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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2718 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton

    You keep using the word "objective" like it has any meaning here.

It does. ANY presidential candidate will continue to murder civilians in the Middle East with drones. There hasn't been an administration since Washington that didn't murder people abroad and there never will be. Civil liberties WILL continue to be eroded. People love the shit out of Jimmy Carter and his southern Baptist pacifism but he's the guy who essentially castrated the CIA in the Middle East, thereby leading to the fall of Iran, the Beirut bombing and the whole tawdry South Asia misadventure of the '80s (and ongoing). "anything meaningful towards addressing economic inequality is bullshit, considering this is the woman who died on the Golgotha called Hillarycare.

So I'll say again: Hillary Clinton is OBJECTIVELY a good choice. The relativism you wish to find here is partisan and uninformed. I will freely acknowledge that I'm a cynical sack of shit - but there is no politics without cynicism.





johnnyFive  ·  2718 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    ANY presidential candidate will continue to murder civilians in the Middle East with drones.

Well, that makes it okay then. It's weird that you're criticizing me for "relativism," when all you can offer in support of Clinton is that "other people do those terrible things too."

kleinbl00  ·  2718 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Nothing weird about it - I'm saying "It's silly to refuse to support a butcher that chops up meat."

It's not guaranteed that I'm better read on the Middle East than you, but it's a reasonable expectation. I, too, would love nothing more than to see peace in the middle east. However, I recognize that the Middle East is a region whose Reformation and modernization were halted by the Ottoman Empire and whose politics are tribal. There will be interference in the Middle East by every other power long past the point where the oil no longer matters and realistically speaking, the United States uses far more soft power than any other regime in the history of the region.

Did the Iraq War solve anything? No? How 'bout walking away? No, not that either? Then expect epic-level skullduggery and totalitarian shelling. You know what is a relative term? "Warfare." We will never declare war against a single nation in the Middle East but we will always be ready and waiting to cap a bitch because that's the power structure of Empire.

Particularly in the Middle East.

We agree on one thing: We both desperately WANT there to be an end to extralegal violence and assassinations in support of this, our Land of the Free. Where we differ is that you are still innocent enough to believe someone who says they'll do that.

OftenBen  ·  2718 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Where we differ is that you are still innocent enough to believe someone who says they'll do that.

And in one sentence you've summed up the heart of the disagreement.

kleinbl00  ·  2718 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Two days ago.

    I've come to the conclusion that if you're an idealist, this election is appalling. If you're a cynic, this election is entertaining as fuck.
johnnyFive  ·  2716 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Where we differ is that you are still innocent enough to believe someone who says they'll do that.

I'm increasingly tired of people who wear cynicism as some kind of badge of honor. If we keep our expectations low, folks will be sure to live up to them. It's nothing to do with innocence on my part. First, someone would have to actually say they're going to stop.

Plus, this doesn't somehow make my criticism of Clinton less valid.

kleinbl00  ·  2716 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Holy ad-hominem, batman! Who are these "people" that "wear cynicism as some kind of badge of honor?"

I'm stating, using facts and figures, what the world is. You are stating what you wish the world to be. "Realism" isn't "pride" any more than "idealism" is "pride". When I say that Hillary Clinton is objectively a good candidate (which, I think, is what our beef is about), I'm placing her on a continuity of actual, viable candidates for president. And don't get me wrong: I support Bernie Sanders, I agree with Bernie Sanders, I gave money to Bernie Sanders but honestly?

Bernie Sanders is far more useful, objectively, as a mobilizer of the youth and disaffected. He's an excellent rallying point for leftist values. He is an excellent social conscience for a fractious party, a much-needed gadfly to shape the core conversation and a vitally important spokesman for an entire demographic that had been largely abandoned by the Democratic Party.

But he hasn't been a particularly vital legislator.

The error you're making is in assuming a person can't be both a cynic and an idealist. Cynically, I'm totally down with a center-right legislator with ties to big business and 30 years experience in backroom dealing running the country. Idealistically, I support anyone who can shine a light on the whole process and drag the country in a better direction. These are not mutually exclusive ideas.

johnnyFive  ·  2716 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You talk down to me as an "innocent," but I'm the one engaging in ad hominem. Sure.

I'm not willing to judge Clinton based on who happens to be running, I'm judging her on her quality as a candidate. If we keep accepting "the best we can do," it's a race to the bottom, as we've clearly seen. We either decide to change it or we don't, and your position amounts to the latter.

kleinbl00  ·  2716 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm sorry if I offended you by insinuating that you were "an innocent." That was not my intent. Perhaps "idealist" would have been a better choice.

I think our fundamental agreement is that I feel we should live the life we have, not the life we want. That doesn't mean we shouldn't reach higher, it doesn't mean we shouldn't dream bigger. So I ask you: if Hillary Clinton isn't an "objectively" good presidential candidate, who is? And why?

johnnyFive  ·  2715 days ago  ·  link  ·  

No one out there is for me. Sanders or the Greens came closest, I'd say.

When Jill Stein ran in 2012, she was much more reasonable (as shown by her AmA on reddit. The Greens this time around went far too into the liberal version of anti-science for my taste, and have generally done a piss-poor job at explaining their positions on much of anything.