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"Doesn't that taint them at all in your mind?" Sit back and think about how leaving that thought unchallenged -- not looking for and appealing to the good in p

"Doesn't that taint them at all in your mind?" Sit back and think about how leaving that thought unchallenged -- not looking for and appealing to the good in politicians -- leads inexorably to the kind of collapse of democracy that you nearly experienced less than a year ago.

Clubber 5y ago
But ignoring it leads to perpetuating an even more corrupt system, no? Bad politicians need to be held accountable, yet we keep reelecting the same ones with the same self serving interests. Apply the same logic to other organizations. Are there good police? Sure. Are they still good if they ignore police brutality and cover it up? I would argue that would make them bad police. Currently if you drive with cash, police can pull you over and take it. They split it up with the federal government. You are left with no cash and are now responsible for hiring a lawyer to try to get it back. That is literally theft from the government. Which politicians are trying to stop this? How does legally stealing from citizens reenforce the faith in the rule of law? It doesn't. Rather than trying to blame the person pointing this stuff out for the decline of democracy, maybe put some blame on the people who write unjust laws.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  > But ignoring it leads to perpetuating an even more corrupt system, no? I guess it would but I said nothing about ignoring it.
  - Clubber 5y ago
    >not looking for and appealing to the good in politicians So what are you saying then? What does that even mean? Sounds like the feel good rhetoric politicians have been feeding us for decades. I can look for the good all I want but that doesn't magically make it appear or make the "do good" politicians effective. I've been giving politicians of both parties the benefit of the doubt for 20+ years, and without fail, they disappoint. Most of us are a lot worse off than we were in 1995. Be optimistic? Is that what you are saying? How's our life expectancy looking? Worse. How's the drug war going? Worse. How does the average person's prospect of retirement look? Worse. How's the prospect of home ownership looking? Worse. How's our freedoms looking? Worse. Remember that whole net neutrality thing that the Ds were pushing? What happened to that now that they have power? The politicians are controlled by the parties, the parties are controlled by the donors. Our futures are being sold down the river to the highest bidder. What's good? Give me some optimism.
    - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
      It is not "feel-good rhetoric". It's a suggestion that it would be better to do the hard, consistent work to humanise the opposition so that their decisions can be criticised without writing them all off as people. But if I must spell it out to you -- I'll get downvoted for it -- I am saying that, essentially, "othering" politicians as inherently not doing good, or saying that they are all tainted by the actions of some of them, is the precise sentiment that was exploited to allow a corrupt, amoral, malignant narcissist and populist into the White House, who deliberately tried to overthrow the democratic process. Very few of the politicians tarred in that way are anything like as dangerous as the man this enabled. And the most dangerous of them take part in the tarring. If you cannot look at politicians and seek to find the good and the common ground in them, you're doing the nihilistic groundwork of future fascists. Don't do that.
      - Clubber 5y ago
        >It's a suggestion that it would be better to do the hard, consistent work to humanise the opposition so that their decisions can be criticised without writing them all off as people. I'm not dehumanizing anybody, I'm just calling them corrupt. Politicians have been doing a lot of dehumanizing though. "Socialists," "basket of deplorables," "anti-vaxxer," "thugs," "racists," etc. You know the routine. >I am saying that, essentially, "othering" politicians as inherently not doing good, or saying that they are all tainted by the actions of some of them, is the precise sentiment that was exploited to allow a corrupt, amoral, malignant narcissist and populist into the White House, who deliberately tried to overthrow the democratic process. Don't you feel the corruption of the existing system was what allowed him to get elected in the first place? Would we have Trump if we didn't have the bank bailouts in 2008 while letting grandmas get their house foreclosed on? Doubt it. Would we have Trump if we hadn't insisted on staying in Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 years, then barely help vets when they came home? Doubt it. Would we have Trump if Occupy Wall Street made a difference rather than get jackbooted? Probably not. Would we have Trump if politicians didn't wholly allow globalization at the expense of the US worker? No. Would we have Trump if politicians didn't almost exclusively pass legislation to the benefit of their donors while ignoring the citizenry? No. Trump absolutely wiped the floor with GOP darlings at the GOP debates and he largely did it from the left of GOP dogma, at least economically. I see Trump as a symptom of our current predicament. He was popular because he pointed out the corruption of the existing system. The irony of course is he was just as corrupt. Make no mistake, unless things improve, there will undoubtedly be another, who is more politically and bureaucratically expedient. If you are concerned with that at all, the status quo is almost a guarantee it will happen. Anyway I gave you a couple upvotes incase someone comes along and tries to downvote you. I'm enjoying this discussion.
lupire 5y ago
People don't understand the difference between "good" and "better", or the idea of marginal/incremental improvement. "Good" is almost never the solition to "bad -- it's usually impractical for pragmatic or political reasons. The solution is "better" aka "less bad" and iterate. Progressive ideas, and ideas that can get some semblance of consensus, work much better than Revolutionary ideas.

Clubber 5y ago

But ignoring it leads to perpetuating an even more corrupt system, no? Bad politicians need to be held accountable, yet we keep reelecting the same ones with the same self serving interests. Apply the same logic to other organizations. Are there good police? Sure. Are they still good if they ignore police brutality and cover it up? I would argue that would make them bad police. Currently if you drive with cash, police can pull you over and take it. They split it up with the federal government. You are left with no cash and are now responsible for hiring a lawyer to try to get it back. That is literally theft from the government. Which politicians are trying to stop this? How does legally stealing from citizens reenforce the faith in the rule of law? It doesn't. Rather than trying to blame the person pointing this stuff out for the decline of democracy, maybe put some blame on the people who write unjust laws.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
> But ignoring it leads to perpetuating an even more corrupt system, no? I guess it would but I said nothing about ignoring it.
- Clubber 5y ago
  >not looking for and appealing to the good in politicians So what are you saying then? What does that even mean? Sounds like the feel good rhetoric politicians have been feeding us for decades. I can look for the good all I want but that doesn't magically make it appear or make the "do good" politicians effective. I've been giving politicians of both parties the benefit of the doubt for 20+ years, and without fail, they disappoint. Most of us are a lot worse off than we were in 1995. Be optimistic? Is that what you are saying? How's our life expectancy looking? Worse. How's the drug war going? Worse. How does the average person's prospect of retirement look? Worse. How's the prospect of home ownership looking? Worse. How's our freedoms looking? Worse. Remember that whole net neutrality thing that the Ds were pushing? What happened to that now that they have power? The politicians are controlled by the parties, the parties are controlled by the donors. Our futures are being sold down the river to the highest bidder. What's good? Give me some optimism.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    It is not "feel-good rhetoric". It's a suggestion that it would be better to do the hard, consistent work to humanise the opposition so that their decisions can be criticised without writing them all off as people. But if I must spell it out to you -- I'll get downvoted for it -- I am saying that, essentially, "othering" politicians as inherently not doing good, or saying that they are all tainted by the actions of some of them, is the precise sentiment that was exploited to allow a corrupt, amoral, malignant narcissist and populist into the White House, who deliberately tried to overthrow the democratic process. Very few of the politicians tarred in that way are anything like as dangerous as the man this enabled. And the most dangerous of them take part in the tarring. If you cannot look at politicians and seek to find the good and the common ground in them, you're doing the nihilistic groundwork of future fascists. Don't do that.
    - Clubber 5y ago
      >It's a suggestion that it would be better to do the hard, consistent work to humanise the opposition so that their decisions can be criticised without writing them all off as people. I'm not dehumanizing anybody, I'm just calling them corrupt. Politicians have been doing a lot of dehumanizing though. "Socialists," "basket of deplorables," "anti-vaxxer," "thugs," "racists," etc. You know the routine. >I am saying that, essentially, "othering" politicians as inherently not doing good, or saying that they are all tainted by the actions of some of them, is the precise sentiment that was exploited to allow a corrupt, amoral, malignant narcissist and populist into the White House, who deliberately tried to overthrow the democratic process. Don't you feel the corruption of the existing system was what allowed him to get elected in the first place? Would we have Trump if we didn't have the bank bailouts in 2008 while letting grandmas get their house foreclosed on? Doubt it. Would we have Trump if we hadn't insisted on staying in Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 years, then barely help vets when they came home? Doubt it. Would we have Trump if Occupy Wall Street made a difference rather than get jackbooted? Probably not. Would we have Trump if politicians didn't wholly allow globalization at the expense of the US worker? No. Would we have Trump if politicians didn't almost exclusively pass legislation to the benefit of their donors while ignoring the citizenry? No. Trump absolutely wiped the floor with GOP darlings at the GOP debates and he largely did it from the left of GOP dogma, at least economically. I see Trump as a symptom of our current predicament. He was popular because he pointed out the corruption of the existing system. The irony of course is he was just as corrupt. Make no mistake, unless things improve, there will undoubtedly be another, who is more politically and bureaucratically expedient. If you are concerned with that at all, the status quo is almost a guarantee it will happen. Anyway I gave you a couple upvotes incase someone comes along and tries to downvote you. I'm enjoying this discussion.

lupire 5y ago

People don't understand the difference between "good" and "better", or the idea of marginal/incremental improvement. "Good" is almost never the solition to "bad -- it's usually impractical for pragmatic or political reasons. The solution is "better" aka "less bad" and iterate. Progressive ideas, and ideas that can get some semblance of consensus, work much better than Revolutionary ideas.