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Ridiculing Joe Biden
Any conservatives worth their salt know about the despicable behavior of Joe Biden over the last 50 years: he has lied, touched women inappropriately, misused the power of his office, railroaded Justice Clarence Thomas in his Congressional hearings, and attacked voters. Under the spotlight of the 2020 campaign, his flaws are even more obvious, particularly his verbal gaffes, confusion and other attributes of potential dementia, as described in Brian Watt’s excellent post.
But in our discussions of Joe Biden, I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable, not about criticisms of Joe Biden from the past, but the efforts to humiliate, ridicule, and shame him for his actions and behaviors during the campaign. Especially notable are shows like “The Next Revolution” on Fox News, which had a segment (preceded by a cartoon of Biden dressed as a clown) with a series of his gaffes. I dislike Joe Biden, but this segment made me very uncomfortable.
In the discussion of Biden on Brian Watt’s post, a number of people also seemed to be gleeful, assuming (I suppose) that Biden was getting what he deserved. Many people were bothered by the apparent effort by Biden’s family and handlers to put Joe through the grueling process of a campaign to be president. People can speculate on their reasons, but most of them are not beneficial to Biden himself, to the Democrat Party (unless they think they can control him if he’s elected) or to the country.
I realize the prospects of Biden’s being elected are limited, but it raises two major questions, one legal and one moral:
- Is there any way to protect the country from a person who may be mentally incompetent from being elected to the highest office in the country?
- On a more global level, is it appropriate to intend to publicly humiliate a vulnerable person because the person has committed despicable acts in the past?
It’s important to clarify a few things at this point. If people become vulnerable at some point in their lives, their pasts should not be forgotten or even forgiven. But as human beings, is it appropriate for us to be gleeful over a person’s current tragedy, due to his actions in the past? I’m not saying we should ignore the person’s current condition, either. We should describe what we are seeing, protest the situation, but for me, enjoying a person’s demise and stating publicly that we are happy about his misfortune is simply immoral.
In addition, I believe that it’s not my place to tell anyone what he or she should think or feel. Those experiences are between you and G-d. The actions and behaviors taken to humiliate another person are what I find disturbing.
I’m not sure how to consider people on Ricochet who expressed their dismay at this condition, particularly if someone close to them had dementia, or those who expressed delight in Biden’s misfortune. Are we a Ricochet family where we sometimes come to vent? Or are we a public forum which we can use to express our attitudes about Joe Biden in the present?
Finally, I’d like to share a thought from Judaism:
One should be extremely careful to never shame another in public. This sin is akin to murder; just as blood is spilled in the act of murder, so too when one is shamed the blood drains from his face. One who publicly embarrasses his fellow loses his share in the World to Come. This sin is considered more severe than a borderline adulterous act.
One who publicly embarrasses his fellow loses his share in the World to Come. In fact, the Talmud derives from the story of Judah and Tamar that it is better to be thrown into a fiery furnace than to shame another publicly. It was in the merit of her extreme care not to shame Judah – to the point of willingness to forfeit her life – that Tamar had descendants who became kings and prophets.
I do wish we had a way to screen an individual who may have mental illness before he runs for a high office, but the Constitution doesn’t provide that path. And clearly, we can’t expect those close to a candidate to act on his behalf.
Those people who allowed Joe Biden to continue in public office over the last 50 years, and those who currently keep silent, have earned our disdain and condemnation.
Published in Culture
Step 1: Under no circumstances should you ever, ever, ever, ever establish the United States Department of Education. The Comprachicos of the Mind with federal power will virtually ensure the outcome you fear here.
I tend to agree that the senility charge is overblown. Biden is just old, and has the occasional senior moment, when something he ought to remember won’t come to his mind when he needs it. As I get older myself, this happens to me, too! (Though I don’t lash out at innocent bystanders when it happens.)
On the other hand, I’m leery of those who urge unilateral disarmament on Republicans and conservatives. I sometimes wonder which side they’re really working for (perhaps their own).
For example, in spite of overwhelming evidence, we’re not to say the other side is less patriotic or “un-American”. Our reward for this restraint is that the other side gets to call us unpatriotic and un-American, when they get bored with just calling us racist all the time.
Donald Trump’s mental abilities are constantly questioned by the Left, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We should not hesitate to point out that Joe Biden is no longer at the top of his — never better than mediocre — game.
“An eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth” means that if a person commits and offense against you, you are entitled to commit an equal offense against him, not a lesser one.
Here’s a brief post by John Hinderaker from the PowerLine blog and the PowerLine podcast. It contains a piece of video of Biden leaving somewhere and being mobbed by reporters asking him about the insulting comments he heaped on the guy who asked him a question yesterday. Is this post appropriate? Is it fair to point out that Biden looks confused? And that his answer to the questions he’s being asked is irrelevant, and just plain bizarre?
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/03/joe-biden-cant-be-president.php
I believe that the problem is more than just the occasional senior moment. Here’s a guy who ought to have known that he was going to be questioned about his earlier outburst, and who should have been prepared, even with an obviously scripted answer. But Biden seems completely disconnected from anything going on around him, and to quote Hinderaker, he seems “out-of-it.”
Difficult to imagine this man, who’s just completed the most staggeringly successful week of his political career, and who ought to be energized and on top of the world, dealing competently with a crisis of any sort. Very, very difficult.
I find myself in the same situation as @susanquinn. Joe Biden is a gaffe machine and he has been for some time. When I thought it was just “Joe being Joe”, I joined in the laughter and the ridicule. He is running for President and I have no problem with opposition ridicule. But lately I started to grow more and more uncomfortable as I perceived in Biden, rightly or wrongly, behavior consistent with dementia, based on my own personal experiences with loved ones. I felt the same way about Michael Jackson. Towards the end, it was so obvious that he was a seriously disturbed human being and therefore by making fun of his oddities, which as a public figure I think are fair game, I was making fun of a mentally ill person. So there’s a line I cross, where my perception of the behavior of public figures changes. I won’t try to defend it by laying out concrete criteria because I doubt I could. But my conscience knows when I cross it.
The Atlantic has a good article on Joe Biden’s speech patterns by a fellow stutterer. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/joe-biden-stutter-profile/602401/?fbclid=IwAR3wpl2JEGOF2c-0yS95JRC67Ju3_MD4ly0W1njTbvPppwLZRDyZ5cpTTBw
I believe that it is entirely proper for me to observe and comment on Joe Biden’ clear cognitive decline, and to state that it appears, based on my close observation of the situation in others, that he’s not improving and that he exhibits some symptoms of what has been diagnosed in others I know, as dementia. I’m not diagnosing Joe Biden. Perhaps he’s on some medication that makes him appear as if he has some dementia symptoms. Perhaps there are other reasons that make him appear as if he has some dementia symptoms. I don’t know, and honestly, I don’t much care why he exhibits symptoms resembling those I see in people I know who have dementia.
I’m not laughing at him. I’m not mocking him. I’m not shaming him. I don’t want to embarrass him. I’ve never liked him much, but until he became the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee, almost overnight, I didn’t really pay too much attention to a man who, it didn’t seem, would be affecting my life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, or, very likely at some point, my safety and that of those I love. (Full disclosure: I don’t love some of the things that Donald Trump does in those regards, but I trust him far more than I trust Joe Biden, in large part because Trump isn’t masquerading as the epitome of honor, respectability and decency while behaving in a completely different way himself, and because Trump often acts unapologetically like the vulgarian I think he is.)
But now Biden is in a position where he appears on track to win the Democrat nod. And, things being what they are, there’s a non-trivial possibility that if he becomes the nominee of his party, he could win in November. What happens after that happens, and whatever nefarious speculation and/or plotting is going on or has gone on, can’t be known right now.
But right now, today, I do know that almost everything I see and hear from Joe Biden makes me doubt his ability to do the job he’s running for. I’m not going to be the person, if Joe goes off the rails at some point, who says “He seemed like such a nice, jolly, decent, smart, old buffer. I’m shocked, shocked that he would say/do this.” Because he doesn’t, and I won’t be.
And I don’t think that saying what I’ve said makes me a bad person, a shaming person, an evil person, or an unreasonable person, and I’m not sure that I even understand what this discussion is about anymore. So I’m out.
Who determines what’s a lesser one? Or the degree of the original offense? We’re talking subjectivity here, not “you cut off my hand, so my brother will cut off yours.”
Your point is well-taken, @hoyacon. It’s just like responding to a war-like attack–can’t think of the term–where you don’t use overkill to respond to a small invasion. Who gets to decide what is fair? Hamas will never agree with Israel on that definition.
I do not look forward to Joe Biden being the nominee for the very reasons you and other have posted. I feel sorry for him. To have a distinguished career such as his, he should have bowed out gracefully. Granted, he’s better than Bolshevik Bernie, but he clearly has health issues and his wife should be more concerned. They said the same about Mueller. I don’t take any pleasure in the repeated gaffes on the MSM. This is going to be a very strange and challenging election year. I’m wondering if I should do the absentee ballot route….
Distinguished? For his lowdown attack on Robert Bork? For his plagiarism? For his hair plugs?
We do.
Biden past behavior was atrocious. Mocking the evil dim witted is in bad taste, but could be considered defending our country.
Proportionate response. Generally it is a bad idea. You’ll end up with a war to fight later, and you might not win the next time. It also dissuades others from getting that old froggy feeling and jumping.
What about being “gleeful” over someone going to prison – or worse – for criminal acts they’ve committed? Biden has definitely been responsible for a lot of evil in his past, even if not strictly criminal acts. And there has been and remains little chance that he’ll suffer for them, at least “in this world,” before he leaves it. So, couldn’t it be appropriate if he doesn’t get to enjoy a happy, peaceful “twilight years” after causing so much pain and other damage to others?
Maybe it’s awful, but just because MOST people don’t deserve that kind of fate, doesn’t mean that NOBODY does.
“Biden says he hasn’t felt himself caught in a traditional stutter in several decades.”
Which may explain why I’ve never noticed Biden stutter. When I saw this article in The Atlantic, I assumed they were attempting to give him some cover, relative to his problems with verbal production.
Ominously, stuttering in old age is itself a symptom of dementia.
I’d like to parse what it means to “mock Joe Biden.” I don’t take glee in the fact that Biden may be showing signs of dementia. I do think the situation deserves mockery and ridicule. But what is the “situation”? It is not simple “old man has dementia.” It is that others insist that we utter the shibboleth “Joe Biden is just as sharp as ever.” Or that they deploy deflections and red herrings ( “Trump slurs his words”; “childhood stammer”). This is the situation, in which we are asked to pretend things that aren’t so, that deserves mockery and ridicule. Biden’s episodes of forgetfulness and gibberish aren’t in themselves hilarious. They are only hilarious in juxtaposition to the lies that There’s Nothing to See Here, or that such lapses are irrelevant for a man who seeks to rule over me. In essence, I’m not mocking Joe Biden. I am mocking those who tell me there is nothing wrong with Joe Biden. Joe Biden is the subject and not the object of my ridicule.
Then I would encourage you to mock them for their bad judgment, not him. Your point is a valid one, @cjherod. Thanks.
The thought of President Joe Biden should make you less so.
Attack ads work, and they’re especially effective when they can easily be proven true, particularly by the targets themselves. To me, Biden’s disdain for voters by his violent, profane-laced responses to their questions is worse than Hillary’s “deplorables” comment. It’s one thing to make broad-sweeping hyperbole about the opposition’s supporters, but another to target individuals and call them names to their faces in public. (Note I’m referring to voters, not competitors.)
That’s the trick, isn’t it? They use our general aversion to mocking the mentally infirm as a shield against criticizing their propping up of Joe Biden. It’s a lot like the David Hogg thing. How dare you criticize a child, especially one who has suffered so much? They tell you, “This man is wise,” and then have you listen to a David Hogg speech. They tell you, “This woman is beautiful,” and then show you a picture of Bruce Jenner.
Imagine if someone had a Youtube channel dedicated to following around a random septuagenarian named Bill Jordan, who was exhibiting obvious signs of diminished memory. And then suppose the Youtuber spliced up a bunch of clips for his audience’s amusement. I don’t think there would be any debate here at Ricochet that this would be reprehensible.
Now imagine instead that Bill Jordan’s family and friends convince him to become a motivational speaker. Half of your coworkers insist that he is this great speaker that we all need to listen to. The corporate press is constantly lavishing him with praise. You decide you should check out this Bill Jordan fellow, but when you watch, it’s terribly uncomfortable because clearly Bill Jordan is losing his marbles. You begin to wonder if you’ve been sucked into some bizarre dimension. To test this hypothesis, you confront your coworkers with the evidence demonstrating Bill Jordan’s many, many lapses in memory. Instead of acknowledging the facts, they lash out at you and call you an “ageist.” They invent rationalizations that strain credulity, claiming that it’s just a side effect of the dyslexia he’s had since childhood. I could see someone splicing together egregious moments from Bill Jordan’s speeches, but it would serve to mock the lunatic idea that he’s a great speaker. Still, we have the option of distancing ourselves from our insane coworkers and ignoring Bill Jordan.
Nobody is trying to impose Bill Jordan on us, but there are people trying to impose Joe Biden on us, so I think mockery in self-defense is justified. Can we do so while partitioning off the uncomfortable reality of Biden’s mental state?
The other thing here would be the attitude would only remain until they had secured that big motivational speaker booking they had been hoping to get. Then they’d immediately flip and admit that, sure, Bill Jordan’s obviously over the hill, and we need to substitute Bill’s newly-hired protege, Bob Williams, in his place for the big event.
And Joe will have access to the nuclear football . . .
Susan, I believe some people are not worthy of forgiveness and Biden is one of them. You do not have to give forgiveness to evil people that do not want it. Biden is evil. In listing his sins, you did not mention what he did to Curtis Dunn.
Dunn was the truck driver who was involved in the accident that killed Biden’s wife and daughter. He was declared innocent (basically Biden’s wife had a stop sign, the truck driver didn’t) and carried the grief over the accident with him for the rest of his life. Biden, a spineless coward, waited until after Dunn passed away almost three decades later to start slandering the man, claiming he was drunk. Police definitively ruled alcohol out of the incident. Biden is a powerful, public figure. Dunn was a private citizen. Biden could have movies made and books written about his life and Dunn could potentially be portrayed as a drunken criminal, with nobody to defend him. This put Dunn’s family through unnecessary grief.
I do not blame Biden for hating Dunn irrationally. I have no idea how I would cope with something like that. But I would never lie about the death of my wife and daughter to slander a dead man who can’t defend himself, for political gain. This is Bond-villain, cartoon super-villain levels of evil and cowardice. Biden is a horrible human being who deserves all of the ridicule that is directed towards him.
Just to be clear–I specifically said his past shouldn’t be forgiven or forgotten.
How does that song go?
“God may forgive you, but I won’t. Jesus may love you, but I don’t.”
I feel morally better about myself after reading that
fluff piecearticle and now I’m convinced that Biden deserves my vote.But somehow his current situation can’t be… maybe just “karma”… for his past?
As I posted earlier, just because MOST people don’t deserve it, doesn’t mean that NOBODY does.
MOST people don’t deserve ANY kind of painful death. But I don’t think I’m alone in hoping that Bin Laden hurt a LOT after he was shot. But considering the proficiency of the people who got him, he probably died a lot quicker than he deserved.
A lot quicker than many people in the burning twin towers, for example.