Idiocracy
- Thread starter Highlander
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OrangeBlack
New member
Certainly. I wasn't commenting on what herman said, I was commenting on the tweet that he included. The Trump staffers shouldn't be judged by their jobs....they should be judged by what type of person they are. For many, this is their start in politics & they are looking to gain career experience. Again, it's a job....it doesn't define who they are, especially when they are young. When you look at it from that perspective...it's crazed hostility toward them.Bender said:
Heroic Shrimp
Active member
OrangeBlack said:
While I might as an individual be more civil in my engagements with such people, I see the social opposition that they face as coming from people who will take a moral stand against people who refuse to take a moral stand.
It may be a job, but it's a job working for an administration that is presently engaging in crimes against humanity, is corrupt to its core, is virulently and unabashedly racist, and has little to no regard for the constitution. It's not about these people being politically conservative. To be a part of this administration for the sake of a job is literally to value money over moral and ethical principle, or to be shamefully ignorant. Unprincipled and ignorant people deserve very little respect, and frankly it doesn't surprise me that that's exactly what they're getting.
You say they shouldn't be judged by their jobs but rather by the type of people they are. The thing is, the job they willingly work says far more than they would like about the type of people that they are.
Heroic Shrimp said:
You could say this about a lot of jobs. Taking a moral stand at the cost of your personal career goals and financial stability is a luxury most people can't afford. Its awfully easy to judge someone when you're on the outside looking in, and to take a moral stand that doesn't cost you anything.
Kin
New member
TML fan said:
Indeed you can and you should. What someone does for a living is a reflection of who they are. It is a statement of their values.
TML fan said:
As someone who worked in government for a while I can say that the sort of people we're talking about, political staffers as opposed to civil servants, aren't taking these jobs just so they can put food on the table(if you're qualified for one of these jobs you're qualified for any number of better paying jobs) and political jobs actually tend to be among the least stable.
Political staffs are, by and large, where you find true believers(or, at a push, power hungry careerists). As a general rule, they're high-prestige and low salary so you need to find someone deeply committed to the cause to put in the sort of long hours for low pay that they entail.
In fact, that's lifted almost verbatim from the article in question:
If you read the article, you'll note that none of the anonymously quoted staffers use any kind of a "Hey, I just work for the guy, I don't like his policies" or the "it's just a job" defense. If you work for any administration(but especially this one), you're a supporter. They do so because they believe in the work. That's what they're being judged on. Their support for the administration. Something tells me that the people who refuse to date his staffers wouldn't be keen on dating a run of the mill Trump supporter who didn't work for him either.
Just about everyone I know who worked for the government, including me, did so for idealistic reasons and usually spurned making significantly more money elsewhere. Again though, I was a civil servant so at least I had a strong union and a stable job with good benefits. Being a political staffer wasn't like that. As a general rule they were unpleasant people(regardless of party affiliation) who had really crappy jobs where it seemed like just an avalanche of crap rolled down from the top onto each subordinate.
Political staff tend to be ideological and career driven. So, yes, you can and should judge people if they're willing to be part of an administration like this for their own interests. It is a reflection of their character. They're in these jobs for a reason and those reasons are bad. This isn't blaming a guy pumping gas for climate change.
Kin
New member
OrangeBlack said:
Sure we can. There's lots of civility every day. There are countless examples that still exist of people with genuine political differences disagreeing civilly.
The only way to land at the view you've expressed here is believing that if there's anything that people can't be civil about then people can't be civil about anything.
Take issue with this all you want but this stems from a genuine belief that people who support Trump are advancing a racist, sexist and homophobic agenda. There is no virtue in civility in the face of those things.
herman
Well-known member
This is a TED talk by Megan Phelps-Roper, granddaughter of Westboro Baptist?s Fred Phelps, who through civil discourse with the real world after being assigned the role of social media coordinator shook her indoctrination and escaped her family and cult with her sister.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVV2Zk88beY
I think you should have long patient conversations with your friends even when your viewpoints differ. Iron sharpens iron and all.
The line here, as Nik and Heroic Shrimp so clearly pointed out, is that these people are being judged for their character and choices, i.e. a character that embraces and supports and administration that has made a hallmark of fascism, racism, sexism, homophobia, corporate greed, outright lying, abusive gaslighting, dehumanizing rhetoric, and generally everything in the list of things you don?t want your kids to be, and they choose to live this life (and the loathing it entails) because they believe they are right.
The recent cries about where the civility is because admin staffers are getting accosted at restaurants is deliberate propaganda to undermine the perceived ethical and moral high ground of their opponents and draw attention away from their other insidious practices and policies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVV2Zk88beY
I think you should have long patient conversations with your friends even when your viewpoints differ. Iron sharpens iron and all.
The line here, as Nik and Heroic Shrimp so clearly pointed out, is that these people are being judged for their character and choices, i.e. a character that embraces and supports and administration that has made a hallmark of fascism, racism, sexism, homophobia, corporate greed, outright lying, abusive gaslighting, dehumanizing rhetoric, and generally everything in the list of things you don?t want your kids to be, and they choose to live this life (and the loathing it entails) because they believe they are right.
The recent cries about where the civility is because admin staffers are getting accosted at restaurants is deliberate propaganda to undermine the perceived ethical and moral high ground of their opponents and draw attention away from their other insidious practices and policies.
Heroic Shrimp
Active member
I think that this Twitter thread (20 tweets) is well worth a read, about civility and politics in the U.S.:
https://twitter.com/drvox/status/1010965890404216832
https://twitter.com/drvox/status/1010965890404216832
I concede your points on political staffers but I just want to touch on the first part of your reply, Nik.
In your opinion are the people who are carrying out these policies at the ground level just as guilty? By not resigning their jobs in protest is that a reflection of their character and values?
In your opinion are the people who are carrying out these policies at the ground level just as guilty? By not resigning their jobs in protest is that a reflection of their character and values?
Kin
New member
TML fan said:
I think it depends on what you mean by "these policies". Trump's administration has a lot of policies I disagree with and I don't necessarily equate all of them. For instance, I think his trade policy is bad and ultimately self-defeating but not ultimately immoral. I do think, however, that his immigration detention policies are ultimately immoral and, yes, I do think there's moral culpability in the people enforcing them. Are they "as guilty" as the people coming up with the policies? Probably not. Do they bear some burden of guilt? I think so.
bustaheims
Active member
Nik the Trik said:
Just to add to this, if we learned anything from the Nuremberg trials, it's that "just following orders" does not remove your culpability. People working for border patrol, ICE, etc., have a moral - and, to an extent, a legal - obligation to not follow orders that are immoral and/or illegal (domestically or internationally).
Kin
New member
TML fan said:
Even then though, "immigration policies" is sort of a broad area. I'm not personally some sort of zealot on the notion of having any sort of border control. In fact, I think a lack of a comprehensive and sensible policy on economic migration is a real problem on the left. So, as a hypothetical, if Trump were to get funding for what would ultimately be a useless and largely symbolic border wall, I wouldn't really think it a real issue if someone mixed concrete on a government contract for it.
mr grieves
New member
herman said:
Not the first time someone's held up that conversion story as proof of the power of civil, patient, reasoned discussion. Even Ezra Klein is coming around to what a liberal fantasy it is. The Phelps case is rare and it's not exactly typical: she was quite young, grew up in a cult, had her horizons broadened at just the right moment, etc.
But for most people?
Sorry, no. Waste of time. There's plenty of research about identity formation and maintenance that shows, once folks hit a certain age, their identities are pretty set and their cognitive efforts go toward shoring up their identities, not examining whether they are somehow wrong about all of it.
If you have a friend who's over the age of 22 and can reason their way toward supporting the worst of Trump's policies, you're better off amiably "agreeing to disagree" and devoting your energy toward organizing politically ignorant 20, 30, 40 year olds to defeat the horrible political project your garbage friend his signed on to.
Leave saving that jerk to the reeducation camps.
mr grieves
New member
L K said:
There are positive signs of deepening partisanship.
Here's a great lede:
link to Dave Weigel's story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2018/06/27/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-the-democrat-who-challenged-her-partys-establishment-and-won/?utm_term=.1635bc419ef5
[tweet]1011822342740291584[/tweet]
herman
Well-known member
mr grieves said:
I guess I should be more explicit in saying that the people of this particular Administration (and its supporters) don't need to be treated with civility and any notion that they're being mistreated by the 'left' is a smokescreen. Melania's $39 jacket was a deliberate play that the media lapped up. Neilsen visting a Mexican restaurant was a deliberate play.
Here's the shoe on the other foot:
https://twitter.com/MuslimIQ/status/1011947441590099970
mr grieves
New member
L K said:
Eh. I wonder how President Hillary Clinton is doing enacting her very sensible, pragmatic policy program.
L K said:
If the next Democratic government in the states doesn't add justices to the Court and nuke the filibuster once and for all, we're done.