US Politics

In brave service of his country, remember.

There are many.

I was talking about the civil rights thing. He had a mixed record, but softened with age.

Anyway, he’s a man I wouldn’t have voted for, but one-sided caricatures of him - for or against - are just childish tribalism imho. He was flawed, he did some good things, he did some bad things. Overall he seemed to try to do what he thought was right, though, rather than whatever would get him elected, which is a rarity in American politics, especially on his side of the aisle.

Here's a catch 22 for you - what if what I think is right is to get myself constantly re-elected?

What you seem to be saying is that a person's politics is meaningless as long as they believe in it. If it's "childish tribalism" to oppose an imperialistic racist who dedicated his entire career to fucking the poor then call me a childish tribalist I guess.

I’m saying that I can respect some of the things a person has done while utterly disagreeing with their politics, yeah. You can oppose him all you want- as I said, I would never have voted for the guy - but painting a caricature of the guy is still childish as fuck.

I haven't the time or inclination to provide a long list, but by way of example, Gill v. Anagnost. Damages of $247 million awarded by the jury.

dedicated his entire career to fucking the poor

Hyperbole is a rhetorical device which should be used with care.

Whatever his faults, McCain was someone who was able to treat those who disagreed with him with respect and sought to rise above tribal name-calling and invective. Unlike some people on this thread.

I've just read some details of that, this particularly impressed me in the settlement:

Greiner, who did not claim any direct monetary losses, $85 million

That's American juries for you. One of the reasons why so few cases go to trial. It's a sentiment-driven crapshoot.

One example is his voting against the repeal of Obamacare.
He knew he would be vilified by his party for it. He did it because he thought it was the right thing to do.
You can see videos of him casting his vote. Mitch McConnell is behind and looks like he wants to kill McCain, right there on the floor of the Senate.

Indeed. I disagree with much of his politics, and particularly his tendency to support armed intervention. That said, he undoubtedly had the courage to follow his convictions, even where that ran against party lines and was prepared to talk to his political opponents in order to pursue what he thought was the correct way forwards. While therefore I'm not going to put him on a pedestal as a paragon of virtue, I'm equally not going to write him off as some comic book arch villian. Unfortunately, shades of grey and a balanced viewpoint don't seem fashionable in today's political discourse. Everything has to be simplified down to a good/bad duality.

oh please go ahead and show me how his record stacks up of fucking the poor vs not fucking the poor.

Whatever his faults, McCain was someone who was able to treat those who disagreed with him with respect and sought to rise above tribal name-calling and invective.

boring centrist fence-sitting should be used with care lest we end up with a resurgence of the ultra-right in mainstream politics. oh whoops.

just this really init

I wasn't familiar with Gill v Anagnost, but it looks like there has been an explosion of high damages defamation cases in the last few years.

So do you think the Clintons will sue for defamation?

Similarly his work on ensuring that the USA stopped torturing people.

He didn't vote against the repeal of Obamacare because he believed poor and middle-class people should have health care but because of a subversion of the legislative process (and probably to thumb his nose at Trump). He voted against the Affordable Health Care Act the first time around and remained opposed to universal health care.

McCain's bipartisan effort to reform campaign finance was admirable (but unfortunately a massive failure).

(It's not Alice Cooper - I zoomed in to check)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dlpht2BUYAc5wHX.jpg:large

Back in the realm of criticism of McCain that’s worth the time to read, this twitter thread is rather a cutting takedown of his sponsorship of cap&trade measures to reduce CO2 output. Definitely making me reappraise what I thought of the guy - there are a lot of details there of which I wasn’t previously aware. https://twitter.com/drvox/status/1034132463289683970?s=21

Sure trump thinks the stripes should be different

So do you think the Clintons will sue for defamation?

Not a chance.

boring centrist fence-sitting should be used with care lest we end up with a resurgence of the ultra-right in mainstream politics.

Gosh, your invective name-calling tribalism is really effective in making me reconsider my views and challenge my preconceptions. Not.

P.S. Do you really think that your approach of putting the whole population into diametrically-opposed pigeon holes and then insulting the one you don't like is likely to prevent extremism? I'd say that history suggest that rejecting pigeon-holing, and taking a mature and balanced approach which acknowledges that not all answers are simple or binary prevents extremism rather than encouraging it. Together with actually thinking about issues rather than relying upon knee-jerk factional responses.

this is a massive problem, in my view.

if anything not extreme left = nazi, which way do the left expect people to turn if they are not in 100% agreement?

how the fuck can any discussion happen if you are not sure?

the right (and centrist dads) are equally guilty of suggesting anything remotely left / socialist = communism.

centrists seem to make a habit out of trying to make increasingly right / neo liberal policies more palatable to the left / socialists, seldom the other way round. They do like the social cachet that comes with being to identify with the left mind you.