One comment I saw that really changed my view on this is that tolerance is not a value, it is a contract.
The liberal society says "you agree to tolerate me and I agree tolerate you for mutual peace, prosperity, etc," and when someone breaks that deal you are no longer obligated to tolerate them. There is no paradox.
of assemblers’ with a racial, class and gender inclusive vision versus the dissemblers’ vision of control using unscientific bloat of superior powers, tearing population into parts from
Slaves to master framework
In a tight elitism we the people who regard the virtues of honesty and integrity high above bluster the grounded minds can map course if and when we consider justice as sacred, above self and the high bar to higher civilization. The goal gaining successful inclusiveness undoing itself by meeting the dissemblers on any ground.
This is a nice companion piece with your old pal Josh Marshall's recent essay about the Epstein files and the MAGA obsession with pedophilia and sex trafficking. A great quote from it:
"[Pedophilia] is more a legitimating tool which provides a license for cleansing acts of retributive violence and revenge. This is what’s at the end of the story in every far-right/MAGA conspiracy: a wave of eliminationist, cleansing violence led by someone like Trump in which the bad guys, the liberals, the Democrats, the globalist elites, etc etc are wiped out."
Unrelated, it's also something that drives me crazy reading Yglesias - the continued assumption of Republican good faith undermines a lot of his arguments, especially while he's hippie-punching.
From my perspective as a lawyer, the idea that we cannot examine the character of the speaker is bizarre. The credibility of the speaker is intrinsic to the message of that speaker. We must always consider the source when assessing arguments. Part of assessing speech is whether we find the speaker to be credible. I think people get a little confused because we cannot convict someone of a crime in a court of law simply because of their character and how we feel about that. We can only convict them for their actions. But in politics, we absolutely can and should vote or not vote for someone based on their character.
These questions must be asked when a voter is deciding whether to buy a politician's arguments. Are they known to lie? Do they have first-hand knowledge of their facts? Where did they acquire their education, i.e. do they actually understand how life/and/or government works? Do they have shady connections to the underworld, do they have a conflict of interest, have they been bought off, are they a fabulist, do they have a motive to lie or hide the truth, the list goes on and on. When cross-examining a witness, your goal is to use questions which are actually aimed at the jury to force the witness to reveal themselves thereby discredit their testimony. I always find it surprising when people say it is not worthwhile to press bad faith actors in this way because we can't change their minds. Of course we can't! We don't intend to do that.
Our cross-examination of people is not about the witness or the speaker. It is about the audience. The audience needs additional information about whether the speaker should be given creedence. That's what is so great about a debater like Hasan. That young man's boss got a load of what the kid is really about. This made the boss decide either that he/she would exercise their right of free speech and fire him or that the business might lose credibility with the public if he remained an employee. We must rigorously test every speaker's credibility in the marketplace of ideas. The more bad faith speakers we reveal, the better. Make them bare their teeth. Then ask the voters - are you on board with this? Is this who you are?
This is a great piece. I have been discussing a similar concept with some of my fellow lawyer friends - that the government should no longer be accorded a presumption of regularity in court cases (see Judge Xinis’ comments in the recent Abrego Garcia hearing). Those two related concepts - bad faith and unfair and irregular dealing - need somehow to be emphasized. Some theme like “you wouldn’t be friends with someone who acts like this - why would you trust them with control of the government?” as a start, then more pointed over time.
And both of these themes need to be part in particular of calling the Supreme Court out for its shadow docket behavior - do a simple character argument instead of legalese.
There's a bit of family lore that, as a kid freshly able to read, I was looking through a newspaper that had side by side stories about Republican ambitions to cut both Social Security and Head Start, and upon learning what these were, asked why they hated kids and old people, and thankfully I don't think I've ever gotten over the nagging suspicion that that's the whole game for the GOP from Reagan on, and everything else has been set dressing. Amidst two generations of concern about polarization (generally with an attached, be-the-bigger-person note that this was a problem for liberals to solve, when the data suggested it was mostly the right tracking right) I've been hungry for politicians that would point out in plain language that a non-trivial fraction of the leadership class of the other side was using any grand arguments about theory to duck being called Nazis when there were enough people around with living memory of that being a bad thing.
I'm 65. My grandfather, who lived through the depression, said to never trust a Republican. They are not on the side of the people. The facts do not dissuade me from that.
Yes! There’s some tired aphorism about “the remedy for bad speech is more good speech.” However, I think the NPR-type reflex of giving equal weight to “both sides,” uncritically lauding “bipartisanship“, or giving bad actors equal time and a platform is lazy and wrong. Obviously most complex social & political questions have more than two “sides “ but you won’t hear about any others. Mehdi Hasan and Sam Seder have both appeared on Jubilee’s Surrounded, but they have exceptional debating skills , information retention and composure in hostile territory .id like to see Dems mocking and correcting the GOP lies every day, even if they can’t turn in a polished performance.
It's worth noting that Brian's argument is an echo of earlier discussions of the same thing by the philosopher Karl Popper, who influenced his student George Soros, who started the Open Society Foundation to fight fascism. All recognize that complete tolerance of intolerance leads to disaster.
What you write here resonates with what I am reading just now in Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism: “For a considerable length of time the normality of the normal world is the most efficient protection against disclosure of totalitarian mass crimes. ‘Normal men don’t know everything is possible,’ refuse to believe their eyes and ears in the face of the monstrous . . .”. A few pages later she observes that “the very immensity of the crimes guarantees that the murderers who proclaim their innocence with all manner of lies will be more readily believed than victims who tell the truth.” I think we on the left side of the aisle need to guard against our frailties in this regard not only when confronted by things that seem too improbable to be true proclaimed by the right, but also when proclaimed by some on our own side of the aisle.
Connor Estelle isn't a rightist. He's a fascist, or rather, a Nazi. Or an old-fashioned Soviet Communist, though he would probably be horrified by the idea. The absolute antithesis of democracy is "the end justifies the means."
Hell yeah! You’ve put into words what I’ve been observing for years. Time to recognize the bad faith and respond accordingly. This article is the reason I clicked Upgrade.
If Cancel Culture wasn't alliterative, it would never have caught-on as it did. It is entirely bad-faith to claim there is some unorganized force against which solid, gleeful Nazis must push to engage in respectful debate. I'd fire Estelle, no matter what his job was, the moment I became aware of his despicable philosophy - no need for customer complaints, letters to the editor or indignant customers. Estelles should be unemployable.
See? "Cancel Gary" the insidious anti-free-speech movement won't go anywhere.
Media boosts bad faith every time a sentence begins with "Trump believes", "Musk believes", "Bondi believes"... Write, Instead, "Trump said this but did this so if he has beliefs other than "gimme now!" they remain inscrutable".
This is arguably the most important essay for anyone who considers themselves a liberal (and honestly, most self-proclaimed leftists) to read as they are buffeted by the winds – or submerged until drowned (and thereby proven a non-witch, a “good liberal”) – in a rising ocean of bad faith.
The climate is changing- literally and rhetorically– and in both cases, we either adapt or slowly, agonizingly, die.
To adapt one of my favorite lines about climate change: fascism will manifest as a series of Jubilee appearances viewed through phones, each clip coming closer and closer to where you live– until you are the one surrounded by 20 fascists.
Character impacts how we operate in the world across all contexts and cant be isolated. People make mistakes, especially when they're mad or scared or stressed but a persistent pattern=character. Bill Clinton should have never been invited to speak at the DNC. Makes us look like we're full of shit.
THE PARADOX OF TOLERANCE
BY PHILOSOPHER KARL POPPER:
SHOULD A TOLERANT
SOCIETY TOLERATE INTOLERANCE?
IT'S A PARADOX, BUT UNLIMITED TOLERANCE CAN LEAD TO THE EXTINCTION OF TOLERANCE.
WHEN WE EXTEND TOLERANCE TO THOSE WHO ARE OPENLY INTOLERANT...
…THE TOLERANT ONES END UP BEING DESTROYED, AND TOLERANCE WITH THEM.
ANY MOVEMENT THAT PREACHES INTOLERANCE AND PERSECUTION MUST BE OUTSIDE OF THE LAW.
AS PARADOXICAL AS IT MAY SEEM, DEFENDING TOLERANCE... REQUIRES TO NOT TOLERATE THE INTOLERANT.
*Source: The Open Society and Its Enemies, Korl R. Popper
One comment I saw that really changed my view on this is that tolerance is not a value, it is a contract.
The liberal society says "you agree to tolerate me and I agree tolerate you for mutual peace, prosperity, etc," and when someone breaks that deal you are no longer obligated to tolerate them. There is no paradox.
Thanks for the citation to Popper. I remembered that he influenced Soros, but I couldn't remember this specific quote.
a bifurcated world made up
of assemblers’ with a racial, class and gender inclusive vision versus the dissemblers’ vision of control using unscientific bloat of superior powers, tearing population into parts from
Slaves to master framework
In a tight elitism we the people who regard the virtues of honesty and integrity high above bluster the grounded minds can map course if and when we consider justice as sacred, above self and the high bar to higher civilization. The goal gaining successful inclusiveness undoing itself by meeting the dissemblers on any ground.
This is a nice companion piece with your old pal Josh Marshall's recent essay about the Epstein files and the MAGA obsession with pedophilia and sex trafficking. A great quote from it:
"[Pedophilia] is more a legitimating tool which provides a license for cleansing acts of retributive violence and revenge. This is what’s at the end of the story in every far-right/MAGA conspiracy: a wave of eliminationist, cleansing violence led by someone like Trump in which the bad guys, the liberals, the Democrats, the globalist elites, etc etc are wiped out."
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/understanding-magas-obsession-with-pedophilia-and-no-other-sex-crimes/sharetoken/35c559e4-1fc9-4839-bbae-c9c9eb6ceb0d
Unrelated, it's also something that drives me crazy reading Yglesias - the continued assumption of Republican good faith undermines a lot of his arguments, especially while he's hippie-punching.
Thanks for the piece. Such an important concept for us to all think about and operate under, imo.
From my perspective as a lawyer, the idea that we cannot examine the character of the speaker is bizarre. The credibility of the speaker is intrinsic to the message of that speaker. We must always consider the source when assessing arguments. Part of assessing speech is whether we find the speaker to be credible. I think people get a little confused because we cannot convict someone of a crime in a court of law simply because of their character and how we feel about that. We can only convict them for their actions. But in politics, we absolutely can and should vote or not vote for someone based on their character.
These questions must be asked when a voter is deciding whether to buy a politician's arguments. Are they known to lie? Do they have first-hand knowledge of their facts? Where did they acquire their education, i.e. do they actually understand how life/and/or government works? Do they have shady connections to the underworld, do they have a conflict of interest, have they been bought off, are they a fabulist, do they have a motive to lie or hide the truth, the list goes on and on. When cross-examining a witness, your goal is to use questions which are actually aimed at the jury to force the witness to reveal themselves thereby discredit their testimony. I always find it surprising when people say it is not worthwhile to press bad faith actors in this way because we can't change their minds. Of course we can't! We don't intend to do that.
Our cross-examination of people is not about the witness or the speaker. It is about the audience. The audience needs additional information about whether the speaker should be given creedence. That's what is so great about a debater like Hasan. That young man's boss got a load of what the kid is really about. This made the boss decide either that he/she would exercise their right of free speech and fire him or that the business might lose credibility with the public if he remained an employee. We must rigorously test every speaker's credibility in the marketplace of ideas. The more bad faith speakers we reveal, the better. Make them bare their teeth. Then ask the voters - are you on board with this? Is this who you are?
This doesn't seem that hard to understand to me.
I could of used this as a basic reference when i was younger...
This is a great piece. I have been discussing a similar concept with some of my fellow lawyer friends - that the government should no longer be accorded a presumption of regularity in court cases (see Judge Xinis’ comments in the recent Abrego Garcia hearing). Those two related concepts - bad faith and unfair and irregular dealing - need somehow to be emphasized. Some theme like “you wouldn’t be friends with someone who acts like this - why would you trust them with control of the government?” as a start, then more pointed over time.
And both of these themes need to be part in particular of calling the Supreme Court out for its shadow docket behavior - do a simple character argument instead of legalese.
Thank you for this. An essential building block.
Sotomayor and comrades have tried to emphasize the “clean hands” doctrine, so far to no avail.
There's a bit of family lore that, as a kid freshly able to read, I was looking through a newspaper that had side by side stories about Republican ambitions to cut both Social Security and Head Start, and upon learning what these were, asked why they hated kids and old people, and thankfully I don't think I've ever gotten over the nagging suspicion that that's the whole game for the GOP from Reagan on, and everything else has been set dressing. Amidst two generations of concern about polarization (generally with an attached, be-the-bigger-person note that this was a problem for liberals to solve, when the data suggested it was mostly the right tracking right) I've been hungry for politicians that would point out in plain language that a non-trivial fraction of the leadership class of the other side was using any grand arguments about theory to duck being called Nazis when there were enough people around with living memory of that being a bad thing.
I'm 65. My grandfather, who lived through the depression, said to never trust a Republican. They are not on the side of the people. The facts do not dissuade me from that.
Yes! There’s some tired aphorism about “the remedy for bad speech is more good speech.” However, I think the NPR-type reflex of giving equal weight to “both sides,” uncritically lauding “bipartisanship“, or giving bad actors equal time and a platform is lazy and wrong. Obviously most complex social & political questions have more than two “sides “ but you won’t hear about any others. Mehdi Hasan and Sam Seder have both appeared on Jubilee’s Surrounded, but they have exceptional debating skills , information retention and composure in hostile territory .id like to see Dems mocking and correcting the GOP lies every day, even if they can’t turn in a polished performance.
It's worth noting that Brian's argument is an echo of earlier discussions of the same thing by the philosopher Karl Popper, who influenced his student George Soros, who started the Open Society Foundation to fight fascism. All recognize that complete tolerance of intolerance leads to disaster.
What you write here resonates with what I am reading just now in Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism: “For a considerable length of time the normality of the normal world is the most efficient protection against disclosure of totalitarian mass crimes. ‘Normal men don’t know everything is possible,’ refuse to believe their eyes and ears in the face of the monstrous . . .”. A few pages later she observes that “the very immensity of the crimes guarantees that the murderers who proclaim their innocence with all manner of lies will be more readily believed than victims who tell the truth.” I think we on the left side of the aisle need to guard against our frailties in this regard not only when confronted by things that seem too improbable to be true proclaimed by the right, but also when proclaimed by some on our own side of the aisle.
Connor Estelle isn't a rightist. He's a fascist, or rather, a Nazi. Or an old-fashioned Soviet Communist, though he would probably be horrified by the idea. The absolute antithesis of democracy is "the end justifies the means."
Hell yeah! You’ve put into words what I’ve been observing for years. Time to recognize the bad faith and respond accordingly. This article is the reason I clicked Upgrade.
Oh people knew. They were just painted as shrill and hyperbolic.
If Cancel Culture wasn't alliterative, it would never have caught-on as it did. It is entirely bad-faith to claim there is some unorganized force against which solid, gleeful Nazis must push to engage in respectful debate. I'd fire Estelle, no matter what his job was, the moment I became aware of his despicable philosophy - no need for customer complaints, letters to the editor or indignant customers. Estelles should be unemployable.
See? "Cancel Gary" the insidious anti-free-speech movement won't go anywhere.
Media boosts bad faith every time a sentence begins with "Trump believes", "Musk believes", "Bondi believes"... Write, Instead, "Trump said this but did this so if he has beliefs other than "gimme now!" they remain inscrutable".
This is arguably the most important essay for anyone who considers themselves a liberal (and honestly, most self-proclaimed leftists) to read as they are buffeted by the winds – or submerged until drowned (and thereby proven a non-witch, a “good liberal”) – in a rising ocean of bad faith.
The climate is changing- literally and rhetorically– and in both cases, we either adapt or slowly, agonizingly, die.
To adapt one of my favorite lines about climate change: fascism will manifest as a series of Jubilee appearances viewed through phones, each clip coming closer and closer to where you live– until you are the one surrounded by 20 fascists.
Too bad Estelle doesn’t belong to a union. Maybe he could get his job back for being fired without “just cause.”
No pity for an eliminationist being eliminated.
Any of these pukes who cries “no fair” should tell us what fairness has to do with anything.
https://hypatia.ca/2017/07/18/the-al-capone-theory-of-sexual-harassment/
Character impacts how we operate in the world across all contexts and cant be isolated. People make mistakes, especially when they're mad or scared or stressed but a persistent pattern=character. Bill Clinton should have never been invited to speak at the DNC. Makes us look like we're full of shit.