his rant<\/a>.\nFirst, what Mr. McClure knew going in. He knew that Mr. Hulan dances with joy at the thought of “landing [Our Only President’s] ass in Guantanamo.” He might well figure out that Mr. Hulan is a Discordian, or at least links to Discordian stuff, and draw some conclusions about that. He might follow the handful of links, and find that some of his blogfriends are (as we used to say) of the left. He knows that Mr. Hulan considers himself a feminist, and discusses feminism. At any rate, Mr. McClure should know before going in that Mr. Hulan disagrees with Our Only President on foreign policy, domestic policy, and religion. At least. Furthermore, as Mr. Hulan links to CNN, and, you know, blogs, I think Mr. McClure ought to have inferred that Mr. Hulan follows politics at least in its major outlines, and has heard the four or five most prominent political arguments before, and still holds the positions I mentioned above.\n
Now, Mr. McClure claims that “Prima Facie, you don't care about protecting citizens”. What is the purpose of that statement? What does he think that Mr. Hulan will respond? Gosh, Mr. McClure, you are correct that I don’t care about protecting citizens. You have found me out.<\/I> Or perhaps I hadn’t realized that my opposition to the policies of Our Only President stemmed from my indifference to the suffering of citizens! Now that you have pointed this out, I will increase my empathy—and support the policies I once loathed.<\/I> Not likely? Not terribly likely? Well, and you may be right. No, I have to believe that Mr. Hulan and Mr. McClure both care about protecting citizens (although I suspect that they would have different definitions of protecting<\/I> and citizens<\/I> for that purpose, but not so different as to be talking about entirely different things). Mr. McClure does not as far as I can tell seek to understand Mr. Hulan, nor to be understood by him. He wants to make sure that Mr. Hulan is aware of the disagreement, and the disagreement is about Right-ness. Who has it. Who could find it in a barrel with a strong flashlight.\n
Gentle Readers, how does one respond to Bill McClure? Matt Hulan wrote some interesting things in response, but it’s hard for me to imagine Mr. McClure finding them as interesting as I do. Mr. Hulan writes (in part) “I don't want our country weakened by the short-sighted, power-grabbing policies of ambitious politicians.” He asks several questions (many of them rhetorical). This seems like a good gambit, as what could make a fellow think and understand more than questions? But surely, Mr. Hulan, Mr. McClure has heard these questions before? Why would he listen to them now? Why, in fact, would he validate your claim to authority by answering the questions, when you have (in his eyes) invalidated your claim to authority by being Wrong?<\/I>\n
Because, I think, in a lot of cases, it really is about Who Is Right and Who Is Dead. And listening to somebody who is wrong does, as Dan P. says, negate the correct opinion which you hold, at least while you are listening. And that’s hard to do. I like doing it, for my own entertainment, and because I like to think that I have a little more Right-ness than I did last year, and will have more Right-ness next year, and that (I perceive) necessarily means that some of my ideas are Wrong, and that all of them need to be negated, at least for a little while, just to find out which are the Wrong ’uns.\n
So. Some more questions, for Mr. McClure, for my own benefit:\n
You say that on the face of it I don’t care about protecting my fellow citizens. I claim that I think<\/I> I do, and that I believe<\/I> that the policies of Our Only President have made us less safe. Either, then, I am lying to you (which I am not, but then I could be lying about that, too) or I am a dupe, believing something that is false prima facie<\/I>. But who has duped me? Does that person or organization or movement seek to gain from that, and if so, how? Does that person or organization or movement believe what I believe, or are they intentionally playing me for a sucker? And if they<\/I> believe it, why do they believe it? Are they dupes? And who is duping them? I am serious about this, you know, because ...\n
I believe that the current leaders of the Republican Party do not, in fact, believe that terrorism is at the moment a great danger to our way of life, or to large numbers of our citizens. I think that they are using the threat of terror to siphon the nation’s treasures into their pockets and the pockets of their friends, and to maintain themselves in positions of power. I think they use foreign policy as a shield to pass legislation and executive policies that protect corporate fraudsters and screw workers, and they do so deliberately and contemptuously. In fact, I believe that Our Only President and his secretive cabal of crooks and incompetents have betrayed the rank and file of the Republican party. I believe you care about protecting American lives, but I think you have been duped, and I think<\/I> I know who is duping you, and why. Does this scenario seem plausible to you, or is it the least plausible explanation of why we disagree so strongly?\n
Finally, assuming that you do, on reflection, think that your<\/I> leaders are honest, and mine<\/I> are liars and dupes—which I fully expect you will, as I do in reverse—how would you suggest testing the question? It’s all very well to make prima facie<\/I> declarations, but many things are true on the face but false at the core. Would we test it by comparing what they say to what they do? Would we test it by who the leaders associate with? Would professional journalists in news-gathering organizations be helpful? Would the study of philosophy be helpful? Would the study of history? Economics? Art? Scripture? Do the results of public surveys contribute? Or the results of trials?\n
Can you imagine what might make you change your mind, and agree that high crimes and misdemeanors have been committed? Can you imagine what might make me change my mind, and agree that there have been none?\n
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Your Humble Blogger has more or less completed the latest change of domicile, and the band is broad once more. Whether this leads me to start blogging again with any frequency … well, we shall see. At any rate, catching…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-navel-gazing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17787,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10255\/revisions\/17787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}