Disingenuous critiques of the President and his policies

[DFab420]

Here are my own personal thoughts on a couple of critiques I see here and around the political sphere that are now tellingly false and should help be used to label those that use them as disingenuous and lazy.Again these are VERY SPECIFIC critiques. Obviously there are things that need to be brought to light and discussed. HOWEVER I am not talking about those. So anyone who gets all in a huff about this, spare me your thoughts, they don't apply to the following...and if they do then I don't really see why you would use them on a Democratic Board..

1. Obama doesn't care about Gay Rights
- This one is first cause it's on the top of my brain. Obviously Biden forced Obama's hand, but other then that it is abundantly clear that the POTUS is in firm progressive territory with his opinions on marriage equality as well as ending DADT, extending hate crime protections, and giving more rights to same-sex partners of Federal Employees.

2. The President speaks well but never follows it up
- In lieu of having to make a list inside a list I won't add up ALL the things of the dreaded "Teh List" that our President has said he would do and done. Obviously there is work to do. But to continue the "I'll believe it when I see it" meme about our very busy President is laughable, and should be treated as such.

3. BUT WHERE ARE THE JOBS!
-
'nuff said

4.Gas Prices are [insert monetary sum or direction of prices]...this means Obama won't win!!
- Even Republican mouth pieces have a hard time using this one. Since when oh when did the President of the United States set and manage the prices of gas set by private companies weighing market shares and speculations....Seriously

5. THE WARS GODDAMMIT
- I guess this is now just..the WAR period. Since the Iraq theater of operations is over. And yes we need to leave Afghanistan, and YES we need to leave sooner rather then later. That is WHY we MUST re-elected the man who has made the plans to get out.



So those there are the top 5 of the moment. I'm sure I will come up with others. What are your thoughts DUBO? (DU Barack Obama just came up with it..kinda catchy)..

Do you consider this a fair judgment of these critiques? Are there some I missed that really get your goat? Or am I just missing by and inch or a mile?

[patrice]

1. There is an interestingly high proportion of people about who appear to think that just saying

anything makes it so. Rationalism and logic apparently no longer matter. In fact, if you bring up empiricism and logic, you might get attacked for that alone.

Understandable desperation, alone, may not be the explanation, as facts countering despair don't appear to matter either.

We saw this in 2008, 2010, and it's spreading.

[DFab420]

2. So how do we counter such a slide into inanity...Forceful verbal confrontation of such actions?

I mean quite frankly I'm tired of being told to be polite to people who are clearly hiding behind a thin veil of "constructive criticism" in which they demean notable accomplishments, bemoan non-controllable failures (i.e. Guantanamo), and inflate already ridiculous standards of a man who is working against every old racist white man in Washington...

I say no more!

No more should we sit idly by as the work ,not just of one man, but the work, the blood, sweat, tears, and dreams of so many progressives get turned into warped caricatures through deceit.

[patrice]

4. There is great advantage in the "high road". No personal insults, because they're always an excuse

to revile the message.

Other than that, the only thing I can think of to do is to talk about the nature of how it is that their claims, any claims actually, to KNOW something are even possible: i.e. the processes, logic, and semantics known as "rational empiricism", especially "the nature of (what is referred to as) proof", but is, instead, technically more like "support", not proof, - an IMPORTANT logical difference.

I don't know where to start with this, but it is also referred to as "the philosophy of Science" and, in our culture, it IS THE basis of what anyone means when they claim to KNOW something, the purpose of which knowledge, especially in this place, the internet, is to SHARE. If the putative "knowing" is broken somehow, the motive of sharing becomes questionable and we could at least hypothesize some OTHER motive, like power.

I always try to say that people have a right to think/say whatever, but let us at least admit, let us be honest about, what we're doing, when it isn't knowledge, it is wrong to claim that it is and if it's wrong, what the fuck are "we" doing with it?

One thing that rational empiricism DOES NOT allow you to do is to de-contextualize your "knowledge" and one of the most common practices I see around is to DEMAND that people infer waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much about missing information and then object STRONGLY to questions, often with personal insults, and especially questions about how what is "known" is known. Based on little more than stuff in the news, and, even with additional information, often without myriad missing and very possibly related facts in a nearly infinitely complex environment, I/we are to conclude that, e.g., "Obama is a liar." We are to assume that whatever the claim is, it is based solely on THE SIGNIFICANT "facts" and none other and that it is logically necessary, when there often are significant fallacies.

Knowledge is so relative that without it's context, it's not technically knowledge. It's not possible to always include context, but let's at least admit that when we're abstracting something.

These are important issues. People WILL bitch at you for getting into this stuff. I am deeply concerned, though, that if we CANNOT come to some kind of agreement about what does or does not constitute what we refer to as a "fact" or what WE are doing and what we are NOT doing when we seek and share knowledge, if we can't come to somekind of recognition of the discipline that "truth" requires, I have little hope for anything else that could function as a reliable and functional connecting point between all of our differences.

[emulatorloo]

5. I've been considering a "Let It Sink" strategy

First I have to issue the disclaimer that fact based criticism of Obama, democratic policy is a very good thing.

But here we are talking about fact-free posts. We have a handful of posters who continually start threads which misrepresent or distort the issues and Democratic policies.

I've seen certain posts from admins that indicate to me they are aware of this. I think it would be nice if the admins put together a "DU Truth Team" that we could ask to fact check some of the more dubious claims made in the original posts of these threads. Wouldn't require a lot of work, a few minutes with google would probably do it. Our fact checks within these threads are pretty much ignored or claimed to be "talking points of the DLC." or something like that.

I have no clue as to the motivations of these posters, I am going to assume most of them believe strongly in what they post, whether or not it is true.

When I try to refute the arguments these posts, or point out that the facts don't support the claims, or that they are selectively quoting a policy statement in such a way that it is a total misrepresentation of the policy I am more likely than not accused of making a "personal attack."

Or I am told, "So what I selectively quoted. I just know Obama wants to do that."

So then we get the "Obama's Secret Plan" threads.

It is impossible to argue with people who are pretty much willing to say anything as long as it casts Democrats in a bad light.

Anyway, I started to wonder . . . what if I just stopped replying to these threads. What if everybody stopped replying to them, except for those who push the same kind of fact-free claims.

Conventional wisdom is that the viewpoint expressed in these kinds of posts is the majority viewpoint at DU.

However, I don't believe it is. I think we have a loud minority who have convinced themselves that their viewpoint is a minority.

"Let It Sink" would mean many of these threads die and fade pretty quickly.

As time goes on, I am seeing these post become more desperate and shrill. For example, it is becoming more and more difficult to push the "Republicans and Democrats are just the same meme" when we have the clear examples of what Republican rule looks ilke in the post-2010 All Red states.

"Romney and Obama" are the same is a hard sell as well, the more we learn about Romney and his record.

So these threads are becoming less and less plausible and more and more transparent.

Anyway sorry for rambling, just something I was thinking about.

[great white snark]

6. Excellent "ramble" emulatorloo.

I've also considered the "let it sink" strategy but some remarks are so heinous that I cannot, in good conscious, let them go unanswered. Luckily those instances are not that common because by the time I see them you or another supporter has left a response. A response waaaay better than anything I could have added BTW.

Whatever the case we would need an organized effort to let Op's sink...kind of like the organized responses and rec's those desperate Op's get-and I've noticed since his equality announcement and recent favorable poll numbers the desperation grows.

A concerted naysaying effort? You better believe it!

[JNelson6563]

7. Here's the trick to those shit-hole threads by operatives:

Post your cool, calm fact-based response and get out. No, really.

Take a look at the huge bashing threads.....and look to see how many non-shit-flinging-monkeys keep misguidedly kicking that shit to the top of the puch bowl. Stop people, just fucking stop taking the bait.

Julie--who likes to stay out of the shit holes to be eligible for jury duty

[emulatorloo]

8. Julie you are right. Post and get out

Don't get tangled up in subthreads that essentially function to kick the thread.

Besides that, the sub-threaders aren't into discussing. Typically they will deliberately misrepresent what you say.

Was in one the other day, at some point it appeared to me that the goal was to push my buttons until I said something angry. When I didn't say something angry, the poster PRETENDED that I said something angry.

Another example, I pointed out that OP was using a strawman argument, and gave the reasons I thought it was a strawman argument.

The subthread poster claimed I was using a strawman. Then declared "victory" and launched into rant about how deceptive and illogical I was.

[Number23]

9. That's been my thing too

Some stuff that gets said is so cravenly idiotic or devoid of fairness and reason that I just can't ignore it. That's where I get into trouble.

and I've noticed since his equality announcement and recent favorable poll numbers the desperation grows.

Not just desperation. A total lack of honesty and perspective has been creeping up too. I just had a conversation with someone still doing the "Obama talked down to the CBC" routine, something that just about everyone in the universe has declared a half-assed and truly cynical attempt to drive a wedge between the president and the black Reps in Congress -- almost none of whom fell for it. Add onto the fact that this "issue" is also more than 8 months old at this point and you'd have to be beyond desperate to keep trying to breathe life into it.

[louis-t]

3. I know a guy that swears Obama quadrupled the debt.

Claims debt was only 5 trillion when he took over.