another good one "In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time."
It's wonderful stuff. Always has been, even where I would quibble with it. At first, I didn't see what on God's increasingly forsaken earth it has to do with Crenshaw or his stated allegiance to Trumpism. Are either of them eccentric in any way? Ah yes, here's the Mill passage. "Verily, we see that the eccentric man, (if not himself a stable genius aspiring to become one), will take a stand. Yes, flanked by some one hundred million unstudied, angry brethren and joining hands with oligarchs of unprecedented political power, the truly eccentric man will take a critical stand against the masses." I had totally forgotten that part of Mill's thinking.
Both of you are better read than I am. I looked it up and was surprised to find the entire text on line. The part I read seemed focused on the concept that even seemingly outrageous ideas (as opposed to actions) create a better environment for evolution of thinking than simply the agreement of the majority. Am I reading it wrong? (I need to sit down and read the entire thing because the part I read was fascinating.) The stuff you learn on this forum.....
Very well said, B-Bob. I liked Jo Mama's posts, as well. I'm not a fan of "false equivalency," which seems to be a specialty of trump's supporters in their constant effort to explain and excuse the unfathomable things that come out of trump's mouth, whether in person or in a tweet. It would be nice if people made more of an effort to get along. I mentioned this somewhere recently, but it's worth repeating. I play trivia every week at a pub in Downtown Austin. There are 4 of us and we've been playing together for a decade (and we are very good). Two of us are liberal Democrats, and two are conservative Republicans, both having voted for trump. How do we mange to not only get along, but to also be good friends outside of the trivia contests? When the 4 of us are together, we don't talk politics. It's as simple as that. People should try it sometime.
I think this is the case with many people here. Outside of the BBS and sometimes Reddit, I very rarely speak politics.
Davidson was once criticized for joking about the size of his dad’s junk from the perspective of his memory as a child remembering his 9/11 hero father. And at one point he was dating Larry David’s daughter. I don’t follow SNL or its ratings or how the country perceives the political jokes week by week, classy move I suppose though. Crenshaw obviously didn’t even care as much as The Outraged, he seems to have a sense of humor and obviously sensed no humor.
I'll provide a working example of what he's saying. Criticism of the idea - He's saying all ideas equal, he's saying that ideas should be open to criticism, but not to descend into pejoratives to end debate Alternatively criticism of the person - you're an idiot who lacks the ability to grasp what he's saying. They're not pretending it doesn't exist, some debates would obviously be very short, most people can enunciate why slavery is bad for example, but they're often used to attribute motives to people as though they're all the worst possible case. e.g. people who don't want muslim immigration are all racists, people who want government run health care are all socialists, etc etc etc
He actually is pretending it doesn't exist because his ideas have proven to be harmful and full of lies if history and facts are any measure. I have no problem being called a socialist if I propose socialist ideas. Most Americans are too stupid to know why socialism works and how capitalism doesn't work which is the crux of why calling people socialists is successful politically. This guy endorses predatory capitalism, he should own it and not p***y foot around the idea that he's going to harm millions of people and then at the end of the day we can just be friends because we have to be tolerant of the damage he proposes to do to average Americans.
Did Tucker ever apologize like the 24-year-old comedian did? Was there even a tenth of the coverage/outrage when Tucker said this? Now he’s got his viewers shouting it at Crenshaw in person.
Look, if Pete Davidson makes fun of Dan Crenshaw, then it's really serious and there needs to be a big ker****le over it. However, if great American Tucker Carlson does it, well, that's A-OK!!!! No logical consistency here. Not to mention how the right is increasingly comfortable with violences as a means to an end.
The entire Republican party is Hawkish except when it comes to Putin. Talk about eating your own, sheesh.
snl is bigger than tucker Carlson even though snl isn't what it used to be. Secondly im pretty sure the snl story started with condemnation from jsnl viewers.
Watching the GOP cannibalize itself would be incredibly entertaining if I knew that the crazies wouldn't win in the end.
It's pretty looney how ultra conservative Crenshaw has become the Rino-establishment guy to parts of the GOP. This was prior to Ukraine. That stated, I'm not 100% certain Fox News quips by Carlson and the crazies who eat those words and spit them out in person are representative of the party. Crenshaw got plenty of pro-Trump, anti Rino hate from the crazies, but still got 75% of the primary vote. He cruised. Then again, Paxton got 68% to Bush's 32%, so it's hard to find rules that you can create theoretical predictions with. And Trump never turned fully on Crenshaw, but many of his followers did.
Didn't he start getting in trouble with the GOP when he openly talked about the republican orgies he was invited to?
Got it, so you are allowed to make fun of a war injury so long as your ratings are not too high. Good to have that rule established.
