A very passionate performance, Analytics. A bit puzzling, though.
Analytics wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:16 am
I speculate that you do this here because you are accustomed to making such inferences when reading ancient texts.
Maybe you should apply some data analysis to that speculation.
I find this kind of funny because in discussions of ancient texts I'm always accused of taking them too literally and not making sweeping inferences.
The OP is about is how the how ideological differences are related to a coarsening not just of public discourse but of the quotidian interaction between people. Then followed a series of posts enacting the thing they also purport to condemn, and in any case none of the posts, it seemed to me, attempted to understand it outside of crass partisan terms. To my view—that these are fundamentally cultural disputes, resulted from conflicting worldviews, fragmentary remains of a shattered national identity—you push back, using a political dispute as an example that, you argued, really showed just how craven Republicans are, and this was supposed to build a stronger base for the interpretation that this is really about politics, the vulgar propaganda munchers supporting the corrupt Republicans being the main culprit, with a carve-out for a few "principled" and "thoughtful" hyper-educated people. You state that nuns who are morally opposed to the burden placed on them by the previous administration are petulant school children, desperate to be offended—"they shouldn't take birth control if they don't want to" shows you don't understand their complaint at all—that conservatism is the result of a brain issue and/or a psychological inability to accept modernity, that guns and religion are mere coping mechanisms— people can't have a pre-existing attachment to guns and religion?—and that Republican politicians, except for the the thoughtful and principled ones who agree with you, deploy their unscrupulous hate-mongers to whip up anger with their propaganda machines among these people to satisfy their lust for wealth and power. And this has created a tribalism that is tearing the country apart. And of course, " There simply isn't an equivalence to this on the left."
I reply that your pet political example illustrating this position is so circular that even the number Pi begs you to reconsider; I'm not drawing inferences about your reading habits, but merely confronting your posted sources, each of which comes with self-serving narratives constructed by your side. All of that is beside the point. It's not that I'm skeptical of their claims, even though they're obviously agenda-driven, but posting this is merely delaying the question or distracting from it. The question, for me, is not "which side had a more respectable approach to the procedural and political enactment of the ACA" but "how far does the dispute reflect something deeper than policy disagreements?" It is clear to me that by now, there is very little even in the realm of policy that is merely policy (at least on substantive policy).
If
I were to speculate, I would suggest that you are engaging in the sort of performative rationality one sees in political arguments that are basically emotive, not an actual discussion of what I'm talking about.
In any case, as regards the critical race theory stuff, a lot of this reminds me of 2009: "what? we're not doing anything controversial! all of the outrage is generated by propaganda outlets and people who eat this up are rubes! what we are doing is popular, and ok fine, even if it is not popular, it is necessary medicine that society needs to swallow."
Imagining the ACA and the public's response to it that way worked out great in the midterms and led to 10 years of national unity, didn't it? At least we got the ACA though. It's hard to see what Democrats will get in exchange this time.
Keep blaming Fox News, though.
Analytics wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:16 am
That’s fine. I’m not defensive. I’ll just note that your responses to what I post here consist of making sweeping inferences about my thoughts, outlook, and reading habits based on only a couple posts.
Not defensive? I take what you say at face value, and then you come back to tell me I shouldn't do that, and now you are complaining that I'm inferring too much. If you say X several times, and I criticize X harshly, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do when you tell me that I'm not accounting for the fact that you also think Y and Z and several other letters of the alphabet, and that I'm thus making sweeping inferences about you by focusing on X, which is the only thing you've posted. The position that you staked out and to which I have been responding is that there is a tribalism in US politics resulting primarily from the Republican manipulation of voters through their propaganda machines that spew hate, all for the pursuit of power and wealth, which you derive from game theory or something. And I must respect this view because you post some links from the Atlantic and President Obama's memoir, which I guess is supposed to be an official record of the Truth and not part of an legacy-building agenda in its own right. So I respond to these things you post, but I am at fault for inferring too much because you donated to a "thoughtful" Republican and had a lunch with a big wig think-tank conservative who broadly agrees with you on Obamacare. I'm supposed to just piece together your more complex view of conservatives from that? I'm not able to infer nearly as much as you would like me to.
I understand that the government’s accommodation was problematic. My point is logically prior to that. If the nuns don’t what to use birth control because they think it is immoral, then don’t use it. Problem solved.
Again, you respond to me as if we are discussing the merits of the case. I'm not arguing that point. I'm suggesting it as a representation of an overtly cultural aggression that extends beyond the policy sphere and hence isn't primarily partisan—unless you endorse the state's promotion of that worldview. I take from your comments that you do, though apparently you prefer that I take nothing from your comments one way or the other.
Perhaps you skipped over my summary of the case, but—at the risk of inferring too much from your words—your "problem solved" suggests that you don't understand what the issue even was in a case that went through the courts for 10 years.
The issue was whether a rather large organization run by nuns (
but not necessarily staffed by nuns) should be required to find substitute means by which their staff, many of whom are not nuns, could access birth control, which the nuns consider immoral. It is thus equivalent to requiring the conscientious objector to produce his or her replacement, which is effectively violating the reason for which they
conscientiously object in the first place (rather than objecting because they don't want to, or because they have better things to do, or because they are too busy). Or, to your example, it would be equivalent to requiring the atheist who refuses to pay for other people's lobotomies to find another means by which those lobotomies will be paid for. The objection, though, is to lobotomy, not the means of its funding necessarily, right? So in both cases, the burden is on the atheist who objects on the basis of morality to lobotomies to ensure that lobotomies are performed one way or another.
In any case, this wasn't the result of the ACA itself but rather with the rules and regulations
necessitated by the ACA and promulgated by HHS in the implementation of the ACA. The Obama administration could have made a rule to accommodate this but chose not to, opting instead to sue to force compliance. Why do you think that was? The Trump administration simply changed the rules, but a couple of states run by Democrats then decided to sue and take the nuns to court on the grounds that the APA had been violated, which is why it went to the Supreme Court (there were other cases related to this, so I'm simplifying here and operating from memory). They could have just let it go, but chose not to. I wonder why that was. Supposing you were a nun with a deep Catholic belief, or a Catholic who subscribed to the magisterium of the Holy Church, what would you infer about why first the federal government and then some state governments chose to take the nuns to court rather than simply change the rule? This is by no means the only example of government agencies hounding various groups rather than making easy accommodations.
On the other hand, according to my thesis, these supposedly partisan fights are about something deeper at issue. I think the nuns' position, whether one agrees with it or not, is pretty clear: they want nothing to do with birth control, even indirectly, not least because it could entail abortifacients, which, in their moral universe, renders them accomplices to murder. As to the government's position, though: why is the state so insistent that birth control be, in Ginsburg's words in her dissent, to "preserve women’s continued access to seamless, no-cost contraceptive coverage"? Perhaps she had a technical reason for that to do with precedent, but even so, those precedents resulted from the state's intrusion into this sphere of life: so why is that something the state cares about so deeply in the first place? It is not obvious that government is responsible for ensure birth control access, and from a certain angle is really kind of bizarre. What are the limits of that interest? It's not clear. However blurry the definition of that line, it clearly has moved in one direction. Whatever your or my level of support for the government's position on this at the time, it is a position informed by a set of assumptions about sexuality, the body, and the family (and especially its relation to the state) that are completely different from, and even antithetical towards, those of not just the Little Sisters of the Poor but also those of vast swathes of American society (and widely beyond it), even if it is not a majority.
There is no such thing as a neutral position, so when you approve of state enforcement of an interpretation of the ACA that creates this burden, you are supporting the imposition of a moral view of this question on people who don't share it. I conclude you have sympathy with that view from your comments. And it is more pointed than something like 19th century polygamy, because it is not barring fellow citizens from engaging in a practice but compelling them to take an action. I use it as an example of a political issue that has resulted from the shift of plate tectonics of the culture, but there an increasing number of these kinds of issues. The masterpiece cake shop is another such absurdity that is fundamentally about deploying state power to enforce a worldview, as was the Fulton case. There are more and more of these cases popping up.
Analytics wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:16 am
Symmachus wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:30 pm
You are clearly unable or unwilling to enter a worldview that is not your own. It is meaningless to you, and you apparently have no problem with the state exercising its coercive power to impose an understanding of the reality you identify with…
Clearly. Being told this about myself makes me think you are a fortune teller at night and on weekends. Do I owe you ten dollars for this insight into myself?
Like all great fortune tellers, I work by essentially regurgitating back to you what you say. You are welcome to correct me, but the only adjustment you have posted here to your caricatures of conservatives spread across your various posts is the assurance that you understand that the world is complex, and the indication of that is that you respect a couple of the "principled" and "thoughtful" ones that you had lunch with and donated money to.
But you get a discount here, because I leave the option open as to whether you are unable or unwilling, and "apparently" invites correction, if there is one. "Meaningless" was a reference to the analogy I discussed and you had just quoted back to me. Perhaps I should have put quotes around it. Your comments clearly imply throughout that you do not consider the
motivations behind the case to have any merit, independent of the case's merit. I'm not sure which sentence you wrote that should lead me to think otherwise, but please show me if I missed it. I see no evidence at all from any sentence that you have posted here that you understand the position of, for example, the nuns: "petulant schoolchildren" who are "desperate to be offended." Taking your preferred approach, I wonder if a brain scan might reveal something about their physiology that could explain this petulance. Maybe they watched a lot of Fox news. Or maybe they are just variables in a massive data set, and perhaps their obstinance can be factored out through some mathematically technique that can be instantiated in policy. Who knows?
Analytics wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:16 am
Symmachus wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:30 pm
Perhaps you think that moral perspective is mistaken or is stupid or is a sign of their pathological inability to accept your view of the world…
Just because I recognize that some views are in fact wrong doesn’t mean I have an inability to empathize with others. Or maybe it does. What do the tarot cards say?
I have to squint to see the empathy in posting a link to a pseudo-scientific study suggesting that conservatives have some kind of brain deficiency, and I really strain my eyes to see it in your description of nuns who are "desperate...to be offended" and act "like petulent schoolchildren," or in the case of conservatives who have some kind of "psychological reluctance to embrace a complicated modern world" or the apparent assumption that they "vote against their interest." Never mind the Republicans and their "propaganda machine" and "manipulators without conscience," which "does not have an equivalent" on your side. It's hard to see empathy from language like this and the positions you take. I grant that you carve out a space of respect for elite Republicans, quite disconnected from conservative voters, that you deem thoughtful and principled (because why?) and who oppose Donald Trump (what exactly is thoughtful about Evan McMullin? Kind of curious). Maybe that constitutes empathy with voters who despise those people; I genuinely don't know.
But I'm not talking about empathy anyway; I haven't said anything about empathy. Obama was trying to be empathetic—that is, to use the imagination to try to access how someone else feels—but the passages you quoted aren't really instructive, even if they are empathetic. His reason for why voters oppose him is actually circular: it's because they oppose him. But he's feels for them all the same because no administration, including his own, gives them much alternative to guns and religion. I am just trying to see if you even understand their view (hence, world
view). But if your approach to the case I was discussing is to dismiss it with "don't want birth control? don't use it" and dismiss the rest then I don't know how I am supposed to see that you understand where they were coming from and why that case was important, even if you have deep but unexpressed empathy for them that comes from your complex understanding of things, and understanding that lies behind your simplistic caricatures.
Analytics wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:16 am
Symmachus wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:30 pm
I feel we are making progress now, because in justifying that you worldview is superior, you are implicitly accepting the point that there is something more fundamental, something per-political that is going on.
I’m not saying my worldview is superior. I’m saying my worldview is my worldview.
So one worldview is just as good as another? What was your point of then going on talk about valid viewpoints then? My comment was a response to this:
some models and viewpoints really are justifiable and some really aren't.
So is one worldview just as valid as another or not? I assumed—and here I am guilty—that you believed yours was one of the justifiable ones. Is it? In light of the claim I've been making, how should I interpret "Just because I recognize that some views are in fact wrong"? I take that to mean that you think some views are wrong, and since this occurs in a discussion about a government action that I claim is fundamentally a clash of worldviews, and you appear to support that action, I conclude that you think the other side of that action has a wrong view, particular in the words you use characterize the actions of those who hold them in this case. I am really making a sweeping inference here? I am genuinely confused about where I have misunderstood you.
Analytics wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:16 am
Symmachus wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:30 pm
I don't think this is analogous at all; but let me ask you: should we ban the publication of books asserting that "the Book of Abraham is an accurate translation of an ancient Egyptian document"? Should it the viewpoint be chased from the public square, in your view?
What makes you think I would possibly be in favor of limiting free speech?
For some reason you introduced the Book of Abraham in a follow-up discussion on the moral position of the nuns, this one about ways of viewing the world:
some models and viewpoints really are justifiable and some really aren't
I interpreted your Book of Abraham example to be a more immediate and relatable case to instruct me as to why, despite your appreciation of the world's complexity, some views really are more justifiable and are actually correct. Coming as it did in a discussion about the views of conservative voters and in particular the nuns, I wondered, perhaps sweepingly, that since you appear to accept that nuns should be compelled to yield on their viewpoint, which you think is wrong, why not the people who write about the Book of Abraham, which you use as an example of a demonstrably wrong conception? If it's a question of law, the nun's case was a 1st Amendment one that their view and the exercise of it was protected by law, just as John Gee's is. Maybe I don't understand why you brought the Book of Abraham up.
Analytics wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:16 am
I’ll proclaim for the record that working class people can define their interests as whatever they want to, and that they are completely free to believe whatever they want. Let them worship how, when, and what they may.
Ok, so do working class people vote against their own interests? I don't want to infer. In telling me you like his answer, it seems reasonable to conclude that you accept the premise of the question. Maybe that's another sweeping inference I've made.
Analytics wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:16 am
Identifies as Romani wrote:You this like this answer? I've always found it troubling. This is the same line that successive progressive governments, both Republican and Democrat, have had towards Native Americans and any demographic in the way of their policy aims since after the Civil War. It's a very useful way to justify the application of coercive measures and allocate social control to ends that progressives deem desirable….
Just to be clear, are you telling me that I’m not allowed to have an opinion on what the government should or should not do to promote a more perfect union, because somebody somewhere in America might disagree with me?
I'm telling you why I don't like Obama's answer, just to be clear. That's what it looks like to me when I reread it. I don't see what your question has to do with what I wrote.
Analytics wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:16 am
Just to be clear, the only “state coercion” I’ve endorsed on this thread is letting nuns decide for themselves whether or not they use birth control.
I guess I was mislead by what appeared to be your support of a previous administration's pursuit of an entity that didn't want to be coerced by the state to do something it considered immoral under the claim that the exercise of its view was protected by the state's own law. Should I infer that you don't support the government's action from your comments? I don't want to be sweeping.
Analytics wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:16 am
Maybe I really am a Nazi!
Were you accused of being a Nazi? Talk about sweeping inference! I am confused.
In any case, Lee Drutman would cite this as an example of the problems associated with a two-party system where the parties are too coherent and strong—it makes it impossible to negotiate.
Too coherent? It's the exact opposite. There is no balance between the various parts of a coalition that make each party, with one small faction dominating the others. What are their coherent positions they actually push? Too strong? Chuck Schumer, the most pro-Israeli senator in the senate who got elected to congress in the first place by promising would-be constituents that his top priority was to support Israel can't bring himself to say a single thing while Israel is compared to Hamas. I doubt he's changed his mind: but he knows that he's not as a powerful as a majority leader would have been 20 years ago. The problem is exactly the opposite: sure, leaders have a tighter grip on the procedural levers, but the parties are too weak to discipline their membership. I wonder whether Drutman's proposed solutions for this problem he imagines will rely on increasing the power of the state to manage elections, and whether that power will be constituted in democratic fashion or by an unelected board. Usually, "The parties are too strong" argument is really about "my party is not able to implement their sweeping agenda under the current system, so I want a new system."
That is one reason I am skeptical of skepticism of the two-party system; another is that it is not really a two-party system anyway. The two-parties are the most practical mechanism you have for a country as heterogeneous and as large as the United States. Parliamentary systems in smaller and more homogeneous democracies have the same result: they form coalitions to form governments. But the two-party system has kept those coalitions relatively stable as compared to parliamentary systems. I guess what I'm saying is, if we had more parties, they would have to coalesce in order to mount a national campaign anyway (in the case of the presidency) and would have to form coalitions to get bills passed in the legislative branch (for congressional elections). It would be a giant Rube Goldberg machine, reproducing with great complexity something that we already have in a more direct form. That's my suspicion, anyway. And why does someone like Drutman assume we won't turn out to be like Israel or Italy? Or the UK? When it comes to issues that result from deep cultural divisions, I don't see parliamentary systems as any less "partisan" at all. And anyway, what is the optimal state of partisanship that political scientists like Drutman will allow for the rest of us, and on what grounds? I'm sure no agenda or assumptions about what society should look like goes into the medicine they would like to prescribe for the system that governs the lives of 330 million people.