Here's an example of why it's useless to debate Ms. Penny -- > If Bannon has to have a public platform, make him work for it. Fine. > Have him stand on a sta

Here's an example of why it's useless to debate Ms. Penny -- > If Bannon has to have a public platform, make him work for it. Fine. > Have him stand on a stage and play the audio footage of the toddlers at the Mexican border screaming for their parents as they’re dragged away to detention. Without examining actual data, how does she or anyone know the adults accompanying the toddlers were their parents? Or is that an assumption used for maximum emotional effect? > Have him answer to the mothers of children who were gunned down by police because of the color of their skin An assumption that we can read the minds of police officers. > or to the friends and family of migrants who drowned in the Mediterranean. Whose safety and happiness apparently rests solely on the shoulders of Europeans. >That’s not a polite thing to say. It wouldn’t be a polite thing to do. But the idea that politeness and civility is owed to anyone in a position of power is one of the great gotchas of liberal thought. No, it's not Ms. Penny. Moreover, it's as intellectually dishonest as anything Steve Bannon says. Because implicit in the statements is somehow we have to take extraordinary measures for children we've never met. To assert otherwise is to be labeled infanticidal. Not that Ms. Penny would ever use such a term. But that's the effect her statements intend to achieve.