Etiquette



DP Etiquette

First rule: Don't be a jackass.

Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.

Friday, January 28, 2022

Republican hypocrisy and lies on display, once again

Radical: advocating or based on thorough or complete political or social change; representing or supporting an extreme, progressive or conservative section of a political party; (noun) a person who advocates thorough or complete political or social reform; a member of a political party or part of a party pursuing such aims


Mitch McConnell is warning Biden to not nominate a ‘radical’ supreme court justice because his mandate from the 2020 election was to govern from the middle and unite America. His hypocrisy on all three points is blatant, shameless, insulting and immoral. The New York Times writes:
“The American people elected a Senate that is evenly split at 50-50,” Mr. McConnell said in his first statement since word of the retirement leaked. “To the degree that President Biden received a mandate, it was to govern from the middle, steward our institutions and unite America. The president must not outsource this important decision to the radical left. The American people deserve a nominee with demonstrated reverence for the written text of our laws and our Constitution.”

Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer said he wants to act quickly on Biden’s nomination, but in view of bad faith Republican obstructionism over Merrick Garland’s nomination by Obama, he said “We need to be ready and willing to fight, and fight ferociously.” He is probably right about that. 


Who is the radical here?
What Republicans want is thorough political and social change in American government and society. Along with wealthy special interests and their money, the GOP is dominated by fundamentalist Christian nationalists who openly want to establish Old Testament Biblical law, Christian sharia, on America. Most Americans would oppose that if they were asked, which unfortunately they are not. In Republican propaganda, anyone who is not a radical right authoritarian, is smeared and slandered as a socialist or communist radical. The GOP lies and slander story is that Democrats and Biden are hell bent on establishing a tyranny where racial and ethnic minorities brutally oppress White people, White rights and the practice of Christian religion. The Republican Party is hostile to free and fair elections and has been for decades.




In situations like this, Republicans never, ever mention the fact that the results of elections are skewed to rural states due to our electoral system. Lies of omission are front and center. For the GOP, it does not matter one iota that most Americans often oppose them. Republicans deny, downplay or distort this reality into insignificance. Republicans govern as radical right neo-fascist Christian fundamentalists and brass knuckles laissez-faire capitalists regardless of public opinion. Republicans in power are no more responsive to public opinion than Democrats. And when Democrats try to push forward policies that most Americans support, e.g., environmental regulation, fairer tax policy, etc., the GOP and lobbyists with their vast free speech (campaign contributions) power is always right there to block it.




By contrast, Biden is a neoliberal capitalist who caters to Wall Street special interests at least as much as he wants to cater to the public interest. Democrats tend to want society to progress as it will and government to reflect those changes over time. Democrats what time to pass, while Republicans want to freeze time and re-establish an illusory past at some ill-defined point(s) in time. Polls show that a majority of Americans support many or most major Democratic goals, e.g., health careenvironmental protections and correcting unfair taxation. That includes Democratic Party support for free and fair elections unlike the GOP, which opposes voting rights and free and fair elections, which it has to do in view of its minority status in terms of public support.

Or, are both parties so much alike that significant distinctions are more illusion than reality?

Quota filling...



I like balance.  Balance is good.  I like symmetry.  And I really like that elusive idea of “fairness.”  I know, I know... in these tribal days, call me silly.

For example, I’m glad that Biden promised to nominate a woman on the Supreme Court.  That gives it more balance.  Some might consider that quota-filling:

Definition of quota

1a proportional part or share especially the share or proportion assigned to each in a division or to each member of a body

2the number or amount constituting a proportional share

3a fixed number or percentage of minority group members or women needed to meet the requirements of affirmative action

So, this leads to a couple of questions:

1. Are you for quota-filling, whether it be in government, schools, workplace, etc.?  Give your pro/con reasons.

2. Is the United States the kind of country that needs to have quota-filling mandated, else top (usually) man on totem pole constantly keeps his “side” in power?

Thanks for posting and recommending.

Thursday, January 27, 2022

The deep and bitter the American reality divide

The AP writes:
BENSON, Minn. (AP) — The newspaper hit the front porches of the wind-scarred prairie town on a Thursday afternoon: Coronavirus numbers were spiking in the farming communities of western Minnesota.

“Covid-19 cases straining rural clinics, hospitals, staff,” read the front-page headline. Vaccinate to protect yourselves, health officials urged.

But ask around Benson, stroll its three-block business district, and some would tell a different story: The Swift County Monitor-News, the tiny newspaper that’s reported the news here since 1886, is not telling the truth. The vaccine is untested, they say, dangerous. And some will go further: People, they’ll tell you, are being killed by COVID-19 vaccinations.

It’s another measure of how, in an America increasingly split by warring visions of itself, division doesn’t just play out on cable television, or in mayhem at the U.S. Capitol.

It has seeped into the American fabric, all the way to Benson’s 12th Street, where two neighbors -- each in his own well-kept, century-old home -- can live in different worlds.

Jason Wolter, is a thoughtful, broad-shouldered Lutheran pastor who reads widely and measures his words carefully. He also suspects Democrats are using the coronavirus pandemic as a political tool, doubts President Joe Biden was legitimately elected and is certain that COVID-19 vaccines kill people.

He hasn’t seen the death certificates and hasn’t contacted health authorities, but he’s sure the vaccine deaths occurred: “I just know that I’m doing their funerals.”

He’s also certain that information “will never make it into the newspaper.”

“There are no alternative facts,” Reed Anfinson [publisher, editor, photographer and reporter for the Monitor-News] says. “There is just the truth.”

Wolter’s frustration boils over during a late breakfast in a town cafe. Seated with a reporter, he starts talking as if Anfinson is there.

“You’re lying to people,” Wolter says. “You flat-out lie about things.”

So, there you have it. Anfinson reports facts as best he can, but is nonetheless considered a liar by Wolter for whom the facts must be too inconvenient and psychologically threatening to be accepted. Disbelieving people like this base beliefs on faith, not hard evidence. In the case of alleged COVID vaccine deaths, death certificates would prove that the COVID vaccine kills people. Such evidence does not exist because, with very few exceptions, the vaccines do not kill people. That wonderful Lutheran pastor calls newspaper publisher Anfinson a liar without one shred of evidence. Instead Wolter relies on blind raging faith in his false alt-reality. Unfortunately, reality does not care whether Wolter or anyone else believes something that is true or false. It just doesn't care. Only people can care.

Over 339 million vaccine doses were given to 187.2 million people in the US as of July 19, 2021. The vaccines have been proven to be safe and effective. .... Between December 2020 and July 19th, 2021, VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) received 6,207 reports of death (0.0018% of doses) among people who got a vaccine, but this does not mean the vaccine caused these deaths. Doctors and safety monitors carefully review the details of each case to see if it might be linked to the vaccine. There are three deaths that appear to be linked to blood clots that occurred after people got the J&J vaccine. (emphasis added)

This raises some issues. One is how much actual evidence and data is needed to convince a disbeliever that actual facts and true truths are real. Another is how damaging such reality disconnects are to democracy and empowering they are to authoritarianism. If intentional polarization and alt-reality propaganda victimizes people and causes this kind of fantasy about public health, why wouldn't it cause the about same reality disconnects for all other issues that have been propagandized? 


Actually, some don't do any research and 
just rely on propaganda for their blind faith

Your pick...

 


-So, with Justice Stephen Breyer retiring, who is your pick for  his SCOTUS replacement, and why?  Give as many details as possible.


-Do you foresee any interference by the Republicans on Biden's SCOTUS nomination?  If yes, in what way(s) and by whom?


Thanks for posting and recommending.