Comey-Testimony-Related Drinking...
...has begun here at the institute.
posted by Winston Smith at
8:49 PM
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
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15 Comments:
You know, it sounds so much to me like having finally taken American politics directly into the center of the it-sounds-so-obviously-yet-intentionally-indirectly-like-you-know-mobster-indirectly area that threatens to make conspiracy theorists of those who once lambasted conspiracy theorists that I don't know what to do.
I feel stupid not believing this is obviously criminal; like this is a great example of how something of the kind written in a bad movie could actually occur despite a bemused audience's howl.
Lame.
I hear ya brother.
I try reminding myself we're all basically a bunch of naked, narcissistic, overachieving chimpanzees. That helps a little.
LOL huh...it kinda does...
The worst of it is, the most reprehensible aspects of the conspiracy-theory mindset are best illustrated by... Trump, our anti-vaxxer, birther, 'millions voted illegally' President.
But, you know, I'm sure it's all just the media and the Deep State. Think Trump's a narcissistic maniac posing a mortal danger to the Republic? That's exactly what they want you to think! Plus, you're just expressing a foreign policy preference...
Yeah man, I'm right there with ya...
But it seems to me that there is *also* a lot of anti-Trump hysteria. It becomes very difficult even for me--and I say 'even' because I try pretty hard to routinely distinguish such things and keep them in separate boxes--to tell how much of my horrifying representational model of Trump is grounded in (a) *Trump*...and how much of it is grounded in (b) the MSM feeding frenzy / the hyperbolic, hysterical #Resistance!!!1(tm).
There's no doubt in my mind that some of it is (b). And I'm pretty damn sure that enough of it is (a) to rationally send me to DEFCON 3-or-so... But current discussion is so cacophonous that, without wasting more time on it than I already do, it's hard for me to draw conclusions that are any more precise...
Especially given the deep, constitutional revulsion Trump evokes in me.
I hear ya, Winst. But the thing is, factors (a) and (b) don't operate in a zero-sum way. Once one understands that Trump's almost daily outrages provide all the evidence one needs of his unutterable stupidity and depravity, (b) just becomes so much noise. No amount of absurd exaggeration ('He said all Mexicans were rapists!') or narcissistic delusion ('Theater takes on Trump') on the part of the librul media or 'the resistance' can detract in the slightest from the huge and constantly increasing fund of reasons for dismay, disgust and alarm provided under heading (a). (b) is simply a distraction, desperately hyped by his apologists and enablers for the simple reason that nothing about the man himself is remotely defensible.
Yeah yeah yeah...that's got to be right...doesn't it?
I mean...I mean...the foreign policy train wrecks alone...
The Russia stuff...really that's the only place where I think the hype might be swamping the genuine reasons for alarm... But even there, the *prima facie* case for a cover-up is strong enough to warrant alarm...
Yeah.
That's got to be right.
Yeah. I know you hate the practical arguments (and for good reason), but the worst of (b), if you ask me, is the effect it has on detracting from (a).
There will ALWAYS be (b), and if it's loud enough, (a) will NEVER rise to (b). Therefore, irrational opposition to (a) will find its ubiquitous strawman in (b) with which to thrash all those efforts by those rationally compelled to (a) to focus the public and garner support where it ought to be.
LAME. Lame lame lame.
I swear, we need to leverage the power of the Internet and have a reddit-style forum dedicated to conclusive argumentation whereby arguments are posted and worked out in the comments section. Each argument and counter-argument needs to be deduplicated and logically mapped, leaving a public resource for all to consult and see the way their positions work out.
We need it so bad.
Winston, you and I should start this project. I can run the IT side if you can get a group of respectable philosophers to curate and administer the thing. It could be glorious.
We've talked about this project before... It's a good idea...
And you're right about the other stuff...it's not so much that I meant to argue that Trump's sins don't count because the media and left are so crazy on the subject... It's rather that the media and the left are so crazy on the subject that I'm not sure how alarmed I should really be about things...the Russian collusion hypothesis in particular. It's hard for me to think clearly with all the noise...and especially hard given that I've only recently come to realize how biased the MSM is, and so I'm in danger of being filled with fervor about it...
I've heard people argue that Trump really doesn't seem to have any more Russian connections than any normal alleged-billionaire real estate magnate. I've never given up the position that there had to be an investigation. And I would have flipped my shit if there weren't one. But--specifically with respect to the Russian stuff--I would not be astonished if there were very little there there.
Anyway, my own uncertainty + my liberal bias + the shrill nuttiness that's obviously part of the media reporting + the shrill nuttiness of the #Resistance(tm)... Anyway... I would not bet the farm on the Russian collusion hypothesis.
But that could all be making the same mistake I was making before.
The problem with focusing all your rage at Trump and seeing media objectivity collapse as merely a distraction is that Trump did not become president by magic. He is an effect, not a cause.
You think Trump is bad? If you don't address the cause, you will get worse. It may not just be limited to more Trump-like candidates running for office, either. Expect a rise in open hostilities, in domestic terrorism, in the corresponding overreaches of the state. Expect defiance of the law, and the U.S. to become meaningfully ungovernable over time.
There is a significant population in the United States that feels under attack and shut out of all public discourse. They see the agenda-setting mainstream media as having abandoned objectivity and truth, siding with a ultraleftist vision of the future that has no place for them. They're probably more right than wrong on that.
Trump, of course, needs to be held accountable, but the media need to recognize the role their bias plays in generating a climate that makes a Trump possible in the first place.
P.S. http://en.arguman.org/ is close to the kind of project you're talking about. I can't decide whether its problems are more due to its design or its userbase. But it's an interesting first step.
Mr. Plato is absolutely correct.
I would remind Mr Plato that the most-watched cable network in 2016 was Fox News.
(Not that this lays to rest fears about a loss of media objectivity.)
Absolutely second John Plato's comment.
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