blatham wrote:My 'line of argument' here (your edit was prudent) is clearly going to be controversial. In fact, there have been several arguments in the mix (gender bias, for example) but you are referring to 'shut the phuck up'. Of course, it is precisely what all the campaigns did. And they did it for the reasons I forwarded, or so similar as to be functionally undifferentiatable.
Oh, I dont think we've suddenly seen the end of all too overt contention among the candidates, or that they will suddenly filter out all the subjects from those contentions that you have declared unwise over time from now on forward. It's clear that they've been taken aback by the speed with which the race argument, specifically, escalated last week, and so they dialled down the tone significantly in this last debate. But depending on how the results of the next few primaries turn out, you can bet that a more contentious tone will return, and some of the issues you consider undesirable for discussion (eg, perceived dirty campaign tricks from each other's campaigns and proxies, or Hillary's personality and trustworthiness) will return.
Moreover, as an interested observer I thought the way the candidates "shut the phuck up" during this last debate was detrimental to the interest of voters. It may be good, as I already sarcastically referred to your line of argument, in the context of "the greater struggle against the Republican enemy", but it made the debate comparatively useless for, you know, the
voters, the citizens. Or at least those people who are trying to get as clear an idea as possible not just on all the things the Democrats roughly agree on, but on what divides them. Whereas thats what the primaries are
for.
As a general principle, I believe an open discussion of differences is never detrimental to a community, be it a party or a nation -- that is to say, any disadvantage it may have is dwarfed by the detriment that's caused by attempts to mute if not outright silence internal criticism in the name of party unity.
Specifically, I believe it should never be muted out of fear of a looming greater, common enemy. And the funny thing is, when the community in question is the American nation and the greater enemy is Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda - and I think we can all agree that the terrorists who hit America on 9/11 are a greater enemy - you totally agree, and are in fact one of the strongest and most articulate defenders of it here. Pitied be the conservative who suggested, at any point in time during the last seven years, that it would behoove Americans to show some unity, mute the internal strife and mute the criticism of their leaders in the face of the overriding threat from a common enemy - you eviscerated them, with sound arguments. But now that you see an overriding greater enemy for your preferred community yourself, you adopt their very arguments.
blatham wrote:Let's go along with george and okie, who have me correctly defined, and include the three campaigns in with commissar blatham as illiberal types, shall we? It would seem consistent, after all
But we are
not campaign operatives. We are citizens, critical observers. Our civic duty is to vote, to inform ourselves, to engage in causes we consider important, and to always be critical of those who claim to act in our name - whether it be our government leaders, our party leaders, our business leaders, our union leaders and whoever. To speak up on anything that we consider problematic.
That is "the least we can do". And again, despite your fall back line about how you're just talking about things like discussions of Edwards' hair, you have gone far beyond that when insisting things better not be discussed in the way they're discussed (or at all).
And again, if all of that sounds too high minded, in as far as we are simply posters on some web forum (and not an in any way politically influential one either, not even like Kos or Red State or something), we should also just get over ourselves. I mean, you mention that the candidates acted according to your prescription, and thats bad enough, but yeah - thats the
candidates. They're constantly surrounded by minders, possibly ones just like you, instructing them what to say or what not to say. Even if we were talking in the function of active campaigners, of party members speaking up at a meeting, of actual politicians, however minor, than your arguments for why we should 'shut the phuck up' would
still merit all my criticisms above - but at least they would have
some kind of practical rationale. But we're anonymous posters on a forum in a particularly remote quadrant of the political web. Since there is absolutely no impact whatsoever any of our posts will have
in any case, not just is your argument, in my view at least, ethically dubious, but completely pointless as well!
Trust me, Novak and George Will do not need A2K for their talking points. By letting A2K poster X say he thinks Hillary is untrustworthy or ruthless, or poster Y that he doesnt know what the hell she means when she mentions her 35 years of experience, or letting poster Z recount and explain what she sees as a dirty trick from Obama's campaign - by letting them post and just rebut their argument as you see fit rather than tell them to shut the phuck up, not a single hundredth of a percentage point is lost even just in this week's poll.
