Politico has an article out (link at the bottom) about Republican reaction to the active duty service member (with a Purple Heart pinned to his chest, no less), who raised the alarm on what he perceived to be the impropriety of President Trump’s conduct on the now infamous Ukraine call – if I have to catch you up to speed on the much debated nature of that call, just put your head back down on the desk and go back to sleep… there’s just no time. Anyway, something brilliant just happened: Elected Republican’s, excepting the President, of course, have said that they won’t attack this man’s character. They may take issue with his interpretation of the facts, they said, however, his patriotism was not to be questioned.
Is it sad that this is remarkable? Of course it is. However, it isn’t often that we see Elected Washington D.C. Politicians, of any political variety (those being Democrats and Republicans – all others being as mythical as the Crumpel-Horned Snorkack), accidentally trip over a line that ought not to be crossed and, after brushing the metaphorical sand off their $1000 suits (because when it’s a $1000 suit, you brush off even the very most metaphorical grains of sand), ponder aloud that, “that’s the line that we shouldn’t cross!”
Forgetting that it is the 10,000th line that they shouldn’t have crossed, let us take a moment to discuss what we should already know, but don’t… or else do know, but generally refuse to put into practice: what the Elected Republicans, excepting the President, of course, have suggested is that they will not engage in what are called “ad hominem attacks,” at least, not on this occasion. An ad hominem attack is one that responds to an idea, opinion, or claim, that one finds disagreeable by ignoring said idea, opinion, or claim, and simply attacking the person presenting the idea, opinion or claim, instead. If we are being honest – and we generally should be, ad hominem attacks may be maliciously fun may seem like a reasonable approach, but they are bad for the business of good ideas – and definitely the wrong approach to figuring out who is right.
However, exactly why it is wrong to engage in an ad hominem attack might be confusing, if you are considering the question from the cynical perspective of politics. After all, as any hyper-partisan can tell you, a Democrat surely can’t be trusted to be honest if there is a chance to harm a Republican, and vice-versa. However, let us be less cynical for a second (although, feel free to remain skeptical). Are we to be more concerned with the identity of a speaker, or the substance of what they have to say? Shouldn’t we judge the latter, irrespective of the former? If a member of [insert the identity of a group that you find particularly irksome] has something to say, do you, dear reader, have the capacity to hear the substance of their words, or, will you simply write them off because of the group with whom they identify? Hell, let’s even be a little cynical – I once heard Justice Antonin Scalia repeat the adage that, “even a stopped clock is right twice a day.” By Scalia’s account (you can pretend it was his real life BFF, R.B.G. who said it, if you’d like), those with whom we utterly disagree are still going to be right twice a day, so, we ought to listen to the substance of their words and ignore the fact that we think the teller of the time quite resembles a very ugly clock, with which we’d never adorn our walls.
p.s. – If Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia found a way to be real life besties, I think we can all work on looking to the substance of the message and not so much the tribe to whom the messenger belongs.
p.p.s. – I left the “Justice” part off of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and opted for R.B.G. because I think “RBG” sounds like a bad-ass gangster’s name, and I believe Justice Ginsburg to be an absolute bad-ass. I did not do this because I was trying to show greater respect to a male than a female. I find both Justices to be, or have been, brilliant legal minds with whom I have very strongly agreed and very strongly disagreed – both substantively, and (in the case of Scalia) stylistically. Not that I need to explain myself, but, I just wanted you to know.
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/29/republicans-defend-impeachment-witness-vindman-061057
thereluctantcommentator 