Apology Blackmail - Page 13 - OG Myth-Weavers

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Apology Blackmail

 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atlictoatl View Post
OK, but there are people well educated in rhetoric who could devise a set of guidelines that would allow for the time-honored tradition of rhetorical exchange while moving the state of dialogue away from bald misstatement of fact.
We're electing a President, not a debate captain. Rules on how to talk in politics heads off into territory I don't want to travel.

It's clear that we all have different views on the freedom of speech and what side it's best to err on. No point in banging my head against the wall about it anymore.

Lol, you're right. I would hope the president was a better debater than any school debate captain. Discussion and negotiation with other figureheads is an important part of their job.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Ben View Post
It's clear that we all have different views on the freedom of speech and what side it's best to err on. No point in banging my head against the wall about it anymore.
OK.

Quote:
We're electing a President, not a debate captain. Rules on how to talk in politics heads off into territory I don't want to travel.
These days, it feels much more like we're electing a Liar-in-Chief, with Congress being the legislative version of that.

So Lord Ben we should not do anything to try and improve the situation for fear it can only make things worse? you have somehow lept from the possibility of a state imposed fine for making false statements of fact and the idea of being removed from one state's ballot for not paying it to a nationwide speach police holding politicians hostage to some ideological insanity. I believe that is termed the slippery slope fallacy. Nobody has proposed censoring the politicians speach, just fining them when they lie- though I would be willing to narrow that further and say lie about teh product (themselves) teh brand name (the party) or their competitors (the other guy running).
Unless you are sayingthat we should hold puppy chow to a higher standard of honesty than elected officials.

Quote:
Originally Posted by silveroak View Post
So Lord Ben we should not do anything to try and improve the situation for fear it can only make things worse?
Nice job refuting a point I never made. The strawman hath been slain.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hoogie View Post
So a little while back I read this article by David Mitchell. For those of you with the misfortune to have never heard of him, he's an actor/writer/comedian/satirist so forgive the lighter tone of his writing.



I've frequently found myself getting annoyed at such political tactics being used so this article really highlighted the issue for me. I'm primarily thinking about this from the point of view of British politics, which arent quite at the soap opera heights of American politics yet, but we're narrowing the gap!

So the basic premise is: You (Mr President/Mr Prime Minister) do
It doesn't really matter what as your opponent doesn't really give a rat's ass about it.
something and your opponent, on behalf of the poor downtrodden masses being so brutally oppressed, demand you immediately apologise. You don't have many options from here, you can issue a fake apology, which noone particularly cares about as the issue never mattered it was just about scoring points. You can refuse to apologise and call your opponent a fool. Sensible people will probably agree with you but the idiots will probably think you're in the wrong and ignoring the plight of the masses. You can try ignoring them and moving on, but they can keep raising the point by continually demanding the apology. After all, intelligent people can largely make up their own minds about things, it's the uninformed and ignorant that are being swayed by petty sniping.

An example: In the UK there have been threats of a strike by fuel drivers, so the government tells people to be sensible and make sure they fill up their tanks when they're at the pumps and maybe store fuel in a jerry can.

The response from the opposition: 1. A jerry can is apparently the name of a specific sized container which is larger than the amount of fuel we can legally store at home (without whatever license). So the government are being irresponsible fools who are encouraging people to break the law and kill themselves,

2. Some idiot tries decanting fuel from one container to another in their kitchen while the gas hob is on cooking dinner. The fumes ignite and she suffers 40% burns. I'd say this is natural selection in action, but to the opposition this was clearly because of the government policy and the minister who issued the guidance should immediately resign.

TL/DR Are constant calls for apologies over trivial issues undermining important political discourse? Can/should anything be done to stop it? Is it contributing to voter apathy by reducing politics to a farce?
This isn't really new as far as politics goes. If you think politics is stupid, fine. It is.

But if your worried about things like the honor inherent in politics becoming so utterly lacking that it apathizes an entire generation of would-be voters? Then yes, I think that should be theme of this argument (or the next one).

It was a summary, not a strawman. You may not have said that we should make no changes because things will only get worse but that assumption is implicit in your arguments- we should not pass truth in advertising laws fining politicians because that would inherantly lead to a truth police gestapo like state? You didn't even go so far as to say could or allow for any possibility besides the extreem failure of a democracy from an attempt to consider how to improve it.




 

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