BC POLITICS
Saved by @jacobhtml

Pretending that voting for Trump or denying climate change or suggesting the solution to every problem is more guns is a legitimate point of view, worthy of respect is not "how America works." It is how it dies.

 People in a free society are entitled to any point of view no matter how obviously wrong or outlandish or destructive provided they do not impose their views on others.
But suggesting that something ignorant or divorced from reality warrants the same kind of treatment in public debate as something based in fact or at least credible is absurd and when done on behalf of a society in public media or academic settings it is self-destructive.
We would not grant media coverage or much bandwidth at all to a group that argued that unicorns exist or that there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet views like denying climate change or basing policy decisions on sweeping, obvious lies, are just as unsound.
Somewhere, somehow, judgments must be made. Some behaviors are wrong and must be condemned. Someone must challenge lies and demand facts. Coddling people who embrace idiocies does not help them no matter how loudly they demand to be coddled.
I was at a dinner party last night when a woman argued that Midwestern conservatives who supported Trump should not be disrespected. Oh no? This is the ultimate consequences of the dumbing down of America. It is granting everyone who shows up a participation trophy in democracy.
It is grossly irresponsible to vote for someone or back an idea that is founded in lies, immorality, or criminal behavior. It is just as irresponsible to treat such candidates or ideas as though they were deserving of even a fleeting moment of consideration.
That's not "fairness." That is a proven path to catastrophe. There were no witches in Salem. The Jews did not poison the wells. One racial group is not superior to another. Trickle down economics does not work.
Somewhere some among us must exercise judgement and stand up for what is. There is plenty of room for reality-based, intelligent debate. But that debate is undermined when anyone can wander in and assert "their truth."
When campuses invite on charlatans selling inflammatory theories contradicted by all evidence, they are not serving freedom of ideas, they're abusing it. When experts on TV shows proffer unfounded, indefensible opinions they weaken all of us & destroy their hosts' credibility.
With our president waging a war against truth and with a party apparatus, the media and many in "expert" communities abetting him, our entire system of government which depends on a thoughtful, engaged, informed electorate, is put at risk.
They do more damage to us than volleys of missiles could ever achieve. We have to demand better. We have to challenge lies when we hear them. We have to directly condemn and opposed the perniciousness of faux-fairness.
We have to be able to call out the intellectually dishonest and lazy and work to stop them from doing further damage because in the end it helps them too and because it is our duty as citizens to do so, to demand more, to seek the truth.
We are faltering right now because we are too ready to give nonsense and deceit a place in our national conversation. Relaxing our standards as we have is the surest way to guarantee a tragic end to America's fragile experiment in democracy.

More from David Rothkopf

David Rothkopf
David Rothkopf
@djrothkopf
Trumpism is no more a thing than Justin Bieberism. It's a fad. 5 years ago there was no Trumpist majority in the GOP. What's enduring is the GOP formula of exploiting the racism/nationalism of rural/suburban Americans to provide political fuel for policies that benefit the rich.

That formula--populism in the service of corporatism--has been with us for ages, was reshaped for the modern age under Reagan and has driven both the widening economic and political divides in America ever since. It will long survive Trump.

Trump weaponized it-fanning the flames of social division so that he could do even morefor a smaller & smaller percentage of the population. The reality was, he has not be very good at it. While he has GOP support, his popularity in polls has lagged all other recent presidents.

At the same time, growing recognition of shifting demographics in the US and the advent of social media have created new opportunities for the most extreme members of the GOP coalition to unite, mobilize and increase their voice.

That isn't just bad for the US. It's a problem for the GOP, particularly in terms of national elections. (The GOP has won the popular vote only once in the past eight presidential elections. While they benefit from electoral college advantages, this is a terrible trend for them.)
POLITICS
David Rothkopf
David Rothkopf
@djrothkopf
If the (erroneous) Office of Legal Counsel memo saying president's can't be indicted for crimes while in office had not been written, hundreds of thousands of Americans would still be alive today.

If Rod Rosenstein had not told Mueller to stay out of investigating Trump's finances and to narrowly define his investigation, the coup attempt would never have taken place.

If Mueller had not gone along with Rosenstein and had followed all of the investigations into Trump's ties to the Russians and his finances, we would not have seen months of attempts to attack and weaken our democracy.

If Mnuchin had not blocked the attempts to release Trump's tax returns and had followed his constitutional responsibilities and the law, millions would not be out of work due to COVID.

If McConnell had fulfilled his Constitutional obligations and had conducted a Senate trial in which evidence was presented and the GOP had not reflexively defended Trump despite all his abuses, millions of US children might not be going hungry now.
GOVERNMENT
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David Rothkopf
David Rothkopf
@djrothkopf
Things the GOP did not find "divisive": Launching an insurrection against the US government, seeking to disenfranchise 81 million Americans, seeking to negate the votes of entire states, seeking to negate the votes of African Americans, attacking the Capitol...

...killing Capitol police officers, inciting a riots that claimed five lies, participating in the largest act of domestic terrorism in US history, hunting down Congresspeople in the halls of Congress, supporting and defending white supremacists...

...supporting and defending Neo-Nazis, turning US federal force against peaceful demonstrators across the country, calling Mexicans rapists, discriminating against Muslims, putting children in cages, ending protections for children born innocently in the United States...

...promoting economic policies that help only the rich in America and fostering the worst inequality in our history, seeking to stigmatize those who sought to do the right thing to protect America from a deadly pandemic...

contributing to the spread of a disease that has killed hundreds of thousands--disproportionately people of color & the elderly, seeking policies that deny COVID relief to states with Dem leadership, seeking to help only those close to the GOP leadership with COVID relief...
GOVERNMENT
David Rothkopf
David Rothkopf
@djrothkopf
@JonathanTurley suggests the founders would not react so quickly against a president who led an insurrection. Washington led an army of 13,000 people against a small group of farmers who wouldn't pay their taxes on whiskey.

One founder actually did lead an insurrection. His name was Aaron Burr. He was arrested and charged with treason. He walked on technical reasons and was already out of office so impeachment was not the right option, but he ended up in exile for years afterward.

(Beautifully, while in exile Burr lived in a house on Craven Street in London.) Turley also says that Trump's incitement to insurrection was protected speech. This is beyond ludicrous and shows a lack of understanding of the law that would get him kicked out of any law school.

As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes laid out in his famous ruling on this matter in Schenck v. United States in 1919 in which he said there was no right to falsely shout fire in a crowded theater...

"The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent."
FINANCE
David Rothkopf
David Rothkopf
@djrothkopf
If there is one thing I have learned it is that people love bullshit. They buy bullshit stories from professional bullshit artists, accept bullshit philosophies, purchase bullshit how-to-books, vote for bullshitting politicians.

At first, I resisted believing this because it is illogical and dumb and frankly, doesn't reflect well on the human race of which I am a member (and thus have long been hopeful that it is more of a distinction than it actually turns out to be.)

But if you actually are interested in facts you begin to notice how little most people care for them. Sometimes it is because they are heard to learn and bullshit is so much more widely and easily available. Sometimes it is because facts make them uncomfortable about themselves.

Sometimes it is because just one tiny fact will upset a whole worldview that has grown as comfortable as an overstuffed chair. (Settling into such worldviews is a lot like settling into chairs like that because the longer you're there and the deeper you sink...

...the harder it is to hoist yourself up and out of your fat-assed intellectual laziness.) But I actually think the reason people have such an appetite for bullshit goes deeper, goes to an aspect of ourselves we just can't accept.
LIFE

More from Politics

Caleb Howe
Caleb Howe
@CalebHowe
As usual is maddening how easy this is to understand and how much everyone refuses to understand it. There are two things happening here, and they aren't super hard to understand. There's the asshole administration and the asshole reporter.

The court said asshole administration revoked asshole Jim Acosta's press pass without due process. WH deemed him press, gave him a press pass, then they kicked him out without even being able to say who made the decision or on what grounds.

We want hostile, combative reporters. We **want** that. **You** want that. We want that because the press secretary of every single administration is a liar. Even the ones you like. Lying is their job. They show up to avoid answering, but give the appearance of being answerable.

It shouldn't be easy for government to just refuse to be answerable. It should be hard to dodge. Hard to kick people out. Hard to control the narrative. That shouldn't be easy for the gov't. Not even your most favoritest president.

You, the American citizen, want the truth. Reporters should be there to get it. That means asking questions doggedly, demanding answers. This is not an obscure idea. It should be obvious to anyone who's experienced having a president you didn't vote for. Super rare right?
POLITICS
Werise
Werise
@We_Have_Risen
I was working on something before the election that became the election...

Color revolutions are real and we just witnessed one live and direct...

1.
POLITICS
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Prepare to have your mind blown. https://t.co/QKvDLVx8KG Lin Wood, Isaac Kappy Here’s what we know
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Silicon Valley is modelled after Crassus
POLITICS
Mangy Jay
Mangy Jay
@magi_jay
A central tension in our politics is this we have 1 political party that cares about upholding democracy, whereas the other party's aims can only be achieved thru undermining democracy. This is coupled w/ the fact that 1 party cares about people's well-being & the other does not

These 2 facts lead to a situation in which, in order to both uphold democracy & advance well-being, 1 party is dedicated to a functional gov't & the other party is well-served by a dysfunctional government. Such dysfunction is both instrumental & ideological (anti-government)

And then, of course, we have gerrymandering + a cap on the House of reps, 2 Senators per state, & the electoral college. A set of circumstances that gives massively disproportionate power to the anti-democracy & anti-well-being party.

Taken together, the structural issues in our electoral system, deep ideological divides about government/democracy, & the differential investment in advancing citizens' well-being does leave Democrats at a perpetual disadvantage.

A firefighter who is looking at a burning house & trying to decide whether to concentrate on stopping the fire from spreading or to save a child at the expense of a grandmother is facing a fundamentally different set of choices than the person who lit the fire in the first place
POLITICS
Jennifer Taub
Jennifer Taub
@jentaub
✔️ We have begun. It's Day 4 of the Trump Impeachment Trial 2.0. The defense is putting on their case. The first lawyer is Van Der Veen.

1/


Already this is wackadoodle. Seems like the defense is trying to tell us not to believe what we saw. This lawyer has the audacity to say that the people assembled at Trump's speech were peaceful patriots

2/

This lawyer is claiming that Trump's speech on the ellipse on January 6th was was a policy speech about "turning out strong in the next primaries" and how this was about working on voting law reform.

A mere civics lesson.

3/

The lawyer is lying. The Clinton campaign never "declared that the election was stolen by Russia."

Also, this Trump lawyer is trying to claim that democrats objecting to some of the electoral votes is equivalent to Trump's incitement of violence.

4/

As we expected, Trump's lawyers are not going to address the merits. Instead this is what-about-ism

5/
POLITICS

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அஸ்தினாபுரத்து அரசி👸...
@SivaRoobini555
#தினம்_ஒரு_திருவாசகம்
தொல்லை இரும்பிறவிச் சூழும் தளை நீக்கி
அல்லல் அறுத்து ஆனந்தம் ஆக்கியதே – எல்லை
மருவா நெறியளிக்கும் வாதவூர் எங்கோன்
திருவாசகம் என்னும் தேன்

பொருள்:
1.எப்போது ஆரம்பித்தது என அறியப்படமுடியாத தொலை காலமாக (தொல்லை)

2. இருந்து வரும் (இரும்)


3.பிறவிப் பயணத்திலே ஆழ்த்துகின்ற (பிறவி சூழும்)

4.அறியாமையாகிய இடரை (தளை)

5.அகற்றி (நீக்கி),

6.அதன் விளைவால் சுகதுக்கமெனும் துயரங்கள் விலக (அல்லல் அறுத்து),

7.முழுநிறைவாய்த் தன்னுளே இறைவனை உணர்த்துவதே (ஆனந்த மாக்கியதே),

8.பிறந்து இறக்கும் காலவெளிகளில் (எல்லை)

9.பிணைக்காமல் (மருவா)

10.காக்கும் மெய்யறிவினைத் தருகின்ற (நெறியளிக்கும்),

11.என் தலைவனான மாணிக்க வாசகரின் (வாதவூரெங்கோன்)

12.திருவாசகம் எனும் தேன் (திருவா சகமென்னுந் தேன்)

முதல்வரி: பிறவி என்பது முன்வினை விதையால் முளைப்பதோர் பெருமரம். அந்த ‘முன்வினை’ எங்கு ஆரம்பித்தது எனச் சொல்ல இயலாது. ஆனால் ‘அறியாமை’ ஒன்றே ஆசைக்கும்,, அச்சத்துக்கும் காரணம் என்பதால், அவையே வினைகளை விளைவிப்பன என்பதால், தொடர்ந்து வரும் பிறவிகளுக்கு, ‘அறியாமையே’ காரணம்

அறியாமைக்கு ஆரம்பம் கிடையாது. நமக்கு ஒரு பொருளைப் பற்றிய அறிவு எப்போதிருந்து இல்லை? அதைச் சொல்ல முடியாது. அதனாலேதான் முதலடியில், ஆரம்பமில்லாத அஞ்ஞானத்தை பிறவிகளுக்குக் காரணமாகச் சொல்லியது. ஆனால் அறியாமை, அறிவின் எழுச்சியால், அப்போதே முடிந்து விடும்.
ALL
foone
foone
@Foone
You want to know something about how bullshit insane our brains are?
OK, so there's a physical problem with our eyes: We move them in short fast bursts called "saccades", right? very quick, synchronized movements.
The only problem is: they go all blurry and useless during this

having your vision turn into a blurry mess every time you move your eyes is obviously not a good idea, so our brains hide it from us. Now, imagine you're an engineer and you have this problem.

You've got some obvious solutions you could do.
1. make the vision go black during movement. (Some VR games do this!)
2. just keep showing the last thing we saw prior to movement

both are good options with different downsides, but OH NO. this is assuming everything makes sense and is chronological and (regular) logical.
Your brain does neither of these options, really.

first, it basically puts your visual system on "pause". You're not seeing blackness or even nothing, you're just not seeing period.
then when you finish your saccade, it shows you what you now see at the new position. and then it pretends it can time travel.
ALL
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Delilah S. Dawson
Delilah S. Dawson
@DelilahSDawson
So here is a secret: Not everything I write goes anywhere. I have at least 4 books completely written and edited that never went on submission. I have books that stalled out at 20k. I have docs on my computer with opening paragraphs I don't remember writing. But! 1/

Every now and then an idea sticks with me like that corner of tortilla chip that just won't go down your throat. It happened with SPARROWHAWK, which began as 40k of a YA story, died, and was reborn as a comic, thanks to @christopher_j_r and @boomstudios. And now... 2/

It's happening with THE WILLOWS, a short story that you'll see in @UncannyMagazine next year. This Southern Gothic horror story began as an attempt to sell my next Romance to @AbZurdity after the Blud books in 2014 or so. And she didn't buy it. Guess why? 3/

Turns out, it wasn't a Romance! It was Southern Gothic Horror. Even the bones of it screamed strangeness, not sexiness. I loved the taste of the world, but I hadn't found the right story yet. Tried to write it 2 more times and failed. Until I finally understood what it was. 4/

So I took the 50 pages I'd written and cut half of them, twisting the story around from a gothy Romance inspired by the band the Civil Wars and turned it into a spooky descent into madness. And it looked back at me from the abyss as if to say, DUH. Sometimes... 5/
WRITING
Panic! in the Discord
Panic! in the Discord
@discord__panic
Neo-nazi group #PatriotFront held a photo op in #Chicago last weekend & is currently marching around #DC so it's as good time as any to compile a list of their identified members for folks to watch for

Who are these chuds?

Patriot Front broke away from white nationalist org Vanguard America following #unitetheright in #charlottesville after James Alex Fields was seen with a VA shield before driving his car into a crowd, murdering Heather Heyer & injuring dozens of others

Syed Robbie Javid a.k.a. Sayed Robbie Javid or Robbie Javid of Alexandria,


Antoine Bernard Renard (a.k.a. “Charlemagne MD” on Discord) from Rockville, MD.

https://t.co/ykEjdZFDi6


Brandon Troy Higgs, 25, from Reisterstown,
EXTREMISM