The greatest danger here is that Trump will consider his fraudulent acquittal as a green light to continue doing as he pleases regardless of convention or precedent. The Senate would be condoning his unconscionable, reckless and impulsive behavior.
Here's a non-equivocation: One striking aspect is that bringing this to bear won't be a betrayal of conservatism, but, rather an affirmation that it's been a lie the whole time. I mean, even in the Sciforums context, the nonreciprocal respect people are expected to show conservatives as if it was some ritual and reciprocal behavior is absurd. We've trashed the place over this kind of ignorance, so we might as well get it on the table:
Certain arguments are difficult to make within the confines of rational discourse; in order to be "fair", as such, the community must alleviate some of the burdens described by rational discourse, or else they're jackboots and pitchfork mobs silencing political views.
The sleight orbits a couple key elements. First is a failure or refusal to distinguish between behavior and political views. To wit, demanding some reasonable attendance of history would be unfair to Vociferous, because the abject defense of "political views" does not distinguish between behavior and outlook, such that we are to presume, at least functionally in terms of assessing what happens at Sciforums, that he is incapable of behaving any better.
Now, sometimes this turns out to be true, and sometimes it's just easy cover for disrespectful presentation of challenging or controversial ideas that are difficult to support rationally. And sometimes, examples are complicated, but here's an explanation about that latter.
†
A fairly commmon issue arose, and this time around we had a definitive statement to not do something, from one of the people adversely affected. As it happens, someone who participates in the custom chose to defend it, except, really, the only defense I can even imagine is that it shouldn't be any high priority, but that only perpetuates a specific part of a cycle which, societally, escalates to include violence. In this case, these are aspects of sexism, male chauvinism, and misogyny.
But it starts off small, and it's not really the kind of behavior one punishes. Seriously, it's just an annoying insistence on a dysfunctional, self-consuming opinion. But that's just the thing: The only argument the one has is because he says so.
(And, yes, there is a larger issue about that manner of say-so, that in this politic it is a bullying mockery that became normalized, but that is its own discussion for another thread.)
Discussions are what they are, but sometimes people just don't recognize themselves in the moment. As this one progressed, changing from manners of address to propositions of problematic behavior the say-so argument not only doubled down, but for all its resentment of the idea of persistent disdain toward women, repeatedly walking into a proverbial trap most assuredly didn't help. On this occasion, that means at least two things: First, there is the idea of reciting the script, so that despite resenting suggestions of prejudice, one seems unable to prevent himself from reciting chauvinistic, supremacist tropes; also, though, is the observation that when a woman shows up, it's pretty much over, because men in his position will tend to grind noses and show machismo to another man, but refocus and escalate when a woman arrives. And if these men are somehow distressed by poor associations and community relations with women, it's true such typal displays of hostility just aren't encouraging of better outcomes.
But this focused escalation continued, even as the discussion continued to do its thing; there came a point when the entire thread was aflame, around us, with trolls showing up with rhetorical arson like actual rape advocacy, and all those rattles and horns and whistles, and when faced with the existential circumstance of women really existing and having their own living perspectives, our neighbor flat out lost it.
At this point, the discussion was about hitting on random women just because they happen to be in proximity to an interested man. And like the bit about chauvinism, this particular man couldn't manage to not fulfill typal stations. In a way, it's actually fairly simple: Think of all the dumb things men say in these moments that get them just scorched, and, simply, don't recite those lines. Yet, one after another, it just keeps happening, and once upon a time, it was this guy's turn.
The underlying connection to all three prejudicial stances—manner of address, the merits of problematic behavior, and hitting on women because they are present—was the objectivization and concomitant subordination of women: It doesn't matter what she does, like, say, being a grief counselor, or a doctor, dealing with a family who just lost a child; if some man in that moment tells her she would be prettier if she smiled more, well, gosh, she should be thankful, or do her part and smile for him, or something like that.
At this point, there remains a
whatever aspect to it all; like just some dude being a dude in that repulsively dudely way that no dude, anywhere, ever wants to answer for, to the point that many dudes would either pretend offense at the proposition of such dudeliness, or become genuinely offended because they are too delicate to accept what so many dudes' behavior amounts to.
When our neighbor lost his stuff, he insisted on changing the subject as if it had always been the point of the discussion. And this is where the behavior becomes problematic; the focus and escalation leads to an absurd moment in which he snaps from toothgrit, heated machismo to prim, delicate, gelid fury, invalidating the woman, insisting on his subject-change, and then informing her, "that will be enough of that".
To the one, mouthing off for the sake of putting a woman in some iteration of her mythical place does not an argument proper make. To the other, though, is the idea of rational discourse. This is actually the sort of thing we sacrificed rational discourse for.
Some arguments are hard to support rationally; the results of these endeavors are not surprising. But at the point such abusive behavior arises, so also does the question of what to do about it. And here are a couple of general perspectives: At what point did our neighbor cross a line from simply being annoying and ignorant to being willfully offensive, how do we describe that threshold, and what do we do about it? That's one. The other postulates a shite-blithe, ignorantly featureless pretense against suppressing an undefined range of political views.
No, really, that's it. Years later, we still don't what those political views are. The best we can figure is a strange vantage according to the shape of what is absent.
Still, here's the thing: To apply those perspectives to our neighbor as I've described, there is, to the one, a question about how to deal with such behavior, while, to the other, the argument that would pass over such behavior as acceptable also inherently presumes the individual not competent to behave otherwise; if we need a ski-boxer's third, the complication is an apparent presumption that the question of what to do is answered by banning members; the lack of subtlety isn't subtle. 'Tis a curious trap we managed to set for ourselves, but the results ought to have been obvious over the course of years.
(There is actually irony about it, an old joke about throwing bones to particular political labels, and questions of equivocation, because the punch line had to do with the only valid reason for allowing certain behavior being akin to what Americans describe as reasonable accommodation, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act.)
It's true, the rules are, technically speaking, still in effect, but if that sounds silly, consider the complication that within this mysterious range of undefined political views, we are not supposed to forbid known fallacy; that is, any discussion can be dragged back to antisocial pretenses of stupidity, and everyone else is supposed to just play along, nicely. As moderators fell away and stopped attending, the question might arise to wonder if they ever stood a chance, and the answer, according to hindsight, is, no, not really. The thing is, nobody wanted to come right out and say it, because, well, right. It would be kind of like admitting that the defense of certain behaviors requires the offending individuals be noncompetent. Some things, a person just doesn't want to say aloud.
†
While I owe our neighbor an analytical response about fake news, the question has to do with using armchair metrics to validate the reporting of a website justifying itself by pointing out that commentary is commentary, and, furthermore, while including contributions from a handful of conspiracy theorists and white supremacists, represents itself as center-right and relies on its publisher, herself posturing a strange presentation, who has allegedly written, on average, in excess of eight posts a day for nigh on nine years. In the current gen, algorithmic regurgitations are called "pink slime", and fake-news consumers like our neighbor are considered targets.
Notice none backing the argument remembering Daschle will bother with accounting the details; they simply don't want to, because they know they're putting on.
I've reminded our neighbor, before, that ignorance stands out in his presentation. However, compared to what else we're expected to tolerate, and even shepherd, Vociferous' safe space was already carved out for him. For now, he doesn't need a clue, because requiring him to get one would, by current standards, be unfair.
