demagogue on 21/1/2021 at 00:04
Quote Posted by bassoferrol
Una nación bajo Dios, indivisible, con libertad y justicia para todos.
One nation under God, indivisible, with freedom and justice for all.
"
Liberty and justice for all" you unamerian yarnball. :joke:
That's a joke because you're clearly not American, but we're in the era where we have to explain these things. But anyway, it's the end of the US's pledge to our flag which basically every kid says every morning in every classroom in the country. So it's triggering something positively Pavlovian when you start saying the words.
Edit: Somebody above mentioned the lasting effects of all that cold war propaganda, for which the pledge became one important element. It's dangerous when people start putting more love into the symbols and phrases than they do towards their own population, and we're seeing patriotism being cynically wrought backwards to make people distrust each other right now. That kind of Pavlovian instinct can be worked for good though, too, so in the immediate case it's good that Biden can appeal to it to pull people towards our classic values of tolerance & rule of law and all of that. But in the long run it's still unnerving.
Quote Posted by Pyrian
The question is "how long will Trump be president" so 1 term wins. ...Why is this so hard for so many people?
Because if the 2nd impeachment is ratified, it may arguably have the legal effect of nullifying the 1st term, and then he will not have legally been president for "1 term". That's a debate we can have anyway (I'm not even saying it's a good argument), but let's cross that bridge if/when we get there.
Starker on 21/1/2021 at 00:58
Quote Posted by Kolya
I'm sure that speech felt good to a lot of people. The pathos with which she speaks about a country at an official political event is still deeply foreign to me. Not only because I entertain no such deep feelings for any land, but because I believe that pathos and emotions are utterly misplaced in countries and politics. They can too easily lead to absolutist antagonistic thinking and sweeping judgements. Even if it's all well meant, I vastly prefer politics to be a sober factual work matter.
I think the last four years have shown us that you can't defeat populism with facts and logic alone. You need people with passion to stand for the ideals of a free and fair society in order to counter it. Any system built on rules alone can still be fundamentally biased and people can still perpetrate great injustices within the confines of dry emotionless policies. We have seen where the rationalism of the Soviet technocracy led, for example.
And we have seen in history that an injust system cannot really be changed by simple discussion. People are creatures of habit and comfort and sometimes you do need to rouse rabble and make them uncomfortable in order to simply make them aware of a problem that is not their own or at least make them not able to easily dismiss it. Any time there has been a significant movement for change, there have been people who have swayed public opinion by appealing to their emotions. Sometimes you need a Mr Rogers to remind people that black people enjoy cooling themselves in water on a hot day just like white folks do. And sometimes you need a black pastor with a dream, etc.
Obviously, an appeal to emotion alone without any substance behind it is empty and meaningless and not good politics. But I would argue that, conversely, cold hard factual policy is blind without a sense of why it matters and how it changes people's lives.
Tocky on 21/1/2021 at 02:57
Damn. I vote Starker for president.
Kolya on 21/1/2021 at 08:44
Interestingly I would have assumed that the last 4 years should have been an opposite lesson. Because they were filled with a lot of fear and heated emotions on both sides. Which wasn't really helpful, just made everyone feel shitty and resentful.
And then there were those rabel rousers at the capitol recently. They had a lot of passion. And it was the democrats who held up the rules of democracy. Eventually and thankfully cold hard facts, namely a vote, was needed and decided this conflict. Not more passion.
lowenz on 21/1/2021 at 10:28
Well, not passion but misguided rage.
Starker on 21/1/2021 at 12:05
And this is the reason why Democrats lose so much in the US, despite having policies that the majority of the US supports. Messaging matters, because people vote based on their feelings not rational calculations. They might rationalise it after, but the feelings come first. How many people turned up because they weighed Biden's policies against Lord Dampnut's and how many turned up because they were fed up and angry? Four years ago, people didn't turn up for Clinton because her cold hard facts didn't appeal to them whereas her opponent was all about emotion. If logos is all it takes, then people would've seen all through Lord Dampnut and stopped supporting him after his lies were fact checked and debunked. Logos is important, sure, and can be used to great effect, especially in the hands of a skilled orator, but good rhetoric makes use of pathos, logos, and ethos as needed.
demagogue on 21/1/2021 at 12:46
Uh, people did not dislike Clinton because her cold hard facts didn't appeal to them. They hated her because she was working for the Russians (lol), or she allowed four Americans to be killed and/or so many people around her found themselves suspiciously dead (not to be lol'd, but come on!), or not being secure with her emails/data (triple lol), or that she is at the center of a cabal of satanic child harvesting pedophiles (eh, maybe lay off the mushrooms)...
Or just, you know, 'cause she's a shrieking bitch because just listen to her... She speaks with a higher pitch -- like in the statistical range of 200+ Hz -- when "normal people", i.e., people we can respect that command authority, speak in the statistical range of 100Hz, right? It's just the pitch of the voice they hate... which could only be explained by someone purposefully being a harpy screeching bitch because there's no other natural explanation for how that could even be possible. :rolleyes:
These are not battles you can win because to even start playing the game you have to start with giving up on the basic rules of liberal democracy.
Kolya on 21/1/2021 at 13:18
Quote Posted by lowenz
Well, not passion but misguided rage.
It doesn't really matter for the situation or this debate what you call passion when you don't like it.
And if you think that the solution to overcome irrational emotionalized Trumpites is to emotionalize the Democrats then you're just furthering a conflict that has almost torn your country apart.
I think y'all need to calm down and think soberly about how to get along.
Jason Moyer on 21/1/2021 at 13:29
The solution is to finish Reconstruction, the problem is that the Confederacy has infiltrated every suburban area of this country and is going to be harder to put down this time.
faetal on 21/1/2021 at 14:43
Quote Posted by Starker
...pathos, logos,
and ethos as needed.
And we all know the bad guys get hardfucked once the muskahounds are involved.