Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

A police officer got on the stand, lied, and was just acquitted of shooting a man seven times within seconds of being pulled over, after the man announced he had a gun (and a permit for the gun), with a woman and child in the car. I can basically imagine no circumstances under which a police officer can shoot a black man and not be justified in doing so in our society right now.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

It's getting easy to just list the cities he hasn't won.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

I thought you were trying to cull the signal from the noise.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

This is more signal than noise.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

To be fair, it's hard to impeded what stupidity and incompetence have already undermined.

Why don't they do all the stuff I want seems like a constant refrain from the left now. Which is fine and all but the notion that Bernie's now pushing that it's a political panacea is a bit annoying. Not even he thought that or he would have actually tried to win the endorsement by contesting the Dem primaries in the south.

Anyway, it's absolutely true that the center left doesn't really stand for anything at the moment, and the things it needs to stand are idea from it's leftish values, but no, Bernie would not have won.

Otherwise, that essay really didn't need the Freud.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

Once Yanez testified that he saw a gun, it was going to be really hard to get a conviction.

And heck, he probably believes he saw a gun (now), because that's how memory works - I must a seen a gun or I wouldn't have shot morphs to certainty I saw a gun - but yeah, I don't believe him.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

I was not in the courtroom, so I am trying to be restrained with my judgment, but it sounded like he had self-contradicting stories about what he saw. And yes, I am sure he has convinced himself that he saw a gun and was acting under a legitimate threat. But it just does not add up. It has always seemed like he just fucked up -- panicked for no reason, and killed a guy.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

As you point it, what's most important is to put the Bernie crowd in their place. There'll be time later to pay attention to the other stuff.

True. I just ignored it.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Liberalism's best selling point was the moral argument noted early in the piece.

But we're in a post-morality world. Pragmatism, empirical data, and rationality rule among the smarter sets of us.

For good reason. Morality's too vague, too subjective. It can't be measured or easily agreed upon by smart people, and is too easily used by dumb people to persecute others.

Modern liberals seem to have employed noblesse oblige where they once argued for "moral" concepts.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I don't know what any of this means, and I'm pretty sure you don't either.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

There is no conflict between pragmatism, empiricism and rationality, on the one hand, and morality on the other. Those are just the means to get to what's just and moral.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

It means what it says. In the past, moral compulsion had teeth. Concepts of what was right and wrong ruled (at least for the paroles and middle class). That's not the case so much anymore. The author gets into this a bit in criticizing the center left as bloodless. They don't argue that we must do what's humane. Take, for instance, the ACA. It couldn't be sold solely as a program to give the poor health care insurance, whatever the cost. It had to instead be sold as a cost-paring structure. The pragmatist will only save lives if it makes economic sense.

We're not a society elevating morality to the forefront. We're become more data obsessed, and employ cost/benefit assessments in place of old notions of right vs. wrong. It's not so much whether you should or shouldn't do something as much as what the upside and risks of an action present. Where decades ago, we might look at certain behaviors as objectively bad, we're more inclined today to view all actions as having certain risk premiums. "Oh, you got busted and had to pay a fine for that violation? Oh well... The potential payoff was good. The risk still made sense."

This isn't a criticism. I think morality is muddy and malleable. Risk and rational calculation are easier to measure and control.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

They are when people start assessing whether to do what is good for them but bad for others like a simple business risk analysis.

Selfishness is almost always rational.

By the way, I agree with your take on the superfluous tie-in of Freud. But if you can bear one more such reference, consider Nietzsche on the issue of whether man could survive without religion (then the source of most "morality"). He believed if men ever went to 100% rationality, society would collapse under extreme individualism and selfishness.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I know this is going to be hard for you, but: no it isn't. It's usually just a failure to appreciate the larger picture.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Not sure who your "we" is, but it isn't "society." The people who voted for Trump were informed by a strong view of morality that Clinton voters did not share. Illegal immigration is wrong, and illegal immigrants are criminals who ought to face consequence. Law & order means that police should be respected and obeyed, and that people who threaten the social order should be punished. The undeserving shouldn't get help from the government. And so on. Trump was popular in part because he spoke forcefully and unapologetically to these morals.