Ah, I see from this Ian Leslie piece that Roxane Gay in the NYT(I hadn't read it) may have been making something like the argument that I was finding hard to get my head round from nous and russell. The piece by Leslie reflects at least some of what I think about it. (I have not ever tried to copy such a long piece on the new site before - let's see what happens).
Is Civility a Fantasy?
Maybe - But It's One That Democracy Depends On
Ian Leslie
Oct 04, 2025
∙ Paid
This week: is there any point to civility? (Includes a brief jaunt through its history).
In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, JD Vance hosted an edition of The Charlie Kirk Show. This is what America’s leading statesman do now, at moments of national crisis: rather than deliver a sober address from behind a lectern, they grab a mic and start frothing. In conversation with Stephen Miller, Vance said, “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out. Hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility, and there is no civility in the celebration of political assassination.”
It was the latest example of Vance’s frictionless hypocrisy. In February, the Wall Street Journal reported that a DOGE staff member had boasted, just last year, about being a racist. Vance defended the aide and attacked “journalists who try to destroy people”. He said, “I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life.” So - cancel culture is bad, but if you see someone posting a dumb tweet about Kirk, it’s your patriotic duty to get them fired. This is before we get to the absurdity of claiming to believe in civility while acting as head boy to a president who glories in insulting opponents and using the f-word. You might suspect Vance of self-parody if he weren’t so joyless.
Last week the academic and essayist Roxane Gay denounced Vance’s words in a column for the New York Times. She didn’t just criticise his double standards; she denounced the idea of civility itself, calling it “a fantasy”. Often, people criticise a double standard without saying which of the two standards they prefer, which always strikes me as evasive, so I commend her boldness. But I think Gay comes down on the wrong side here.
Gay declares her argument in this paragraph:
Civility — this idea that there is a perfect, polite way to communicate about sociopolitical differences — is a fantasy. The people who call for civility harbor the belief that we can contend with challenging ideas, and we can be open to changing our minds, and we can be well mannered even in the face of significant differences. For such an atmosphere to exist, we would have to forget everything that makes us who we are. We would have to believe, despite so much evidence to the contrary, that the world is a fair and just place. And we would have to have nothing at stake.
She goes on to argue that demands for civility assume everyone operates from equal footing, ignoring actual inequalities. She says that civility is used to silence dissent and exercise social control. It requires marginalized people to be polite, even as their rights are stripped away.
Let’s start with what I agree with.
I agree with Gay that in what she calls the “beautiful mess” of a modern democracy, political protest can’t be cautious or demure. Even if I think there’s too much anger in politics at the moment, I don’t yearn for a world in which politics is a super-rational Oxford seminar. Politics entails disagreement over things we care about; it’s inevitably emotional and personal. It shouldn’t be a blood sport but it shouldn’t be bloodless. An emotional outburst can sometimes tell us more than a carefully constructed argument. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “Sometimes, a scream is better than a thesis.”
I also agree that the “fantasy” of a perfectly polite political conversation can be used to exclude whole groups of people from the realm of legitimate discourse. In fact, that was one of the original functions of civility. In England, the distinction between civilised and barbarous behaviour emerged around the same time - the early modern period - as Englishmen were asserting the right to invade, dominate and exploit other countries.
Society was also becoming less stratified, which led the upper classes to develop an elaborate and strictly enforced system of social etiquette, partly to keep vulgar tradesmen in their place. They then bequeathed these fine manners to genteel American Southerners, who used them to justify the exclusion of black Americans from the democratic commonweal.
To rebel against an established order has often meant rebelling against its version of civility. When Martin Luther took on the Catholic Church, he adopted the Trump-like tactic of using deliberately rude and offensive language, in order to signal that this wasn’t going to be business, or theology, as usual. He described his opponents as “the scum of all the most evil people on earth” and called Pope Paul III “dearest little ass-pope” and “pope fart-ass”.
But the post-Reformation era also shows us why Gay might be wrong to conclude that civility is unnecessary. Modern ideas of “diversity” and inclusion”, which I’d guess she supports, are rooted in habits of social behaviour which emerged during that time. As the Church splintered, people in Europe and the New World struggled to work out how to live alongside those they regarded as fundamentally alien, and wrong about everything. The rise of commercial society in the eighteenth century made this question more pressing, as did an unwillingness to return to the religious wars of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
The profit motive bred respectful interactions across barriers of race and religion. Voltaire said of the London Stock Exchange: “Here Jew, Mohammedan and Christian deal with each other as though they were all of the same faith.” Civility ceased to mean just decorum, which was about maintaining distinctions of rank, and started to mean politeness, which was more democratic. The French novelist Mademoiselle de Scudry described it as “not wanting to be the tyrant of conversation.” As a woman in male society she would have appreciated norms which allowed quieter voices to be heard over louder ones.
Gay argues that civility is inauthentic, a mere “performance”. In almost Lutheran terms, she writes, “Civility obsessives love a silver-tongued devil, wearing a nice suit, sporting a tidy haircut, while whispering sweet bigotries.” It’s a perennial objection. Civility, in its various forms, has always been criticised as dishonest and hypocritical. Why can’t be just be true to who we are, and speak as we feel?
The problem is that if we always do that, we won’t be able to live with each other. Thomas Hobbes lived through England’s civil war, which he viewed as a religious war. and came to believe that a measure of pretence is vital to peaceful society. He found virtue in hypocrisy. Within the skull of each individual may be thoughts filthy, profane or sublime. We can’t necessarily control those, but we can control which thoughts we display to others. Civility helps us to govern this performance in accordance with the public good.
We ought to have learnt by now that too much ‘authenticity’ is harmful. Today’s hottest differences of opinion may not be religious in the traditional sense but they are hardly less fervent. One of the dangers of social media is that it allows us to see other people’s unvarnished inner monologues, which spreads conspiracy, hostility and distrust. (As John Podhoretz asks, how would American society have behaved if social media had existed on September 11, 2001?). Civility might be a fantasy, or at least a social fiction, but it’s one that democracy depends on. That’s why enemies of democracy disdain it.
It’s true that basic courtesies can ramify into a complex code that, like any code, hands an advantage to those who know it. But eighteenth-century English aristocrats are hardly the only culprits here. Modern codes of political correctness, ambiguous and ever-shifting, are used by the educated middle classes to hoard authority. If I can successfully label the words you use as “offensive” then I can stop people listening to you. Of course, some words and some views really are offensive and should be disqualifying. But narrowing the boundaries of civil discourse has long been a means by which the powerful silence undesirables, ever so politely.
The minimal sufficient response to anyone who argues against civility is, “Fuck you”. That would, of course, mean the end of the argument, but that’s the point. You cannot have any argument, you cannot have any politics, without some measure of civility. Nobody truly believes it to be unnecessary, otherwise they wouldn’t bother making an argument against it and certainly not in the august pages of the New York Times.
What we’re really debating is the form it should take. Yes, some forms stifle dissent and punish the weak; that doesn’t make civility itself any less essential. The problem with Vance and Trump is obviously not that they uphold civility too stringently; it’s the opposite. They are making war on civility. It’s odd that one of their passionate opponents should want to join the same side.
The first expression that immediately leapt to mind for me was "bite the dust." As I scanned down, I read the link to the previous "Typepad bites the dust" post. Had already I read it subconsciously? I tend to think so, but it's unknowable, at least with current technology.
I should also note that 'gawp' tends to have a positive meaning, so it is not the right word. Appalled or aghast might be closer, but there's not a word for when something just short circuits any sort of judgement and you just stand there, slack-jawed.
"(etwas) bis zur Vergasung (tun)" (to do something up to the gassing)
It means to (have to) do something beyond the point where it gets really annoying/cumbersome/intolerable, e.g. having to work overtime constantly or a sports trainer or PE teacher forcing yet another round around the stadium (and then another, and another...)
Originating from WW1 and popular in the inter-war years. Since WW2 there is a taboo because most people assume it is referring to the holocaust. But it is still used, often unthinkingly.
Granted, being in a single family dwelling would tend to avoid that scenario.
No guarantee. These guys (and the police too) get addresses wrong all the time and will not listen (let alone admit fault). There is also a tendency to leave the place crashed and the pets shot. And don't try home defense or you'll join the pets.
Interesting stuff. My own feeling is that a big problem arises when people take positions that they don't really have a stake in, but use it to fight against the other side. This raises the question of whether an issue is something that a person is really committed to or if it is 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'. So when Charles argues, after a long history of arguing for libertarian principles, how front doors of ICE facilities need National Guard protection, I wonder if he's for real or just trolling or possibly just doesn't know the difference.
It is rather illiberal to argue that someone's opinions doesn't matter, but I can think of a number of examples on both sides of people seemingly taking on opinions that don't really have a lot to do with them but arguing for them vehemently. This goes hand in hand with the larger issue of astroturfing and fake identities. It may be a lost cause, especially for larger platforms, but we can try to do a Candide and cultivate our gardens.
Sorry, cross-posted with nous because of tedious copy-editing! The only thing I need to add, having read his, is that I see no necessity for an "artificial [or even non-artificial] levelling of the sides". Arguing about something does not preclude one calling it immoral, or dangerous.
There’s no way to structure things in a way that looks even and balanced when the right has decided that they don’t need to listen to, work with, or care about anything and anyone on the other side.
Why do we need to "structure things in a way that looks even and balanced"? Any discussion we have on a blog surely just needs to be argued reasonably civilly, without tricks or ignoring the context - the kinds of things "the right" might argue here will not necessarily change their unwillingness "to listen to, work with or care about anything and anyone on the other side", but if they're commenting here there's presumably some reason for it, and as we have often seen in the past, such discussions can provoke interesting exchanges.
The problem, as nous notes, is that the “two sides” aren’t really comparable at this point.
Alas, this is inarguably so. But surely that is exactly what our discussions highlight? Most of us have already acknowledged that we do not or cannot have these conversations in real life. But isn't there some benefit to continuing to have them here, even if it is only (and I don't think it is) as a way to vent some of our feelings? After all, we still talk to Charles, and he still talks to us, even though his opinion of Ubu has (glacially slowly) somewhat changed?
I think a lot of people found the way that the early centrist blogs performed that even-handedness that russell identifies above to be productive and valuable for getting past ideological positions to something more dynamic. It was widespread enough that people learned how to do it as a sort of generic exercise. A lot of bright people have a hard time knowing how to get at that sort of cross-cutting commentary without falling back on the structures they have learned for writing those sorts of commentary.
That's not always a failure of good faith, sometimes it's just a struggle with form combined with an impatience with impasse.
But the effect of that, of course, is to create a sort of artificial leveling of the sides through equivocation, which hollows out the resulting conversation. That leads to a different form of impatience and frustration.
nous: well, I don't think we need to have things be (or look) even and balanced to want someone who is arguing in good faith to acknowledge that while approving of some things the government is doing, they also acknowledge that those things may pale into insignificance compared to some of the other things it is doing.
When Charles says "I agree with most of the criticisms of Trump. I don’t feel compelled to reiterate them.", but still argues in favour of suppression of the ICE protests in Portland, while ignoring for example what is fuelling the anti-ICE movements nationwide, I think that this shows a certain amount of bad faith (whether intentional or not). The context of the anti-ICE protests, including but not limited to the unwillingness of the states to have them operate in these ways, is an important element, surely? It is still possible to have conservative (and I am supposing libertarian) voices discuss how they do not disagree with everything the government is doing, but still despise and condemn others of their actions. You see it with people like David Frum, and the Lincoln Project people, for example. I do not think we should give up on aspiring to have rational, good faith discussions with people of opposing opinions.
I don't think the fault lies in CharlesWT so much as in the devolution of what passes for mainstream right wing politics. There's no way to structure things in a way that looks even and balanced when the right has decided that they don't need to listen to, work with, or care about anything and anyone on the other side.
An entire genre of blog commentary cannot function anymore, no matter how we try to replicate it.
On the street, sure. But consider the recent case of ICE busting into an apartment building and effectively taking everyone inside into custody. With getting back out of custody being a matter of having to prove your innocence. Being an old white guy like you or me not being any protection against finding yourself in cuffs (more likely zip ties), lying in the street for a couple of hours wearing whatever you happened to be using for sleep wear.
Granted, being in a single family dwelling would tend to avoid that scenario. But there's no reason that I can see that the same treatment might not be visited on, for example, everybody who happened to be in a particular store or restaurant.
I confess that I have considered the merits of routinely carrying my passport with me. Just to have some sort of proof of citizenship readily to hand.
"Papers, please!". (Except that there's no way these thugs say "please".)
I don't know if it is because I have been digging around the archives, but my sense is that Charles is trying to replicate those glorious conversations of old between liberal and conservative voices. Unfortunately, Charles (and Grok, I assume) are really only a pale imitation of those commenters past. First rule of holes, Charles.
And Charles, that was what I was getting at by asking if you had read that link: you were arguing in favour of the need for the feds to fight small numbers of "Antifa" protesters outside an ICE facility, in a state which had rejected their "help", while ICE and other DOJ forces are going after often harmless, blameless people because they look brown or speak Spanish, irrespective of any grounds for suspicion of illegality.
This is explicit, unlawful, and unaccountable state violence – in some cases extreme – toward harmless people.
***
It’s terrorism, by the government, directed toward peaceful residents, both legal and not. It’s not something we have seen here at this level, and as far as I can tell we have no means of curbing it
To be perfectly honest, I am less concerned about violence between folks like the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer and their ilk, versus "antifa" however that term is construed.
What I am most disturbed by is the violence brought by federal law enforcement, most especially ICE.
You can walk away from a Proud Boy vs. antifa fight. If they really insist on bringing to you, which is only likely to happen in situations you can pretty easily avoid, you can fight back to the best of your ability. Or just run away.
If ICE or the FBI or similar come for you, the options of walking away or fighting back are not really available. They'll get you jailed or shot.
This is explicit, unlawful, and unaccountable state violence - in some cases extreme - toward harmless people. It is utterly unnecessary for purposes of finding and dealing with people who are here without legal status.
It's terrorism, by the government, directed toward peaceful residents, both legal and not. It's not something we have seen here at this level, and as far as I can tell we have no means of curbing it.
I appreciate the suggestion, wj, but let's not overlook the larger point. It's not myself I worry about. The circumstances in which I, an aging white guy with no discernible foreignness about me, might need to prove my citizenship to an ICE "agent" on the street are circumstances in which you or anybody else could find themselves.
--TP
Charles, did you actually read russell’s link at 7.35? Is that necessary, or OK with you?
I agree with most of the criticisms of Trump. I don't feel compelled to reiterate them.
The government has more important things it could be doing than chasing down illegal immigrants who haven't broken the law, have jobs, and families. The ones who have been here for some number of years and stayed out of trouble should be given a path to becoming legal. More legal immigration should be allowed, and the bureaucratic nightmare of doing so should be fixed.
Afterword to my earlier comment about "play stupid games, win stupid prizes..."
I'd prefer that the prizes that people won for playing stupid games were the most gentle possible version of the prize that would actually relieve them of the urge to play stupid games and steer them into playing smart games that have prizes we all get to share to our mutual benefit.
Like Marty during the first He, Trump regime, CharlesWT now freely denounces He, Trump while supporting His anti-anti-fascist actions. The Libertarian(TM) attitude is getting awfully close to the MAGAt position on free speech: "I will defend to the death your right to agree with me."
Speaking of defending rights, russell pointed out upthread that those who insist they need guns to defend against government tyranny never seem to get around to defending other people's rights with them.
I ask CharlesWT in all seriousness: what does he want National Guard or even Regular Army troops to actually do in "war-ravaged" American cities?
On “Where are the 5 words?”
Ah, I see from this Ian Leslie piece that Roxane Gay in the NYT(I hadn't read it) may have been making something like the argument that I was finding hard to get my head round from nous and russell. The piece by Leslie reflects at least some of what I think about it. (I have not ever tried to copy such a long piece on the new site before - let's see what happens).
Is Civility a Fantasy?
Maybe - But It's One That Democracy Depends On
Ian Leslie
Oct 04, 2025
∙ Paid
This week: is there any point to civility? (Includes a brief jaunt through its history).
In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, JD Vance hosted an edition of The Charlie Kirk Show. This is what America’s leading statesman do now, at moments of national crisis: rather than deliver a sober address from behind a lectern, they grab a mic and start frothing. In conversation with Stephen Miller, Vance said, “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out. Hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility, and there is no civility in the celebration of political assassination.”
It was the latest example of Vance’s frictionless hypocrisy. In February, the Wall Street Journal reported that a DOGE staff member had boasted, just last year, about being a racist. Vance defended the aide and attacked “journalists who try to destroy people”. He said, “I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life.” So - cancel culture is bad, but if you see someone posting a dumb tweet about Kirk, it’s your patriotic duty to get them fired. This is before we get to the absurdity of claiming to believe in civility while acting as head boy to a president who glories in insulting opponents and using the f-word. You might suspect Vance of self-parody if he weren’t so joyless.
Last week the academic and essayist Roxane Gay denounced Vance’s words in a column for the New York Times. She didn’t just criticise his double standards; she denounced the idea of civility itself, calling it “a fantasy”. Often, people criticise a double standard without saying which of the two standards they prefer, which always strikes me as evasive, so I commend her boldness. But I think Gay comes down on the wrong side here.
Gay declares her argument in this paragraph:
Civility — this idea that there is a perfect, polite way to communicate about sociopolitical differences — is a fantasy. The people who call for civility harbor the belief that we can contend with challenging ideas, and we can be open to changing our minds, and we can be well mannered even in the face of significant differences. For such an atmosphere to exist, we would have to forget everything that makes us who we are. We would have to believe, despite so much evidence to the contrary, that the world is a fair and just place. And we would have to have nothing at stake.
She goes on to argue that demands for civility assume everyone operates from equal footing, ignoring actual inequalities. She says that civility is used to silence dissent and exercise social control. It requires marginalized people to be polite, even as their rights are stripped away.
Let’s start with what I agree with.
I agree with Gay that in what she calls the “beautiful mess” of a modern democracy, political protest can’t be cautious or demure. Even if I think there’s too much anger in politics at the moment, I don’t yearn for a world in which politics is a super-rational Oxford seminar. Politics entails disagreement over things we care about; it’s inevitably emotional and personal. It shouldn’t be a blood sport but it shouldn’t be bloodless. An emotional outburst can sometimes tell us more than a carefully constructed argument. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “Sometimes, a scream is better than a thesis.”
I also agree that the “fantasy” of a perfectly polite political conversation can be used to exclude whole groups of people from the realm of legitimate discourse. In fact, that was one of the original functions of civility. In England, the distinction between civilised and barbarous behaviour emerged around the same time - the early modern period - as Englishmen were asserting the right to invade, dominate and exploit other countries.
Society was also becoming less stratified, which led the upper classes to develop an elaborate and strictly enforced system of social etiquette, partly to keep vulgar tradesmen in their place. They then bequeathed these fine manners to genteel American Southerners, who used them to justify the exclusion of black Americans from the democratic commonweal.
To rebel against an established order has often meant rebelling against its version of civility. When Martin Luther took on the Catholic Church, he adopted the Trump-like tactic of using deliberately rude and offensive language, in order to signal that this wasn’t going to be business, or theology, as usual. He described his opponents as “the scum of all the most evil people on earth” and called Pope Paul III “dearest little ass-pope” and “pope fart-ass”.
But the post-Reformation era also shows us why Gay might be wrong to conclude that civility is unnecessary. Modern ideas of “diversity” and inclusion”, which I’d guess she supports, are rooted in habits of social behaviour which emerged during that time. As the Church splintered, people in Europe and the New World struggled to work out how to live alongside those they regarded as fundamentally alien, and wrong about everything. The rise of commercial society in the eighteenth century made this question more pressing, as did an unwillingness to return to the religious wars of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
The profit motive bred respectful interactions across barriers of race and religion. Voltaire said of the London Stock Exchange: “Here Jew, Mohammedan and Christian deal with each other as though they were all of the same faith.” Civility ceased to mean just decorum, which was about maintaining distinctions of rank, and started to mean politeness, which was more democratic. The French novelist Mademoiselle de Scudry described it as “not wanting to be the tyrant of conversation.” As a woman in male society she would have appreciated norms which allowed quieter voices to be heard over louder ones.
Gay argues that civility is inauthentic, a mere “performance”. In almost Lutheran terms, she writes, “Civility obsessives love a silver-tongued devil, wearing a nice suit, sporting a tidy haircut, while whispering sweet bigotries.” It’s a perennial objection. Civility, in its various forms, has always been criticised as dishonest and hypocritical. Why can’t be just be true to who we are, and speak as we feel?
The problem is that if we always do that, we won’t be able to live with each other. Thomas Hobbes lived through England’s civil war, which he viewed as a religious war. and came to believe that a measure of pretence is vital to peaceful society. He found virtue in hypocrisy. Within the skull of each individual may be thoughts filthy, profane or sublime. We can’t necessarily control those, but we can control which thoughts we display to others. Civility helps us to govern this performance in accordance with the public good.
We ought to have learnt by now that too much ‘authenticity’ is harmful. Today’s hottest differences of opinion may not be religious in the traditional sense but they are hardly less fervent. One of the dangers of social media is that it allows us to see other people’s unvarnished inner monologues, which spreads conspiracy, hostility and distrust. (As John Podhoretz asks, how would American society have behaved if social media had existed on September 11, 2001?). Civility might be a fantasy, or at least a social fiction, but it’s one that democracy depends on. That’s why enemies of democracy disdain it.
It’s true that basic courtesies can ramify into a complex code that, like any code, hands an advantage to those who know it. But eighteenth-century English aristocrats are hardly the only culprits here. Modern codes of political correctness, ambiguous and ever-shifting, are used by the educated middle classes to hoard authority. If I can successfully label the words you use as “offensive” then I can stop people listening to you. Of course, some words and some views really are offensive and should be disqualifying. But narrowing the boundaries of civil discourse has long been a means by which the powerful silence undesirables, ever so politely.
The minimal sufficient response to anyone who argues against civility is, “Fuck you”. That would, of course, mean the end of the argument, but that’s the point. You cannot have any argument, you cannot have any politics, without some measure of civility. Nobody truly believes it to be unnecessary, otherwise they wouldn’t bother making an argument against it and certainly not in the august pages of the New York Times.
What we’re really debating is the form it should take. Yes, some forms stifle dissent and punish the weak; that doesn’t make civility itself any less essential. The problem with Vance and Trump is obviously not that they uphold civility too stringently; it’s the opposite. They are making war on civility. It’s odd that one of their passionate opponents should want to join the same side.
On “WTF moments at cultural borders”
In German one bites the grass instead of the dust before watching the radish from below (no pushing up daisies)
"
The first expression that immediately leapt to mind for me was "bite the dust." As I scanned down, I read the link to the previous "Typepad bites the dust" post. Had already I read it subconsciously? I tend to think so, but it's unknowable, at least with current technology.
"
Hartmut, holy shit...
I should also note that 'gawp' tends to have a positive meaning, so it is not the right word. Appalled or aghast might be closer, but there's not a word for when something just short circuits any sort of judgement and you just stand there, slack-jawed.
"
"(etwas) bis zur Vergasung (tun)" (to do something up to the gassing)
It means to (have to) do something beyond the point where it gets really annoying/cumbersome/intolerable, e.g. having to work overtime constantly or a sports trainer or PE teacher forcing yet another round around the stadium (and then another, and another...)
Originating from WW1 and popular in the inter-war years. Since WW2 there is a taboo because most people assume it is referring to the holocaust. But it is still used, often unthinkingly.
On “Citizenship”
Granted, being in a single family dwelling would tend to avoid that scenario.
No guarantee. These guys (and the police too) get addresses wrong all the time and will not listen (let alone admit fault). There is also a tendency to leave the place crashed and the pets shot. And don't try home defense or you'll join the pets.
On “Where are the 5 words?”
Interesting stuff. My own feeling is that a big problem arises when people take positions that they don't really have a stake in, but use it to fight against the other side. This raises the question of whether an issue is something that a person is really committed to or if it is 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'. So when Charles argues, after a long history of arguing for libertarian principles, how front doors of ICE facilities need National Guard protection, I wonder if he's for real or just trolling or possibly just doesn't know the difference.
It is rather illiberal to argue that someone's opinions doesn't matter, but I can think of a number of examples on both sides of people seemingly taking on opinions that don't really have a lot to do with them but arguing for them vehemently. This goes hand in hand with the larger issue of astroturfing and fake identities. It may be a lost cause, especially for larger platforms, but we can try to do a Candide and cultivate our gardens.
"
Sorry, cross-posted with nous because of tedious copy-editing! The only thing I need to add, having read his, is that I see no necessity for an "artificial [or even non-artificial] levelling of the sides". Arguing about something does not preclude one calling it immoral, or dangerous.
"
There's something I'm missing here.
There’s no way to structure things in a way that looks even and balanced when the right has decided that they don’t need to listen to, work with, or care about anything and anyone on the other side.
Why do we need to "structure things in a way that looks even and balanced"? Any discussion we have on a blog surely just needs to be argued reasonably civilly, without tricks or ignoring the context - the kinds of things "the right" might argue here will not necessarily change their unwillingness "to listen to, work with or care about anything and anyone on the other side", but if they're commenting here there's presumably some reason for it, and as we have often seen in the past, such discussions can provoke interesting exchanges.
The problem, as nous notes, is that the “two sides” aren’t really comparable at this point.
Alas, this is inarguably so. But surely that is exactly what our discussions highlight? Most of us have already acknowledged that we do not or cannot have these conversations in real life. But isn't there some benefit to continuing to have them here, even if it is only (and I don't think it is) as a way to vent some of our feelings? After all, we still talk to Charles, and he still talks to us, even though his opinion of Ubu has (glacially slowly) somewhat changed?
"
I think a lot of people found the way that the early centrist blogs performed that even-handedness that russell identifies above to be productive and valuable for getting past ideological positions to something more dynamic. It was widespread enough that people learned how to do it as a sort of generic exercise. A lot of bright people have a hard time knowing how to get at that sort of cross-cutting commentary without falling back on the structures they have learned for writing those sorts of commentary.
That's not always a failure of good faith, sometimes it's just a struggle with form combined with an impatience with impasse.
But the effect of that, of course, is to create a sort of artificial leveling of the sides through equivocation, which hollows out the resulting conversation. That leads to a different form of impatience and frustration.
"
I'm not a mind reader and I don't wish to speak for Charles.
All of that said, his comments here strike me as an attempt to be even-handed. And to the degree that is so, I appreciate it.
The problem, as nous notes, is that the "two sides" aren't really comparable at this point.
"
nous: well, I don't think we need to have things be (or look) even and balanced to want someone who is arguing in good faith to acknowledge that while approving of some things the government is doing, they also acknowledge that those things may pale into insignificance compared to some of the other things it is doing.
When Charles says "I agree with most of the criticisms of Trump. I don’t feel compelled to reiterate them.", but still argues in favour of suppression of the ICE protests in Portland, while ignoring for example what is fuelling the anti-ICE movements nationwide, I think that this shows a certain amount of bad faith (whether intentional or not). The context of the anti-ICE protests, including but not limited to the unwillingness of the states to have them operate in these ways, is an important element, surely? It is still possible to have conservative (and I am supposing libertarian) voices discuss how they do not disagree with everything the government is doing, but still despise and condemn others of their actions. You see it with people like David Frum, and the Lincoln Project people, for example. I do not think we should give up on aspiring to have rational, good faith discussions with people of opposing opinions.
On “Citizenship”
Because, of course, everybody (even Steven Miller) has ancestors at some remove who were immigrants.
Stephen MIller.
tl;dr - Miller's great-grandfather came to the US in 1903.
On “Where are the 5 words?”
I don't think the fault lies in CharlesWT so much as in the devolution of what passes for mainstream right wing politics. There's no way to structure things in a way that looks even and balanced when the right has decided that they don't need to listen to, work with, or care about anything and anyone on the other side.
An entire genre of blog commentary cannot function anymore, no matter how we try to replicate it.
On “Citizenship”
On the street, sure. But consider the recent case of ICE busting into an apartment building and effectively taking everyone inside into custody. With getting back out of custody being a matter of having to prove your innocence. Being an old white guy like you or me not being any protection against finding yourself in cuffs (more likely zip ties), lying in the street for a couple of hours wearing whatever you happened to be using for sleep wear.
Granted, being in a single family dwelling would tend to avoid that scenario. But there's no reason that I can see that the same treatment might not be visited on, for example, everybody who happened to be in a particular store or restaurant.
I confess that I have considered the merits of routinely carrying my passport with me. Just to have some sort of proof of citizenship readily to hand.
"Papers, please!". (Except that there's no way these thugs say "please".)
On “Where are the 5 words?”
I don't know if it is because I have been digging around the archives, but my sense is that Charles is trying to replicate those glorious conversations of old between liberal and conservative voices. Unfortunately, Charles (and Grok, I assume) are really only a pale imitation of those commenters past. First rule of holes, Charles.
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Exactly what russell said.
And Charles, that was what I was getting at by asking if you had read that link: you were arguing in favour of the need for the feds to fight small numbers of "Antifa" protesters outside an ICE facility, in a state which had rejected their "help", while ICE and other DOJ forces are going after often harmless, blameless people because they look brown or speak Spanish, irrespective of any grounds for suspicion of illegality.
This is explicit, unlawful, and unaccountable state violence – in some cases extreme – toward harmless people.
***
It’s terrorism, by the government, directed toward peaceful residents, both legal and not. It’s not something we have seen here at this level, and as far as I can tell we have no means of curbing it
That is the point.
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To be perfectly honest, I am less concerned about violence between folks like the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer and their ilk, versus "antifa" however that term is construed.
What I am most disturbed by is the violence brought by federal law enforcement, most especially ICE.
You can walk away from a Proud Boy vs. antifa fight. If they really insist on bringing to you, which is only likely to happen in situations you can pretty easily avoid, you can fight back to the best of your ability. Or just run away.
If ICE or the FBI or similar come for you, the options of walking away or fighting back are not really available. They'll get you jailed or shot.
This is explicit, unlawful, and unaccountable state violence - in some cases extreme - toward harmless people. It is utterly unnecessary for purposes of finding and dealing with people who are here without legal status.
It's terrorism, by the government, directed toward peaceful residents, both legal and not. It's not something we have seen here at this level, and as far as I can tell we have no means of curbing it.
It's out of control.
On “Citizenship”
I appreciate the suggestion, wj, but let's not overlook the larger point. It's not myself I worry about. The circumstances in which I, an aging white guy with no discernible foreignness about me, might need to prove my citizenship to an ICE "agent" on the street are circumstances in which you or anybody else could find themselves.
--TP
On “Where are the 5 words?”
Charles, did you actually read russell’s link at 7.35? Is that necessary, or OK with you?
I agree with most of the criticisms of Trump. I don't feel compelled to reiterate them.
The government has more important things it could be doing than chasing down illegal immigrants who haven't broken the law, have jobs, and families. The ones who have been here for some number of years and stayed out of trouble should be given a path to becoming legal. More legal immigration should be allowed, and the bureaucratic nightmare of doing so should be fixed.
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Charles, did you actually read russell's link at 7.35? Is that necessary, or OK with you?
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"I told you so". LOL. Been sayin' that since 1967.
https://paulwaldman.substack.com/p/we-were-right
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Afterword to my earlier comment about "play stupid games, win stupid prizes..."
I'd prefer that the prizes that people won for playing stupid games were the most gentle possible version of the prize that would actually relieve them of the urge to play stupid games and steer them into playing smart games that have prizes we all get to share to our mutual benefit.
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Like Marty during the first He, Trump regime, CharlesWT now freely denounces He, Trump while supporting His anti-anti-fascist actions. The Libertarian(TM) attitude is getting awfully close to the MAGAt position on free speech: "I will defend to the death your right to agree with me."
Speaking of defending rights, russell pointed out upthread that those who insist they need guns to defend against government tyranny never seem to get around to defending other people's rights with them.
I ask CharlesWT in all seriousness: what does he want National Guard or even Regular Army troops to actually do in "war-ravaged" American cities?
--TP
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Not so different from previous administrations
With all due respect, this is utter nonsense. Full stop.
A profile of Andy Ngo
Andy Ngo waded into a riot and got beaten up. I'm not justifying the violence, I'm just pointing out the obvious.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.