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> How do you know she is "pretending"? I mean look at all her other positions. She was supposedly for the Iraq war until she was against it. Against marijuana

> How do you know she is "pretending"? I mean look at all her other positions. She was supposedly for the Iraq war until she was against it. Against marijuana legalization until she was for it. For building a wall with Mexico until Trump supported it. For single payer healthcare until Bernie supported it. And so on. It's normal for people to change their minds as they learn more about things. It's not normal for people to change their minds on every single political issue in lockstep with internal polling. In the same way that things like Benford's Law can be used to detect fraud, she seems to fail some fundamental test of being a real human.

danso 9y ago
Political stances are mutable. I won't argue your point about whether she should be despised for the rate of her mutability. I'm pointing out the flaw in your analogy. Someone taking a stance that contradicts a past stance is not in the same category as someone saying something that contradicts an observable/measurable quantity, unless you are in a possession of a mind-reading device and can observe Clinton's current belief regarding gay marriage. Your analogy would work if you said liberals give Clinton a pass for flip-flopping while hating Trump for flip-flopping on abortion. AFAIK, liberals hate Trump for his current stance and actions on abortion rights, not for being a flip-flop (i.e. they'd be fine if the flip-flop happened in the other direction)
- Alex3917 9y ago
  > taking a stance that contradicts a past stance is not in the same category as someone saying something that contradicts an observable/measurable quantity I mean that may be true in some sort of epistemological sense, but pragmatically both are equally ridiculous. The fact that something could be true doesn't make it any less false.
  - geofft 9y ago
    ... just to make sure I'm understanding the conversation right, you're saying that not having the same political views over a 20-year period and lying about objective reality are equally ridiculous?
    - Alex3917 9y ago
      I'm saying if you were to do some sort of bayesian analysis, I think you'd find the probabilities of each to be approximately equal. (E.g. within 5%.) I'm talking specifically though about HRC believing all of HRC's stated positions, not about a random person changing their opinions over the course of time. The probability calculus there is very different. E.g. the Clintons literally hire people to survey the public to tell them what policies to campaign on, that's how they came up with the idea of adding v-chips to TVs or whatever. The Adam Curtis documentary Century of the Self goes into this in depth.
      - danso 9y ago
        Why is it always or even generally wrong when politicians in a representative republic are interested in appealing to the electorate? We have a system of government in which a single man is given 4 years of relative impunity to act on the behalf of a hugely diverse population of ~250 million human beings. I don't believe that him compromising to popular opinion is prima facie a net negative. edit: > I'm saying if you were to do some sort of bayesian analysis, I think you'd find the probabilities of each to be approximately equal. (E.g. within 5%.) What would be the dataset and the priors for this Bayesian analysis? Which presidents haven't changed in response to events and changing beliefs and political realities?
        geofft 9y ago
        I was gonna say that too—I'm sort of impressed that "this politician listens to the people they're representing too much" is a criticism now. Probably came from the same brilliant minds who gave us "she was overprepared for the debate, we need a president who doesn't take their job seriously." (And I think both of these, the "overprepared" thing and the general insinuation that Hillary isn't human, are subtle propaganda points from the Republican strategists. So it's funny to see it in a thread about how the left wing makes right wing ideas unthinkable when literally the opposite has happened. Here's my controversial opinion that will get yelled at by most people: Hillary is a genuine and kindhearted person who deeply cares about making America better, and she was the best candidate for president from any party for decades—certainly far better than Bernie.)
  - danso 9y ago
    > The fact that something could be true doesn't make it any less false. Again, what do you have that's as concrete or tangible as the inauguration attendance count (or State of the Union ratings) to show that Clinton's support of gay marriage (or for any of her other purported stances) is in contradiction to reality? I'm not arguing that you should approve of Clinton's flaws more than Trump's, just that the ones you cite are categorically different. Your argument would be stronger if you cited the times that Clinton said things that were shown to be objectively and observably false. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/19/mitch-mcconnell/did-hillary-clinton-lie-about-being-named-after-si/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/... http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/22/donald-trump/trump-clinton-bosnia-sniper-story/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/...
geofft 9y ago
... except that in the specific case of marriage equality, she was approximately always for civil unions that were fully legally equivalent to marriage, opposed in 2004 a proposed Constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman (even though the amendment would have permitted civil unions), and "changed her mind" (publicly endorsed same-sex marriages) in 2013, well before the campaign. In particular, she's a United Methodist (as am I; I go to an ELCA congregation these days but the two denominations are in full communion), and the United Methodist Church still teaches that homosexuality is contrary to Christianity and does not officiate same-sex marriages. (Yes, the ELCA does do same-sex marriages, and no, I cannot explain how this interacts with full communion.) Going from "my religion teaches that it's wrong" to "... but that's just my religion, and the government should give same-sex couples the same rights, but the word 'marriage' is about religion and tradition" to "I support it" is a journey that lots of non-right-wing religious folks in the US, myself included, have gone through in approximately the same time frame as when Hillary did. I think Occam's razor should push us in the direction of believing that she's genuine, or we would otherwise need a reason why she's fake but lots of people of extremely similar religious and political positions have not been fake about the exact same thing. Going a bit more broadly, I would argue that it is common for people to change their minds on political issues in lockstep with the median of people of similar political and cultural leanings, sort of by definition.

danso 9y ago

Political stances are mutable. I won't argue your point about whether she should be despised for the rate of her mutability. I'm pointing out the flaw in your analogy. Someone taking a stance that contradicts a past stance is not in the same category as someone saying something that contradicts an observable/measurable quantity, unless you are in a possession of a mind-reading device and can observe Clinton's current belief regarding gay marriage. Your analogy would work if you said liberals give Clinton a pass for flip-flopping while hating Trump for flip-flopping on abortion. AFAIK, liberals hate Trump for his current stance and actions on abortion rights, not for being a flip-flop (i.e. they'd be fine if the flip-flop happened in the other direction)

Alex3917 9y ago
> taking a stance that contradicts a past stance is not in the same category as someone saying something that contradicts an observable/measurable quantity I mean that may be true in some sort of epistemological sense, but pragmatically both are equally ridiculous. The fact that something could be true doesn't make it any less false.
- geofft 9y ago
  ... just to make sure I'm understanding the conversation right, you're saying that not having the same political views over a 20-year period and lying about objective reality are equally ridiculous?
  - Alex3917 9y ago
    I'm saying if you were to do some sort of bayesian analysis, I think you'd find the probabilities of each to be approximately equal. (E.g. within 5%.) I'm talking specifically though about HRC believing all of HRC's stated positions, not about a random person changing their opinions over the course of time. The probability calculus there is very different. E.g. the Clintons literally hire people to survey the public to tell them what policies to campaign on, that's how they came up with the idea of adding v-chips to TVs or whatever. The Adam Curtis documentary Century of the Self goes into this in depth.
    - danso 9y ago
      Why is it always or even generally wrong when politicians in a representative republic are interested in appealing to the electorate? We have a system of government in which a single man is given 4 years of relative impunity to act on the behalf of a hugely diverse population of ~250 million human beings. I don't believe that him compromising to popular opinion is prima facie a net negative. edit: > I'm saying if you were to do some sort of bayesian analysis, I think you'd find the probabilities of each to be approximately equal. (E.g. within 5%.) What would be the dataset and the priors for this Bayesian analysis? Which presidents haven't changed in response to events and changing beliefs and political realities?
      - geofft 9y ago
        I was gonna say that too—I'm sort of impressed that "this politician listens to the people they're representing too much" is a criticism now. Probably came from the same brilliant minds who gave us "she was overprepared for the debate, we need a president who doesn't take their job seriously." (And I think both of these, the "overprepared" thing and the general insinuation that Hillary isn't human, are subtle propaganda points from the Republican strategists. So it's funny to see it in a thread about how the left wing makes right wing ideas unthinkable when literally the opposite has happened. Here's my controversial opinion that will get yelled at by most people: Hillary is a genuine and kindhearted person who deeply cares about making America better, and she was the best candidate for president from any party for decades—certainly far better than Bernie.)
- danso 9y ago
  > The fact that something could be true doesn't make it any less false. Again, what do you have that's as concrete or tangible as the inauguration attendance count (or State of the Union ratings) to show that Clinton's support of gay marriage (or for any of her other purported stances) is in contradiction to reality? I'm not arguing that you should approve of Clinton's flaws more than Trump's, just that the ones you cite are categorically different. Your argument would be stronger if you cited the times that Clinton said things that were shown to be objectively and observably false. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/19/mitch-mcconnell/did-hillary-clinton-lie-about-being-named-after-si/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/... http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/22/donald-trump/trump-clinton-bosnia-sniper-story/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/...

geofft 9y ago

... except that in the specific case of marriage equality, she was approximately always for civil unions that were fully legally equivalent to marriage, opposed in 2004 a proposed Constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman (even though the amendment would have permitted civil unions), and "changed her mind" (publicly endorsed same-sex marriages) in 2013, well before the campaign. In particular, she's a United Methodist (as am I; I go to an ELCA congregation these days but the two denominations are in full communion), and the United Methodist Church still teaches that homosexuality is contrary to Christianity and does not officiate same-sex marriages. (Yes, the ELCA does do same-sex marriages, and no, I cannot explain how this interacts with full communion.) Going from "my religion teaches that it's wrong" to "... but that's just my religion, and the government should give same-sex couples the same rights, but the word 'marriage' is about religion and tradition" to "I support it" is a journey that lots of non-right-wing religious folks in the US, myself included, have gone through in approximately the same time frame as when Hillary did. I think Occam's razor should push us in the direction of believing that she's genuine, or we would otherwise need a reason why she's fake but lots of people of extremely similar religious and political positions have not been fake about the exact same thing. Going a bit more broadly, I would argue that it is common for people to change their minds on political issues in lockstep with the median of people of similar political and cultural leanings, sort of by definition.