Let's denote that list of policies as q.
Let's call the group of people disproportionately affected by q, S.
What you're saying is--logically--the same as saying, "If you weren't affected by q, you're in no position to tell people in group S to vote *against* Biden.
Your view is that only people in group S have the requisite information or experience to urge people to vote for or against Biden.
This seems a strange view, because we're facing a federal election in which Biden and Trump are the only viable candidates for the presidency.
One of them will win. One of them will then be president of *all* 330 million American citizens. One of them will have the sole power to launch nuclear weapons, command the American military in combat, and wield the power of the executive branch over every American citizen.
This will affect every one of us. But you're saying--am I right?--that only members of group S are in a position to suggest that Biden would be a better choice. Or to say that he would not.
More broadly, your argument suggests that unless you've had exactly the same experiences as the person to whom you're speaking, you ought not urge them to vote for Biden--and perhaps, that you ought not have political discussions with them at all.
But there's no two people who have had exactly the same experiences of anything, no less a given political policy. So your argument seems to militate against *all political discussion.*
That seems an odd way to run a democracy. It would make the exchange of political ideas impossible.
There are other implications of your comment that I don't quite understand. What if I *was* affected by those policies? (Negatively or positively?)
Am I then in a position to speak to others who were?
If not, why not?
Are you suggesting I possess, inherently, a group identity that puts me in a position to speak about certain things but not others?
If so, what group is that, to whom am I in a position to speak, and about what? Is it "white people?" If so, I think you're wrong. I think we should try to *reduce,* not increase, racial segregation in the US. Racial segregation is a failed and immoral policy.
There have been and are, of course, societies where it's either an informal taboo or a legal principle that one may not to speak to members of a different ethnic group, race, tribe, caste, or class. The US has itself been this kind of society.
But the word I'd use for such societies is "oppressive" and "retrograde."
If this is the kind of society you admire--why?
(Also: Why members of group S, as opposed to members of other groups who have disproportionately borne the burden of policies Biden has supported or might support?
What would you say to someone who said, "I'm in the military--group Y--and *we* bear the burden, more than any other member of our society, of bad presidential judgment." I'd say that's a truism, wouldn't you?
Does that mean only the military is in a position to talk about Biden? I don't like where the argument leads, do you?)
I would offer the following, instead, as the proper organizing principles for a democratic society:
1) Are you a citizen of that society?
2) If so, you're in a position to speak to other citizens of that society.
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Yes. I have no evidence that this was the deeper source of the tensions, but I sure hope this factors into NATO's thinking and that they're making plans in the full understanding that this could happen. I worry that they may be in some kind of total denial:
Maybe they're not. Maybe this is discussed at every step, but privately. But it's not beyond imagination that some kind of superstition, or fear of causing offense, prevents people from saying to Biden, "Whatever we do has to be Trump-proof."
e.g., "We need to get Ukraine what it needs *now,* because we don't necessarily have "as much time as it takes." And "we need to pass key treaties *now,* because we may not have the chance later."
You will never convince me that these kids are on the street because they’re sincerely worried that they’ll be forced to toil until the age of 64. When you’re that young, you can’t even truly conceive that one day you’ll be 64.
And the idea that *this* is the worry that keeps them up at night these days is risible. Have they not noticed that Vladimir Putin regularly threatens to nuke them?
That recent advances in artificial intelligence are so revolutionary that we can’t even imagine what work, retirement, or human life will be like by the time they’re old enough to retire?
On invading Mexico: open.substack.com/pub/claireberl… I wrote this because I find the lack of debate about this spooky. I think the GOP is *seriously* talking about invading Mexico!
I sometimes think I’ve been away from the US for so long that I’ve lost my feeling for US culture, because I just don’t get why some perfectly trivial controversies become absolute firestorms, with no one talking about anything else for days, whereas much more serious things--
--like the GOP seriously proposing to invade Mexico, and trying to pass an AUMF to do it--don’t even warrant an opinion piece in the NYT.
Are we just taking it for granted that these proposals aren't serious?
But why? Once you pass that AUMF, it can be used by *any* president.
Tucker Carlson's Ukraine war anniversary episode is obscene-an unrelenting firehose of anti-Americanism, Russian propaganda, and grotesque lies about Ukraine. It leaves me slack-jawed that this was aired in America.
Why is the most-viewed host on American cable television serving an unremittingly hostile and genocidal foe of the United States?
This isn't subtle; it's Baghdad Bob level insane.
We know from the Dominion filing that he knows perfectly well these are lies. But we also know he'd cut out his own tongue before saying anything that would displease his viewers. So he must know that this is what they want to hear--but *why* would they want to hear this?
It's deeply sinister that the West's central platform for sharing news and information is owned by a Putin apologist. Even Father Coughlin (or more aptly, Henry Ford) didn't have this kind of control over the arterials of public debate.
This can't be trivialized. He and Tucker Carlson are overtly on the side of the most dangerous enemy of the West and of humanity since Hitler. Given the influence they have on public debate, this is *deeply* sinister.
Together, they're capable of severely undermining Western unity, morale, and support for Ukraine. Despite the happy rhetoric about supporting Ukraine "as long as it takes," we all know we're only one election away from leaving Ukraine and Europe to Putin's mercy--
If you missed it in the newsletter, I want to point out a very good place to donate for earthquake victims in Syria. My friend @esi_zey is organizing it and I trust her implicitly: crowdfunding.copalana.org/mycampaign/109…
She writes: "The difference between this and donating to Kızılay or Support to Life for example is that this is a relatively small project and we know exactly where the money is going ... so this might give people a bit more sense of having helped.
"It’s a specific shelter. In Sheikh Bahar. And God knows the Syrians were already miserable, are at the mercy of the Syrian regime and Turkey, therefore largely cut off from the world and receiving aid.