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Play Your Own Game
It’s almost as if there were a law. In the pregame of every major sporting championship the intrepid sideline reporter will catch up with the coach of the underdog team and breathlessly ask, “How to you beat those guys?”
“Simple,” says the underdog, “We have to play our game. If we play their game, we lose.”
It sounds clichéd but it’s true. Not just in sports but in politics as well. And the name of the game we’re playing today is “condemnation.” The rules are relatively simple.
- A group or leaders of a nation-state does something bad.
- American politician must issue a statement of condemnation, preferably “in the strongest terms possible.”
At this juncture the ball is now in play. Points are awarded and deducted based on the adequacy of the statement. The actual effect of the statement is to be disregarded as this is not the point of making the statement in the first place. (The three previous administrations played the game very well vis-à-vis North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. That the current administration may have to actually deal with the problem is immaterial.) The rules are very fluid and are often adapted on a case-by-case basis.
For example, in 1964 an off-duty New York City policeman shot and killed 15-year-old James Powell in Harlem and that event triggered six days of rioting in the city. Three days in President Lyndon Johnson issued this statement:
It must be made clear once and for all that violence and lawlessness cannot, must not, and will not be tolerated. In this determination, New York officials shall have all of the help that we can give them. And this includes help in correcting the evil social conditions that breed despair and disorder.
American citizens have a right to protection of life and limb-whether driving along a highway in Georgia, a road in Mississippi, or a street in New York City.
I believe that the overwhelming majority of Americans will join in preserving law and order and reject resolutely those who espouse violence no matter what the cause.
Evils acts of the past are never rectified by evil acts of the present. We must put aside the quarrels and the hatreds of bygone days; resolutely reject bigotry and vengeance; and proceed to work together toward our national goals.
By the rules of the game in 1964 this was a home run. Points were awarded on the following merits:
- Inclusiveness of mutual blame and goals
- Law and Order and Pubic Safety first
- Forward thinking
Bonus points were awarded for the politics. LBJ was a Democrat running for re-election that November.
What got the White House love and admiration in 1964 were universally condemned over the weekend in President Trump’s remarks about Charlottesville. While LBJ waited three days Trump lost bigly for waiting three hours. While LBJ won points for condemning both sides Trump lost points for being insufficiently specific. Where LBJ won points for rejecting both “bigotry and vengeance,” vengeance is now a stated policy goal of the left. Bonus deductions were made because Trump is a Republican and will, presumably, run for re-election.
This exercise will lose me points for playing another political game called “Whataboutism.” If you think the condemnation game is rigged, Whataboutism is Russian Roulette with rounds in all six chambers. Any defense of Donald Trump is automatically scored as a loss. There is no double standard too egregious. And like counting cards at the blackjack table, Whataboutism comes with its own version of banning by the House: “If Obama had done that…” Comparing actual Trump actions to actual past actions of previous administrations = loss. Comparing actual Trump actions to hypothetical past actions of previous administrations = loss. The House always wins in the end.
That’s the funny thing about the games we play is that we accept the malleable rules on one hand and denounce it on the other. We accept the fact that the progressives make it up and bend the rules as they go along and we demand “principled” self-reporting of “rules violations.” The Progressive Left is playing hand grenades and we’re playing a gentleman’s round of golf. We’re all playing our own game. The problem is that, of course, we all lose.
Published in Politics
I posted an answer for this man’s piece of trash company.
Cronyist pricing vis a vis political bribes is his game.
The government can remove Pharma’s rigged pricing scheme and let the free markets do it instead of the Ayn Randian nightmare this hypocrite represents.
Of course I could see Trump screwing up with gov price controls. We shall see.
Thanks that was a good piece. Is there a Pharma company that does business the right way that I can support?
Takeda, Novartis and Boeringer ? Sp? seem ethical.
What happened in Charlottesville was both complicated and simple. Complicated because there were a lot of factors in play. Simple because one of them was human nature. Which isn’t pretty.
Complicated, because in addition to the really bad guys, you had a lot of silly people, some earnest well-meaning people and a city and state government trying to figure out how to manage all of the above with less than ideal (apparently?) training and tactics. It is difficult to overstate the value of experience. As our own @dougwatts so often shows us, Portland’s police department does riot-control well. They’ve had a lot of experience. Most small city departments, thankfully, don’t. So while there are basic methods of riot control that people learn, it’s mostly the larger and more experienced departments that keep up with innovations and best practices while other departments tend to develop expertise in whatever problem(s) their citizens present them with most often.
It’s sort of like treating specific injuries. Any E.R. doctor presumably has some basic knowledge about what to do with a patient who has been shot. But then there were those hospitals in Los Angeles during the mad, bad crack-war ’90s; they developed serious expertise in treating gunshot wounds, enough so that combat medics and military doctors were sent to L.A. to bone up before heading for Iraq. Another example: during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, E.R. doctors got really good at treating gunshot wounds to the patellae…because the IRA had taken to “kneecapping” traitors.
The screwed-up neo-Nazi who ran his car into a crowd of people is responsible for the death and mayhem he caused. He is going to be punished—and we have every reason to believe the punishment will be severe.
If the white nationalist marchers had been chanting “what do we want? Dead white anti-racist women!” or otherwise inciting to violence, let alone if they had been discussing (seriously or just hyperbolically) whether perhaps running people down with a car would be a good strategy for furthering their aims, they could be said to have ginned up and then directed his violence, and should be condemned for that.
If you encourage people in the belief that they are the beleaguered victims of a conspiracy and affirm that the bad guys are both omnipresent and verging on victory; if you imply that it would be understandable, if not downright heroic, if one were to attack fellow-citizens, (“Punch a Nazi” for instance) you can’t really claim to be innocent when one of your more excitable followers does exactly that.
So by all means, let’s Out the lot of them and, for public safety reasons, make it plain to the earnest fellow-travelers that when people show up for a “peaceful” demonstration wearing masks and helmets, carrying sticks, human-waste-bombs and other weapons… you should go home, both for your own safety and as a principled statement of your opposition to violence in itself.
Not true.
So true. My heart breaks for the young woman who was killed and for her family. I was heartened that her father spoke of forgiveness for her murderer because that is what Christ did on the cross. But, as I remarked to my wife this morning, I can’t believe that any sentient human being could look at everyone (on both sides) dressed and geared up for war and think that it was a good idea to participate in the counter-demonstration. It was, instead, a good idea to get the H*** out of the area!
And everyone (from the President(s) on down) should loudly
a.) affirm the right to peaceful, words-not-sticks-or-fists speech, including stupid and hateful speech
b.) condemn violence and vigorously prosecute malefactors.
I want to feel that but somehow it’s very hard to. There’s a Darwinistic level of stupidity at play.
“Hey, I have an idea! Let’s all form a mob and go into town and confront the mob of angry Nazis!”
“Uh, don’t Nazis have a reputation for killing people?”
“We’re getting pizza afterwards!”
“Great! Let’s all go!”
The relationship between the violent fringe groups and the mainstream is interesting, though.
We didn’t have White Nationalist protests during the Obama years. We didn’t have #BLM protests during the GWB years. Why did #BLM burst into view under the first black president? Why are the white nationalists suddenly descending on Charlottesville under Trump?
When it came to Obama, my theory was that black expectations for how far and how rapidly black Americans would advance under Obama were high—unreasonably so. At the same time, and for his own reasons, Obama did not disavow and too-often tacitly affirmed what is essentially a conspiracy theory about racism in America: that it exists, is evil, is powerful, is everywhere, that all these apparently unrelated phenomena are Signs, etc. As always, there was a smidge of truth in amongst all the obfuscation, misinterpretation, omissions and elidings and plain old lies.
Is Trump doing the same for white nationalists? That is, are the expectations for the destruction of the SJW Left and the recovery of the economic and political fortunes of working class white Americans unreasonably high? And has Trump, for his own reasons, tacitly affirmed the mirror-image conspiracy theory, namely that there is a self-conscious and coordinated effort to impoverish, impugn and generally wreck white men?
When Obama came out after the Sterling and Castile deaths and said his infamous piece about “these are not isolated incidents…this is systemic” I considered that he had, in effect, put the imprimatur of the ultimate Alpha Male on the notion that police officers are part of a murderously racist system. Though he did not suggest that therefore police officers should be attacked, anyone beginning from his premises could logically arrive, armed and dangerous, in Dallas.
Ben Shapiro has made a similar point on the Daily Wire. We could argue about whether “systemic racism” is or is not a more real and present problem than “systemic leftism” or “systemic anti-white-male bias.” We could also argue about numbers and backing: there are more AntiFa and fellow-travelers than overt white supremacists, and their supporters are both more numerous and more influential. Steve Bannon aside, Trump has not invited Richard Spencer or the white nationalists over to the White House to discuss their grievances.
The civilized left should be pressed, hard, to affirm that it is never okay to use political violence against your political opponents; that “By Any Means Necessary” is an unacceptable philosophy in a free republic, and that anyone who plans or incites violence should be prosecuted.
That is the real lesson of Weimar-era Germany, and one that needs to be hammered home. In between-the-wars Germany, the problem wasn’t too much free speech (there were laws against insulting other religions, including Jews, for instance) the problem was that violence was either not suppressed (because the government was too weak) or was selectively suppressed because authorities sympathized with one group over another.
What a disgusting and amoral thought.
It gets worse. Sometimes they forget to put on their halos.
It’s amoral to acknowledge the stupidity of putting oneself in danger? This woman wasn’t an innocent bystander. And it’s common sense to avoid clashing mobs, let alone to voluntarily participate in one. It’s a akin to storm chasing. Put yourself in the path of tornado don’t be surprised you get swept up in it.
If the Nazis are your enemy, the authoritarian communists are not your friends.
You think she had a reasonable expectation of being run over and killed? Do you have evidence that she engaged in any mob behavior? Ugh.
Yes! Confronting a mob is a reckless disregard for one’s own safety! Especially if the mob has the name “Nazi” in it. They don’t exactly have the reputation of being a ladies sewing circle. Do you think we hit the beaches of Normandy with protest signs?
Even if she wasn’t there to protest common sense would tell you to leave the area or at least seek shelter and remain there until it was safe to commute. But it has been acknowledged that she was there to counterprotest. She chose to place herself in danger.
Addendum: That doesn’t absolve the idiot in the car. He is still murderous scum.
She played with Darwin and lost.
If I start a bar fight or hang around when a brawl starts I just might get stomped. Common sense to analyze risks. The nazis may well get grenaded or shot. Common sense to analyze risks. I won’t shed a tear for them when they die. They asked for it.
This is an interesting point. We would need to actually listen to the alt-right groups to be sure, but it’s probably part of what is going on.
I thought it was a peaceful protest by law abiding Nazis?
You go to these protests to try to provoke violence against you, while maintaining enough innocence (or appearance of innocence) so you or one of your comrades can be the martyred person and turn the world against the other guys. Except you don’t really want to die, but taking the risk is exhilarating. It’s a tactic with a long, honorable/dishonorable history, but not one that stuffy conservatives have learned to adopt as their own, even though they are supposedly friendly to risk-taking entrepreneurs.