Thought for the Day

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Originally Posted by filghy2

Here's another thing that epitomises the moral black hole the Republican Party has gone down. Republicans who hold Trump accountable for inciting violent insurrection are being threatened with punishment while an odious conspiracy theorist is rewarded with committee positions.
https://www.vox.com/22254103/marjori...facebook-posts

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The Republican Party is in the mist of a civil war between Conservatives like Liz Cheney,Adam Kinzinger and 8 other Republicans who voted to impeach the Demogouge And Malignant Narcissist Donald Trump for causing an insurrection,and those who continue to defend him like the Qanon Supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene and others. Marjorie Taylor Greene comments are dangerous,despicable and vile,someone like her should not be allowed to continue to serve and should be stripped of her committee assignments and expelled from congress along with the other members of the Conspiracy Theorist Wing of the Republican Party.

On one level, free speech means that to some extent Representative Greene can say what she likes, but in her case some of her comments (and she seems rather keen to delete social media comments from a few years ago now she is an elected member of the House) might be actual or borderline illegal.

The question that puzzles me about some of her claims is that they are not only daft, but verifiably so, as with her claim that Ruth Bader Ginsberg died years ago but was replaced by a body double, one that fooled all of her staff and collegues on the Supreme Court- unless they were in on it, which is implausible and not just in the case of Justice Thomas.

Always ask the question, Why? If it was to maintain a Liberal justice, that makes no sense because she could have retired in 2014 and a Liberal nominee by Obama have taken her place. If it was to maintain a Liberal presence on the Court because she failed to retire before the end of Obama's tenure, a) that didn't matter as McConnell and the Senate refused to even consider Merrick Garland for the Court, and b) no Liberal was going to be nominated once Trump was elected.

Mass murders perpetrated by 'Right Wing' men with guns, instead of proving the dangers of the 2nd Amendment, are instantly dismissed as 'false flag' operations designed by 'Liberals' to repeal it, or a 'hoax', it doesn't even require an effort. That Greene has personally engaged in the harassment of people involved in the murders was her problem when she was a citizen, now she is a Member of the House it becomes a House problem. What stands out, as with the 9/11 'Truthers' is absolute contempt for the victims and their families. But at what point does the right to be offensive become illegal? It may never be, but the legal cases against Alex Jones brought by relatives of the victims of Sandy Hook may establish the extent to which Defamation is the means whereby the outrageous comments of people like Jones and Greene can be made liable for prosecution and punishment.

Again, to sustain a paedophile ring in Washington DC dating back to the 'murderous' Clintons requires too many people to maintain it as a covert operation. Here, the paedophile angle is one that has become almost a staple of conspiracy theories. I am not sure when it began, but there was mass hysteria in the UK in the 1990s with newspapers printing stories, such as the one in the Mirror in 1990, 'Kids forced into Satan orgies' -though in the years that passed no evidence of orgies, sacrifices etc was ever found; you can read about it here-
https://www.theguardian.com/science/...ories-scotland

Or the PhD by Rosalind Waterhouse here-
https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/epr...l%20panics.pdf

My guess is that for religious nuts, when something happens that is bad it must be the work of Satan, so if a Politician is considered bad, he or she too, must be in league with Satan. But guess what, when they do or say bad things, they are not Satan's body double, just tellin' the truth...

Here the irony of Conspiracy Theories is that you can set aside the claims about JFK, 9/11 and Sandy Hook, because on the 6th of January an actual Conspiracy materialised -the point being that the men and women who stormed the Capitol had openly conspired to do so on social media platforms, and became known to each other as well as law enforcement reading their posts, were filmed and photographed outside and inside the Capitol building, their affiliations identified. In this case, the actual conspiracy worked because law enforcement either did not believe it, or failed to act in time or with sufficient seriousness to prevent it. And yet in spite of these facts, the very same people who stormed the Capitol, we are now told were in fact part of an Antifa/Fed 'false flag' operation -a fake conspiracy designed to discredit an actual one.

I don't know if Represenative Greene can be expelled from the House, I am not sure what the rules are, but she seems to be flouting some basic norms of behaviour by harassing other members and their staff, not wearing masks, etc, so the question now is how far the extemists who appear to have succeeded in placing their fringe ideas at the centre of the news, may now succeed in making bad behaviour in the Capitol a fact of daily life.

But is it not also an example of failure in politics when someone, unable to justify their position on a matter of policy and principle, dismisses rational debate and argument by referring to an unverified claim that shuts down the debate?

The conspiracy claims against left are daft, crazy, horrendous and hateful. (Okay, I may occasionally enjoy feasting on a human baby, but I definitely do not worship Satan. I don’t even believe in God let alone fallen angels.) The fact that people believe these things is not only a measure of how stupid they are but also of how much they hate anyone with any other political, religious, racial or sexual perspective. What they’re willing to believe of us is what they want to believe...what they need to believe in order to justify their burning hatred of us. They know our actual disagreements don’t warrant the emotions they feel. Hence, we’ve become baby eaters, demon worshippers, pedophiles and lizard aliens to justify the insane passions that alt-right fear mongers have stirred in their hearts while those in office sat back and fanned the flames.

It looks like the Republican civil war might be over with barely a shot fired. After a week or two of soul-searching, the party establishment appears to have decided that they can't do without Trump and his supporters, so they've reverted to their old habits of appeasing him.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/0...d-trump-463684

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Originally Posted by Stavros

The question that puzzles me about some of her claims is that they are not only daft, but verifiably so

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I think once you lose the anchor of some notion of objective truth there is no limit to where you might go. The only standard for something to be believed is whether it suits your pre-conceived view of the world.

The attraction of conspiracy theories for some people is that it's a ready-made framework for explaining everything - as you suggest, it's analogous to religion. There is no need to confront awkward questions or to reconsider anything. If your messiah is a political failure, it was a conspiracy to rig the vote and he didn't really lose. If your messiah makes a mess of handling a pandemic, there has been a conspiracy to exaggerate the problem which hasn't been a crisis at all. If you can't explain why you policies will help more people than your opponent's policies, it's because they have an evil plan they are keeping secret.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

I think once you lose the anchor of some notion of objective truth there is no limit to where you might go. The only standard for something to be believed is whether it suits your pre-conceived view of the world.
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I used to think a good liar was one who could craft tales that are plausible but simply don't match up with reality. But if the audience is sufficiently radicalized the best liar is audacious and not restrained by shame or conscience.

Once the people have accepted a liar who doesn't insist on telling plausible lies you know you're in trouble. Look at how quickly the Republicans admitted they were lying as soon as people started getting killed over their lies. It is a weird dualism.

I saw a tweet that had over 90 thousand likes that said, "I found a shredded ballot that had a Chinese shipping receipt on top of it." When I first saw it I thought it was a parody tweet about how credulous people are. But in the comments you could see people with names like DebbieMAGAfreedomeagle saying "I knew the Chinese were involved in this." A normal, somewhat curious person would ask for more information I assume. I had no questions because I don't know what it would mean if someone did observe this: The Chinese government shipped one torn ballot, placed it in a dumpster and put a receipt on top of it?

Over the years I've noticed this with antisemitic conspiracy theories that for someone to believe them they have to have already taken leave of their sanity. They know their ideas can't stand up to scrutiny but they hate you for not allowing them to live in the temporary refuge of their lies. Not to be melodramatic but eventually those lies will destroy us.

My memory wasn't exactly right. The tweet I mentioned has about 53,000 likes and one of the top responses says "I just popped a freedom boner." Very disturbing.

Robert Reich in today's Observer/Guardian argues that Biden's best hope is that his Administration and a Democrat Congress succeed in seeing the US out of the Covid-19 crisis, establish some level of economic growth with a corresponding decrease in unemployment, and thus prove that Government works. I suspect that for a large proportion of the Trump supporters, nothing much the Democrats do will satisfy them, as was evident when Obama's record of rescuing the US banking system from collapse, and restoring economic growth was dismissed as if it never happened.

The key for me is that while the armed militias may bark loudly, they are wary of biting, as was seen in the sloppy invasion of the Capitol building. It seems to me that if they want to register their discontent with the Federal Government, the real battleground must be within the States. Republican States have led the campaign to take voting rights away, and are now more motivated than ever to ramp up voter suppression, purges of electoral rolls, the imposition of ID requirements, confident that the Supreme Court will not intervene to stop it. I don't know if extremists have been registering as Republicans in order to take part in the various processes that govern the selection of candidates in States and confirm it as a 'Trump/QAnon Party', but it is one way of 'taking over' the party even as some 'old style' Republicans are leaving -30,000 are know to have changed their affiliation since the 6th of January, and the true figure may be higher.

Within the States, members of the various armed militias -Proud Boys, Boogaloo Bois, Oathkeepers, Three-Percenters, also have the option of infiltating the armed branches of Goverment. Three-Percenters in some States are Law Enforcement Officers -policemen, mostly- who sew the III Percent Emblem on their Uniforms to broadcast their affiliation, which they can use to harass minority citizens and maintain their 'knee on the kneck' tactic -but if they are, or were to be regarded as Domestic Terrorists, the States would have to engage in a purge of officers with dual loyalty, while some would remove their emblems as 'stay behinds' to maintain their internal campaign against that 'other America' they don't consider to be their equal.

But there need be no insurrection, rather, just as States can shred as many voters as it can, re-define term limits to make Abortion all but impossible, so the longer term aim among the extremists could be, not secession, as happened in 1861, but a form of autonomy, in which States decide to either ignore Federal law, or find ways of tinkering with the mechanics, as with the Voter Registration Act of 1965, to make the law all but irrelevant. But within the State, and particularly if it is run by Democrats, the extremists could 'opt out' of the Federation by refusing to pay taxes en masse, and like the Bundy Clan that continues to graze herds on public land, just ignore the law when they can. The point would be, not to take the confrontation with the Feds to Washington DC, but to establish pockets of resistance across the country and in effect, dare the Feds or the State to bring the confrontation to them, as in 'every town its own Waco'. Thus, if there are confrontations that turn violent, the protestors can present themselves as 'victims', the State, the Fed, the 'Liberals' the enemy.

If the Democrats succeed in expanding their representation in the mid-terms, with the GOP dis-united, even in disarray over its candidates and its future, conventional politics will have failed the 'Pioneers', just as they condemned Trump for abandoning them on the 6th of January, because even Trump is not enough to satisfy their needs and desires. And, though they may still be a fringe movement, they are large enough, and well armed enough to cause a lot of trouble, and a permanent sore for the country. They have learned the lesson of a defeated Confederacy -'fight the power' within, autonomy not secession is the solution. And much harder for the Federal and State government to deal with.

Very good post Stavros. All of those phenomena you mention are real things to be concerned about. I think rather than achieve autonomy for the states or the accomplishment of any positive objective, this will partially obstruct effective governance by the majority. The fact that Republicans have not moved towards the center to try to win elections fairly really harms this country. Instead of creating a broader coalition they have doubled down on voter suppression and obstructionist tactics. Without a majority in either house of congress or the Presidency, their attempts at obstruction have to be even more extreme to be effective.

I do think that since there are a range of political views in this country we need a Republican party that can hold itself to a higher standard. I'm not hopeful that it can transform itself from a party for disaffected conspiracy theorists into a party that represents some coherent conservative movement. But I do see the need for people who have different political views than I do to have a party that will at least hold itself to the standard of honesty, decency, and basic fairness.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

Very good post Stavros. All of those phenomena you mention are real things to be concerned about. I think rather than achieve autonomy for the states or the accomplishment of any positive objective, this will partially obstruct effective governance by the majority. The fact that Republicans have not moved towards the center to try to win elections fairly really harms this country. Instead of creating a broader coalition they have doubled down on voter suppression and obstructionist tactics. Without a majority in either house of congress or the Presidency, their attempts at obstruction have to be even more extreme to be effective.

I do think that since there are a range of political views in this country we need a Republican party that can hold itself to a higher standard. I'm not hopeful that it can transform itself from a party for disaffected conspiracy theorists into a party that represents some coherent conservative movement. But I do see the need for people who have different political views than I do to have a party that will at least hold itself to the standard of honesty, decency, and basic fairness.

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Without starting some big thing, I would like to point out that if we're going to talk about political parties "holding themselves to a higher standard," it is quite disingenuous to apply this demand to Republicans while ignoring the behavior of the DEMOCRATIC PARTY for the last 4 years - in particular its behavior since the George Floyd incident.

Democratic elected officials have promoted rioting, sedition, and murder. The party's adherents have turned some parts of this country into literal war zones. For 4 years they have behaved like 4-year-olds, utterly failing to accept the results of the 2016 election. "Not My President" has been the cry from these naive children.

The Republicans, in defeat, have been quite tame compared to the violent excess of the Democrats. Stricly objectively, it's the very limit of hypocrisy for Democrats to act as if they suddenly occupy the high moral ground of political methodology. Half of the people crying out for Trump's post-presidency impeachment should rightfully be in prison right now, and probably would be if the election had gone the other way.

Anyway, again, not looking to start some big debate. We all know nobody here is going to change anyone else's mind about politics. But let's not act as if Republicans have the monopoly on political temper tantrums. If anything, they are mere plebs compared to the Democrats when it comes to showing one's ass.