[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Andrew Mandelbaum

Max,
Is this a serious theory, that Charlie's deep clinging to, for example, the preposterous definitions of the Left, Patriotism, Trump, and Believers in his last post is created by sharp confrontation?

Not created. The theory, as I understand it, is that confrontation won't help Charlie to a better understanding of these issues, and is likely, in fact, to make it harder for him to understand them.

Originally Posted by Andrew Mandelbaum

Or are you saying...

If you want to better understand what the Dartmouth researchers are saying, asking me is the wrong approach. Above, I've provided a link to an article about the study. Here's one to the actual study.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

My response is a disagreement with the conclusions being drawn from the article. I think the "backfire" is just a higher reading of an already existing commitment to defend an underlying certainty. I doubt there is any way to actually engage those certainties without that backfire unless it is through other human avenues that have nothing to do with public debate. So, I am not here to do anything like "help" Charlie.

Without the courage to place the certainty, and security that comes with it , on the blocks I have never seen this sort of argument make any conversions so I never even imagine that that is what I am about. I say this from experience. I am not, contrary to Charlie's schtick here, educated in the academy or with any stake in it. Until recently I was a high school quitter of the working class. I have been in demolition, roofing, even ditch digging as an honest choice for decades until settling into old house carpentry. I just read stuff for my own interest. Every day I try to put any recognized intellectual safe hiding place out into fresh air and open to ravages of what's-really-out-there. Whatever is still there at the end of the day, I take back inside for the night. I admit i don't have alot of grace for folks who refuse to do the same and white wash the violences their certainties need to survive.

In the there are implications in what Charlie and others say on here that seem to ugly to not pick a fight with. So I pick a fight.

I think that might make me a jerk some days. I can live with that.

[William A. Baurle]

I wonder how many in this thread have gone in private with Charlie, because I see accusations of him which I know for a fact are utterly false.

What bothers me tremendously is this word "trolling." I can't say it's directly aimed at Charlie, but if it is, it's just plain false. For those of you who've mentioned trolling, all I can say is you must not have had any interaction with a real Internet troll. I saw one belligerent soul shut down at least two newsgroups in a relatively short amount of time, with nothing but vicious and multitudinous posts that eventually no-one had any time for. This site is moderated, and it's almost impossible to troll for very long on a moderated website without being called out and banned. The days of the anarchic newsgroups are old hat, and the term troll has lost a lot of its punch. From what I can see when things get heated, the term is like any other ad-hom: applied when it's convenient, and getting no-one anywhere but stuck in useless anger and frustration.

So let's stop with the accusation, since it is entirely without basis. And ya know it, that's the frustrating thing! If you want someone to respect your argument, why not refrain from accusations that are clearly and demonstrably false? (That goes for all of us, of course.)

As for the danger of ideological thinking, it works both ways. The far Left can be just as lethal as the far Right. I brought up Russia, 1918, in a recent argument wherein someone asked why I said just that. His only real answer was, "well, that was a century ago," as if that meant anything. We are already seeing so-called peaceful protests erupt into violence. If the mob gets whipped up enough, they will stop at nothing. History has proven this, and whether the mob chant for the Left or the Right makes precious little difference. Extremists on both sides will eventually run dangerously short of restraint once their collective wrath builds to a breaking point.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

William,
If you will show me something in my case against Charlie's ideas that you know as a fact to not be present in his ideas, either willfully or implicitly, I would be interested in hearing it.

If the information expressed on this thread in support Trump or his policies is gathered from a peer based review of either history or science or what have you, again I would be interested to hear it.

If you have a way that ideas like inerrant notes form exclusive and violent Deities can be put forward as the last word in the polis without them becoming ideologies of force, again I would be interested in how that might work.

The left you bring up, I assume, is the Bolsheviks and later Stalin. Personally I don't recognize most of that business with the anything but another Statist ideology gone bad. So if that is the Left, then I am not. I think the State and its techniques are what most threatens life on this globe and that only ideas more kin to anarchism, mutual aid, and what-have-you have any real promise. Not the place for a long rant on this but I am all Fanya Baron and very little Trotsky I guess. I don't think socialism is innately tied to that sort of business. I think the idea that the autonomous movements for environmental, gender, and economic justice have murderous counterparts today to the destruction of capitalism, consolidation, and religious fundamentalism is total bull%$#t. Any evidence that I am wrong here, again I would be interested in seeing.

The last person to use the word trolling was me. I used it about my own behaviour of late, responding aggressively to each of CS's posts. I also said why that was so. If my writing is unclear on those points, I apologize.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

nevermind.

[Andrew Szilvasy]

Well, this isn't good:

http://observer.com/2017/02/donald-t...ssian-embassy/

[Julie Steiner]

Neither is the combination of this (North Korea has taken its saber-rattling up a notch, with a provocative ballistic missile test) and this (Trump nixed the experienced deputy that our neophyte Secretary of State was begging for; apparently the need for a U.S. State Department that knows its ass from its elbow is less important than the fact that the guy had criticized Trump during the presidential campaign).

And in other news, the Trump Administration's attacks on the judiciary leg of the three-legged stool known as the Constitution's separation of powers continue, too. That can't be good, either.

[Gregory Palmerino]

This musical intermission brought to you by ...


I was reminded that there are no breaks from politics.

Oh, wait. Andrew found one.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

I got nothing from there but this...

[Andrew Frisardi]

Like someone said on Twitter, it took George W Bush seven years, two wars, and a hurricane to get to this point of how Americans perceive U.S. world standing. Trump: three weeks.