We say 'a liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel', but that's not really what we mean. What we mean is, a liberal is someone who will defend even their enemies.
Conservatives have not been willing to defend their enemies and have left that to liberals. When George Bush saw that he could juice his 2004 swing sta…
We say 'a liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel', but that's not really what we mean. What we mean is, a liberal is someone who will defend even their enemies.
Conservatives have not been willing to defend their enemies and have left that to liberals. When George Bush saw that he could juice his 2004 swing state numbers by passing a bunch of state constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage in states that already didn't have legal gay marriage, elite conservatives went along with this even though they didn't really want to hurt the people that changing the constitutions was supposed to hurt. The Democrats and the Federal constitution still existed to defend those people; moderate Republicans could leave protecting gay people to federal judges and Democrats and reap the political benefits of anti-homosexual activism at home. What's the downside to humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change.
Democrats will defend the rule of law, the rights of detainees, and the free market, allowing conservatives to demagogue on these issues for free. This reaches climaxes in 2016, where every single mainstream Republican candidate waits for someone else to denounce Donald Trump because if they don't denounce Donald Trump they can scoop up his voters once he flames out, and the 2021 impeachment, where Mitch McConnell says "The Democrats are going to take care of this son-of-a-bitch for us. If this isn't impeachable, I don't know what is."
Republicans got so used to a world where Democrats would spend their political capital to protect them that they never had to make a single sacrifice ever. And this is what hollowed out the Republican party for Trump.
Indeed. All the think-pieces last year about how the youth at colleges and NGO’s were ruining things with their demands for leftist ideological purity left unmentioned that the ACLU was still defending white supremacists’ free speech at a time when no similar “defending enemies on principle” existed any more on the right; and the leftists frequently brought that sort of thing up, presenting themselves as a necessary counterweight.
I mention it not to defend them or applaud their tactics, but to put them into context. If my entire political life had been dominated by that asymmetry and my elders seemed to refuse to believe it even existed, I might decide to “go symmetric” in the other direction, too.
Whenever someone complained about there being too many new minority heroes in comic books, I point out that the Comics Code, an industry-wide regulation voluntarily adhered to by everyone except EC Comics banned black protagonists. No one has ever or will ever ban white protagonists.
Now, of course, they're willing these days to explicitly call for resegregation rather than just grumble about how political correctness means that Ted Kord is being supplanted by Jamie Reyes in the Great Replacement.
When a Democrat does something bad, a Republican with an interest in removing them from office must investigate them because that's the best way to ensure a thorough investigation.
When a Republican does something bad, a Republican with an interest in protecting institutions at all costs must investigate them because that's the best way to ensure a fair investigation.
I wish we had a Ken Starr instead of a Robert Mueller. I absolutely believe Mueller knew how his report was going to be used and summarized by Barr. If he didn't know that, he was too stupid to write it in the first place. He just didn't really mind all that much.
I don't agree with your view of Mueller. I think he was 72 years old and had operated in Washington for 40 years. He didn't know how to play by 2018 rules (or lack thereof). As important, he wasn't able to defend the conclusions of his report forcefully in public. I've always assumed that he was chosen because people at DoJ knew that he'd lost a step. That's not a reason to argue for choosing a biased zealot as Special Counsel.
We say 'a liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel', but that's not really what we mean. What we mean is, a liberal is someone who will defend even their enemies.
Conservatives have not been willing to defend their enemies and have left that to liberals. When George Bush saw that he could juice his 2004 swing state numbers by passing a bunch of state constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage in states that already didn't have legal gay marriage, elite conservatives went along with this even though they didn't really want to hurt the people that changing the constitutions was supposed to hurt. The Democrats and the Federal constitution still existed to defend those people; moderate Republicans could leave protecting gay people to federal judges and Democrats and reap the political benefits of anti-homosexual activism at home. What's the downside to humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change.
Democrats will defend the rule of law, the rights of detainees, and the free market, allowing conservatives to demagogue on these issues for free. This reaches climaxes in 2016, where every single mainstream Republican candidate waits for someone else to denounce Donald Trump because if they don't denounce Donald Trump they can scoop up his voters once he flames out, and the 2021 impeachment, where Mitch McConnell says "The Democrats are going to take care of this son-of-a-bitch for us. If this isn't impeachable, I don't know what is."
Republicans got so used to a world where Democrats would spend their political capital to protect them that they never had to make a single sacrifice ever. And this is what hollowed out the Republican party for Trump.
Indeed. All the think-pieces last year about how the youth at colleges and NGO’s were ruining things with their demands for leftist ideological purity left unmentioned that the ACLU was still defending white supremacists’ free speech at a time when no similar “defending enemies on principle” existed any more on the right; and the leftists frequently brought that sort of thing up, presenting themselves as a necessary counterweight.
I mention it not to defend them or applaud their tactics, but to put them into context. If my entire political life had been dominated by that asymmetry and my elders seemed to refuse to believe it even existed, I might decide to “go symmetric” in the other direction, too.
Whenever someone complained about there being too many new minority heroes in comic books, I point out that the Comics Code, an industry-wide regulation voluntarily adhered to by everyone except EC Comics banned black protagonists. No one has ever or will ever ban white protagonists.
Now, of course, they're willing these days to explicitly call for resegregation rather than just grumble about how political correctness means that Ted Kord is being supplanted by Jamie Reyes in the Great Replacement.
Also every special/independent counsel and every FBI Director must always be Republican, no matter who the President is
When a Democrat does something bad, a Republican with an interest in removing them from office must investigate them because that's the best way to ensure a thorough investigation.
When a Republican does something bad, a Republican with an interest in protecting institutions at all costs must investigate them because that's the best way to ensure a fair investigation.
I wish we had a Ken Starr instead of a Robert Mueller. I absolutely believe Mueller knew how his report was going to be used and summarized by Barr. If he didn't know that, he was too stupid to write it in the first place. He just didn't really mind all that much.
I don't agree with your view of Mueller. I think he was 72 years old and had operated in Washington for 40 years. He didn't know how to play by 2018 rules (or lack thereof). As important, he wasn't able to defend the conclusions of his report forcefully in public. I've always assumed that he was chosen because people at DoJ knew that he'd lost a step. That's not a reason to argue for choosing a biased zealot as Special Counsel.
Well said and accurate.