Kamala blasts Pence for refusing to meet women alone

[_EAllusion]

Also, Mike Pence is the dude who once spent a Father's day penning an essay about how Disney's Mulan is leftist propaganda that tries to convince impressionable youth that men and women can serve together in the military when they cannot. Mike Pence saying a few years later that he won't eat meals alone with women is extremely on brand.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Why should the VP of the United States feel compelled to make a response to every Leftist accusation levelled at him? It does him no good, and it certainly isn't going to change anyone's mind as witnessed by this thread.

- Doc

It's an accusation leveled at Mike Pence by Mike Pence. I'm referring to reporting in the Washington Post that he told the Hill several years prior that he does not dine alone with women. This resulted in a firestorm of criticism that his people responded to not by denying it, but by slightly changing the subject.

Nothing you wrote is factually true other than the highlighted portion above.

> be me

> be vice president sweetgig.exe

> love my wife, tell newspaper i don't dine alone with women

> my face when adulterous democrat who slept with her superior accuses me of bigotry



- Doc

[Guest]

First, for clarity, a little table setting:
I am not an opposing lawyer
My posts are not intended to win a case for a client.
My posts are neither arguments or crafted with 30 years of experience.

Ceeboo, thanks you very much for your explanation. We both bring our own experiences to our discussion. Mine just happen to involve lots of the and effort thinking about reasoning and argumentation. My experience doesn't mean that I'm more likely to be on the side of angels in any discussion. But did think it would be helpful in explaining the the thinking behind my request to have you explain your thinking. When I refer to an "argument," I'm simply talking abut the reasoning that supports a proposition.

In my mind , your comparison is ridiculous. Like comparing the 911 terror attacks with a second grader who threw a piece of his gum at a parked car (gradation and perspective is very valuable in all things.) One of these caused great harm and actual victims the other causes no harm with no real victims from my view.

in my opinion, the toughest part of any disagreement, especially on political issues, is the process of figuring out where the actual disagreement is. People naturally express their opinions in a tangled mass of different ideas and concepts, often using personal definitions of terms that don't agree. Often, the disagreement is phrased in terms of whether something fits in a particular category: is what Pence is doing "discrimination." But arguing about the definition of the term typically masks the actual point of disagreement.

You stated earlier that the dine alone rule wasn't an example of exclusion. I didn't agree, but without knowing the argument, i.e., the reasoning behind that claim, I couldn't tell exactly what we were disagreeing about. So I created an analogy that intentionally changed only one thing -- the degree of harm. I wasn't arguing that both examples involved the same amount of harm -- I was arguing that both involved exclusion. And if one agreed that the restaurant example involved exclusion, there was no way to consistently claim that the dine alone example did not.

You've now responded that my analogy was ridiculous, not because it was glaring obvious in some way that one example was exclusion and one was not, but because of the degree of harm involved. That tells me that our disagreement doesn't really involve a dispute over the meaning of "exclusion" -- the issue is really the degree of harm. That's valuable information for both of us and allows us to avoid wasting time talking about things that aren't material to our disagreement.

Same with your statement that the dine alone policy isn't "discrimination." Again, it turns out that the real disagreement there is again over harm.

Now, a better comparison would have been if you would have said that the owner of a restaurant refuses to allow any Christians to sit in his car at the drive in movies. You see, it's really not about the "Christians" it's about the space that he has reserved for a select few (and he, like you and I, have the right to make such personal decisions and we need not offer an explanation and/or reason to the rest of the world for making them)

Let's take your comparison. I would argue that the restaurant owner is, in fact, quite obviously excluding Christians from sitting in his car at drive-in movies. Which, again, tells me that our disagreement has nothing to do with whether the dine alone policy fits in the category "exclusion," but is something else. And since what you changed is degree of harm, I'd suggest that's where the actual disagreement lies.

We all get to decide our own boundaries, spaces and personal policies. In this particular case, Pence has made a personal decision about a particular boundary that he has set. While there may be countless reasons for him creating such a space in this regard (or creating a boundary if you like) he ought not be forced to change it or justify it to anyone.

When you use "personal" here, I get the sense that you are talking about more than just "something a person does." I really think you are talking about privacy -- a sphere of decision making and activity reserved to the person who makes it that should be of no concern to the public at large. And I agree that such a sphere should exist. And I also expect that you and I agree that the boundaries of that sphere have something to do with the extent of harm an individual's actions come to others. And, again, the point of disagreement is the harm.

for what it's worth - As I have mentioned upthread - Over the last 25+ years, I have never had a one on one dinner/drinks with a member of the opposite sex. I made this decision long ago - for many personal reasons - a mere one of them is how I personally view my commitment to my marriage and how I want to protect and honor my wife. You see, in my book, one on one dinner/drinks with a female belong strictly to my wife and only my wife. It's the space I have created for us. You need not agree with my personal choice (or Pence's) but the freedom for each of us to make these kinds of personal choices are critically important in my opinion.

by the way, I should add this as well. My personal decision (I surely won't speak for Pence) has absolutely nothing to do with a concern that I wouldn't be able to control myself during a one on one dinner with a female other than my wife (That's also a ridiculous suggestion. To be clear, I'm not saying you made that suggestion) - Rather, It has everything to do with MY marriage - MY wife - and the boundaries/space that I have set for us in our marriage.

And that's your experience coming into play, and I appreciate it. Dinner alone is not one of the ways I have chosen to honor my marriage commitment. One way I do that is through not having sex with anyone other than my wife. It's something reserved only for her. But I don't limit that to other women. I don't have sex with other men, either. So I'm naturally curious. Have you had dinner/drinks alone with other men over those 25 years? If so, if you reserve dinner alone with a woman to your wife to honor and protect her, why don't you do the same with men? Why do you see the two situations as different in terms of honoring and protecting your wife?

Have I discriminated against women? While I don't think so, this thread clearly shows that many believe I have/do indeed discriminated against women. That's okay by me though, sometimes people find other things much much more important than being labeled as a women discriminator. I can live with that.

This is another thing that i think gets in the way of real understanding: assigning labels and then attaching "good" or "bad" to the labels. People and their actions are way more complex than this. I would say that your dine alone rule does discriminate against women. But I would not label you as a "discriminator against women." I would also not label the discrimination as "bad" unless I had additional information. Likewise, I don't have enough information to determine whether your rule should be any of my business.

Lastly, It is also my opinion that when we start screaming discrimination in cases like this, we are really raveling a very dangerous road that impacts, cheapens and distracts from the countless cases or actual discrimination - as well as the countless actual victims of discrimination.

I disagree, mainly because Pence is a government official and dinners and drinks are entertained with how members of our government do the people's business. While the slippery slop arguments are always appealing, I think we can draw meaningful distinctions that will allow us to avoid the destruction of western civilization. I don't think it makes sense to hold a discrimination Olympics, awarding medals to the first three finishers and ignoring the rest.

(Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you are now excused, please make your way to the jury room in an attempt to arrive at a verdict. Once you have reached a verdict, please return and post your decision)

[/quote]

You may have missed your calling, Ceeboo, Exq. Thanks again.

[_Ceeboo]

RI

I'm very confused by your above post. You didn't type anything.

[_MeDotOrg]

Pence reminds me of Ulysses, who had his crew tie him to the mast to resist the song of the sirens. Maybe that guy who does those political paintings of Trump could do one depicting the Democratic women of the House and Senate as the Sirens.

That's kind of prescient, actually. The dead men next to the sirens could be the men they used, sexually, to advance their careers. Like. You know. What Kamala Harris did to Willie Brown.

- Doc

So Kamala Harris killed Willie Brown? Is that why Pence is afraid to meet with her privately? Does he also feel inexorably drawn to the siren song of Nancy Pelosi?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

So Kamala Harris killed Willie Brown? Is that why Pence is afraid to meet with her privately? Does he also feel inexorably drawn to the siren song of Nancy Pelosi?

Well, since art is generally metaphor as I'm sure this story is, we could read anything we want into it. Only Odysseus-Pence knows whether or not he's strong enough to resist Circe-Pelosi and Calypso-Kamala.

- Doc

[_Ceeboo]

Why should the VP of the United States feel compelled to make a response to every Leftist accusation levelled at him?

He shouldn't - and in this particular case, he hasn't - Which is exactly how he should be handling these things in my opinion. Not responding (or ignoring/rejecting/dismissing) these obviously politically based assaults by leftists has already started to become a much more common reaction by many - and I personally believe that similar reactions (rejection/ignoring/dismissing) will continue to be the way more and more people will react/treat these types of things.

[_Res Ipsa]

RI

I'm very confused by your above post. You didn't type anything.

Naturally. I confuse myself most days.

I put some stuff in there. I hope it reduces the confusion level. Who knows?

[_Ceeboo]

I put some stuff in there. I hope it reduces the confusion level. Who knows?

Yes, the stuff you have put in there (just went back and saw/read it) greatly reduces my confusion level.
It was also helpful in reducing my anxiety level. Thanks for typing something.

Rather than commenting on each of your sections, I thought I would simply say thanks for the comments - I found a few of them to be very helpful and insightful. I think we have both made great efforts to express ourselves and make our positions clear. Additionally, I think we have come a long way in understanding one another. If you don't feel the same, please let me know, I will put my tie back on, grab my briefcase and meet you back in the courtroom.

It was a pleasure, counselor.

[_Res Ipsa]

I put some stuff in there. I hope it reduces the confusion level. Who knows?

Yes, the stuff you have put in there (just went back and saw/read it) greatly reduces my confusion level.
It was also helpful in reducing my anxiety level. Thanks for typing something.

Rather than commenting on each of your sections, I thought I would simply say thanks for the comments - I found a few of them to be very helpful and insightful. I think we have both made great efforts to express ourselves and make our positions clear. Additionally, I think we have come a long way in understanding one another. If you don't feel the same, please let me know, I will put my tie back on, grab my briefcase and meet you back in the courtroom.

It was a pleasure, counselor.

Thanks Ceeboo, I agree that we have come a long way. Thanks for the conversation. It was very helpful to me.