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The first two lines are statements of fact. The third line: > Alrighty then. is a blatant dog whistle. Even without the last line, it's not enough to simply

The first two lines are statements of fact. The third line: > Alrighty then. is a blatant dog whistle. Even without the last line, it's not enough to simply say "just providing context!" It's a bit like jumping into a conversation about the affordable care act by saying "President Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein. He was mentored by Bill Ayers, a man the FBI described as the leader of a terrorist group." It is all factual context, utterly irrelevant to the merits of the ACA and adds nothing to the conversation other than the prejudicial implication.

MilStdJunkie 4y ago
Do people choose their middle names, generally? Cassius Clay did, and it most certainly informed on the things he said later, after making that decision. If he was born Muhammad Ali, then it would be a shitty thing to do to judge his words on his birth name. Did associating with Ayers preclude Obama from getting a TSC? Nope. Ayers wasn't active when he was Obama's BFF. He wasn't even a felon. Maybe Ayers was Wundergrounding it up in 2008, but he wasn't, unless I guess he was? There was a political price paid there[1] - in Obama's choice of mentors - and if that's not perceptible I don't know what to say. Among people who cared, Ayers. was a millstone. Among other people, it was a selling point. Which hits to the point of why everyone's getting so incensed right here and now: Bill Ayers was a hero to a part of America, and to another part of America he was the devil himself. We're in the same land, but we've come to have completely opposite values, fundamentally different, so that everything becomes an existential threat. The idea that this crisis has been artificially generated is of course scurrilous and would never occur to someone with a generous view of human behavior. [1] Conveniently steering eyeballs away from Goldman's PAC effectively putting Obama on the DNC board.

MilStdJunkie 4y ago

Do people choose their middle names, generally? Cassius Clay did, and it most certainly informed on the things he said later, after making that decision. If he was born Muhammad Ali, then it would be a shitty thing to do to judge his words on his birth name. Did associating with Ayers preclude Obama from getting a TSC? Nope. Ayers wasn't active when he was Obama's BFF. He wasn't even a felon. Maybe Ayers was Wundergrounding it up in 2008, but he wasn't, unless I guess he was? There was a political price paid there[1] - in Obama's choice of mentors - and if that's not perceptible I don't know what to say. Among people who cared, Ayers. was a millstone. Among other people, it was a selling point. Which hits to the point of why everyone's getting so incensed right here and now: Bill Ayers was a hero to a part of America, and to another part of America he was the devil himself. We're in the same land, but we've come to have completely opposite values, fundamentally different, so that everything becomes an existential threat. The idea that this crisis has been artificially generated is of course scurrilous and would never occur to someone with a generous view of human behavior. [1] Conveniently steering eyeballs away from Goldman's PAC effectively putting Obama on the DNC board.