OBJECTION!

Was Platner charged with rape?

No, but the accusation is very credible.

Why now? Why did these accusations not happen in 2021?

Because he wasn’t running for office then?

You guys are being played by Warren, Schumer, etc.

If Chuck Schumer planted the idea in my brain to distrust a Blackwater mercenary with a Nazi tattoo and a credible rape accusation, then man, I don’t even know. He must have some kind of mind control ray, one that he uses to promote ideas completely contrary to the policies he supports. I must be deep under his control.

Or, and I know this sounds completely crazy compared to the mind control thing, it might actually be possible that multiple people can dislike someone for different reasons, that they arrived at on their own.

Seriously, I’m getting flashbacks to high school here. Every time I questioned the conservative beliefs I was raised with, it was “who’s putting these ideas in your head?” as if I were incapable of having an independent thought. But maybe it was the Chuck Schumer mind control ray all along 🤔

Moral consideration includes whether the person has attractive morals to be considered a leader.

That’s not what the phrase “moral consideration” means. “Moral consideration” means, like, if they’re in a trolley problem next to an empty track, it’s wrong to kill them. If there’s a mosquito on one track, it probably doesn’t warrant moral consideration, so it’s not important to save it.

Anybody that commits a crime, that rehabilitates and demonstrates social behavior and not a social behavior, should be given the chance to run for public office.

Hard disagree. Why are you so deadset on getting people with questionable loyalties and character into leadership roles? It’s self-sabotage.

ICE agents that change their minds, leave the force, and show rehabilitated behaviors should absolutely be considered for public office.

Completely ridiculous.

People demonstrate whether they’ve learned about their past wrongs through their actions.

Yes, exactly!

Speaking truth to power is an action

What the fuck? Absolutely not!

People demonstrate their character by actual actions. Which is why, someone whose character has been demonstrated as bad through bad actions should be expected to redeem themselves through actions and not just saying nice things.

I mean, seriously? “People demonstrate their character through actions” means nothing if you’re counting “talking” as an “action.” The whole point of that phrase is that talk is cheap!

Maybe you Euroids

I have absolutely no idea where you pulled that one from. I’m an American.

Who is Platner’s campaign manager? Who is Bernie’s? Zohran’s? AOC’s? I have no fucking clue because I’m not a political autist masking as an ML.

That’s literally the point, dumbass. The campaign manager could be murderer or rapist (as you are so intent to allow into high-level positions for some bizarre reason) and it wouldn’t cause nearly as many problems. Like, tbh it wouldn’t be great to have such people in such roles, but Jesus Christ, at least keep them out of the top positions! It’s like you’re trying to tank the campaign or get co-opted!

before they get moral consideration from the left.

What does “moral consideration” mean here, exactly? The only thing I’ve talked about is leadership positions. Apparently, in your mind, saying I don’t want someone in a leadership position is the same as saying I don’t mind if they’re taken out and shot.

Any veterans that don’t immediately do that after leaving military service after as little as 1 tour and instead go on to do other normal economic things with their time like oyster farming, trucking, construction, whatever makes their living is not good enough for doing anything associated with political office.

Correct. Although, to be clear, in this case, we’re talking about someone who did four terms and then signed up as a killer-for-hire with Blackwater.

Do these same purity tests apply to normal folks, the peasantry class, that have no military experience? What if some of those peasants do crimes like arson or domestic violence or murder? Do they also get banned from political office forever

Yes? Duh, why wouldn’t they? Are there a lot of arsonists holding office where you live? Do you think we should be electing ICE agents?

The only double standard you can find here is that the same crimes that would be obviously and automatically disqualifying if committed domestically are somehow excused, if not admired when committed abroad.

Or should we measure people’s emotions and cognitions to see if they’ve really learned their lesson?

That’s exactly what I am doing! Obviously, if you fuck up then continue seeking power for yourself, you haven’t learned shit. Saying “I’m sorry” when it’s politically advantageous is meaningless.

There needs to be space for people to recognize their wrongs, and try to do better about it.

Which they can absolutely do. From a non-leadership position.

Who is Graham Platner’s campaign manager? Can you name them without Googling? If Platner were in a role like that, I wouldn’t really care. But apparently that means I think he’d “unworthy of moral consideration” in your ridiculous framing.

How do veterans make people’s lives better in the grand scheme?

“Grand scheme” nope, immediately wrong. You want to make things better in some big dramatic way, you want to be the face of a movement, you want a leadership position, don’t commit war crimes and rape people. Period.

You want to earn redemption and forgiveness having done those things? You contribute to other people’s movements and efforts. You quietly support from the background.

The vast majority of people who are actually working to make the world a better place receive little to no recognition. They never get their name up in lights, even if they do good their entire lives without killing and raping first. Now, you think the killer-for-hire is somehow entitled to being one of the few people who get recognition, who represent the movement? That they’re too good to do the quiet and humble work that non-murderers do? Where do you get off?

Is mass change through the state apparatus not an effective way of achieving the same goals?

Whether it is or not is irrelevant, the point is that Platner shouldn’t be one of the figures leading and representing that effort.

If a former veteran gets elected as a politician, blocks legislation that favors the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) and Israel, and passes legislation that benefits the constituents at home, then that’s some real, tangible restitution.

No, no it’s not, that’s not how anything works. “I just need to acquire power for myself so that I can make up for the bad things I did” is completely the wrong mentality and not someone who is genuinely seeking forgiveness. Your path of redemption does not look like you becoming one of the most powerful and influential people on earth. You want forgiveness, you use the power that you have right now to make a difference.

This is fundamental. Everyone has some fantasy about how, once they’re rich and famous and powerful, once they win the lottery, they’ll be super generous and kind and make the world a better place. And in the meantime, if they have to screw people over to get there, it doesn’t matter because it’ll all work out in the end. Seeking forgiveness necessarily means rejecting that mentality!

If you have already fucked up with what power you have, then the problem isn’t that you don’t have enough power, it’s that you aren’t capable of using that power responsibly. The last thing you should be trying to do is acquire more power, and doing that is fundamentally incompatible with redemption.

That’s purity politics.

So be it. If that’s purity politics, then we need way more purity politics in the US.

Biden spent his entire long career creating and exacerbating every problem the country has been facing, and somehow anyone who tried to apply any standard whatsoever to him, including just basic cognitive functioning, was accused of practicing “purity politics.” The US already has the least “pure” political standards in the entire world. That’s how we got here.

Are you MLs going to exclude all veterans from the revolution then?

From leadership positions? Sure.

Are you MLs going to consider that all veterans are a monolith and deserve to be morally contempted for the rest of their lives, with no chance of rehabilitation and change?

Excluding someone from a leadership position does not mean they “deserve to be morally contempted with no chance of rehabilitation or change.” This whole mentality is completely screwed up and backwards.

If a politician fucks up or does something shitty, and they want my forgiveness, then they’re completely free to drop out of politics. Go volunteer at a soup kitchen or something. Better yet, go out and make restitution to your victims. It doesn’t matter if you’re unable to undo the damage you caused, so long as you’re trying and you’re being humble about it.

But somehow, and idk if this is an American thing or what, but people like you get things completely twisted. A politician can just say “I’m sorry,” do absolutely nothing to make restitution or demonstrate humility, and everything’s fine! It’s ridiculous, that’s not forgiveness, that’s either not caring about what they did in the first place, or bootlicking and refusing to hold powerful people accountable.

No one who’s truly sorry and ashamed about something they’ve done would try to make themselves the face of a political movement and expect people to rally around them. Why does it have to be him when there are plenty of other people out there who haven’t been a killer for hire or a rapist?

It’s completely insane.

I’m not ignorant, I don’t have poor critical-thinking skills, I’m not secretly a right-wing extremist or a Russian bot. I’m just fed up with establishment politicians who act like they’re entitled to my vote while doing all sorts of horrible things and treating me with utter contempt and hostility for daring to acknowledge that Palestinians have rights.

It’s actually impossible for two people to have different opinions about something, no matter how different their beliefs or life experiences are. There are only two reasons a person might disagree with you, either they’re being paid off by sinister forces or they’re a bot.

That was over 50 years ago. Most of those voters are dead.

What the libs celebrating this don’t understand is that a third party doesn’t have to be treated with complete hostility. Tucker’s party could very well wind up endorsing a Republican candidate, in exchange for that candidate giving them some policy concessions (or bribing them with dark money and/or cabinet positions, of course). This is how third parties can wield the threat of being a spoiler as leverage to get policy they want, and why a right-wing third party isn’t automatically advantageous to the Democrats.

What he’s probably gonna do is to champion whatever wedge issue is in the zeitgeist that neither major party is responding to at all (a given), and he’s going to get the Republicans to give him a small, symbolic, and ultimately meaningless concession on that point, which will lead people concerned about that issue into the Republican party.

If the Democrats were capable of viewing the left with anything short of outright contempt and hostility for daring to question their absolute authority, if they actually responded to democratic pressure from below instead of plugging their ears and giving us nothing but tear gas, then maybe we wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in now, and maybe we wouldn’t have to worry as much about that happening in the future. But it’s a given that people will be more frustrated than ever with the duoparty in the next election and it’s also a given that the Democrats will absolutely refuse to budge or adapt at all, and so there’s plenty of room for Tucker to sweep up voters by actually engaging with their concerns (dishonestly of course).

If trends continue, everything will be like it is now, but slightly worse in every way.

How far can this bubble possibly stretch?