Strawmen

I come across a lot of Republican memes, that irk me. I'm against guns. I don't want 35 children to die every year because of our infatuation with loose gun laws. I have never made this argument. I see the police as welfare queens who come to crime scenes after a crime and fill out forms and take statistics. OK, I'm exaggerating, I once called the cops when I saw a man hassling a woman and they showed up in 10 minutes, but the guy had gone. So maybe their presence helps keep order, but the couple went away and probably continued to enact their abusive dynamics. My point is that when there's an active shooter in a school, the police aren't there fast enough. The guy usually blows his head off in the end anyway. But sometimes they are brave, and clean up messes. Mostly in NYC they respond to a call about a crazy person who needs to be hospitalized. Or fills out a car accident form so you can take it to your insurance company. They do a lot of things, and I'm not anti-police. I appreciate their service. But the idea that we can't cut their budget is funny because of all the other cuts we've made.

When I played chess, I realized I was hoping the opposing player would make a certain move. But I had to actually plan for them making the best move. So too with political debates, you can't just assume everyone is thinking some easily slayable argument. I have that problem with one of my republican friends. He defeats arguments I've never made.

I wonder if I ever do that. I suppose I do. I assume all republicans, who haven't resigned the party in disgust like George Will, think that Trump hasn't played any part in expanding the Covid situation. Most of my republican friends will say they don't like Trump, but they agree in principle in decreasing federal government, law and order, and getting government out of the way of individuals and business. They don't like Trump, may chuckle a little at how irate liberals get with him, but just didn't want Hillary, and the continuation of the Obama years.

The problem is when Republicans point out things I don't like. Like the people who say math is racist. I'm sure they're saying something more sophisticated, but it does look silly. People are pointing out that if blacks commit 3x the amount of crime, it might make sense that police brutality is 3x as big. Pointing that out may be racist, an attempt to undermine the wrongness. You're not supposed to kill even guilty people when arresting them. I can see how Political Correctness of the liberal variety can be irritating to conservatives, but it also seems like a maneuver to avoid continuing a complex discussion. By both sides, I'm sure.

Here is another meme that irks me:

Just because a problem is hard to solve and is complex, doesn't mean they're not working on it. Anyway, that is democracy, and there will be few clear wins, like when Obama and Power mobilized the world to fight Ebola in 3 African countries. It simplifies issues into time served versus results. I bet a more sympathetic review of their work would find surprising successes.

I asked my partner what happened to the principle of charity. Giving people the benefit of the doubt. I guess memes are not a medium for expressing that.

It's pretty easy to manufacture easily gratifying contradictions. George Washington points out that in a way war is easier, it's life of death. Governing is harder. How much of the hatred for Hillary was just frustration that government is complex. I think Trump did not drain the swamp, he brought the swamp into the administration. You want career politicians because they know how to do the dance. Trump has violated all these unspoken norms of the office. He has strained the system to contain his tyrannical ways. Many people are deeply upset, many people are afraid of him not accepting the results of the election. When Pelosi said she would fumigate the White House, I saw a Republican response about how uncivil that comment was, comparing a human being to an insect. I guess I had to laugh, because you can't use the Democratic call to civility (see recent AOC's plea) when your party has been the party of incivility. You can't rule by hate, and then complain when hate is used.

The whole idea of a republican taking umbridge by a comment as incivil is my own umbridge and as my partner says, putting people into boxes. She says we just make a bunch of assumptions about people depending on their category. I'm assuming that all Republicans are rudderless tyranny enablers. You could say as a trend, that is true, but there is George Will and Mitt Romney, and every day I read another "Republican" repudiation of Trump. There are the Republican Never Trumpsters.

Somehow our country charts a path between democratic socialism and conservative tyrants. The dynamism of the American economy is wonderful, but it needs to be mitigated in hard times. There's no way you can argue that Jeff Bezos deserves the wealth he has accumulated. Taxation would help to redistribute the wealth. Conservatives don't like affordable college education, the sophistication leads to liberalism. Gaining empathy into various minorities and women hinders the unfettered superstar. It's the liberal writer Kurt Vonnegut who came up with the story of dancers who people put weights on so they are more average. I think it's another strawman to imagine liberals want to cut down the winners. We can understand that misplaced empathy becomes idiot compassion. I suppose it's a strawman to think the other side doesn't understand that.