Trump booed at World Series

[Dill]

(10-31-2019, 09:27 AM)hollodero Wrote: Now, the same thing is said by those that want to see Hillary in jail. Trump is smeared and she is guilty, they say, and most probably believe it vividly. For various reasons like being heavily biased or uninformed or other reasons that sure are mostly not too flattering for these individuals. And it's very well possible that Trump is indeed guilty and Hillary was just a victim af scandalization gate (she probably was in most instances). But it really is not about that so much. In either case, it is up to the justice system to make a guilty claim, not to the folks at a rally or in a stadium. This is about behaviour - and mainly about the reaction to these two instances. I'm against it in either case and I find it astonishing that this is a controversial stance. You and many seem to say, aaah it depends, when that guy is an ass and really deserves it than it's totally ok, and not just ok but actually hilarious. I'm not on board with that.

Well written, Hollo, as usual.  Nevertheless, a few quick points in return.

1. Nothing I have said so far = it is really ok if the guy is an ass.  You may still be viewing "lock x up" as having the same import under all conditions. Perhaps you suppose I do too, and so I seem to be defending the chant "when WE do it." But I do not view the chant as having the same import under all conditions. I find the meaning of behavior inseparable from intent and context. Mobs who really want to jail their leader's political opponent are not ok. I have not even said its ok when giving a scapegoater a taste of his own medicine. I have just maintained there is not an ethical equivalence between people doing that and people who genuinely want to jail scapegoats.

(10-31-2019, 09:27 AM)hollodero Wrote: And again, I'm not at all saying it's the same thing, Trump rally goers and stadium goers and their chants. It most certainly is not the same thing. That doesn't take away from my stance that a "mob" (I just mean a bunch of people, nothing explicitly derogatory) should not go out there and demand jailtime of any kind. In principle. By the way, I'm not questioning their right to do so - I question if it's a good thing to do so.
But I am afraid I am just repeating myself here. Your claim of still intact moral highground is noted, and I do not wholly disagree by claiming the opposite, that there is none left and all sides are the same now. There sure is still quite a difference. I might find such chants even understandable, I just don't find them endorseable. From a moral standpoint and also because these chants really turn nothing for the better and possibly some things for the worse - see polarization, entrenchment and so on. It sure is about appearance/perception too.

Just 2 quick additional things to address some points made: a) this also is not about democratic leadership and b) to me it really is not so much about the chanters in the stadium as about those that find those chanters brave and funny and whatnot and fully endorse their deed. That is the thing I saw and see as a bit hypocritical. The chanter's motives do not factor into that.

2. I don't think there is a lot of daylight between us on the issue of whether chanting "lock x up" is good.

3. Consequences--here's where the daylight appears. I don't see much potential at all for increased polarization and entrenchment, etc.  (Bels had that worry too, suggesting we concentrate on voting Trump out of office--as if that won't piss off Trumpsters even more.)  I don't see much danger that Biden/Warren/Bernie will lead cheers of "lock him up" at their rallies.  If such cheers break out they and others in the crowd will stop them.  That is because the two sides are not equivalent, despite the fraction of a "mob" at a baseball game.

One person on this thread who has, since my last post, "endorsed the deed" is Baker, himself a one-time Trumper who has seen the light. Not sure if he has ever said the chant was bad when Trumpsters did it; so not sure that makes HIM a hypocrite now. Pretty sure, though, that even if HE endorses that chant, that doesn't make ME a hypocrite any more than it makes you one.

So it is not clear at all that people who in the past decried "lock HER up" are now on some "lock HIM up" bandwagon. Continuing to recognize definable ethical gradations in behavior should not put them there.

The limited consequence of the baseball chant is simply this--more fodder for Trump supporters/defenders, looking desperately for equivalence between mob chants with full crowd participation lead by an authoritarian targeting political scapegoats, on the one hand, and on the other, scattered, spontaneous boos and chants by a fraction of a crowd at a baseball game who have no sanction from their leaders. Hope is that now suddenly a sweeping, general charge of hypocrisy can somehow attach to the whole of Trump resistance--and stick.

So we are led to worry about different things here--You "mob" behavior, and me the continued obfuscation/leveling of standards masquerading as upholding them, which I find a far more serious problem.  The central one, really, of our current conjuncture.