Why are Democrats the only people who hear these dog whistles? Democrats certainly seem better at spotting dog whistles than the normal/average person.
Could it be that they are more paranoid than other groups? Maybe they’re just more suspicious of/than other groups?
Imagine that. A secret code that only the opposition can hear.
I don’t see how those follow.
Government regulation impacts much more than just the environment.
The inner cities do have serious problems. And anyone can say that regardless of skin color. Furthermore it doesn’t imply that the one saying it thinks they are superior due to skin color.
Hell we could say we should get tough on rural problems endemic in areas like the poor regions of appalachia. Where’s the dog whistle there?
And acknowledging that women and men have differences doesn’t imply people shouldn’t be treated equally. Stating they are equal but wanting special treatment seems to be the real problem in consistent thought.
Thanks, that helps a lot. I’m not seeing things quite the same way you did, but it might take watching the video because there’s obviously something we’re missing in the back-and-forth.
I think you are interpreting the “went exactly as planned” as: “I got someone to set me up so I could say they had a ‘cosmopolitan bias’”. Trap successfully sprung!
But if you look at the transcript, the audience laughed, so it seemed more like it related to Sanders’ original comment when she introduced Miller. Here’s all the introductory stuff together with the exit:
So, it looks like the “went exactly as planned” just referred to the fact that things got heated and Sanders’ had initially said they would “have fun” with this topic (I assume she was being facetious). It certainly doesn’t look like “Q” interpreted things the way you did, since “Q” ended with a joke which related back to Sanders.
Meh. You might be right. His final words seemed a little too smarmy in print.
That isn’t really a necessary part of the overall argument that he knew what he was saying and why he was saying it.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying I’m right and you’re wrong. I’m just saying that these things are so hard to prove to the level we should be looking for in GD. You could very well be right, but I’m just not convinced.
Wow.
How about, “I think we should bankrupt out nation in order to reduce carbon.”
“I think women should be entitled to preferential treatment to make up for society’s sexism.”
Why aren’t those the examples of “honest talk” from the left?
They are, after all, constructed in the same way you seem to have constructed your example sentences from the right.
I honestly debated whether to participate in this thread at all. The first post of this thread quotes one of my posts from the pit thread I started (first obviously).
But since I’m here I’ll say that I don’t believe either of the main counterarguments to the nativist shout out argument hold water.
One is that he didn’t know what cosmopolitan meant and the other is that cosmopolitan is a common way to deride liberals. Not only do these arguments contradict each other but they both also ignore Stephen Miller’s history with guys like Richard Spencer and Peter Brimelow.
They also both ignore that he advanced a common anti-immigration white nationalist argument against the inscription on the Statue of Liberty. Yeah, the words, “Huddled masses,” were not on the Statue of Liberty the day it was put up. They’re on there now and they were put there for a reason. And the were not put there by, “The Jewess who tried to destroy the US!”
Do you truly believe that the only reason for professing these viewpoints is to mask endemic bigotry?
Can I proclaim “social justice” a naked call for Marxism and get away with it too?
Not to speak for Little Nemo, but I honestly believe that many of those on the left indeed hear such things.
If I say something like “I support the policy of the boys basketball team coach that requires his players to have short haircuts, but have no problem allowing the girls players to have long hair” I have no doubt that many on the left hear that, connect several dots in their minds, and come to the conclusion that I believe women should be in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant.
Like you, I simply do not understand such a belief system.
Yes, he did. There’s no other interpretation of his post that makes sense. You just derided him because you didn’t know the context in which the statement was actually used.
No, I don’t. But I believe it is a reason for some people.
The first one is not. The second one is.
Nobody believes the country should be bankrupted. They might support a policy that would in fact bankrupt the country but they don’t support the policy for that reason. They support the policy because they believe it’s a good idea and that the people who say it will bankrupt the country are wrong.
As for the second one, there are people who say that. Openly. They’ll come right out and say that they support preferential treatment or affirmative action or diversity hiring or whatever you want to call it. I’m sure you’ve heard people defending these ideas. So why are you claiming it’s a secret belief that people are hiding?
So you genuinely believe a made up story you literally just created yourself? I find that doubtful.
You don’t have to agree with liberals on anything, but if you don’t understand where they are coming from, that means you’re the one who is ignorant. Until you actually understand the concept, you can’t actually make a hypothetical sentence that makes sense.
There are also no dogwhistles in that comment. What there is is that women and men are treated differently, which inherently means the person thinks that not treating men and women equally is acceptable for some reason. That’s fairly simple logic.
From there, the issue is “what other reason besides sexism is there to treat them differently?” What is your purported reason that makes the unequal treatment actually fair? If you have one, great. If you don’t, then you are supporting unfair and unequal treatment for different sexes. That is ipso facto sexism.
That doesn’t mean you’re so sexist that you think women should have to stay in the kitchen and birth children. It just means you’re not treating men and women as actually being equal.
Also, in case it isn’t obvious, Stringbean’s overly broad, ridiculous claim is also a strawman. This isn’t about viewpoints. This is about using specific words, and who the guy associates with. If you hang around with white nationalists, then you probably will know their lingo. And, if you didn’t mean to communicate to them, you would not use their lingo.
This is provided as the most likely of three possibilities. The other two are “He didn’t know what the word meant” and “he used a derogatory word against liberals in a context where such a word doesn’t make sense.”
In short, the rationale has nothing in common with Stringbean’s claim.
I have never used anything but plain talk in defending my positions on this board. And many of those positions are liberal.
I’m not kidding when I’ve said I consider obfuscation and holding back everything you mean as dishonest debating tactics. I don’t intentionally do that.
I also flat out say I don’t lie. That’s plain talk.
Edit: just realized an exception. If plain talk would break the rules but not doing so does not. Then I follow the rules.
Because there are others, most politicians, who also truly believe it but chose to hide the plain-spoken fact in order to enhance their electoral prospects.
But the thrust of my examples was to suggest that YOUR examples were not fair representations of the other side.
Treating all people as equals does not make all people identical.
“Secret back channels” makes it sound like the way people become aware of dog whistles is that regularly they get a typewritten message through the door at 2am with that month’s code words. The odd thing is, even at that humorous extreme, it would still make sense - Presidential Candidate Bert needs to give speeches to outline his positions, and wouldn’t be able to rely on the underground messaging. Too, that would highlight his involvement; merely using terms that his target audience know the secret meaning to provides, as people have said earlier, deniability.
Dog whistles can be “disseminated” just through cultural experience. What’s associated with something somewhere need not be everywhere, or at every time, but if you’re keyed into what a group experiences, you can refer to an association rather than whatever it is you’re actually talking about.
Little Nemo said that the phrase: “I think we should acknowledge gender differences.”
is likely/maybe/possibly a dog whistle for one’s true belief of: “I think men are better than women and men are entitled to better treatment.”
And your comment seems to confirm that idea. If I believe in a grooming policy at my business where men have short hair but women can have long hair, that makes me sexist by your definition and I possibly believe that men are better than women under Little Nemo’s.
Those types of statements make public discourse on these issues impossible when an innocuous belief in customary hairstyles turns into such scurrilous accusations. I have no idea what white nationalists say because I don’t hang around them.
This is a typical non sequitur along the lines of:
Oh, yes it is. Most of the people Trump chose to surround himself with are clowns, not evil geniuses. It is entirely possible that the clowns have hidden agendas, but they are still incompetent fools.
True, but Miller does have a lot of experience in that role. He isn’t “heckofa job Brownie”. He really should know the meaning of “cosmopolitan”, even if he isn’t using it as a dog whistle. I think the strongest argument for the dog whistle is the fact that he isn’t an amateur and it was an odd word to use. That’s the main reason I’m willing to say the dog whistle contingent here just might be correct.
However you are right, in general, about Trump et al.