Biden Thread

[Viking]

So the analysis still seems to be that your priority is feebly deflecting from real problems to undermine the very, and ultimately only, groups and people who do or can confront them.

Again taking such a statement gnomically and detached from context (as to put it in context leads your stance into self-contradiction), it is telling that you would focus on veritably the most marginal circumvention of formal processes today, in terms of both character and breadth,

Remember, it is not just that you are pounding this while ignoring a government breaking its laws in the interest of state actors or business stakeholders or sheer sadism, failing in its legal and constitutional obligations, subjecting people to cruelty or force without recourse or due process, waging unaccountable military and foreign policy with real detriment to millions of people, but that you ignore the latter and more while striving to underscore the former as a threat to democracy by way of intended discredit to the cultural Left as a political force.

I discuss and bring up topics that either interest me or seem to warrant greater attention than they currently receive.

You may wish to discuss the topics that grab the headlines of mainstream media and how they are usually presented there, but those perspectives are, evidently, already well-exposed and on peoples' radar; and debating them is often more akin to kicking up an open door. Unless you are actually facing any of the (typically wacky and probably not very intelligent) radicalized individuals that these articles concern. Interests aside, focusing on these individuals is also simply inadequate to understand a society and predict where it is headed.

There are other dubious individuals and movements to follow and debate, and this is where a lot of my focus is here and now.

Obviously, sloppy intellectual work will be exposed for what it is.

Again, the problem is that you speak abstractly without specifying the context. Cracking apart a statue as protest itself reflects no particular constituency toward politically-dangerous "escalation" - and historically never really has - especially when considering that leftists gaining much more power would ipso facto promote a peaceful and orderly removal of objectionable statues, by the sort of formal means you might notionally approve. By the way, even in the ultimate case of pure iconoclasm leading to the proscription of ALL memorializations of real persons in public spaces - which very few people of any political persuasion would support to be clear - this would be but an aesthetic disappointment to those in disagreement, because no one's core political project or identity depends on the existence of statues.

Abstractions help sever links between a subject and clichés, and entrenched views associated with it. If something seems off, the problem is not the abstraction

The entire mainstream liberal movement condemns such tactics, on the other hand, and the factions that advocate them have approximately zero representation in politics, which one would think would cheer you depending on how one perceives your interests.

Maybe it lacks political representation now, maybe it doesn't; but such changes might not require more than an election or two to change drastically, so that is no guarantee going forward.

This a quote from an actual Democrat in an article linked in another thread:

“As a survivor myself, who’s got a femme-led team, many of whom are also survivors, we’ve all been triggered.”

At some time during the last 5-20 years, some of the terminology used here might not have been used by any democrat of much significance, but fringe views can make their way to the mainstream; and they have here, in some sense (the candidate's team seemed even more fringe-inspired). I do not register that the relevant fringe groups where such terminology originated faces that much opposition from the 'progressive' side; frequently, it seems that the opposite is the case.

Currently, the path of the Democratic party seems to be one of transformation, not steady state; and some fringes seem to be heading for the mainstream.

Meanwhile, the riot at the Congress was significant far less for being at the Congress - comparatively this sort of thing happens all the time around the world - but because:

1. It was aimed at overthrowing the elected government of the country.
2. The then-President and his allies fomented and organized the uprising.
3. The then-President took steps to mitigate a security response to the threat, a response that would have readily stopped or prevented it in most other circumstances.
4. The entire political party of the then-President agrees with the substantive goals of the insurrection, agrees with the former guy that it should have succeeded, and is increasingly-prepared to make 1/6 a metaphorical Beer Hall Putsch.

Had Trump been telling the whole truth about the election, such a reality would have licensed even more drastic measures than he and his supporters have undertaken and carry on in the event. And depending on what the truth is about various historical personages, then liberal politics dictate examining the worth of monuments on those personages.

This is context, like mentioned.

Your stance that iconoclasm is a constitutional threat to a country

Nope.

alongside openly dismissing documentation of "Der Ewige Konservatismus," remains totally irredeemable and contemptible, really in almost any conceivable set of circumstances too. But in these circumstances the members, across all levels of political and socioeconomic hierarchy, of one political side here formally and explicitly promote and pursue beliefs and behaviors that are known comparatively to lead to societal breakdown, state failure, and totalitarianism, whereas this is not remotely the case with the other. All before even designating evil as such.

To tar such a heterogeneous group of people, which is not well-defined anyway, and whose definition likely varies from country to country and over time, makes no sense, and is a breach of debate etiquette.

Your position would actually be more reasonable and defensible if you were arguing that instead of going after inanimate objects, militant leftists should be seeking to harm political and religious leaders on the Right. It's that fucked up.

If you are going to use physical force, you better be stronger in terms of arms and manpower. The radical 'left' in the US is not in this position currently, so it would likely end poorly. But this state does not have to last forever, particularly in a country that is going through rapid ethnically demographic changes as well as changing politically landscape, and changing political attitudes.

These groups are not there today, but one day they might be strong enough and radicalized enough that they could want to take on the radical 'right' in the streets. Statues are one interesting point to watch then, since it represents low-level radicalization: no one have to get hurt, but it is still a case of might makes right.

One observation that might not seem very important, but that ultimately is telling something, is that in many (most?) cases, they really did have the might to tear down the statues. If anyone did come out to defend the statues in these cases, they weren't strong enough. So the radical 'left' has space to operate successfully in the public space through means of force. An important question is if such groups will seek to expand this space, and risk more open confrontation with the radical 'right', who might not adequately care about protecting statues to prevent many of them being toppled, but who presumably will mobilize more strongly for other things. I make no predictions here.

The status quo is that labor is expendable to management (in a New Gilded Age trajectory). That there is an extent to which decent cultural values have spread such that capitalists perceive even a little liability to the manifestation exposure of formerly-unassailable bigotries is, like, a silver lining here. I'm not interested in mourning for people who fear that, rather those who do should be making an argument for why my values aren't consistent with being glad for their fear.

What happened with Damore was an example of where 'liberals', many of whom traditionally might have been happy to use science as a weapon against conservative religious individuals, turn down science when it contradicts notions of equality. Ironically, because the kind of equality that e.g. human rights would imply is inherent to the person and not dependent on its nature. So if science is supportive of differences in the distributions of personality traits between men and women, and someone is fired for incorporating such science into their own hypotheses, this is cheered on.

Considering that men women are based on lineages where the two groups have had very distinct physiologies for anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of years depending on the perspective, differences would be expected. In other words, suddenly "Team Science" is batting for "Team Intelligent Design".

I say traditionally above, as there appears to have been a bit of a turn towards a more pro-religious stance among 'progressives' (or that such views are more commonly expressed now). Particularly in defence of Islam, but more liberal versions of Christianity would presumably also pass without too much issue.