Oopsie. Ocasio-Cortez "Catcalled" Crowley For Debates; With Notes On Hypocrisy Tu Quoques
LOLOLOL
Ok, look: it's funny when this kind of hypocrisy is exposed. And it's legitimate and important to point out inconsistencies between words and actions. Because talk is cheap, for one thing.
BUT.
We've come to rely on this sort of thing way too much. AOC's comparison of requesting a debate to catcalling is idiotic. That's an end on it. It's idiotic regardless of whether she's ever done the same thing herself. If you rely on hypocrisy tu quoques, then you put yourself at the mercy of the person in question having slipped up in exactly the same way. AOC could easily have not done the same thing to Crowley. It's just dumb luck that she did.
(And I can't resist pointing out again: the progressive left is accused of crying "wolf!" mostly because the progressive left cries "wolf!" all the damn time. "You're a *ist" is just about the only argument they know.)
This little drama gets replayed all the time. Trump or someone else on the right says something perfectly fine. The left shrieks about how OBVIOUSLY RACIST it is. Then someone finds that Obama or someone else beloved by the left said the same thing. Again, this method of rebuttal requires someone on the other side to have said or done pretty much exactly the same thing as the original target of the criticism. Same thing happens in the other direction...but you know who I'm more pissed at currently and all.
Though, of course, given the left's double standard and multi-layered bullshit rhetorical defenses, they've done a lot to try to insulate themselves from this. See: l'affair Jeong. Even the you-guys-say/do-exactly-the-same-thing-you-are-always-whining-about argument can be obfuscated by just defining the offense so that it's conceptually impossible for anyone on your side to commit it. E.g.: Debate catcalling is debate catcalling + privilege, shitlord, so we get to...uh...I mean...can't...do it!
tl;dr: everything's dumb in this vicinity.
Ok, look: it's funny when this kind of hypocrisy is exposed. And it's legitimate and important to point out inconsistencies between words and actions. Because talk is cheap, for one thing.
BUT.
We've come to rely on this sort of thing way too much. AOC's comparison of requesting a debate to catcalling is idiotic. That's an end on it. It's idiotic regardless of whether she's ever done the same thing herself. If you rely on hypocrisy tu quoques, then you put yourself at the mercy of the person in question having slipped up in exactly the same way. AOC could easily have not done the same thing to Crowley. It's just dumb luck that she did.
(And I can't resist pointing out again: the progressive left is accused of crying "wolf!" mostly because the progressive left cries "wolf!" all the damn time. "You're a *ist" is just about the only argument they know.)
This little drama gets replayed all the time. Trump or someone else on the right says something perfectly fine. The left shrieks about how OBVIOUSLY RACIST it is. Then someone finds that Obama or someone else beloved by the left said the same thing. Again, this method of rebuttal requires someone on the other side to have said or done pretty much exactly the same thing as the original target of the criticism. Same thing happens in the other direction...but you know who I'm more pissed at currently and all.
Though, of course, given the left's double standard and multi-layered bullshit rhetorical defenses, they've done a lot to try to insulate themselves from this. See: l'affair Jeong. Even the you-guys-say/do-exactly-the-same-thing-you-are-always-whining-about argument can be obfuscated by just defining the offense so that it's conceptually impossible for anyone on your side to commit it. E.g.: Debate catcalling is debate catcalling + privilege, shitlord, so we get to...uh...I mean...can't...do it!
tl;dr: everything's dumb in this vicinity.
posted by Winston Smith at
11:30 AM
9 Comments:
This isn't really the same thing. She was challenging Crowley for a specific position. As far as I'm aware, Ben Shapiro isn't running for anything. AOC doesn't owe a debate to every smug troll with a following.
On the other hands, constituents do gain value from being able to compare two candidates who are vying for the same position.
It's not the same thing--but the minor differences are completely irrelevant to the question "is Shapiro's challenge analogous to catcalling?"
It is not a minor difference. As I pointed out earlier, Shapiro needs to get the Republican nomination and go up against Ocasio as a candidate before he has a leg t9 stand on. I really don't see thst there is much analogy here. It is reasonable to expect candidates to debate each other. It is unreasonable to expect them to debate some random shmo with no skin in the game.
Here is a simple explanation: in neither case should the initiator have any reasonable expectation of a positive response.
On a slightly related note:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/science/maria-konnikova-poker.html
This is awesome. Female experimental psychologist takes up poker and wins, because too many men either (a) don't believe women can bluff, or (b) absolutely hate to fold to a woman.
I think it's an important difference because Shapiro is acting as though he is owed a response and that she should be honored by his attention. That's also the essence of the attitude men take when catcalling. That it's a compliment, he's doing her a favor...
So the answer is, then:
No. there is no significant analogy.
"Acting as if you are owed a response" is in insufficient similarity, obviously. Anyone can see that. If it were, then asking someone a question is "like catcalling." If Smith asks Jones "is this seat taken," and Jones simply doesn't respond, and Smith repeats the question, then it's like catcalling?
Ocasio-Cortez is simply wrong--flat-out, undeniably, wrong. She's bullshitting, and she's bullshitting in a typical PC way: by trying to turn something perfectly reasonable into one of their hobby-horses.
There is simply no question here. It's an open-and-shut case.
Shapiro is right; AOC is not only wrong, she's made an accusation that's idiotic, and not all that far from being a false accusation of sexual harassment.
You keep making an unsupported claim: that it is "perfectly reasonable" to expect a congressional candidate to accept debates with random political opponents. And you are reading way too much into an off the cuff tweet.
Shapiro did offer to do at 10k to her campaign. Congressional candidates usually will do quite a bit for that kind of cash, or at least that the perception here in the hinterlands.
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