Beckwin

[Kuya]

Do you agree with this:

Anyway, Jones: He has, in recent years, done some valuable work trying to steer green jobs into poor communities…but there is a bright line in American political life: Self-proclaimed “communists” need not apply. Communism is too odious and foolish a philosophy for anyone reasonable to believe in, or even to use as red-flag hyperbole, as Jones did after the Rodney King riots of the early 1990s, when he said that he’d been a [black] nationalist, but was now a communist. It’s sort of like a Republican President appointing someone who had said, “I used to be a white supremacist, but now I’m a Nazi.”

So, good riddance. The work of this presidency is too important to be side-tracked by a too-angry blowhard spouting foolish radicalism. The American people voted to give liberalism a chance in the 2008 elections, after 30 years of conservative dominance. If the liberal project is to succeed, it needs to build trust in a populace that—as we’ve seen this summer—can easily be manipulated by right-wing demagogues. That means the President’s personal small-c conservatism is an absolute necessity. It also means that left-extremists have to be clearly rejected. It also means that, even with a Democratic Congress, major policy changes like health care reform have to be implemented carefully—incrementally, if necessary. If the first steps are solid, the pace of reform can pick up over time. There will be missteps along the way; there are in any Administration. A Van Jones or two will slip through the cracks and be given jobs. But if the President can keep his eyes on the prize—at the moment, the moral imperative to provide health care for all Americans—he will probably succeed.

He sounds just like you, to be honest.

[Kiarax]

BECKLOSE

[Kuya]

BECKFAILURE

[Colenzo]

BECKAIDS

[_chuchu]

Beckwinsale, Kate

[_chuchu]

I had a dream all about politics earlier this week. Perhaps Beckwin sent me that. Not that I mind or anything

[Blarg]

Has anyone noticed that people in politics lie from time to time?

[_chuchu]

that's preposterous

[#686578]

Beckwinsale, Kate

fapfapfap

[guartz]

Beckwin is a marxist. True story.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

Sounds the furthest thing from Beckwin, or am I wooshing?

[BRP]

Kuya rules

[Kuya]

Sounds the furthest thing from Beckwin, or am I wooshing?

That's the ironic thing. I will explain it when he posts. The hilarious thing is that his exact arguments are used by the worst kind of people in washington to justify their backstabbing.

[Beckwin]

I agree with certain sentiments regarding building up trust in the electorate and taking incremental steps toward progress, but agree nothing with using them to justify Van Jones' treatment. As I had pointed out in that big 'ol discussion we had, I do feel that the Obama admin has been too cautious in respect to political utilitarianism. It wouldn't have cost much "political capital" (kuya's favorite phrase) to spare Jones- he's hardly a prominent figure in the grand scheme of things, so it was poor judgment not to spare him. I can only hope that the healthcare speech marked a turning point in the Obama admin's overly cautious nature and "post-partisan" failures: "we will call you out" for fearmongering and bullshitting.

[Beckwin]

and I'll have you know that some excessively terrible people have use ideas like say, Evolution or Marxism, to justify some pretty awful things. before you try to guilt me by association or whatever it is you have up in your coconut tree.

[AkashiXI]

whatever it is you have up in your coconut tree.

Kuya owns coconut trees? He just rose in my book like 5spots.

[BRP]

I want to drink Kuya's coconut milk

[Kuya]

It's kind of funny, you can essentially use beckwin's argument for anything. If you have single payer, you can argue that you need to be PRACTICAL, REALISTIC, and PRAGMATIC, and compromise in order to pass some legislation that may one day lead to single payer... so you change it to a public option, and then they use the same argument again.

So now you have a co-op and they STILL use the same argument. There is a problem when an argument can be used ad-nauseum, as it implies that it does not require facts to assert itself.

[Kuya]

This is how political debates are typically carried out in Washington by the Serious Centrists and Responsible Adults. Chesney writes an entire Op-Ed defending the soon-to-be-unveiled preventive detention policy without describing a single aspect of it. To Serious people, the substance of the policy is irrelevant. What matters is that anyone who opposes it is a radical, partisan, shrill extremist. Conversely, as long as the Obama administration stays somewhere in the middle of the two sides -- between Tom Coburn and Russ Feingold -- then it proves they are being sensible, moderate and responsible, regardless of how extreme and dangerous their proposal actually is, and regardless of how close to Coburn and as far from Feingold as they end up. That's the manipulative formula that always passes for "debate" in Washington and it's what is meant by "centrism" and "bipartisanship."
* * * * *
Chesney's Op-Ed -- a template for how the Obama White House intends to advocate for its detention program -- is nothing more than a cascade of banal Beltway adjectives designed to demonize those who oppose their preventive detention scheme ("polarized" -- "misleading" -- "rancor" -- "vivid and provocative" -- "easy to convey in sound bites, attack ads, blog entries" -- "self-reinforcing particularly for those who confine their news consumption ... to partisan sources" -- "binary choice between black-and-white alternatives, with apocalyptic stakes" -- "distrust and polarization"). Wow -- those who think it's wrong to imprison people without trials, who harbor "distrust in the executive branch," and who believe in due process sure are disruptive, unpleasant, irresponsible, shrill and hysterical: exactly like those on the Right who want to deny trials to people. By contrast, Chesney showers himself and his fellow advocates of preventive detention with the standard Beltway Seriousness praise ("a realistic and sophisticated understanding of what each of the tools can offer" -- "sustainable" -- "effective" -- "nuanced, practical solutions" -- "shun the spirit of polarization and politicization that has come to plague detention policy from both ends of the political spectrum").

Fascinating, people who support detention that complete disregards the rule of law, which has no equal in developed countries, say that anyone who disagrees with them is not practical, unlrealistic and does not consider the neccesary practical solutions to are problems because they are polarized and see things as black and white.

Notice what Greenwald mentions; his piece had no substance; he did not describe why his solution was practical and pragmatic. Essentially, these sort of arguments, the same kind that Beckwin seems to love using, are used when one only wishes to use rhetoric to completely disqualify one's opponents without ever having to know the specifics of what is being discussed.

It's essentially sophistry.

[Kuya]

Interestingly, these same arguments run along the same vein as plow's middle ground fallacies.

edit: notice that these same people who speak of the necessity of "compromise" and "pragmatism" are also the sort who speak of the virtous middle ground regardless of what it actually is.