This logic underlies the alt-right claim that espousing Nazi rhetoric doesn't make you a Nazi: because they're only SPEAKING, not DOING.
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In an ideal world, this would've caused political culture to shift towards honesty. Instead, they've doubled down on lying as a norm.
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For all of history, we've known that power corrupts & that politics requires a degree of both deceit & ugly pragmatism. Politicians lie.
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Which means that, in order to accept our political systems as necessary evils, we also have to accept a base degree of political deception.
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That acceptance has, I suspect, been enabled in large part by the general invisibility of certain ugly things. Out of sight, out of mind.
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But now that there's so much more information out in the open, political honesty hasn't increased to keep pace with it. Not even close.
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Instead, that base degree of acceptance of lies has been exploited to create an ever-more generous yardstick for what politicians "mean".
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This dissonance is used to claim in turn that the clear implications of particular bills, even backed by speech, are up for interpretation.
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Thus: a law to ban abortion after 6 weeks & a rep's view that women would should be forced to give birth to grow the workforce are detached.
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A link for the first claim: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/six-week-abortion-ban … A link for the second: https://thinkprogress.org/abortion-restrictions-labor-force-fd5a0d7689cb/ …
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There's a DIRECT CORRELATION between these points, which hew to the same ideology & contain the same threat. Oh, unless speech ISN'T an act.
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In THAT case, feminists are "reaching" to view Allen's words as relevant to his plans for future policy. He's only saying WORDS, you guys!
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Why, and those words could clearly mean lots of things! Shame on liberals for focusing on their AGENDA instead of the economic growth angle!
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Because really, the REAL point is population decline and the strain it places on the economy! It's only relevant to abortion in PASSING.
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And once restrictive abortion laws come into place - an ACT - & women suffer from them, their testimony will be dismissed as "just speech".
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Which is what happens when you restrict your definition of "a political action" to mean only "a visible thing occurring NOW IN THE MOMENT."
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Once it's no longer happening RIGHT NOW the testimony is downgraded to "only" speech, just as the threat to enact it was "only" speech, too.
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This forced disconnect between words & actions also lets politicians to railroad direct q's abt consequences with the esoterics of "belief".
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For eg: a politician is presented with factual research disproving their claims & replies by saying they believe otherwise because [lies].
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I see this SO OFTEN & it makes me want to break things. Because it doesn't just stonewall the interviewer - it ERASES VOTER FAITH IN FACTS.
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Because if a POLITICIAN can just choose to handwave decades of astute scientific research because Belief, then why can't an antivaxer?
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If politicians don't have to care about or be held accountable by academic or legal data, then why shouldn't confirmation bias rule all?
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It makes me spitting mad to know that these assholes don't even care that they're breaking public faith in science, academia, government.
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LBR, most of them won't live long enough to suffer the full ungodly consequences of a large-scale, multi-country cultural regression.
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Isolationism, xenophobia, oligarchic autocracy, patriarchal heterosexism; we've done it before & badly. But we're scrapping history courses.
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Listen, I'll freely admit that the arts can be flaky & self-indulgent as hell at times, but there's a REASON the right hates humanities.
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Humanities teach critical thinking, political analysis, historical precedents, cultural & media literacy; the idea that norms are changeable
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When the humanities comes under siege - when politicians actively DEVALUE those skills - it means they're playing a long-con on your heirs.
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They want to raise a credulous, fearful, uneducated next generation so that THEIR personal business & political dynasties are secured.
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Once they've steered your fear, sleight of hand - divorcing words from actions - lets them prey on you while blaming strangers for it.
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I am so tired, you guys. But I'm mad as hell and I'm STAYING mad until we start to see these fuckers held accountable for their actions.
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