U of Chicago sends letter to incoming students

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Conversely, if the Democrats could have put up anyone but Clinton there wouldn't even be an illusion of a horse race going on right now. They would be blowing Trump out of the water.

Just a quick blurb on this - I actually don't think that's true.

Where Clinton is a special case, its that her "unlikability" numbers were already at rock bottom on the account that she has been a target of the RNC since 1992 which means she's been getting attacked for 26 years. It's probably more accurate to say she's "fully vetted" and many Republicans have sort of taken an almost religious antipathy to the family (again, unless they aren't running in which case historically they're fine.)

Pretend i was O'Malley for a sec and whether it's the Swiftboat veterans for Kerry or the splitting of the Bernie voters (which may have happened anyway) or Pledge of Allegiance issues and prison furloughs with Dukakis. For as much as Bernie voters kvetched about Clinton, her campaign ran a slander campaign with kiddie gloves on.

If it were Bernie V. Trump, we might be in better shape but no doubt Bernie being older than both our current candidates we can guess health would be a thing. Women and minorities probably wouldn't be as close to a lock as they are though. And the closer you get to the election, the more someone like Bernie is going to scare moderates who wouldn't have had a candidate in that election. And that's one thing we don't know - if the moderates are fully suppressed, what does that election actually look like.

Ultimately, I think the idea that she's weak as a political figure is simply she's boring and fully vetted. We still know about all we're going to know about her. But a cult of personality can be a weak candidate (see Trump) and a seemingly fine candidate can be sunk by the normal operations of campaigns. With her, that attack infrastructure was already built though. The Republicans didn't have to do a thing to rebuild it. That's not a question of her weakness though, it's like running your played the last 10 years Quarterback in the Super Bowl - there's no surprise and plenty of existing scouting. And not to put too fine a point on it, but really the idea that she's "weak" candidate is also a political charge meant to cause the voter to question. It's not actually an impartial assessment - its a parroted attack.

But hey, I could be cynical.

[Rageaholic]

So you'll forgive me if I see the claim that sensitive college students are the precursor to 1984 as patently absurd in the face of everything else going on. -.-

This is the problem with the rising alt right. Their priorities are whacked. Breitbart was the site the jumped aboard the Gamergate train and tried to convince us that ethics in games journalism was a big deal. Even when there was harassment and doxxing going on the GG side, they brushed it off as a few idiots. After all, gamergate is just a hashtag supporting ethics in games journalism.

Now take Black Lives Matter, another hashtag movement that's addressing a more serious issue (police killing minorities). There's been some pretty shitty things done in the name of BLM, but instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt and focusing on the overall message, Breitbart treats the extremists as representing BLM as a whole.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Take this from a liberal moderate - it's not like tagging a term with only the negative is someting exclusive to the right. Hell, you just did it with alt-right given the fact alt-right doesn't even have an exclusive platform.

You just mentioned Black Lives Matter, but if you browse their website you'll see there's not just one issue there. There are planks of that platform that frankly ARE going to be the kinds of things that are a little more hotly debated than killing unarmed civilians as bad.

Just some minor things that MIGHT cause raised eyebrows depending on who you are and largely because while I might agree with some of it of it, its really all over the place:

- "Black Villages" - The unhinging of the idea of nuclear families and the collective care of children
- "Black Families" - This plank mostly refers to women having to work AND take care of families
- "Globalism" - the idea of an international black identity which would inherently be at odds with a nationalistic one. Taken to its logical extreme, its hard to see any politics of reconciliation working given such a non-specific scope
- "Black Women" - We are committed to building a Black Women space free of sexism, misogyny, and male-centeredness.

Another odd thing about the guiding principals, is for a movement built on the unjust incarceration and killing largely of black men, they are as a group conspicuously absent from the principals statements. Black women specifically show up in three of them. Both gay and transgendered people get special shout outs. As a movement made by women, I get it. I'm just saying, there are reasons that as a movement BLM goes sideways with certain people and its not entirely undeserved. And how they get attacked (exactly like the alt-right, or feminists, or socialists, or neocons) is because they hold positions that are not universal. In fact, put in context by platform it is an afro-centric ("to love and desire freedom and justice for ourselves is a prerequisite for wanting the same for others"), radical feminist (in the technical sense), possibly socialist (not specifically stated, but they do have a lot of communal labor verbiage) organization.

http://blacklivesmatter.com/guiding-principles/

Basically if you're a movement and you have a name, you ARE a dogwhistle for someone. That's just their nature.

[s_stabeler]

See, and that's exactly what I'm talking about. I'm convinced both sides do this. In general, to say that Democrats don't do this as well is being disingenuous. Neither party seems to understand negotiation or compromise.

Here's a good example. If I'm out job hunting, and the salary I want is $100K, and the employer is offering $95K, I might start my negotiation at $105K. They might counter at $97K. They might make a hardline $95K offer.

If they make a $97K offer, I might counter at $102K.

If they're hard line on the $95, I might forego the other $5,000, and try to negotiate for something else (maybe another week vacation, or some sort of stipend, or maybe a remote day per week, or multiple remote days per week, to "make up for" the difference).

In other words, compromise is the basically the art of nobody getting exactly what they want, but feeling some sort of possible benefit from it. In my example, let's say I had to "give up" $5,000, and the employer had to "give up" an extra week of vacation.

We both benefited, though. Because I get an extra week of vacation, and the employer "saves" $5,000.

while that's true, you're missing my point. Had there been any compromise on defunding the ACA, it would have guaranteed the failure of the healthcare reforms, torpedoing what is arguably Obama's main legacy ( which applies regardless of if you think it is a good thing or not)- in short, what was being offered by the Republicans was " give us low-hanging fruit to ensure you won't be re-elected, and we'll let the government pay the bills for another year"- the simple fact was, it was a Morton's Fork- if he compromised, then that would cause the failure of the ACA. Which would have meant that the Republicans would have been able to point to the failed healthcare reforms to get more votes at the election.

hence, compromise would have been for them to drop the demands for the defunding of the ACA, and probably agree a mix of tax raises and spending cuts in exchange for a continuing resolution or- ideally- an actual Budget.

[Rageaholic]

Basically if you're a movement and you have a name, you ARE a dogwhistle for someone. That's just their nature.

Oh I'm not saying BLM is innocent here. The movement attracts a lot nutty people and extreme ideas. But so did gamergate, which sites like Breitbart defended tooth and nail whenever the harassment and death threats we're mentioned. Yet, they jump on the chance to attack BLM, feminism, or any other group they don't like by focusing on the extreme examples.

[Gravekeeper]

Then people (mainly the media, but she's got supporters like this, too) need to stop acting like she is.

Who is the media is treating her like a paragon of virtue? She can't sneeze without being accused of murdering someone.

Unless potentially tossing national security to the wind is no big deal. As I think I said in a previous post, in a previous job I had, we had to go to a government contractor site. We had to sit through ITAR and other training, where if there was some violation it needed to be reported to the state department.

My problem with the email thing isn't that she wasn't an idiot, its that as usual even after the investigation is over yammering on the right continues to accuse her of things worse than what she actually did. The email thing is the perfect example of how she's been treated for over 20 years. Because there is no acceptable outcome except the one certain people have already convinced themselves is true.

It didn't matter what the investigation into her emails uncovered because any outcome less than her serving a life sentence would be unacceptable to the loudest voices pushing the investigation. Ditto with Benghazi, Filegate, Travelgate, etc etc etc. Anything less than her absolute destruction is unacceptable.

And when that destruction doesn't come to pass she's accused of somehow being a criminal mastermind with mafia level power to have avoided said destruction. It is and always will be a witch hunt even when there IS a legitimate problem.

The entire strategy used against the Clintons from the get go is to create smoke than say "well there must be fire". Benghazi is a prime example. Hearing after hearing finds nothing. Millions of dollars wasted. More time spent investigating it than investigating 9/11 or the Iraq War. But finding nothing doesn't matter. Its the illusion of looking for something that matters.

You launch accusations of scandal over and over and over then you shrug and go "Well if she isn't up to SOMETHING she wouldn't be accused so much". Its an effective if deplorable strategy. Especially on people too young to remember the prior history of it all.

And you know what? The Clintons play right into it despite themselves. They're both historically allergic to transparency even when they have nothing to hide. Which feeds into the illusion of nefariousness. The strategy works in part because they let it work.

To what level of scrutiny should we hold our public officials?

To be bluntly honest you would be hard pressed to find public officials more scrutinized than the Clintons.

Some aspect? I think it's far beyond "some aspect". But since we're on the topic, what do you consider "the right"? If you think I'm so wrong about what "the left" is (and it's likely different here in the States than in Canada, where I believe you are), then why don't you tell me what you think "the left" is.

In the American sense I generally view Fox News and everything right of it as the "right". Then Breitbart and its shitheel ilk as the far right moving into the alt right.

As for the "left". I would say left of Clinton. With far left starting to erode into idiots like Stein, antivaxxers and the like.

From a Canadian perspective you're basically all to the right up till Sanders or so.

However, my problem is not quite as simplistic as left/right. The "right" in the US tends to be socially conservative and authoritarian. With little regard for the ethics of how it spreads its message or enforces its beliefs. That's why it irritates me so much. GOP policy will cut off its nose to spite its face if it adheres to the current party line and people suffer for it.

From my perspective the "right" in the US has been playing an ongoing game of No True Scotsman with itself for over a decade now.

Do you really think democrats won't try to do the same thing if a R gets in the White House?

No, I don't, because the current level of shit is unprecedented.

Meh. Congress has had low approval ratings since Bush was in the White House. They always poll in the teens or low 20's as far as approvel.

Actually, it had pretty good ratings while Bush was in the White House. For a while anyway. But they were still in the low 40s when he left office. After Obama assumed office is when they started really eroding as the obstructionist bullshit really kicked in. Then after the shut down it plummeted to a historic low.

Its also unique in that the hatred is bipartisan. Usually the party that holds congress enjoys higher approval ratings for congress from its own party. But *everyone* hates this congress.

So yeah, this is a historically unique and awful congress.

This is probably true. But I guess it depends on the candidate. I wouldn't say "anyone but Clinton". There are some fairly weak Democrats out there.

A few, but the DNC tends to have more quality control than the RNC.

It would have been no contest at all if Biden had chosen to run.

Just a quick blurb on this - I actually don't think that's true.

While its true everything Hillary has be done to death that doesn't actually stop it from being effective. The GOP has historically been obsessed with the Clintons. On one hand you can view it as "She has no where to go but up" but at the same time any traction she gains can be easily knocked back down again but the latest overblown slight.

I mean cripes she's being accused of having Dr Drew cancelled now for "exposing" her "real" medical issues. The GOP have built her up into a figure of folklore to the point practically anything can be linked to her and it doesn't sound patently insane to their ears.

[s_stabeler]

There's also the fact that Clinton will at least listen to advice, while I don't think Trump will. That's important, because a President that has competent advisors that he listens to will be a lot better than one who either doesn't listen to his advisors, or has incompetent ones. ( it's one reason why Bush made so many bad decisions- his advisors didn't scrutinise the evidence they had to see if it was accurate.)

[Kheldarson]

There's also the fact that Clinton will at least listen to advice, while I don't think Trump will. That's important, because a President that has competent advisors that he listens to will be a lot better than one who either doesn't listen to his advisors, or has incompetent ones. ( it's one reason why Bush made so many bad decisions- his advisors didn't scrutinise the evidence they had to see if it was accurate.)

Or one that gathers advisors and then neither pays them nor use their work:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/poli...icle-1.2776256

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...c-policy-shop/


I suppose that's one way of keeping the budget down...

[Gravekeeper]

There's also the fact that Clinton will at least listen to advice, while I don't think Trump will.

Well, he both hires awful people and doesn't listen to them ( or pay them ).

Trump doesn't listen to anyone but Trump. I get the impression about the only restraints he has on him are his kids and they aren't exactly political rocket scientists either.

[wolfie]

The GOP have built her up into a figure of folklore to the point practically anything can be linked to her and it doesn't sound patently insane to their ears.

Yep, some people would believe a report that Hillary supplied Booth with the assassination weapon.

[Kheldarson]

Yep, some people would believe a report that Hillary supplied Booth with the assassination weapon.

Well, of course! She's had full access to Area 51 for years. She's had every opportunity to go back in time and sabotage the GOP in significant ways!

[KabeRinnaul]

You joke, but the latest idea making the right-wing rounds is that Clinton never passed out at the 9/11 memorial because she wasn't there — that was her body double.

[mjr]

You joke, but the latest idea making the right-wing rounds is that Clinton never passed out at the 9/11 memorial because she wasn't there — that was her body double.

I heard about that. I laughed at how ridiculous it was.

[HYHYBT]

Well, he both hires awful people and doesn't listen to them

To be fair, it's better not to listen to awful advisors even if you did hire them.

[Estil]

See, now I think you're getting into subjective opinion. I don't think Republicans are detriments to the country or society. You do, because you likely don't like anyone with an R behind their name. I'm honestly not worried about being "politically correct". I'm more interested in being "correct".

Indeed, I'm still waiting for those so-called "responsible conservative viewpoints" Gravekeeper said he likes debating with. While I was able to name several liberals that, while I don't often agree with them I do think they are likeable and make their points without being a stereotypical angry "everyone who's not a liberal (even and especially just regular citizens) is a rotten racist sexist homo/islamopohic war on women warmongering" liberal. Think for example the difference between Rosie O'Donnell and Whoopi Goldberg...the later is every bit as liberal as the former, but isn't an obnoxious hypocritical loud mouth about it like the former.

Meanwhile, the only one Gravekeeper could come up with is Olympia Snowe, and I know the term RINO is thrown around so many times it's mostly cliche, but as you can see here, she WAS a RINO! :P

http://www.politico.com/story/2012/0...the-gop-073449

Gravekeeper, I know your standards for a "responsible conservative viewpoint" is impossibly high, but I still want you to check out Country Music Hall of Famer (it's about time on that BTW) Charlie Daniels; you probably won't like a lot of his viewpoints but let me tell ya, he is about as good a man and as good a patriot as you'll ever find.

http://www.charliedaniels.com/soap-box