to than in getting hit by a stranger.
143: I guess that is why every superhero has a whole bunch of supervillains to contend with.
(Checked -- it was an accusation of mutiny.)
The punching Nazis exception is more a sort of "Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy." Should I be in a position to dissuade someone from punching Richard Spencer, I would, I just wouldn't be all that worried if it happened anyway. (And of course there's punching Richard Spencer, who's a weasel with dumb hair but probably isn't a threat of violence to anyone particular, and so shouldn't be punched, and then punching Nazis under circumstances where they constitute an immediate threat of harm to other people. Jewish mobsters beating up Nazis in the '30s? Plausibly justified as preemptive defense of third-parties.)
144: I'm curious how you feel about the case of punching someone because you are furious, because the punchee has deliberately and successfully provoked you to assaultive fury. As close to literally "asking for it" as possible, in other words.
Anyway, is anybody really arguing about violence being morally OK, or are we really talking about violence we agree is morally wrong nevertheless being understandable and easily forgiven under some circumstances as a human failing? I can imagine plenty of scenarios in which I, a slow-to-anger, non-violent type generally, could be goaded into losing control, and so it's also easy to look at someone else in a similar situation and say, that was wrong, but who can blame him? Although I repeat that in this case with Gianforte and the reporter, no such circumstances applied.
144: The trouble with taking the position that "violence is morally OK if someone has made you really, really angry" is that it's a terribly subjective criterion
It does not need to be. A jury of your peers can readily enough decide if the provocation was indeed unbearable according to prevailing social standards*. That's a sample of 12 people, all of whom need to agree (ignoring hung juries for the moment because they needlessly complicate things).
I guess I would get sympathetic around violence as an immediate reaction to a significant, intentional, injury -- "Check it out, dude, I just killed your dog." But sympathetic and thinking it's justified are different.
151: Prevailing social standards can really suck like that, coughgaypaniccough.
142. He accused him of conspiracy to mutiny. Fairly provocative, since it was untrue.
And of course, Budd had a stutter. You can't judge a man with a stutter.
Anyway, is anybody really arguing about violence being morally OK, or are we really talking about violence we agree is morally wrong nevertheless being understandable and easily forgiven under some circumstances as a human failing?
I recognize togolosh is accepting it's wrong morally and legally, but repeatedly asserting it as normal or to be expected tends to blur the is/ought distinction. Most of all the "feeling sympathetic" and "I'm not going to judge" bits. What we see as normal / natural / to be expected is itself a social construct. (For example, what we would "expect" as a result of unreasonably provoking a woman as opposed to a man.)
"The left has precipitated this intense, confrontational approach throughout the country in recent months. I reject any kind of thing where we use physical violence in a situation like that," Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) said. "It should not have happened. And the law will have to be the ultimate arbiter." Franks' comments echoed the statement issued by Gianforte's campaign. His spokesman, Shane Scanlon, lamented that "aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist created this scene at our campaign volunteer BBQ."
151: now you're talking about the practice of criminal law. Before, we were talking about individual moral judgement. They're different things.
152 is hinting at, I think, the distinction between "justification" and "mitigating circumstances".
I can imagine plenty of scenarios in which I, a slow-to-anger, non-violent type generally, could be goaded into losing control,
This is where I'm coming from. I've never hit another person in anger, and the one time someone tried to get into a fight with me I talked him out of it (good thing, since he would have mashed me like a potato). But when I see an innocent stranger whose only crime is to be caught up in some prurient news story getting harassed by the press I see a pretty clear line being crossed, and once you cross that line you really don't have a lot of room to complain if your target decides to also step over a line in order to get you to stop.
The way the press treated Chandra Levy's family was disgraceful for example. Camping out almost on their lawn, not letting them leave the house without being assaulted with questions, calling them over and over, all while these poor people were trying to deal with the disappearance of their daughter. If someone had snapped under those conditions and gone all Mike Tyson on some of the reporters I'd not shed a tear.
Please ignore my formatting atrocity above. Only the first para was supposed to be italics.
158: There's a big difference between 'not judging someone for losing their shit under stress and hitting someone' and 'thinking the person who got hit deserved it'. Like, Chandra Levy's family. The press isn't one thing, there were dozens of people from dozens of organizations. Say the family had been being harassed for weeks, and a family member finally lost it and hit a reporter who had showed up that day for the first time and wasn't being extraordinarily aggressive. I might find the family member's action forgivable because of the emotional stress, but not think the individual reporter had done anything wrong.
And I don't think keeping that line clear is quibbling; forgiving someone for getting violent is completely distinct from saying the victim deserved it.
No no no no no no no.
OK, you don't have to cry about every injustice -- have you cried yet today about the cholera epidemic US policy towards Yemen is exacerbating? -- but that can never ever be the guide to what is and what is not acceptable.
That could work the other way. There are plenty of people who deserve getting hit, but only a few people who would probably be in the emotionally-stressed-enough-for-a-pass group. Like when my old classmate who became a white supremacist killed the other white supremacist, except if he just hit him really hard.
160: Yes, an important distinction. I don't disagree with anything you've said. The only point where we might disagree is that I think there are a limited range of circumstances where someone really does have it coming short of an imminent threat.
163: but you're being very slippery about what "has it coming" means. Does it mean "I would have some sympathy with the man who punched her"? Or does it mean "punching her was the right thing to do and in those circumstances I would have punched her as well"? These are different statements.
As a reporter who asks congressmen and women questions every day, if elected, I can say Capitol Hill is going to be a rude awakening for Greg Gianforte.
I have sprinted down corridors with Rep. Mark Meadows -- an architect of the health bill -- and waited outside a bathroom for Rep. Trey Gowdy, who will likely be the next chair of the House Oversight committee. I've followed Sen. Joe Manchin into his car to see what a bipartisan health care working group has been cooking up. That's the usual on Capitol Hill.
...
It's not because it's a nice thing to do, or that they like it. As someone who is tasked with asking Congress members questions, I can attest that on more than one occasion lawmakers have exhaled a sigh of relief when they make it past a line of reporters without being addressed.
At the end of the day, these representatives are accountable to the people, and the press is instrumental in holding those members accountable. Take it from Rep. Al Green of Texas: He thanks reporters almost every time he walks past us on his way to the House floor.
So when Gianforte -- the Montana congressional candidate who is running for election today -- allegedly body slammed a reporter for asking a relatively innocuous question on the effects of the health care bill, he should know that if he wins, he won't be able to escape this.
Trust me, I'm part of hordes of reporters doing the asking.
I think the outrage by the press (see, the billings gazette editorial that CC linked) isn't exaggerated, I imagine they can easily picture themselves in that position.
Yes, that same impulse can be used to defend paparazzi who are clearly behaving badly, but I think it's reasonable and important that the media stick up for each other.
Also, mostly I'm arguing because it seems weird to me that this train of thought was sparked by a candidate punching a fairly polite reporter, apparently because the candidate thought that truthfully answering the reporter's appropriate questions would be really damaging. That doesn't get near the same planet as any of the situations where I start getting sympathetic to violence other than in self defense, which makes me think that we're still pretty far apart.
I mean, if your train of thought was just 'Reporters harass people terribly sometimes. Nothing at all like this situation, but there are times where I'd sympathize with someone who punched a reporter,' I guess possibly.
I'm sure the typical delays in train travel in post-WWI Italy were enough to drive anyone to violence.
OK, I'll ban myself, to (a) knock some doors over lunch and (b) avoid insults that would, under some folks' reckoning, justify violence.
Go, knock! I didn't end up phonebanking for no good reason other than being bad at coping with my life, but Quist should win.
Go knock on doors Charley! And good luck to Quist.
164: To me "had it coming" spans a range of things. I wouldn't frame it in either of the ways you do. To me it means that the person getting punched doesn't have a right to complain. It's about them and their actions, not me and my feelings. I feel little sympathy for someone who gets something bad that they have coming, but that's not what defines it.
To me it means that the person getting punched doesn't have a right to complain.
So, deserves it. At which point, what are you talking about, concretely? If standing close to someone and asking them questions with a microphone means you deserve to be punched, that's pretty hard on reporters.
Oh, man, the irony of togolosh JAQ'ing about whether a reporter JAQ'ing a politician is cracking me up.
171: I don't think I've said anything that justifies the inference I'm talking about just asking questions. I'm talking about harassing people. Having a press pass doesn't give you the right to treat other people like objects to be pressured, harassed, and manipulated to your advantage. All the more so when that advantage is actually simply putting money in the pockets of the likes of Rupert Murdoch.
174: So why are you bringing it up in this context? It's pretty clear from the audio that Jacobs wasn't harassing Gianforte.
174: but that isn't the situation. Jacobs wasn't hassling Gianforte, he doesn't work for Rupert Murdoch either, he writes for the Guardian, and you still think he had it coming and apparently the only reason you don't entirely support Gianforte attacking him is that Gianforte signed up for it by running for office.
175,176: So are tangents off limits to the mineshaft now?
you still think he had it coming
Nowhere have I said he had it coming. The closest I have gotten is expressing some sympathy for the inevitable frustrations of dealing with the press. That's limited sympathy for a guy I said should be convicted of a crime, not anything like saying the reporter had it coming. If I believed he had it coming I would not support prosecution.
This isn't the first time you have mischaracterized my position in conversations over the years. I've noticed you do this to other people too. I don't know if it's deliberate or just sloppiness, but it's not conducive to mutual understanding.
It's not that tangents are off limits, but that this doesn't seem like a situation that has anything in common with an innocent private citizen being harassed by the press. It's hard to figure out why Gianforte is reminding you of people you sympathize with at all.
From 103:
I'm feeling a little sympathetic towards Mr. Gianforte. Having people shove microphones in your face is fucking unpleasant and it's a damn obnoxious thing to do, all the more so when it's a gaggle of them.
That's not framed as a tangent.
A straight line is a terrible thing to waste.
This is no time for triangulation, Moby.
179; Also from 103: When they do it to private citizens my feelings are much less ambiguous
That's where the tangent starts. I probably should have put that bit in a separate comment, though.
178: It's hard to figure out why Gianforte is reminding you of people you sympathize with at all.
Because even though the thing that set him off was innocuous enough it bears a resemblance to behavior where I would be quite sympathetic to punching the person. I also rather dislike the way reporters get put on a pedestal as defenders of democracy when they generally do such an awful job. The irony of the fact that in this particular case the reporter was doing a really good job is not lost on me.
Messing that up is probably going to be my greatest regret of the week.
I'm feeling a little sympathetic towards Mr. Togolosh. Having people deliberately misinterpret you is fucking unpleasant and it's a damn obnoxious thing to do, all the more so when it's a gaggle of them.
186: But I should probably still pick up trash by the side of the highway for a few months.
Is it ok to think someone in the face? I mean, if they had another think coming?
it bears a resemblance to behavior where I would be quite sympathetic to punching the person.
You didn't listen to the audio like I told you to, did you?
This is just like what prompted the analogy ban: The Gianforte case is in some ways (persistent questioning) like the sort of situation togolosh is thinking about and in some ways (questioning reasonably and in the public interest) unlike it. Togolosh is thinking that the likeness is a point of contact warranting going off on a tangent, others that the unlikeness makes it unwarranted.
Which is obvious, but also an analogy-analogy.
Related: togolosh and some of his mates getting stuck in. One sympathises. I'm sure those protesters were being incredibly obnoxious.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/26/us/turkey-protesters-attack-video-analysis.html?_r=1
Point:
Nowhere have I said he had it coming. The closest I have gotten is expressing some sympathy for the inevitable frustrations of dealing with the press. That's limited sympathy for a guy I said should be convicted of a crime, not anything like saying the reporter had it coming.
Counterpoint:
You do sign up for it when you run for office, so I think he should most definitely be picking up trash on the side of the highway for a while, but it's still an obnoxious thing to do. When they do it to private citizens my feelings are much less ambiguous - punching a reporter sticking a mic in your face should count as "he had it coming."
192.1 refers to the Gianforte incident.
192.2.last refers to a private citizen other than Gianforte, as indicated by the phrase "private citizen." It's right there in the bit you quoted. Why do you think the first clause of that sentence is unrelated to the second?
You are conflating two statements that refer to completely different situations.