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Having the same opinion for 24 years is not a virtue. In the (probably apocryphal) words of Keynes: > When someone persuades me that I am wrong, I change my m

Having the same opinion for 24 years is not a virtue. In the (probably apocryphal) words of Keynes: > When someone persuades me that I am wrong, I change my mind. What do you do? It's not a sign of vice either; I'm sure he's been believing that the Earth is round for 24+ years, and that's fine. What matters is accuracy, and updating in the face of new evidence, not consistency. Consistency in the face of new evidence is called faith.

gthtjtkt 10y ago
> Having the same opinion for 24 years is not a virtue. But being right for 24 years is. She adopted his ideas one by one and then tried to pretend they'd been hers all along. Unfortunately (for her), Democrats aren't that gullible. It was clear that she was only saying what voters wanted to hear, while Bernie truly believed everything he'd been saying for that past 25+ years. Case in point: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2631 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2631
- greenshackle2 10y ago
  Correct, but being right is orthogonal to consistency. If you are exposed to new evidence, and it points in a different direction than your prior belief, being right means changing your mind; if there is no new evidence, or the weight of new evidence points in the same direction, being right means keeping the same belief. All I'm saying is, you can't tout keeping the same idea for years as an unqualified good thing, you have to look at the idea and history in detail, and show that it was a good idea all along. (I'm not objecting to the object-level argument that Clinton does whatever is politically expedient, I'm objecting to the line of argument that it's good for a politician to hold an opinion for a long time, without also showing that the idea is good, and that it was good all along.)
  - noobiemcfoob 10y ago
    > you can't tout keeping the same idea for years as an unqualified good thing If that's the critique you hear when comparing Sanders to Clinton, you're not listening very well. To restate, Sanders didn't just tout the same idea. He's fought for the same core principles throughout his whole career, even when in the clear minority. Overtime, the rest of our culture came around to those ideas (bringing Clinton with it). His virtue isn't his tenacity. It's his progressive thinking.
    - greenshackle2 10y ago
      Maybe. I can accept that I am taking the OP too literally when they say that Berns has been saying > the exact same thing for years. I'm not American, I havn't looked into Berns' history in details.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - Fargren 10y ago
    But consistently having to change your position is not a good sign. It's good to be able to change your mind. But it's hard to trust someone who changes a lot of their positions.
  - darawk 10y ago
    I don't think the OP was criticizing her lack of consistency. (S)He was criticizing her lack of being on the right side of the issues the first time (in the way that Bernie has been on many issues). It's easy to switch sides when everyone does, and nobody should criticize someone for doing that. But to many people, greatness is being on the right side of the issue before everyone else, and convincing people of its rightness.
    - edko 10y ago
      I think you need both. You need the uncompromising Bernies, to act as visionaries and point out what the future should be. And, you also need the unprincipled politicians who can compromise, and adapt, and win elections. If Bernie had run in all previous elections, you would have probably gotten presidents Dole, McCain, and Romney. And, who knows, maybe Trump too.
      - sqeaky 10y ago
        I am not convinced those presidents would have been bad. Can we say that they were all acting in the same way as "unprincipled politicians who can compromise, and adapt, and win elections" or maybe did they believe something earnestly that is just different from what you believe? Would you rather have an ethically malleable liberal than a principled conservative? In most cases I would rather have the principled politician because they will have some kind of goal to benefit some segment of Americans. Can we really say that any ethically malleable politician, of any flavor, will always help some segment of Americans? Then as a counter to all this. Nixon did found the EPA.
        edko 10y ago
        I agree that maybe those presidents would not have been necessarily bad. Maybe, if Dole would have won, G.W. Bush would have never been elected, and the world would now be a very different (and better) place. I think malleable politicians are malleable because they try to benefit the largest section of the population that they can. Conservatives, lately, have focused on benefiting a very small segment of the population directly, expecting the benefits to trickle down. However, the trickle down has not worked. I know very little about economics, but, I remember, headlines in newspapers eight years ago were mainly about unemployment, and the growth of the National debt. The euro was $1.30 (now it buoys around $1.10). I think the American economy is much better now than it was eight years ago, and a larger section of the population has benefited from that, than when principled conservatives were in the government. (And this is just from an economic point of view, which is a small part of the benefits).
  - ahussain 10y ago
    No, but in this case he was right and consistent. She was eventually right and not consistent.
  - gthtjtkt 10y ago
    > you can't tout keeping the same idea for years as an unqualified good thing You're missing the point completely. I'm not praising Sanders' stubbornness, I'm praising his foresight and vastly superior judgment. He knew what this country needed to do 20 years before Hillary, and he was willing to vehemently defend his opinions despite the overwhelming opposition. The fact that you're trying to turn this into some kind of debate about consistency vs. facts is frankly baffling. It's clear that he was right all along and she was late to the party on every issue that liberals and progressives care about. And do you really believe she changed her opinion on those issues where she claimed to have "evolved"? I sure don't. We know she still wants TPP to pass, we know she still secretly supports DOMA, we know she had no interest in reigning in Wall Street, we know she (and Chelsea) were halfheartedly pretending to support medical marijuana, etc. etc.. The Hillary Clinton presented to the public was a fictional character designed for one purpose: To win the presidency. It didn't work, and the reason is clear: We're not as ignorant or gullible as they'd hoped: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3599#efmARhAWn https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3599#efmARhAWn
    - greenshackle2 10y ago
      > You're missing the point completely. You're right, I got sidetracked by this: > has been saying the exact same things for years I keep forgetting not to try debating what is or isn't a good argument, in the abstract, in politics threads.
      - croon 10y ago
        Well, it's because you're arguing what you did was somehow objectively relevant. That's a very binary stance. What he said makes complete sense in the context he presented it in, and is valid. You're arguing how what he said would be bad in an entirely different context, which is irrelevant.
ep103 10y ago
Its not a virtue for everyday people, its a virtue for politicians.
ethanbond 10y ago
His opinions were sound and his predictions were prescient. He was right. That's it. He was right about Iraq, he was right about financial deregulation, he was right about civil liberties. Having the same opinion in and of itself is not a virtue, but having wisdom and foresight and conviction and true ground level initiative all at once is far more than just virtuous.
- conkrete 10y ago
  That may be true, but he's also a terrible role model that says extremely racist/sexist things. I couldn't quote president Trump at work without being fired from my job because of his lewd language.
  - mintplant 10y ago
    This thread is discussing Sanders, not Trump.
cmdrfred 10y ago
Reconcile that with: “But If Everybody's Watching, You Know, All Of The Back Room Discussions And The Deals, You Know, Then People Get A Little Nervous, To Say The Least. So, You Need Both A Public And A Private Position.” https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927 Her motives are clear.
- greenshackle2 10y ago
  I'm not commenting on the specifics of Berns and Hilary. I don't particularly like Hilary. I'm objecting to this type of argument in general. Like, what if someone shows up and shows that Trump has had the same opinions all along? Is that a positive for him? If the ideas are shitty, it doesn't matter how consistent or inconsistent they are. If they're good, I don't care if the person only adopted them 3 years ago, as long as they did for the right reasons, (e.g. not political expediency, I agree.) I agree that the fact that he's held the same opinions for a long time is evidence that Berns doesn't act out of political expediency, but to me that point is far overshadowed by whether the ideas are any good.
  - Nadya 10y ago
    If someone holds a private and public"shitty" opinion and another holds a public opinion as a demagogue and privately holds the same "shitty" opinions, who would you rather? The one open and honest with their opinions or the dishonest one who will lie and say anything to win the popular vote? >but to me that point is far overshadowed by whether the ideas are any good Mind telling me where his ideas are bad? Most of his beliefs are both long held, progressive, and in my opinion, largely agreeable.
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      [deleted]
patmcc 10y ago
>>Having the same opinion for 24 years is not a virtue. It is if they were good opinions the whole damn time. Being for marriage equality for 24 years is a virtue. Being for an improved social safety net for 24 years is a virtue. Being for universal healthcare for 24 years is a virtue.
- sdegutis 10y ago
  Yep, the key about these is moral consistency. He was morally consistent the whole time, which shows integrity. Now, whether his positions were the right ones is another story...
  - dpc59 10y ago
    Vermont and Burlington are going pretty fucking good.
blhack 10y ago
>Having the same opinion for 24 years is not a virtue. "I believe in universal human rights" is a virtue that I think it is perfectly acceptable to have to 24 years (or more!)
VLM 10y ago
You're the only one repeatedly using the word "consistency" and then claiming that word is bad, which is kind of funny. That's because its a mistake you've made. That's OK. The correct word to use is "coherent". He's a believer in a complete and wide ranging logical philosophical system explaining the world resulting in a set of mutually compatible coherent opinions on all kinds of issues. That's why he's a statesman who's earned the respect of people even like me who disagree with him but can see a logical deeply reasoning fellow rational mind. And you try to compare that to someone who's idea of a philosophy, of the right systemic way to live a life, is to look at the polls, see X, Y, and Z are leading, well, guess I'm temporarily a supporter of X, Y, and Z. They're so dissimilar its almost impossible to compare the two. You speak of faith and belief a lot. Bernie is like a wise theological scholar. Personally I think he's wrong about quite a few things, but I recognize the strong morals and ethics, the personal virtue, the deep rational thought, the coherent inter relatedness behind his system. He's a personification of sometimes wise people are wrong, but they still remain wise. He's not for me personally, I like other folks, but I'm proud he's an American and if he were the leader I could respect him despite disagreement. And his female opponent is like a televangelist seeking ratings and pledge drives, a faith healer, a fake messiah. And people somehow wonder how she lost. Doesn't her show have the highest ratings? Doesn't she make the best promises in her sermons? Don't our holiest people fall all over themselves to celebrate and show off their own holiness in supporting her? How could a charlatan like her not win, indeed?
- greenshackle2 10y ago
  No, I meant consistency. You've misconstrued what I meant. That's ok. We all make mistakes sometimes.
1024core 10y ago
> Having the same opinion for 24 years is not a virtue. You are deliberately misinterpreting the statement. Of course having the same opinion for 24 years by itself is not a virtue! The point is: he has had the same public stance on things that matter : gay marriage, healthcare, etc. In today's climate, when politicians change their views based on the most recent polling, this is indeed a virtue.
- greenshackle2 10y ago
  > deliberately How do you know that? Can you really not imagine that someone can misinterpret something without malicious intention? Can you believe that I agree with OP that Bernie was the better candidate, yet still disagree about a particular argument?
bobjordan 10y ago
Bernie's viewpoints were so far left that he had to hammer on them for 40+ years until the stars aligned and we all began to recognize the pearls of truth they held. Twenty years ago I could not have considered his viewpoint but now with more age and empathy driven into me I can get behind (most of) his viewpoint. Thank God for Bernie and hopefully we can rebirth a new democratic party that can integrate some of his views to help recapture a large part of the 59,000,000 people that felt compelled to vote for Trump.
- vidarh 10y ago
  This is what scares the Europeans amongst us about the US. By European standards, most of the European centre-right is fine with most of what Bernie supports... And then we wake up to Trump.
  - sqeaky 10y ago
    As crazy as it might seem the USA has been right of center for a long (since WW2) and it is generally working well for us (we are so rich we don't even understand it). It is clearly not perfect (healthcare) but it does often work in unintuitive way (decade on decade carbon release decrease). EDIT - Even though I think Trump is an existential threat to the USA, so have many of our leaders. Maybe 'us' wouldn't be the US if we weren't just a bit crazy. I must accept that I might be wrong about Trump be universally bad and see what happens.
findjashua 10y ago
> Having the same opinion for 24 years is not a virtue. That was not what GP was saying at all. He was saying that Bernie has always stood for what he believes is the right thing to do, whereas Hillary would pick a stance based on its political value.

gthtjtkt 10y ago

> Having the same opinion for 24 years is not a virtue. But being right for 24 years is. She adopted his ideas one by one and then tried to pretend they'd been hers all along. Unfortunately (for her), Democrats aren't that gullible. It was clear that she was only saying what voters wanted to hear, while Bernie truly believed everything he'd been saying for that past 25+ years. Case in point: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2631 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2631

greenshackle2 10y ago
Correct, but being right is orthogonal to consistency. If you are exposed to new evidence, and it points in a different direction than your prior belief, being right means changing your mind; if there is no new evidence, or the weight of new evidence points in the same direction, being right means keeping the same belief. All I'm saying is, you can't tout keeping the same idea for years as an unqualified good thing, you have to look at the idea and history in detail, and show that it was a good idea all along. (I'm not objecting to the object-level argument that Clinton does whatever is politically expedient, I'm objecting to the line of argument that it's good for a politician to hold an opinion for a long time, without also showing that the idea is good, and that it was good all along.)
- noobiemcfoob 10y ago
  > you can't tout keeping the same idea for years as an unqualified good thing If that's the critique you hear when comparing Sanders to Clinton, you're not listening very well. To restate, Sanders didn't just tout the same idea. He's fought for the same core principles throughout his whole career, even when in the clear minority. Overtime, the rest of our culture came around to those ideas (bringing Clinton with it). His virtue isn't his tenacity. It's his progressive thinking.
  - greenshackle2 10y ago
    Maybe. I can accept that I am taking the OP too literally when they say that Berns has been saying > the exact same thing for years. I'm not American, I havn't looked into Berns' history in details.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- Fargren 10y ago
  But consistently having to change your position is not a good sign. It's good to be able to change your mind. But it's hard to trust someone who changes a lot of their positions.
- darawk 10y ago
  I don't think the OP was criticizing her lack of consistency. (S)He was criticizing her lack of being on the right side of the issues the first time (in the way that Bernie has been on many issues). It's easy to switch sides when everyone does, and nobody should criticize someone for doing that. But to many people, greatness is being on the right side of the issue before everyone else, and convincing people of its rightness.
  - edko 10y ago
    I think you need both. You need the uncompromising Bernies, to act as visionaries and point out what the future should be. And, you also need the unprincipled politicians who can compromise, and adapt, and win elections. If Bernie had run in all previous elections, you would have probably gotten presidents Dole, McCain, and Romney. And, who knows, maybe Trump too.
    - sqeaky 10y ago
      I am not convinced those presidents would have been bad. Can we say that they were all acting in the same way as "unprincipled politicians who can compromise, and adapt, and win elections" or maybe did they believe something earnestly that is just different from what you believe? Would you rather have an ethically malleable liberal than a principled conservative? In most cases I would rather have the principled politician because they will have some kind of goal to benefit some segment of Americans. Can we really say that any ethically malleable politician, of any flavor, will always help some segment of Americans? Then as a counter to all this. Nixon did found the EPA.
      - edko 10y ago
        I agree that maybe those presidents would not have been necessarily bad. Maybe, if Dole would have won, G.W. Bush would have never been elected, and the world would now be a very different (and better) place. I think malleable politicians are malleable because they try to benefit the largest section of the population that they can. Conservatives, lately, have focused on benefiting a very small segment of the population directly, expecting the benefits to trickle down. However, the trickle down has not worked. I know very little about economics, but, I remember, headlines in newspapers eight years ago were mainly about unemployment, and the growth of the National debt. The euro was $1.30 (now it buoys around $1.10). I think the American economy is much better now than it was eight years ago, and a larger section of the population has benefited from that, than when principled conservatives were in the government. (And this is just from an economic point of view, which is a small part of the benefits).
- ahussain 10y ago
  No, but in this case he was right and consistent. She was eventually right and not consistent.
- gthtjtkt 10y ago
  > you can't tout keeping the same idea for years as an unqualified good thing You're missing the point completely. I'm not praising Sanders' stubbornness, I'm praising his foresight and vastly superior judgment. He knew what this country needed to do 20 years before Hillary, and he was willing to vehemently defend his opinions despite the overwhelming opposition. The fact that you're trying to turn this into some kind of debate about consistency vs. facts is frankly baffling. It's clear that he was right all along and she was late to the party on every issue that liberals and progressives care about. And do you really believe she changed her opinion on those issues where she claimed to have "evolved"? I sure don't. We know she still wants TPP to pass, we know she still secretly supports DOMA, we know she had no interest in reigning in Wall Street, we know she (and Chelsea) were halfheartedly pretending to support medical marijuana, etc. etc.. The Hillary Clinton presented to the public was a fictional character designed for one purpose: To win the presidency. It didn't work, and the reason is clear: We're not as ignorant or gullible as they'd hoped: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3599#efmARhAWn https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3599#efmARhAWn
  - greenshackle2 10y ago
    > You're missing the point completely. You're right, I got sidetracked by this: > has been saying the exact same things for years I keep forgetting not to try debating what is or isn't a good argument, in the abstract, in politics threads.
    - croon 10y ago
      Well, it's because you're arguing what you did was somehow objectively relevant. That's a very binary stance. What he said makes complete sense in the context he presented it in, and is valid. You're arguing how what he said would be bad in an entirely different context, which is irrelevant.

ep103 10y ago

Its not a virtue for everyday people, its a virtue for politicians.

ethanbond 10y ago

His opinions were sound and his predictions were prescient. He was right. That's it. He was right about Iraq, he was right about financial deregulation, he was right about civil liberties. Having the same opinion in and of itself is not a virtue, but having wisdom and foresight and conviction and true ground level initiative all at once is far more than just virtuous.

conkrete 10y ago
That may be true, but he's also a terrible role model that says extremely racist/sexist things. I couldn't quote president Trump at work without being fired from my job because of his lewd language.
- mintplant 10y ago
  This thread is discussing Sanders, not Trump.

cmdrfred 10y ago

Reconcile that with: “But If Everybody's Watching, You Know, All Of The Back Room Discussions And The Deals, You Know, Then People Get A Little Nervous, To Say The Least. So, You Need Both A Public And A Private Position.” https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927 Her motives are clear.

greenshackle2 10y ago
I'm not commenting on the specifics of Berns and Hilary. I don't particularly like Hilary. I'm objecting to this type of argument in general. Like, what if someone shows up and shows that Trump has had the same opinions all along? Is that a positive for him? If the ideas are shitty, it doesn't matter how consistent or inconsistent they are. If they're good, I don't care if the person only adopted them 3 years ago, as long as they did for the right reasons, (e.g. not political expediency, I agree.) I agree that the fact that he's held the same opinions for a long time is evidence that Berns doesn't act out of political expediency, but to me that point is far overshadowed by whether the ideas are any good.
- Nadya 10y ago
  If someone holds a private and public"shitty" opinion and another holds a public opinion as a demagogue and privately holds the same "shitty" opinions, who would you rather? The one open and honest with their opinions or the dishonest one who will lie and say anything to win the popular vote? >but to me that point is far overshadowed by whether the ideas are any good Mind telling me where his ideas are bad? Most of his beliefs are both long held, progressive, and in my opinion, largely agreeable.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

patmcc 10y ago

>>Having the same opinion for 24 years is not a virtue. It is if they were good opinions the whole damn time. Being for marriage equality for 24 years is a virtue. Being for an improved social safety net for 24 years is a virtue. Being for universal healthcare for 24 years is a virtue.

sdegutis 10y ago
Yep, the key about these is moral consistency. He was morally consistent the whole time, which shows integrity. Now, whether his positions were the right ones is another story...
- dpc59 10y ago
  Vermont and Burlington are going pretty fucking good.

blhack 10y ago

>Having the same opinion for 24 years is not a virtue. "I believe in universal human rights" is a virtue that I think it is perfectly acceptable to have to 24 years (or more!)

VLM 10y ago

You're the only one repeatedly using the word "consistency" and then claiming that word is bad, which is kind of funny. That's because its a mistake you've made. That's OK. The correct word to use is "coherent". He's a believer in a complete and wide ranging logical philosophical system explaining the world resulting in a set of mutually compatible coherent opinions on all kinds of issues. That's why he's a statesman who's earned the respect of people even like me who disagree with him but can see a logical deeply reasoning fellow rational mind. And you try to compare that to someone who's idea of a philosophy, of the right systemic way to live a life, is to look at the polls, see X, Y, and Z are leading, well, guess I'm temporarily a supporter of X, Y, and Z. They're so dissimilar its almost impossible to compare the two. You speak of faith and belief a lot. Bernie is like a wise theological scholar. Personally I think he's wrong about quite a few things, but I recognize the strong morals and ethics, the personal virtue, the deep rational thought, the coherent inter relatedness behind his system. He's a personification of sometimes wise people are wrong, but they still remain wise. He's not for me personally, I like other folks, but I'm proud he's an American and if he were the leader I could respect him despite disagreement. And his female opponent is like a televangelist seeking ratings and pledge drives, a faith healer, a fake messiah. And people somehow wonder how she lost. Doesn't her show have the highest ratings? Doesn't she make the best promises in her sermons? Don't our holiest people fall all over themselves to celebrate and show off their own holiness in supporting her? How could a charlatan like her not win, indeed?

greenshackle2 10y ago
No, I meant consistency. You've misconstrued what I meant. That's ok. We all make mistakes sometimes.

1024core 10y ago

> Having the same opinion for 24 years is not a virtue. You are deliberately misinterpreting the statement. Of course having the same opinion for 24 years by itself is not a virtue! The point is: he has had the same public stance on things that matter : gay marriage, healthcare, etc. In today's climate, when politicians change their views based on the most recent polling, this is indeed a virtue.

greenshackle2 10y ago
> deliberately How do you know that? Can you really not imagine that someone can misinterpret something without malicious intention? Can you believe that I agree with OP that Bernie was the better candidate, yet still disagree about a particular argument?

bobjordan 10y ago

Bernie's viewpoints were so far left that he had to hammer on them for 40+ years until the stars aligned and we all began to recognize the pearls of truth they held. Twenty years ago I could not have considered his viewpoint but now with more age and empathy driven into me I can get behind (most of) his viewpoint. Thank God for Bernie and hopefully we can rebirth a new democratic party that can integrate some of his views to help recapture a large part of the 59,000,000 people that felt compelled to vote for Trump.

vidarh 10y ago
This is what scares the Europeans amongst us about the US. By European standards, most of the European centre-right is fine with most of what Bernie supports... And then we wake up to Trump.
- sqeaky 10y ago
  As crazy as it might seem the USA has been right of center for a long (since WW2) and it is generally working well for us (we are so rich we don't even understand it). It is clearly not perfect (healthcare) but it does often work in unintuitive way (decade on decade carbon release decrease). EDIT - Even though I think Trump is an existential threat to the USA, so have many of our leaders. Maybe 'us' wouldn't be the US if we weren't just a bit crazy. I must accept that I might be wrong about Trump be universally bad and see what happens.

findjashua 10y ago

> Having the same opinion for 24 years is not a virtue. That was not what GP was saying at all. He was saying that Bernie has always stood for what he believes is the right thing to do, whereas Hillary would pick a stance based on its political value.