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Alabama Voters Don’t Need Insults
This from John Podhoretz is just one of many similar comments out there:
Similarly, if you believe America has rotted away morally, the idea you’d hand enormous political power to a morally rotted person like Roy Moore reveals your own spiritual and moral rot.
What is wrong with simply saying “I disagree with your decision to vote for Roy Moore?”
Alabama voters are between a rock and a hard place. It’s not entirely their fault since Moore’s peccadilloes weren’t known until it was too late to take him off the ballot. The “establishment” offering, Luther Strange, was scandal-tainted himself.
It is true that Moore’s refusal to step down does not speak well of his character either.
But if you vote for Roy Moore, do you become him? If you vote for Doug Jones, do you become an abortion-promoting leftist?
If character should always trump political considerations, what ‘s the right choice if it were Moore versus a scandal-free Nazi?
Alabama voters have a choice between a predator and a progressive. Please, cut them some slack.
Published in General
Why does everyone call him a pervert? The accusations I heard have no perversions involved. Okay, so he liked ’em young. An older man who could snag younger women used to be considered a lucky dog. Two of the accusers said he liked them younger than legal? Okay, but that’s not a perversion. If it were prepubescent girls, that would be a perversion and the pedophilia several have called it. Only, nobody has accused him of that, just called it that. If he liked boys, that would be a perversion. If he liked very unusual forms of sexual titillation, that would be a perversion. If he thought he were a woman trapped in a man’s body… Well, let’s not go there. But a man’s liking young women is not a perversion. There may be some illegalities involved in the case of two accusers, but perversion? Really?
But in the primary they could have picked one of several candidates that was neither Strange nor Moore. So really the GOP primary voters are at fault. Or rather maybe the Alabama GOP which elevated a Strange under dubious circumstances and did nothing to vet Moore and keep him out of the primary. So yah the general voter of Alabama should not be viewed so harshly but the Alabama GOP should be viewed as a bunch of morally bankrupt incompetents.
I think I would vote for the Moore-Strange ticket.
With respect to the semantics of perversion, I think the issue is the changing nature of the word. I don’t think it today carries quite the level of extreme sexual divergence from the mean that it once used to. Basically the perverts of today need not be really that obscene or even participate in behaviors that obscure. I have totally heard it used to describe older men seeking younger women. Some times not even in a negative way. So while we may argue about the proper terminology to describe Moore I don’t think calling him a pervert is really out of bounds given modern English. Maybe a diminutive pervy might be a better word. He is pervy but not a pervert then.
Everyday we are getting Moore Strange.
I must say. When I learned about Luther Strange I could not stop laughing because the man has a comic book villain name. Had I lived in Alabama I might have voted for him for just that reason alone. Is he a Doctor perhaps? Because Dr. Luther Strange would just be an amazing character!
John Podhoretz doesn’t know how to disagree with someone without name calling and slurs. It’s why I stopped listening to the Commentary podcast.
I keep reading this over and over, trying to convince myself that it’s making a point through sarcasm and saying the opposite (see: Marc Antony). You need to make it more obvious, I think.
Are you saying the word pervert has been perverted?
To each their own. I find the Commentary podcast one of the very best. Oh well.
You have a good point, but that would take away my brilliant alliteration.
Both parties screwed up. The Democrats committed gross political incompetence running a “choicer” in Alabama. (The California GOP regularly returns the favor by running a “lifer” here). The Alabama GOP screwed up with Moore, who long before this scandal was a loose cannon and a grandstanding showboater.
Yes. By modern sensibilities 40 years ago, maybe Moore’s tastes were controversial (see Jerry Lee Lewis), but not perverted.
The first thing the Left does to destroy the old order is pervert language.
He blocked me on Twitter a long time ago. Around the same time Anne Applebaum had good-enough reason to block me when she did it (even though I wish she hadn’t) but Podhoretz just blocked me for no reason I could discern. I may have made some crack about Russian movies vs the ones he reviews; I don’t remember any more. However, I remember very well what I said that got Applebaum to block me.
You mean, like presidential primary voters have plenty of options? Don’t vote for the immoral horndog, but instead for the candidate who wants to tax you for global warming or the one who wants to increase healthcare bureacracy while expanding government’s powers in other ways?
Nearly every election is a choice between bad options. I’m not following the Moore drama because it’s not my decision to make. But sweeping condemnations of Alabama voters seem to mistake their priorities for exclusive interests. Perhaps many dislike Moore, vocally disapprove of his behaviors (beyond false accusations), yet believe as a politician he would do less damage and more good in office despite those failures.
Perhaps what pundits wish were automatic disqualifications are only strikes against in a very complicated and difficult moral equation.
Predator and progressive is better alliteration anyway.
A queer question? Why cleave to the old definitions?
Or perhaps the problem is that language isn’t a fixed thing and words over time change their meaning and use. Don’t like it change it back though everyday usage.
Though to be fair to the Dems their prospects were dim did they ever think the Republicans would nominate someone as bad as Moore so that they would actually have a shot? But this is why you should take every race seriously, and find suitable candidates for the region.
Agreed. Let’s start by not calling a guy with normal male urges a “pervert.”
And, back on point, we need to stop insulting our voters for a change. ‘Twould seem obvious.
Ostensibly, they were defined by deeper thinkers than what we have today.
Our modern redefinitions are defined by connotation and lazy misuse. Like “retard” meaning someone who is mentally mal-formed rather than “slow” (my phone’s dictionary won’t even recognize that word, so conflated with a slur as it is).
“Perversion” has deep use that is somewhere between stubborn and overturning natural order.
A male being attracted to a fertile young woman is not, by any means, a perversion of natural order, though it could be argued that the attempts to define natural heterosexual attractions as perversion is, itself, perverted.
They had a viable option who McConnell ran out before the primaries because he knew he could beat Strange. So Moore wasn’t necessarily Alabama’s choice, either. Moore really is a Trump in this regard. A big giant *-you to GOP establishment who seek to manipulate elections to their favor. Strange was supposed to win the primary. Not Moore. Serves McConnell right for playing dirty politics poorly.
My understanding is that Alabama voters can get rid of him in three years, whoever the winner of this contest of urination turns out to be. Moore’s “Republican” opponents claim his election would taint the Republican brand forever. (Because, you know, the Republican brand has such outstanding consumer confidence right now.) This is hogwash, of course. If Moore loses, however, one can expect the media to dredge up charges against any Republican in 2018 who hasn’t been a strict, lifelong adherent of the Mike Pence rule.
Due to comments from @westernchauvinist, @valiuth, @arahant and others, I changed the wording of the final sentence.
Here’s pretty much the Left and the Never Trumpers today:
I don’t think that’s how things work. There is no party “vetting.” Anyone with enough signatures gets on the primary ballot. And with 40 years of political activity behind him I don’t know how much more vetting there could have been.
I took Moore’s selection to be connected to McConnell’s PAC buys on Strange’s behalf. Why outside groups get involved in primaries are beyond me. They usually stir up more resentment than add something positive to the conversation.
Because to facilitate understanding words must be commonly used. For example, if I should ditch the common, older definition of “queer” I would be forced to ask you what a “homosexual question” was.
He’s not that bad on the Commentary podcast. But then he generally agrees with his fellow podcasters. I started following him on Twitter and I was astounded at the venom that came from him. It was so bad I decided I couldn’t support him on any venue – so I stopped listening to Commentary. Maybe it’s just that Twitter brings out the worst him. But that worst is pretty bad.
But then how would “we” demonstrate “our” intellectual and moral “superiority”?
Noah Whatshisname is by far the worst on the podcast, from my experience. Perhaps Podhoretz tries to be more of a statesman, since he has Noah there to spew the venom.
Reminiscent of the Goode-Weed congressional race here in VA a while back.
Rothman. Noah Rothman.