BBO Discussion Forums: Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? - BBO Discussion Forums

Should I believe...

Have just read about the shooting. One wonders if it might re-open the debate about gun controls for semi-automatic weapons in America. One can but hope that sense will prevail but more likely in the end money will do the talking.

There are more guns in America than there are people. Gun controls, that ship has sailed long ago. Strict gun laws only stop law abiding citizens from purchasing guns.

Have just read about the shooting. One wonders if it might re-open the debate about gun controls for semi-automatic weapons in America. One can but hope that sense will prevail but more likely in the end money will do the talking.

It is very tragic what happened to Scalise. This is a clear reminder how intolerant, divisive, and incendiary rhetoric can incite dangerous if not lethal behavior.

Amen! But now that the precedent has been set I expect some right-wing nut to retaliate.

If that happens, we may have just witnessed the beginning of the 2nd US Civil War, where logic and reason become subservient to AK-47s.

The anti-Trump contingent seems to have drawn first blood (Scalise). This will get interesting.

Amen! But now that the precedent has been set I expect some right-wing nut to retaliate.

If that happens, we may have just witnessed the beginning of the 2nd US Civil War, where logic and reason become subservient to AK-47s.

That "shooting" was fake from beginning to end. Trained actors played every part, no one was killed, and no one was injured. Trump got the distraction he wanted, and got to tarnish Bernie Sanders at the same time. Don't be so gullible!

If you're blaming the left for this, I assume you accept that the right is to blame for congresswoman Giffords being shot a few years back? And the attack on an IRS building in the same time frame? And the many murders of doctors who provide abortions?

There are crazies of all political ideologies. But only one side advocates that the crazies be allowed to buy guns. And only one side claims that the purpose of the 2nd amendment is so people can "overthrow a tyrannical government" (basically a license to kill government officials they dislike).

My understanding is that the shooter is a rabid anti-trumper and Bernie Sanders supporter. Is this left?

The reality of the US is that many citizens own guns. Gun ownership is a basic right enshrined in the Constitution, no advocacy is required. Probably the majority of the gun owners are conservative/right wing. Many of them are paranoid with respect to the liberal left. Some of them are crazy. So I would not be surprised if one of them takes it upon himself/herself to retaliate.

The bulk of the current inflammatory talk/action has been provided by the liberal/left and the mainstream media. A recent example is Kathy Griffin's severed head of Donald Trump. The first blood incident was the recent shooting of Scalise. The perpetrator allegedly asked bystanders if the group of baseball players were Republicans or Democrats before opening fire. It would be understandable if the Republicans/right interpreted this as a politically motivated crime, a direct assault on them. Given the emotional tenor of the times, I would be surprised if retaliation did not occur. If it doesn't, that would simply indicate that the right-wing groups are not as crazy as the left-wing groups at the moment.

In June 2015, Roof, then 21, a high school dropout and avowed white supremacist, interrupted an evening Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, shooting nine black parishioners in cold blood.

There is one thing, though, that an alarming number of the recent mass shooters in the United States share: A history of aggression and violence toward women. Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people in the horrific massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007, had been previously investigated for stalking two female classmates. Elliot Rodger, who killed six and wounded 13 in Isla Vista, Calif., in 2014, was obsessed with perceived rejection by women, and not long before the shooting had thrown coffee on two women at a bus stop because they failed to smile at him. Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who murdered two police officers in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 2015, shot his ex-girlfriend in the stomach just hours earlier. Cedric Ford, who shot 17 people last year at the Newton, Kan., plant where he worked, killing three, had been accused of abusing his ex-girlfriend and had been served with a restraining order not long before the shooting. Robert Dear, who shot and killed three people at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, in 2015, had a history of domestic violence and harassment toward women. And Omar Mateen, who murdered 49 people at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, physically abused his wife for years, beating her because she had not finished the laundry or a similar offense.

I guess I am gullible! My understanding is that Scalise is still in critical condition from a gunshot would.

Amen! But now that the precedent has been set I expect some right-wing nut to retaliate.

If that happens, we may have just witnessed the beginning of the 2nd US Civil War, where logic and reason become subservient to AK-47s.

What is the lure of extremist rhetoric in democratic controversy? After all, most citizens are not extremists. Part of the lure lies in the fact that it is easier to believe passionately in a value or cause without regard to subtlety, reasoned argument, probabilistic evidence, and vigorously tested scientific theory or fact. Expressions of single-minded visions for solving problems and changing society can make complexity and uncertainty, frustration and regret, all appear to evaporate. Another part of the lure is that having comrades-in-argument is comforting.

If extremist rhetoric has popular appeal, at least on its face, what could be wrong with the overwhelming prevalence of extremist rhetoric in democratic discourse? After all, extremists have a constitutional right to speak in extremist language as long as they are not directly threatening other people. Our answer to the question of what’s wrong with extremist rhetoric is essential to understanding both why its prevalence endangers the public interest that democracy should serve and why so many democratic citizens, even many initially drawn to some forms of extremist rhetoric, find it increasingly troubling over time.

Going as far back in political philosophy as Aristotle, political rhetoric has been employed in the service of reasonable persuasion concerning questions of justice or the public good. Aristotle maintained that the “proper task” of rhetoric is to drive home the logic, the truth, and the evidence of an argument. Reason should frame a good politician’s goal to persuade. The opposite of a sound democratic argument is demagogy: manipulation and deception in order to divide and conquer the democratic populace. Extremist rhetoric is a common tactic of demagogy: it divides in order to conquer.

Mobilizing one’s base and arousing people’s passions are natural parts of democratic politics. Aristotle recognized that rhetoric at its best appeals concomitantly to our passions as well as to our character and our reason. The problem with extremist rhetoric is that it mobilizes the base by spurning reason and playing exclusively to the antagonistic passions of disrespect and degradation of argumentative adversaries. Extremist rhetoric insidiously undermines the democratic promise of mobilizing citizens on the basis of some reasonable understanding of their interest and the public interest.

Extreme rhetoric has the same effect as extremist rhetoric because it expresses itself in the same way. It is extreme simply for the sake of gaining attention and mobilizing the base. While we may not worry that extreme rhetoric reflects a dangerous underlying ideology, we should be concerned that it is unnecessarily disrespectful of argumentative adversaries.

Unlike extremist rhetoric, extreme rhetoric is almost always either deceptive or worse: It blatantly disregards and devalues truth-seeking understandings upon which citizens in a democracy may make informed judgments. It also undermines a basic value of representative politics. When politicians use extreme rhetoric to mobilize their base in cavalier disregard of the vast majority, they strip the moderate middle of a voice in governance.

The problem for representative democracy, therefore, is that many people who are not ideological zealots manipulatively use extreme rhetoric for their own mutually disrespectful political ends–at the same time as zealots of all ideological stripes insidiously subvert the compromising spirit of democracy through their use of extremist rhetoric. Since so much of representative democracy depends on politicians’ wooing the votes and support of citizens to govern in our names, what politicians say matters mightily. (bold mine)

I have to throw in this "essay" about extreme and extremist politic rhetoric.



Good stuff! See https://president.up...emist-rhetoric/ for more.

What's funny to me is that you quote this stuff but also throw in all sorts of conspiracy theories. If we don't know what is fact, or what is ""truth" and what not, it's useless to apply a logic like "trust the facts"

Does anyone understand what's happening in the Gulf? Why Qatar? Why isn't anyone interfering - should they?

You do realize I didn't say the Scalise shooting was fake. Another user suggested that notion.

I did say, however, that we should be alarmed by the DHS' alleged hack of the Georgia and Indiana voting systems.

That is not a conspiracy theory. It is a clear violation of federal law at the time of the trespasses.

We should be alarmed if Russia or DHS engages in such unauthorized activity.

Have just read about the shooting. One wonders if it might re-open the debate about gun controls for semi-automatic weapons in America. One can but hope that sense will prevail but more likely in the end money will do the talking.