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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Why can't politicians keep it in their pants? Today's topic, Congressman Anthony Wiener

Discussion in 'Archive: The Senate Floor' started by DarthPoppy, Jun 6, 2011.

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  1. Mr44

    Mr44 VIP star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 21, 2002
    Quix, your post was rather personal, but the problem with your "defense" is that your posts exist on their own. Go back and re-read your post. It doesn't include any kind of analysis or factual support. In fact, you didn't offer any kind of commentary at all. It's still there. If it's not a throw away post, then maybe the definition needs to change.

    It's like how we had this exact same discussion about your post in the JCC. The one where you posted how you wanted a t-shirt with with Obama saying "HE's DEAD!" on it. (referring to bin laden.) It was a jingoistic post. And that's fine. You motivation may have very well been against the birthers at the time, but that fact doesn't make it less jingoistic. The problem is that for all the posts following after that, you tried to justify how it wasn't such at all, and how such thing would be beneath you, and how it was actually a deep, political commentary. But it was obvious that it wasn't any of those things, and that's why you were called out on them. If you had just admitted that it was a throw away post, it wouldn't have been a big deal at all. Because as I said, it's fine. Everyone makes political posts. Everyone makes jingoistic posts. I just don't understand why you get so defensive when you do, or you at least try and pretend they're something they're not, especially since the posts are still there to look at.

    It would be no different if someone asked me why I disagreed with Obama so much, and instead of answering the question, I replied that person was crazy for even asking that, and that I actually agree the Obama administration. No one here would accept that, as they shouldn't. I think it's fairly obvious that I don't agree with the administration, and I would be more than willing to explain and/or debate the why. If I suddenly tried to pretend the opposite, I don't think it would be a justification to say "but I've posted here for years, so just accept what I say."

    But all of the above is certainly off topic.

    Personally, I think that the entire Obama situation has made a whole bunch of people defensive because the expectation hasn't at all come close to the reality. Instead of critically examining the administration, there are a bunch of posts that basically say "No, Obama is great, it's just that everyone else thinks he's wrong..." because otherwise, the cognitive dissonance kicks into overdrive. But that's a completely different matter.
     
  2. Fire_Ice_Death

    Fire_Ice_Death Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2001
    That or you're just being incredibly obtuse in your replies. Hmm...yeah, pretty much that.
     
  3. DarthIktomi

    DarthIktomi Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    May 11, 2009
    All you have, 44, is Weiner. We have Vitter. We also have Mark Foley and Larry Craig, the latter coming up with a story involving spreading his legs to drop his pants.

    We even have Republicans who broke the law and tried to pretend it was a "high-tech lynching", such as Clarence Thomas, because there are apparently a lot of black women in the Ku Klux Klan.
    (By the way, drinking game: Shot whenever a Republican trying to appeal to black people compares being a Democrat to slavery. Also a potential method of suicide, since you'll be drinking a LOT.)
     
  4. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    By 'all' what do we mean? There's been plenty of sex scandals lied about by both sides. So I'm a bit confused which point you're making here.

    What does a lynching have to do, by necessity, with the KKK?
     
  5. Kimball_Kinnison

    Kimball_Kinnison Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2001
    Building on Lowbacca's post, on the Democrats' side, you can easily point to Anthony Weiner, John Edwards, Tim Mahoney (the person who replaced Mark Foley in Congress), Eliot Spitzer, and (of course) Bill Clinton. On the Republicans' side, you have David Vitter, Mark Foley, Larry Craig, and Mark Sanford.

    It's hardly a one-sided affair (no pun intended).

    Kimball Kinnison
     
  6. Mr44

    Mr44 VIP star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 21, 2002
    That's kind of been my point all along. You have plenty of accountability from both parties, and you have plenty of examples of forgiveness from both parties. But even the "forgiveness" part has come through scrutiny. It's not like too many people were like "Way to go Bill, have a entirely new box of cigars on me!" Judgement is human. But so is forgiveness. But even as they are obviously higher profile, I think a dozen or so examples out of the hundreds of politicians isn't that high of an overall rate, and it's not limited to one party or the other. It's not like the Congress has had a zero tolerance policy since its inception, so someone like Vitter was the only example in 200 years who was re-elected after this type of behavior.

    That's why I just think that if someone has to go all the way back 10-12 years to find an example of "well, Vitter got off, so now the opposing party should get a free pass on a scandal," I'm not sure how much that makes sense. Especially since there have been other examples after that were both punishment and forgiveness has occurred that aren't dependent on party.
     
  7. Raven

    Raven Administrator Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Oct 5, 1998
    What does Wiener have to forgive?
     
  8. Jedi Merkurian

    Jedi Merkurian Future Films Rumor Naysayer star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    May 25, 2000
    I noticed it's getting a bit...personal...in here. Let's tone it down a bit, eh? [face_peace]
     
  9. Fire_Ice_Death

    Fire_Ice_Death Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2001
    Well, if you're a Republican I would think he needs to seek forgiveness for trying to have an affair with a woman. Republicans tend to be okay if you snort coke off a male prostitute.
     
  10. J-Rod

    J-Rod Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 28, 2004
    Barney Frank is a Republican?



    LOL
     
  11. DarthIktomi

    DarthIktomi Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    May 11, 2009
    There is a question of what is legal, though. Republicans, well, we have a famous Republican on record saying that if the president does it, it's not illegal.
     
  12. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    I don't have anything to say about the main topic, but this was a positively silly comment. The KKK played a leading role in the coordinated lynchings and terror campaign against blacks conducted throughout the early part of the 20th century, and recorded by civil reformers like Ida B Wells. The association is an obvious, well-known, and historically valid one.

    Would you ever imagine saying "What does killing Jews have to do, by necessity, with the Nazis?" Obviously they weren't the only ones that ever did it. But they were rightly notorious for doing so. Come on.

     
  13. Mr44

    Mr44 VIP star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 21, 2002
    What does Wiener have to forgive?

    That he pushed to get only one wall in the House fitness center covered in mirrors, instead of all four walls....

    But then again, if it was all 4, then he would probably still be in there, trapped in a time loop of endless crotch shots and reflections, out into infinity.....
     
  14. SuperWatto

    SuperWatto Chosen One star 7

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    Sep 19, 2000
    Being the Dutch guy around here, I feel obliged to point out that I'm fine with that, as well.
     
  15. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

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    Jun 28, 2006
    Except the analogy would be saying "What does genocide have to do, by necessity, with the Nazis?". The example was that you can't say it was a lynching because the person saying it wouldn't be in the Klan, but by the EXACT same logic, there was never a genocide in Rwanda because how many black people were in the Nazi party?
     
  16. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    No it wouldn't. Your example uses genocide as class of acts, committed at various times and places throughout world history. The original Thomas comment, and the follow-up comment about it, didn't refer to all incidents of lynching ever in history. It referred to a very specific campaign of lynching, in the United States, directed against blacks, in one fairly contiguous stretch of time, as an expression of racism and for political purposes (ie terror). The equivalent there, in terms of genocide, is therefore one particular genocide. Not all of them.
     
  17. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

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    Jun 28, 2006
    The quote was a person calling something a "high tech lynching", and the response that the part it quotes directly inferred the KKK, and that's precisely what I'm questioning. At best, the way it was presented was highly fallacious, because it creates a strawman argument as the statement was not "it's like I'm being attacked by the KKK", but it argues the quote as though that's what it said. At present, no evidence has been included that indicates that it was referring to what you said it was referring to to justify the comment about the KKK, and without that additional information, it's not a valid argument.


    Probably worth also noting that it's a moronic statement for anyone to call something a lynching that isn't actually, you know, a lynching. I think it whitewashes the danger of violent mobs trying to carry out justice outside a legal structure. (Though I know that is never going to stop)
     
  18. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    You think there's no evidence that black man accusing a group of largely old white men of racism would be referring to that event? Really?

    . . .

     
  19. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

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    Jun 28, 2006
    I would say that from the current discussion, we've not yet even had a black man accuse a group of largely old white men of racism, either. The accusation was lynching, not racism, and while lynching was predominantly racially motivated under the guise of justice, it was by no means exclusively so, and political and religious minorities were targeted as well. As well as people presumed to be guilty of crimes but were otherwise part of the majority in terms of demographics.
    (The inclusion of different categories is not to present them all as equally likely, but that none of them are trivial and can be simply discounted)
     
  20. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    The comment "high tech lynching" was a comment made by one specific black man, Clarence Thomas. The insinuation was absolutely racism. That was his whole point. What planet are you living on.

    EDIT: Also, what are you saying? No one is saying that lynching in the US only killed African-Americans. Nor is that even relevant to discussion. What matters is whether they were a prominent enough victim group for the association to be valid. In the same way, even though leftists, Gypsies, and homosexuals were also killed in concentration camps, no one would question someone making a link between the Holocaust and anti-Semitism.
     
  21. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

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    Jun 28, 2006
    The world where the word lynching is used to refer to mob mentality that goes beyond one single interpretation of it. Additional information can specify racism, but the word 'lynch' does not, and should not, unless there is some greater context.

    So, you would make the case that as immigrants were targets of lynch mobs, when people talk about lynch mobs going after Roman Polanski, they're absolutely insinuating that it an absolutely anti-immigrant motivation? Because Polanski is an immigrant and immigrants got lynched?
     
  22. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    No, I'm making the case that a very specific incident during the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court of United States of America was about his accusation that he, a black man, was receiving racist treatment from a Senate that was, at the time, all white.

    Conservatives admit that was his points. Democrats agree. As do non-partisan commentators. Clarence Thomas is pretty open about discussing it. It was thought so at the time, and has been interpreted as such ever since. You are literally the only person I have ever heard in my entire life challenge that this was supposed to be a comment about race. This carries the "I'm color-blind" thing to levels not even reached in Stephen Colbert parodies.

    EDIT: Maybe this is faster. Have you even seen a complete quotation?

    Yes, I'm sure you're right. The mentions of his perspective "as a black American" and the talk of "uppity blacks" was entirely coincidental. Race had NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
     
  23. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

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    Jun 28, 2006
    And with that portion of it I would say that is precisely what I'd asked about re: evidence in the first place and the 'more information' that would be needed to say it's not about a lynch mob in general. With those other statements, he does bring up racism, and those terms (not the term lynching) clearly identify his argument as being about racism and the lack of any of those quotes prior in this discussion was exactly why I was saying no case had yet been made for allegations of racism.

    And the segment initially quoted seemed to talk about that allegation as being aimed at Anita Hill based off of the way that quote was used. As the quote for discussion this whole time was the phrase "high tech lynching" so my commentary was going off of that.
     
  24. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    Though you don't seem at all inclined to take it, let me offer a bit of advice to you.

    As a black man, let me tell you that if you ever find yourself in a situation where an African-American is angrily accusing a group of whites of trying to "lynch" him, odds are very good that there is an intended accusation of racism. Just trust me on this.
     
  25. Kimball_Kinnison

    Kimball_Kinnison Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2001
    The problem is that you keep assuming that everyone else shares your perspective.

    First of all, this is the Internet. Most people who read your posts would have no way to know that you are black, white, green, red, or any other color. It's hard to take the race of a poster into account when you have no way to know what that race is. (Even then, the reference was made by DarthIktomi, who as I recall, has previously identified as being of Native American descent, not black.)

    Second, the original reference to "high-tech lynching" tied that phrase to Republicans in general, ("We even have Republicans who broke the law and tried to pretend it was a 'high-tech lynching'") and only gave Clarence Thomas as an example in the secondary phrase of the sentence. Last I checked, most Republicans aren't black, and so there would be no reason to assume that the reference had any racial overtones.

    Third, the only evidence actually presented that there were racial overtones to the reference was when you gave the full quote from Clarence Thomas. Because you were already familiar with the full quote, you immediately assumed that the reference was racial, but you had no basis to assume that everyone else would make the same connection based on the evidence that was actually presented.

    You can't just take your own assumptions and then make the leap to assuming that everyone else assumes the same things you assume.

    Kimball Kinnison
     
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