We’ve been hearing that the sky is falling for generations. Hyperbolic pundits have likened every political challenge to the end of days for as long as there have been pundits. They see the ship listing too far to one side and assume it will topple over, and are proven wrong every time sanity prevails, balance is restored, and the nation recovers.
Is that what you took from this article? I don't assume anything, but I do acknowledge that jail is a possibility. But either way, that's just an example in the bigger picture described in the rest of the article - even what you mentioned, a case of self-pardoning (no idea the legality of that, but maybe) feeds right into my concerns. Interesting additional thought, thanks Thomas. ZL
I’m an indie and don’t plan on voting for either Trump or Biden. But you are assuming that the indictment of Trump has factual basis. In fact, he held authority to declassify anything, there is no criminality in any archives statute, and many legal scholars agree it’s a shoddy indictment. Biden, OTOH, never held authority to have, keep or move those documents. It’s more than a bit of a stretch to equate their actions. It removes credibility from your entire argument.
Not sure I agree, though I understand where you're coming from. The "credibility of my argument" is not an attempt to equalize the severity of their (alleged) transgressions, but to point out that the electorate as a whole has taken to accepting almost anything in a candidate in order to counteract the opposition. The arguments defending Trump's actions, or comparing them favorably to Biden's, may be valid on many points. But the theme of the article is about division and spite, and a warning cry about where that can take us. Regardless of any of our opinions on the credibility of the indictment, or whether it will result in conviction, or whether it was politically motivated, or whether Biden deserves at least as much scrutiny, the fact remains that their actions were reckless and hubristic, and exacerbated our division as a nation. Public opinion counts, even when we think it's wrong - that was the point. We have to find the will to call out those we support when they cross a line, or we lose any respect from those who disagree with us. I personally think Biden is a crook, and has been for a long time. But over 150 million people disagree with me, and I have no desire to go to war with my countrymen. We have to hold our representatives to a higher standard. Thanks, Alexander, for your thoughtful response. ZL
While I agree with you argument and appreciate your response, your wording and context does assume Trump is guilty. He may or may not be - no one yet knows. My point is that I think your wording weakens your otherwise strong argument needlessly. Biden has been a liar, a crook, a plagiarizer forever - no argument there. Concur on the electorate. My view on why the electorate refuses to look at the facts is here: https://alexanderscipio.substack.com/p/jfks-eo-10988-unionized-teachers
Sorry I didn't respond right away - I wanted to take the time to read your link first. If this was a personal blog essay, I'd have delved further into the comparisons and their respective weights, but articles have length constraints. That said, the point was more about our collective distractions over what-about-ism exposing us to greater perils. We can discuss the degrees of perceived guilt until the cows come home, and I'm happy to do so, but this was not the space for that. I'm sure it would come as no surprise to you that my feedback from Democrats I've shared this with are the same as yours, but in reverse. It can't be that half the population is crazy - they form their views based upon the MSM information they receive, which is catastrophically biased. So the argument (sound though it may be) comparing the relevancy of the charges is certainly valid, but for a different article. Arguing those points here - regardless of my personal views - would fly in the face of the intended theme, which is that we all think we're right and seem willing to throw the baby out with the bath water in order to prevail. Pursuing Biden's corruptions is the job of Congress, especially Republicans, and they have failed us. Can't blame a kid for pushing envelopes if you don't knock him back in line. Appreciate your input. ZL
I hear you, but I also fear the false equivalences of the "centrist." Don't get me wrong - I'd love to be a centrist and not be forced to choose one of two bad options. But that privilege is of the past. Today, there's a clear difference between Trump, undemocratically undermined at every turn by a party who's very name lays claim to democracy. I'm not American, but I started as an anti-Trumper who would have voted for Obama twice and for Hillary in 2016. And I'd have been wildly wrong. Trump's alleged crimes, however "real," are nothing but a distraction from the far, far worse criminality of his opponents, and they're only being pursued to punish him and anyone who would dare support him. False equivalence is one of the most powerful weapons against hard-to-discern truth, because it's comforting. But it's incomparably dangerous, because it obscures reality itself. Best wishes in this mad times, and thanks for writing!
Appreciate your thoughts, Michael. And I fully understand your concerns about "false equivalency" as an attempt to provide a comfortable hiding place from the extreme madness - this is obviously not a time for fence-sitting, though my point is, frankly, not really intended to be political. Conversations about who is the greater offender, and which side presents the better policies, are infinite and already discussed ad nauseum (though I personally agree with your stance). What I intended to show here is that being "right" (and BOTH sides think they are) does not always lead to the best outcomes, and that too much righteousness can be self destructive. This is how wars begin. We would all love to see matters handled our preferred way, but since every source of information is biased by its presenters, we're all working off a different blueprint, and while we distract ourselves in this battle we become exposed to outside threats. It is impossible to please 330 million people simultaneously - if we don't swallow the bitter pill of compromise, we no longer have a democracy. Are the sins equal? In my view, no, and I complain and write about that all the time. But in a case where we're confronted with the Presidential front-runners, especially when the legal system is clearly rigged, our survival depends on finding some common ground. Thank you for responding. ZL
Politically, having been artsy and left-leaning but never strictly partisan all my life (I'm also neither religiously affiliated nor anti-religious), I get your point, completely. Since around 2016, though, I (like many liberals and leftists disaffected with institutional left/progressivism) have moved toward the right, or at least found myself aligned with right-leaners on many more causes. Meanwhile, over the last ten years or so, I've also moved from a standard (and hugely misinformed) lefty "critical of Israel" stance to a position of very unequivocal Zionism (it's really the only issue where I'll proudly proclaim an "-ism"). Now, I don't know your position on the matter (and I'm almost always willing to engage on it), but one thing it has taught me is the absolute necessity to draw clear lines sometimes. As much as there are, of course, two sides to the lived reality of what I call the "Arab/Islamic supremacist Long War against the Jewish state," two populations that have suffered immensely, there's only one that — despite some treasured exceptions — rejected co-existence and repeatedly chose murderous violence from the start and as its bedrock position. Do I feel for suffering Palestinian Arabs? Of course. But have I come to take a very "anti-centrist," one-sided stance as regards who must "win" — at least in pragmatic and sustainable, if not ultimate — terms? Yes (however out of reach that seems).
My mother, having been an "Aryan" German growing up under Nazism (she later married a Jew, and the families got along great, so all good), was on the wrong side of that conflict — her father and brother both served in the army, father killed. There are two sides to the lived human reality, and of course in some wars neither side can finally be blamed, but when it comes to WWII, there was only one "right" side. The Arab/Israeli conflict (I don't call it the "Israeli/Palestinian conflict") is not unlike WWII in that sense, and in reality also represents a continuation of Hitler's war on the Jews on a Middle Eastern, rather than a primarily European front. It's a war of imperialist expansion and ideological supremacism, with no more justification ("Lebensaum") than Germany's.
Excuse my rant! I squeeze it in whenever I get the chance. Whatever one may say about Israel, though, all our issues today are so wildly complex and strange, the moral positions so hard to formulate. I first marched in a gay pride demo in the early '80s, I've had so many genderbending and outright trans friends and colleagues, and I've never fit in with conservatives or traditionalists. But I never wholly identified with "the LGBT community," either. I'm just not a group guy. So I want to reiterate my sympathy with your approach (compromise is, as a rule, infinitely preferable to every other solution in contentious matters, however lacking in guarantees). And I wanted as well to clarify my idea about the sometime necessity of those horrible either/or's — which the very contemporary, even postmodern rhetorical device of false equivalence distorts surreptitiously toward one side). But I get from your writing that you're hardly in denial of that reality.
We're too self-aware to simply deny that there are "two sides to every story" (cultural relativism and "my truth," after all), but we're rarely self-aware enough to both recognize this reality and to acknowledge that we may still have to pick a side (which is never a matter of going along with a mob, because that sort of behaviour inevitably flows from denying the first awareness).
It's not a rant! I loved your response. And I completely agree - when I call myself a "centrist", it's not that I'm 50-50 on every issue, but that I lean variably left or right depending on the issue and tend to eschew the extremes. I also recognize that half the population disagrees with me, and even when I think they're wrong I have to acknowledge that we don't have 150 million+ sociopaths, so we'd be wise to temper our combativeness. If you ever want to play some political tennis outside this forum, email me at ZepharethLedbetter@gmail.com. I'm quite busy with my real job, but I'll always try to make time to respond. Great input. ZL
Why do you assume he would be in jail. Even if convicted, and I don’t see a Florida jury doing that, he can immediately pardon himself if he wins.
Is that what you took from this article? I don't assume anything, but I do acknowledge that jail is a possibility. But either way, that's just an example in the bigger picture described in the rest of the article - even what you mentioned, a case of self-pardoning (no idea the legality of that, but maybe) feeds right into my concerns. Interesting additional thought, thanks Thomas. ZL
I’m an indie and don’t plan on voting for either Trump or Biden. But you are assuming that the indictment of Trump has factual basis. In fact, he held authority to declassify anything, there is no criminality in any archives statute, and many legal scholars agree it’s a shoddy indictment. Biden, OTOH, never held authority to have, keep or move those documents. It’s more than a bit of a stretch to equate their actions. It removes credibility from your entire argument.
Not sure I agree, though I understand where you're coming from. The "credibility of my argument" is not an attempt to equalize the severity of their (alleged) transgressions, but to point out that the electorate as a whole has taken to accepting almost anything in a candidate in order to counteract the opposition. The arguments defending Trump's actions, or comparing them favorably to Biden's, may be valid on many points. But the theme of the article is about division and spite, and a warning cry about where that can take us. Regardless of any of our opinions on the credibility of the indictment, or whether it will result in conviction, or whether it was politically motivated, or whether Biden deserves at least as much scrutiny, the fact remains that their actions were reckless and hubristic, and exacerbated our division as a nation. Public opinion counts, even when we think it's wrong - that was the point. We have to find the will to call out those we support when they cross a line, or we lose any respect from those who disagree with us. I personally think Biden is a crook, and has been for a long time. But over 150 million people disagree with me, and I have no desire to go to war with my countrymen. We have to hold our representatives to a higher standard. Thanks, Alexander, for your thoughtful response. ZL
While I agree with you argument and appreciate your response, your wording and context does assume Trump is guilty. He may or may not be - no one yet knows. My point is that I think your wording weakens your otherwise strong argument needlessly. Biden has been a liar, a crook, a plagiarizer forever - no argument there. Concur on the electorate. My view on why the electorate refuses to look at the facts is here: https://alexanderscipio.substack.com/p/jfks-eo-10988-unionized-teachers
Sorry I didn't respond right away - I wanted to take the time to read your link first. If this was a personal blog essay, I'd have delved further into the comparisons and their respective weights, but articles have length constraints. That said, the point was more about our collective distractions over what-about-ism exposing us to greater perils. We can discuss the degrees of perceived guilt until the cows come home, and I'm happy to do so, but this was not the space for that. I'm sure it would come as no surprise to you that my feedback from Democrats I've shared this with are the same as yours, but in reverse. It can't be that half the population is crazy - they form their views based upon the MSM information they receive, which is catastrophically biased. So the argument (sound though it may be) comparing the relevancy of the charges is certainly valid, but for a different article. Arguing those points here - regardless of my personal views - would fly in the face of the intended theme, which is that we all think we're right and seem willing to throw the baby out with the bath water in order to prevail. Pursuing Biden's corruptions is the job of Congress, especially Republicans, and they have failed us. Can't blame a kid for pushing envelopes if you don't knock him back in line. Appreciate your input. ZL
I hear you, but I also fear the false equivalences of the "centrist." Don't get me wrong - I'd love to be a centrist and not be forced to choose one of two bad options. But that privilege is of the past. Today, there's a clear difference between Trump, undemocratically undermined at every turn by a party who's very name lays claim to democracy. I'm not American, but I started as an anti-Trumper who would have voted for Obama twice and for Hillary in 2016. And I'd have been wildly wrong. Trump's alleged crimes, however "real," are nothing but a distraction from the far, far worse criminality of his opponents, and they're only being pursued to punish him and anyone who would dare support him. False equivalence is one of the most powerful weapons against hard-to-discern truth, because it's comforting. But it's incomparably dangerous, because it obscures reality itself. Best wishes in this mad times, and thanks for writing!
Appreciate your thoughts, Michael. And I fully understand your concerns about "false equivalency" as an attempt to provide a comfortable hiding place from the extreme madness - this is obviously not a time for fence-sitting, though my point is, frankly, not really intended to be political. Conversations about who is the greater offender, and which side presents the better policies, are infinite and already discussed ad nauseum (though I personally agree with your stance). What I intended to show here is that being "right" (and BOTH sides think they are) does not always lead to the best outcomes, and that too much righteousness can be self destructive. This is how wars begin. We would all love to see matters handled our preferred way, but since every source of information is biased by its presenters, we're all working off a different blueprint, and while we distract ourselves in this battle we become exposed to outside threats. It is impossible to please 330 million people simultaneously - if we don't swallow the bitter pill of compromise, we no longer have a democracy. Are the sins equal? In my view, no, and I complain and write about that all the time. But in a case where we're confronted with the Presidential front-runners, especially when the legal system is clearly rigged, our survival depends on finding some common ground. Thank you for responding. ZL
Politically, having been artsy and left-leaning but never strictly partisan all my life (I'm also neither religiously affiliated nor anti-religious), I get your point, completely. Since around 2016, though, I (like many liberals and leftists disaffected with institutional left/progressivism) have moved toward the right, or at least found myself aligned with right-leaners on many more causes. Meanwhile, over the last ten years or so, I've also moved from a standard (and hugely misinformed) lefty "critical of Israel" stance to a position of very unequivocal Zionism (it's really the only issue where I'll proudly proclaim an "-ism"). Now, I don't know your position on the matter (and I'm almost always willing to engage on it), but one thing it has taught me is the absolute necessity to draw clear lines sometimes. As much as there are, of course, two sides to the lived reality of what I call the "Arab/Islamic supremacist Long War against the Jewish state," two populations that have suffered immensely, there's only one that — despite some treasured exceptions — rejected co-existence and repeatedly chose murderous violence from the start and as its bedrock position. Do I feel for suffering Palestinian Arabs? Of course. But have I come to take a very "anti-centrist," one-sided stance as regards who must "win" — at least in pragmatic and sustainable, if not ultimate — terms? Yes (however out of reach that seems).
My mother, having been an "Aryan" German growing up under Nazism (she later married a Jew, and the families got along great, so all good), was on the wrong side of that conflict — her father and brother both served in the army, father killed. There are two sides to the lived human reality, and of course in some wars neither side can finally be blamed, but when it comes to WWII, there was only one "right" side. The Arab/Israeli conflict (I don't call it the "Israeli/Palestinian conflict") is not unlike WWII in that sense, and in reality also represents a continuation of Hitler's war on the Jews on a Middle Eastern, rather than a primarily European front. It's a war of imperialist expansion and ideological supremacism, with no more justification ("Lebensaum") than Germany's.
Excuse my rant! I squeeze it in whenever I get the chance. Whatever one may say about Israel, though, all our issues today are so wildly complex and strange, the moral positions so hard to formulate. I first marched in a gay pride demo in the early '80s, I've had so many genderbending and outright trans friends and colleagues, and I've never fit in with conservatives or traditionalists. But I never wholly identified with "the LGBT community," either. I'm just not a group guy. So I want to reiterate my sympathy with your approach (compromise is, as a rule, infinitely preferable to every other solution in contentious matters, however lacking in guarantees). And I wanted as well to clarify my idea about the sometime necessity of those horrible either/or's — which the very contemporary, even postmodern rhetorical device of false equivalence distorts surreptitiously toward one side). But I get from your writing that you're hardly in denial of that reality.
We're too self-aware to simply deny that there are "two sides to every story" (cultural relativism and "my truth," after all), but we're rarely self-aware enough to both recognize this reality and to acknowledge that we may still have to pick a side (which is never a matter of going along with a mob, because that sort of behaviour inevitably flows from denying the first awareness).
Best ...
It's not a rant! I loved your response. And I completely agree - when I call myself a "centrist", it's not that I'm 50-50 on every issue, but that I lean variably left or right depending on the issue and tend to eschew the extremes. I also recognize that half the population disagrees with me, and even when I think they're wrong I have to acknowledge that we don't have 150 million+ sociopaths, so we'd be wise to temper our combativeness. If you ever want to play some political tennis outside this forum, email me at ZepharethLedbetter@gmail.com. I'm quite busy with my real job, but I'll always try to make time to respond. Great input. ZL
Excellent - thanks! I'm michael@michaelcaplan.ca. I'll drop you a line.
I think of left/right as steering ... and sometimes one has to steer hard one way or the other, all to stay on the road.
Cheers!