The impeachment trial: sorry, but for the most part…
…I don’t plan to watch the proceedings.
I will report if anything big happens. And watch a clip or read a transcript. But watch it in real time? No thanks.
Some of the reason for that is my general antipathy to speeches and grandstanding and talk talk talk. But some of it is that this particular proceeding is deeply offensive to me. I already know a lot about its genesis, the Democrats’ allegations, and the GOP defense. I’m with the GOP defense, in particular Alan Dershowitz’s point of view.
I’ve noticed that many people have a simple way of looking at these things, and it goes something like this: Do I hate Trump? Then get rid of him, by hook or by crook. “Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil.”
They don’t think the “Devil” will ever turn ’round on them, if they trash the law and make a mockery of the rules.
This attitude of ends justify means is not entirely the province of the left, by the way. But I’ve seen it much more commonly on the left than among conservatives.
Many people – probably a majority – are not all that interested in process and don’t consider it particularly important. What they want is results. That’s human nature. Plus, to value process they have to understand the reason it’s so important. And to understand that, most people have to be taught (see *NOTE below). They are taught quite the opposite these days.
Few of us could stand upright in these winds, if they really start blowing.
[*NOTE: Do people really have to be taught to value process? I believe that most children do have a sort of innate interest in process in the sense of fairness – they want the rules to be fair, and often scream “It’s not FAIR!” if they feel that the rules have been bypassed in a way that hurts them. But how many children are willing to cheat in order to win, especially when very young? I think quite a few. And how many would fail to insist on the application of a fair rule if it means that they themselves lose instead of win? Especially when young, I believe quite a few. Maybe a majority, although I don’t know. But I think that most children do have to be taught to value the process itself when the cost is that they will lose at times.
That’s part of what games and sports are for. And it’s one of the many reasons that sports and games in which everyone wins are not a good idea. That fails to teach a person to endure the pain of losing, and to follow rules nevertheless.]
Do I hate Trump? Then get rid of him, by hook or by crook.
This is one fact which exiting from day one when Trump elected, in fact before that.
I am amazed that those who want explicit rules of engagement for U.S. combat operations that often make no sense will go to any length to undermine fellow U.S. citizens who don’t agree with their point of view. They take joy in engaging in social justice disputes and denigrating to the point of dismissal their opposition with their liberal, progressive, indisputable positions that are superior to the conservative untermenschen. Of course this implies winning by any means and no requirement for an even, level discourse of conflicting ideas.
I can’t stand listening to Schiff for Brains (as Ace calls him). Californians in his district must be mighty dumb for they keep reelecting him.
“That’s part of what games and sports are for.”
As we’ve seen with the recent Houston Astros’ elaborate and rampant pitch stealing operation exposed, which every player, coach, and executive on the team either took active part in or at least turned a blind eye to, adults are not immune to retaining the proclivities of the very young.
It amazes me how often Dems can accuse “corrupt,” in the Senate without their faces catching on fire.
I have no reason at all to watch any of these sham proceedings, because long experience has taught me that 1) the left will as always be shamelessly deceptive, and 2) the hapless GOP will make no effort to challenge the left’s endless lies.
If I hear that the hapless gee oh pee suddenly decides to subpoena Hunter Biden, maybe I’ll watch a few highlights.
But they won’t. Useless, they are.
Thanks for not watching them, so I don’t have to….
(I wouldn’t be able to survive that. Anything but that….)
Your last paragraph is most important. I shall be passing it on.
There is likely nothing to be presented in the next three days which people who have followed the whole sorry saga don’t already know. Actually nothing. Nada. Zippo.
Maybe new lies? But what can be interesting in that?
It’s possible the defense beginning three days hence will bring something new, but even that is doubtful. So it is that short wrapups should suffice any informational needs we find.
Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the Power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
Sorry to go sectarian, but what we have been dealing with for a long time, and now have before us, is worse than “Schiff for Brains”.
sdferr,
Not only do we remember the whole saga, but we also remember the silence of the Dems when Obama and Holder did even worse.
Neo observes,
It’s worse than that, I’m afraid.
It’s true, of course, that in trashing the law and making a mockery of the rules, the Left establish by precedent the “new rules” (no rules at all) by which they will relate to one another after they have eliminated all opposition. We dissenters are the kulaks; but after the elimination of the kulaks, a very large percentage of the remaining Leftists will wind up being the Trotskys, the Bukharins, the Rykovs, and the Ryutins.
Which ones will be the Stalins? …you know, the ones that survive the post-revolutionary internal purges? Well, that’ll be whichever Leftists are best at playing the game of power. This is Hayek’s Road to Serfdom incarnated: To the extent that state power is consolidated in the hands of the party of power-consolidation, the power in that party is most likely to be consolidated in the hands of the most-efficient and ruthless power-consolidator.
So, yes, the vast majority of the Left — all the fellow-travellers of the final victor who’ll be against the wall earlier or later in proportion to their plausibility as an alternate final victor — will not be able to “stand upright in the winds that would blow then.”
But since you, Neo, and I, and all the rest of us here would be dead or locked up by then, it would hardly be our problem.
No, the thought — the presentiment — that horrifies me is something else.
Whether they know it or not, the Left has long been under a kind of umbrella of protection provided by the mores of the Right, mores which are anchored in Judeo-Christian religion and culture. The Right has been, for their part, unwilling to “cut a great road through the law.”
Those who believe in God won’t murder left-leaning neighbors to reduce the Democrat turnout because God would disapprove and they might wind up damned. The future of the U.S.A. is important to the Right, but serious believers will be unpersuaded by the argument “Why not just kill your political opponents…sure, you’ll go to hell, but hey, you’ll have slightly increased the odds that your grandchildren will live in a free and prosperous country!”
Although the Right in America boasts the vast majority of the serious believers, it too has been affected by the recent waning of faith in America. The increasing percentage of atheists, agnostics, deists, unaffiliated theists, and non-practicing Jews and Christians isn’t the whole story. We must also acknowledge the declining literacy in matters of faith, and the declining strenuousness of practice, among even those who claim that they are serious practitioners. “Faith of our Fathers, living still / In spite of dungeon, fire, and sword…” has given way to the bathetic Praise & Worship ditties of today’s Moral Therapeutic Deism. Can such lax “practice” as we see amongst most Christians today steel the spine for resisting the temptations of political utilitarianism? I doubt it.
As the Judeo-Christian foundation of its worldview is eroded the Right’s affinity for keeping the rules will increasingly be sustained by mere cultural habit, by each man’s self-identification as a “law-abiding sort of chap.” But such subjective preferences are not the kind of thing that the next generation will swear its loyalty to.
Now to the point:
I think it was correct for the Right (including the Religious Right) to support Donald Trump. Given the alternative, it was the only sane move; and the Never Trumpers were simply not acting sanely.
But I also think that the Leftists and Never Trumpers are somewhat correct to express surprise that so many conservatives, themselves deeply moral and loudly insistent on moral well-doing, would embrace this largely-faithless philanderer. The Left called it hypocrisy and the Never Trumpers called it apostasy. It was neither, but it was a shift. I don’t think it would have happened in the 90’s. It definitely wouldn’t have happened in the 80’s. What changed?
I think that conservatives, and (more broadly) average middle-class hardworking family types in general, have tired of being the sucker.
They think it’s a sucker’s game to always play by the Marquess of Queensbury rules when your opponent never does the same. But their opponent never has done the same. Since before the “Borking” of Robert Bork, the Left playbook has been to call conservatives bigots, or crypto-Nazis (remember W.F. Buckley vs. Gore Vidal), or other psychological projections with impunity. And conservatives have mostly sat there and been polite in response. (Buckley regretted offering to punch Vidal in his pimply face.)
So, the modern right is now skeptical of the kind of candidate who “follows the rules.” They think Trump is swell, because he “took the gloves off.” We cannot spare this man, we say like Lincoln; “he fights.”
And because “he fights,” we’re having success.
But notice, a threshold has been crossed. Now the Right is ready to break rules. And their religiosity has been waning.
Will they scruple at breaking still more of the rules? Will they carefully distinguish between rules that ought to be broken, and rules that ought not? Upon what basis will they draw such distinctions? Will those who attempt to draw such distinctions be shouted down as “Cucks” by a louder contingent insisting that anything goes?
Read your own heart: How much better do you think America would be, if every left-leaning voter in coastal California, and the leftmost 60% of all tenured college faculty, just…vanished? What if you could make that happen? Would you be tempted by political utilitarianism? Can’t make an omelette without….
The recent pro-2nd-Amendment protest by Virginians showed that the Right remains scrupulous about ethical citizenship. (Good.) There was even a Leftist Infiltrator there who showed up pretending to be a “libertarian,” trying to stir them up towards violence. (He failed. Good.)
But what if Trump loses? And what if the loss is due to shenanigans (the vote-fraud) by the Democrats?
We already had a relentlessly-moral, relentlessly-bourgeois, relentlessly-friendly popular movement in the U.S.; they called it the Tea Party. It fizzled under a cascade of utterly unsupported accusations of racism and radicalism. Same thing with “Make America Great Again.”
How many of those once-optimistic political newbies are now embittered and thinking, “I tried playing by the rules and got stomped. Others threw away the rulebook and did the stomping. Next time, screw the rules.” …?
I hope it won’t happen.
R.C.:
Very well put.
And that’s exactly why I was careful to include in my post the following:
This dilemma is one that people have faced many times in many countries all over the world. The basic question is: how ruthless must you (or may you) be to succeed in fighting a ruthless opponent who would destroy you and everything you hold dear? And at what point have you become as bad as him?
One possible answer is based on something like this: “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Still another answer goes like this: “Whoever is kind to the cruel will end up being cruel to the kind.”
The establishment strikes back. The sequel, return of the POTUS, promises a story that will fill in the missing links in this progressive production, and reign in the liberal overtures.
Try MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, R.C., where justly breaking unjust laws (“rules”) is distinguished from obeying just laws, for a first go at the nub of the problem. It’s not to say that makes an end of a demand for justice, but does make a good beginning. Current events in Syria will likely be our last stop, all else failing.
Neo, the important answer is your 2nd one: “Whoever is kind to the cruel will end up being cruel to the kind.”
If Thos. Jefferson had gained the whole world, he would not have lost his soul. Now, Schumer, Nadler or Schiff, they are already Hell-bound.
At what point do we each draw out line in the sand?
Being required to sit in the back of the bus? Being taxed with money that supports the abortion industry? Having a well financed campaign put a bunch of people in office who will make out legal guns illegal with the signing of one bill and make us felons if we don’t turn them in? Being fired or fined for not calling a person the wrong pronoun? Not wanting our own clergy to perform same sex weddings and breaking large denominations apart?
At some point reasonable women and men will say no more, that’s it, we’re done, there is my line in the sand and you who want to save the world and kill your own people off have reached the end of the line and it’s time to get off.
For the left politics can be compared to Calvin Ball, IOW, no rules as long as we win.
I suppose we must consider the down-side. However, if I may note, there is an upside, which is Trump could win convincingly plus the House flip Republican in November.
It could be the tide is turning on the leftist-SJW nonsense. I think the Democrats’ bold moves, such as the impeachment offensive, are as much based on desperation as hate.
As Attorney General John Mitchell said in 1969, while the sixties craziness was still full-blast, “This country is going so far right, you’re not even going to recognize it.”
Watergate and Nixon’s resignation put a crimp in that prediction, but Reagan was elected in 1980 and the country did go farther right than most would have suspected in 1969.
I just don’t see the Democrats’ current full-court press on socialism, political correctness, and rainbow sexes is sustainable … so to speak.
huxley, a full-court press is, as you well know, intended to cause errors and turnovers, converting a losing team into a victor. Not always, but often enough…so let us not be comfortable with our 5 point lead, 50 seconds to play.
Long ago I saw Dean Smith and UNC beat Duke by 1 at Duke by scoring 5 points with 7 seconds to play. Full-court press was part of it.
“The basic question is: how ruthless must you (or may you) be to succeed in fighting a ruthless opponent who would destroy you and everything you hold dear? And at what point have you become as bad as him?” [Neo @ 5:37 pm]
I offer that one becomes as bad as the perpetrator when ruthlessness ceases to be a tool to defeat the enemy and becomes a way of life. It’s not the use of ruthlessness to achieve a just end, but I think it has more to do with when one ends such ruthless behavior. Old Texan sems to imply this idea (above @ 1:35) and I offer that it is also embedded in R.C.’s comment above (@ 4:58 pm).
It reminded of a scene in Open Range with Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall. In the climatic gun battle, two men fight against against 7 who have ruthlessly murdered and injured innocent people. See the two scenes here;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcfNCH2_oA8
2:35 – 2:55 IMO this first scene is ruthlesness in pursuit of justice.
8:27 – 9:20 This second is foregoing ruthlessness as a way of life.
and here:
3:30- – 4:50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANsUMi1a3_o
Duvall heeds his own earlier advice.
So I suggest that “being as bad as the enemy” is not getting down into the gutter to fight an enemy that lives there that defines the person, it’s the ability to leave the gutter behind when the job is done.
(a passing note: compare the Open Range scenes to the climactic scene in Return of the Jedi where the emperor seduces Skywalker to let his own anger course through him, to kill Darth Vader, and to join the emperor at his side. Same ethos. Same theme. Same end result.)
Cicero: Perhaps the basketball metaphor is not optimal then.
So let’s switch to a pendulum metaphor. A pendulum only goes so far in one direction until gravity slows it to a stop then sets the pendulum moving in the opposite direction.
Social/political change is often like a pendulum. Eventually the change reverses direction. Furthermore, I believe the leftist-SJW movement has reached the reversal point. Otherwise Trump would not have been elected.
Americans aren’t going all the way for socialism, cancel culture, and mix-n-match gender identities.
Only the strongest among us can survive without rules.
What is the purpose of breaking rules? What is our strategy? It is 1) to inflict pain; to 2) underscore the importance of reciprocation.
Hurting the opposition is not an end in itself. Rule breaking should focus on hurting the opposition to make him want to get along.
How do you know when you’re actually getting along? I submit that you’re getting along well-enough when… where once he contradicted you… he now mouths your pieties.
For example, if the left says property destruction is non-violent and is therefore in bounds:
Don’t let them confuse you about violence
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2011/11/dont-let-them-confuse-you-about-violence/
In response, maybe throw out some cheap talk about abortion clinics and see if they requite and finally agree that property destruction is indeed violence.
In this example, you signal that… absent a set of binding, universally-respected, mutually-observed rules… you’re willing to play chicken and possibly wreck both parties. The shitty anticipated payoff for the loser can actually foster increased cooperation.
I’d like to see Trump start nudging the left, tweaking their choice architecture, just like ol whatshisname did:
Obama’s effort to ‘nudge’ America
https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/10/obamas-effort-to-nudge-america-000276
Thaler got a Nobel Prize (bank of Sweden but whatever) for Nudge Theory in 2017. The contours of the theory are still being discovered but what is known so far gives many pause. Nudge Theory is ripe for abuse. Use it against the left and make them denounce so-called libertarian paternalism.
Nudge, nudge
“Libertarian paternalism” is a linguistic atrocity that must die
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2013/08/10/nudge-nudge
“It amazes me how often Dems can accuse “corrupt,” in the Senate without their faces catching on fire.”-Ken
And there ought to be a lot of noses about a mile long.
sdferr on January 22, 2020 at 6:35 pm said:
Try MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, R.C., where justly breaking unjust laws (“rules”) is distinguished from obeying just laws, for a first go at the nub of the problem. It’s not to say that makes an end of a demand for justice, but does make a good beginning.
* * *
But the problem now is that “setting good for evil and evil for good” includes the Democrats labeling as unjust the laws that the Republicans consider just, and vice versa (cf immigration sanctuaries vs 2A sanctuaries).
huxley on January 22, 2020 at 8:14 pm said:
…
As Attorney General John Mitchell said in 1969, while the sixties craziness was still full-blast, “This country is going so far right, you’re not even going to recognize it.”
Watergate and Nixon’s resignation put a crimp in that prediction,…
* * *
Which was the whole point of the “full court press” to take down Nixon.
T on January 23, 2020 at 12:04 am said:
“The basic question is: how ruthless must you (or may you) be to succeed in fighting a ruthless opponent who would destroy you and everything you hold dear? And at what point have you become as bad as him?” [Neo @ 5:37 pm]
I offer that one becomes as bad as the perpetrator when ruthlessness ceases to be a tool to defeat the enemy and becomes a way of life. It’s not the use of ruthlessness to achieve a just end, but I think it has more to do with when one ends such ruthless behavior.
* * *
In the microcosm, it is when parents are not spanking their children to deter or punish bad behavior, but because they start to get a high from abusing them.
Post-victory vengeance and generational feuds are other examples of becoming as bad as the enemy.
Book of Mormon examples furnished on request.
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2020/01/23/david-mamet-trump-is-a-great-president-liberal-reaction-has-been-psychotic/
https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/23/nyt-quashed-story-about-2016-wh-meeting-with-whistleblower-and-ukrainians-on-burisma/
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2020/01/23/adam-schiff-remove-trump-because-he-didnt-follow-talking-points/
And what about those people putting out those talking points?
https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/23/trumps-beltway-critics-failed-in-afghanistan/
Marxism I can get behind.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ddba934a840dc77d4e5eb79b0596e2f31cefd50e9e4d50d39345d95074b88f2f.jpg
https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2020/01/24/turley-dems-rushed-impeachment-process-will-go-down-as-one-of-the-greatest-historic-blunders-of-a-house-of-congress/
This one is really good – another law professor speaking truth to the power-mad.
https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2020/01/24/the-new-york-times-actually-publishes-a-good-article-on-impeachment/
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2020/01/24/lindsey-graham-what-if-a-republican-had-done-what-the-bidens-did-n2560059
Lindsey Graham: If No One Investigates the Bidens, I Will