Quote:
Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan
I know you don't Facebook, but I think you can access this without an account: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.p...00008083698763 If you can't, let me know and I'll cut /paste in a PM for you.
This has to do with Liam Neeson thing, but I think it comes down to "how are you today?" This particular author comes down on the side of "clearly he is appalled at his past behavior and has learned something from it" with regard to Neeson. It's going to come down to a case-by-case basis, I think. With Warren, I think she's handled this entire issue badly, and so it's going to dog her for quite some time. With Northam, he fumbled right out of the gate and hasn't recovered. We'll see what happens with the AG guy. Since he's the one bringing it forward and presumably he's seen the mess Northam made, maybe he'll be able to present it better and convince the world that that isn't him anymore.
But as the piece above says, there are a shit-ton of people out there with downright racist pasts. Republicans don't seem to care as much about whether their candidates were (or are) racist/sexist/xenophobic/etc. I would have said they have a Jesus litmus test, but, well, Trump. Democrats do. But they don't know how to handle people who evolve.
I think a lot of it goes to the fact that no one deserves to be on top. NO ONE. And for each of the "oops, I wore blackface" idiots out there, there are plenty of perfectly good replacements who not once even considered it. And often they are the very people who the idiot was marginalizing/mocking/disparaging. |
An aside to start... The Enoch Powell rally photo caused me to recall Eric Clapton's famous deranged racist speech in favor of Powell. (You can look that up. As a Clapton fan, and ascribing his behavior then to obvious multiple addictions, I don't want to link that rotten moment in his history.)
I agree that no one deserves to be on top. But due to a number of litmus tests we apply, there does seem to be a category of people who fit the acceptable mold. You must:
1. Have no consequential arrests;
2. Have had no mental health issues;
3. No history of enjoying recreational drugs and not disavowing them rigorously;
4. No libertine sexual exploits;
5. No admitted atheism;
6. No bisexuality;
7. No affairs (for which you haven't repented to some megachurch minister)
There are many more, but you get the point. We've allowed the puritans to decide who can ascend to office. That's caused us to elect all these closet creeps who have KKK photos in yearbooks or histories of sexual abuse allegations. And Trump hasn't broken that mold. He's an aberrational protest candidate.
People who have healthy social lives - who like to fuck, take a drug or drink or both now and again, tell a blue joke - don't have bizarre skeletons. They tend to have a blase, open book approach to their appetites and recreation.
We need to behave like European voters -- to shrug off personal issues and elect people based on policy. To apply an adult enough to view to surmise, "Warren may have played the game a bit dishonorably, but it was a long time ago, and what matters now are her policies."
But I doubt this will happen. Scolds and scowls from the Right have decided who's pure enough for office since the nation started. And all I see emerging now is a Left variety of this sad hazing/winnowing ritual. Thus, I think giving politicians a right to be forgotten as to nonviolent past misdeeds is the only fix.
The article was spot-on, by the way. If you're flipping out over Neeson's honest and helpful comments, you need a reading comp teacher. You're a fucking idiot.
