Maybe we can go back to the originalist view of congress, where representatives can physically attack each other over politics. Maybe we can bring back duels.
I think every senator and representative should be armed while congress is in session.
We have to work up slowly to a full government rehabilitation program, nationally televised.
Montana’s part of the Deep Rednecks, huh ?
Maybe the lesson to be learned is that a hippie with a banjo did better than Hillary.
Should make the Democratic debates more interesting -
“Never mind your policy on the budget - first, play Foggy Mountain Breakdown, and then we go MMA - win two falls out of three, and you get the superdelegates.”
Regards,
Shodan
I’m afraid that we will be back to that situation sooner than you might think.
That doesn’t sound like a nitpick…
A different Democratic candidate could possible have won the election. But I think the reason the Republican gap is diminishing is that Trump is such a dumpster fire that he’s pulling down the entire Republican party.
Hippies play sitars. Inbred rednecks play banjos.
I think the truth is somewhere in between Shodan’s characterization and yours. In the end, Shodan’s right: the GOP has still carried its districts in post-2016 elections and it doesn’t really matter by how much – a win is a win. At the same time, the point margin could portend something going forward. In short, we just don’t know yet what’s going to happen. We don’t really know how strong Trump or Republicans are. The polls may suggest one thing, but they could be wrong, and even if they’re not, they don’t always predict who actually shows up to vote.
Many thanks for that day-brightener (and feel free to use the post anywhere). The thing about the recent string of “The Bully Wins” stories is that it’s depressing to live in a world in which bullies win. It’s just hard on the psyche unless you’re a natural-born toady–and most of us here at the Dope are not such.
I have found that it helps to look at it in evolutionary terms–which is not to say that people aren’t responsible for their actions (bullies included). We are all responsible for our actions, but it’s fair to say that differing brain structures can predispose us toward either bully-worship or bully-revulsion. Sometimes, the most useful thing we can do in the face of that is to spotlight it. As here:
These remarks typify the pro-authoritarian, bully-admiring mindset: a reporter may ask a question once–but any more than that shows a lack of the deference owed to An Authority!
This appears to be a defense of the act of taking a reporter by the neck with two hands, body-slamming him to the floor, and beating him*—“the press” as a whole failed to support conservative positions and thus this one reporter deserves to be assaulted.
(If the poster was not suggesting that the Guardian reporter deserved the beating on behalf of all the press because “the press waded into the mud,” then what was the poster suggesting?)
All of this is of a piece with the bully-worshipping view that the guy at the top may not and must not be questioned, and any who would presume to question him deserve whatever is dished out. It’s indefensible.
They need to start hiring MMA fighters to ask the questions too.
Yes, the percentage of pro-authoritarians in a population will vary (and thanks for the information).
One of the most heartening developments on the world scene has to be the demonstrations that took place in Russia in recent weeks–despite the ruthlessness and harshness of the police state Putin has created, people are still standing up and protesting. And this is in a nation that has a centuries-old tradition of authoritarian rule!
Some percentage of human infants are born each year that are naturally skeptical of authority and not inclined to bow down before it–and that’s a source for hope.
Even if it were true, the general bias of reporters doesn’t matter because a high percentage of your party supporters get their news from Fox and other manufacturers of outright lies.
Broadcasting hate and lies are an invention of the right in this country. You can’t complain about subtle nuances in the reporting of a complex argument when your guys are making up assassination stories out of whole cloth.
Liberals have been denigrated for decades by Fox and friends, and now that liberals are finally starting to push back, you turn into a crybaby.
If we let violent thugs like this into the government, think what could happen next. The government could start kidnapping people and putting them in cages when they haven’t harmed anyone. They could intimidate people into giving them money. They could literally outfit aircraft with bombs and start dropping them from the sky! No, i do not like this development one bit.
Then I urge you to look back and see what post prompted my reply.
It had to do with politicians saying mean things about the press, the fact that Trump called reporters “among the most dishonest human beings on earth," and the fact that the press is a central villain of his political rhetoric.
They asked for the inveighing against them, yes.
But because you used a phrase that is sometimes invoked against victims of physical violence, I wonder if you’re clear that I’m saying they asked for the inveighing, but not physical violence.
I wonder if you used this phrase to conflate the two, and suggest (without saying) that I was saying the press “asked for” violence to be directed against them.
Did you?
I do.
And because Trump is such a disaster, that takes some doing. But yes.
Whoa, there, Cochise.
The GOP defended the murder of journalists? When was that again?
The GOP defended baseless criminal charges and baseless threats of imprisonment?
When?
Now, as to press access, I don’t agree there is a generalized right of press access, especially when the press in question is demonstrably twisting the truth. The press is free to write what it wishes; it’s not free to get interviews when it wishes.
Jesus, Procrustus, why can’t you admit that I have already said it’s a bad thing, but that a single physical assault with no serious injury is not bad ENOUGH to make me per se withdraw my support?
First of all, as I have mentioned in this thread before, jail time for a first offense misdemeanor assault with no serious injury would be highly unusual, so why would such an outcome compel a conclusion that Gianforte is “above the law?”
If he did, that won’t stop him from being the US Representative from Montana.
Now, I’m getting tired of making points and having my opponents dodge them and fail to acknowledge their truth, while I am expected to honestly and fairly assess what’s being said to me.
So tell me, begbert2 (and anyone else interested in this aspect of the argument): yes or no. Do you acknowledge that, regardless of how you personally feel about politicians, reporters, this case of criminal assault, or how evil the GOP is, a first offense misdemeanor assault with no serious physical injury would be unlikely in the extreme to be sentenced to actual jail time? And do you acknowledge that if the outcome of THIS criminal case is also no jail time, that’s consistent with other such cases involving similar injuries and a lack of prior criminal history?
Perhaps you’d like to go back a couple posts and restart this dialogue, since you appear not to have read them carefully?