[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window?wprov=sfla1
I’ll cite a specific example to make this case. See this paragraph:
> Cotton did not call for “military force against protesters in American cities.” He spoke of a “show of force,” to rectify a situation a significant portion of the country saw as spiraling out of control. It’s an important distinction. Cotton was presenting one side of the most important question on the most important issue of a critically important day in American history.
What Cotton actually said:
> One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers.
(Emphasis mine)
It’s very clear to anyone reading Cottons article that the call is to deploy troops to subdue he largely peaceful protests, which are painted as overwhelmingly violent in the beginning of the article. The author of the current article is simply using selective words to further his argument.
The other arguments are similar in nature. So while it appears to be a good read, it actually is not.
If Cotton explicitly stated that all protestors were in violation of the law, then I stand corrected, but otherwise I’m not convinced this is as cut and dry as you make it seem.
I want to take this opportunity to make an important point: I could easily have accused you of disinformation for promoting what appears to me to be an illegitimate “spin” on Cotton’s column. But I didn’t because I know you’re just trying to call it like you see it. What I want you to understand is that this is what everyone is doing, Matt Taibbi included. We’re all trying to interpret things as best as we can. Sometimes those interpretations don’t line up, but that doesn’t mean everyone who disagrees with you is purposefully spreading disinformation. (Maybe some are, but I believe most people are trying to be accurate.)
> This week, rioters have plunged many American cities into anarchy, recalling the widespread violence of the 1960s.
> New York City suffered the worst of the riots Monday night, as Mayor Bill de Blasio stood by while Midtown Manhattan descended into lawlessness. Bands of looters roved the streets, smashing and emptying hundreds of businesses. Some even drove exotic cars; the riots were carnivals for the thrill-seeking rich as well as other criminal elements.
It’s immediately clear that it’s not a nuanced argument he seeks to make, in his view protestors and rioters are one and the same. If his desire was to use the military on only the rioters he could have mentioned that distinction. However, that would reduce the thrust of the argument: why deploy overwhelming military forces when the rioters are a minority? If they’re a minority can they not be controlled with existing law enforcement ? Instead of weakening the case he chooses to ignore the distinction, which is deliberate and insincere.
Cottons op ed: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protes...
It seems like you’re reading the words “riots” and “rioters” and assuming that they must be Cotton’s terms for “protests” and “protestors”, but why make that assumption?
> Some elites have excused this orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic, calling it an understandable response to the wrongful death of George Floyd. Those excuses are built on a revolting moral equivalence of rioters and looters to peaceful, law-abiding protesters. A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn't be confused with bands of miscreants.
Tom Cotton: Those excuses are built on a revolting moral equivalence of rioters and looters to peaceful, law-abiding protesters. A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn’t be confused with bands of miscreants.
You're doing exactly what Cotton warns against just a paragraph later from the part you quote. I'm actually baffled.
If we can't agree on things said in a single straight forward op ed, how are we (humanity) ever going to have any real conversation? Is this the Great Filter of Fermi's Paradox?
Consider another example. Tough on crime laws were not explicitly designed to incarcerate large number of POCs by the the letter. But the difference in how different communities are policed meant that POCs communities often ended up being targeted more anyways. Lawmakers who created such laws would say “ Its meant to target hardened drug criminals, just the bad apples” but in practice it doesn’t really matter.
In this case, the op ed explicitly paints an incredibly biased picture of the situation on the ground and uses that to justify a heavy handed response. There is absolutely no way for a militarized response to differentiate between peaceful and non peaceful responses and Cotton knows that. When the military is involved, it means one thing only: curfews, rigidly enforced. All protests shut down regardless of their nature. One line saying “ please not the peaceful protestors” means absolutely nothing.
> If we can't agree on things said in a single straight forward op ed, how are we (humanity) ever going to have any real conversation? Is this the Great Filter of Fermi's Paradox?
I’m not sure what that is so I can’t address that directly. It’s not a black and white argument as you seem to imply though. Context is extremely important and words in isolation mean absolutely nothing.
I don't care. I live in one of these so-called riot zones and my company's office was looted. I do not want active duty soldiers pointing weapons of war around my neighborhood for any reason. Especially with how municipal police forces have dealt with (and escalated) these situations. I'll not have my home treated like a failed state or enemy war zone.
How many leaders of the regions affected by the looting rallied to this call? None. How many military leaders did Cotton call upon to support his case? None. How many of those affected by the lawbreaking does Cotton represent? A vanishing fraction.
Taibbi thinks hes being clever splitting hairs but he's missed the whole point. Cotton's repugnant article was an obvious partisan hack job, a towing of the Trump line, dogwhistles included. In the NY Times' own words, the article lacked basic fact checking and did not meet the paper's editorial standards- Bennet very obviously fucked up in the loudest possible way.
These are excellent concerns, and I fully agree with you on those. But we can debate about them (at what point is it necessary to intervene to stop violent protests? With which means, what would be an acceptable use of force?). You can express your disagreement in full and mark your distance from Cotton's opinion.
Instead misrepresenting what Cotton wrote, accusing him of inciting murder and forcing the editor to resign are not legitimate objections. Seems simple enough?
Nobody is misrepresenting what Cotton wrote. Everyone who is following the situation closely rather than just reading the words knows what consequences could be to the proposed actions and are justifiably horrified by it.
Frankly, I don't even think that this is true. I think the US police is just hyper-violent, mostly for cultural reasons (both on the side of the police and on the side of the criminals). The 2.3 million inmates in US prisons are the demonstration of a deeply flawed culture in that respect. And the fact that blacks are disproportionately engaging in criminal behaviour (for whatever reason) makes them more vulnerable to police violence. But just framing this as a racism issue is misguided. There, I said it.
He took significant pains to separate out protestors from those who were rioting and looting and includes a defense of protesting as a right in the article.
Is your brand of rhetoric here the reason why everyone feels like they have to belabor their points by "refreshing" a distinction every two paragraphs lest you forget? It's a weird amnesia, and I want to you consider the possibility that you want him to equate rioting with peaceful protesting because without that, you don't have much of a point.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagine your thought process is to read something like the quote someone brought in the sibling comment of mine. And you go "ah, a-ha ok so he did make a distinction". And then a few paragraphs later you switch 100% back into "but he probably didn't mean it right here! gotcha. ;D"
How else am I to interpret any of your comments in this thread?
But there is a reason why that paragraph was missed, and Ive tried to portray the reason why that might be in my other comments.
I’m not trying to change your mind. I’m trying to address the reasons why his op ed was deemed to be so revolting. A lot of the comments seem to confess a kind of willful blindness to the awfulness involved in that essay and I’m trying to make a good faith argument to explain why that perspective is justified.
You started by saying, "I would advise care when reading it". Now you're saying you somehow "missed that paragraph in his essay". So you've been attacking Cotton without having actually read what he wrote despite telling others to read it carefully, but that's OK because "it's fine to be wrong". In fact you seem to be suggesting you ignored it deliberately: "there is a reason why that paragraph was missed"
In one comment you said, "Nobody is misrepresenting what Cotton wrote". Yes they are: that's what this entire subthread is about. You have been constantly mis-representing what he wrote and people keep pointing that out by quoting the article.
I suspect the core problem is revealed by this comment:
"Context is extremely important and words in isolation mean absolutely nothing ... that paragraph was explicitly designed to protect the outcome of what he’s really calling for."
Words in isolation mean absolutely nothing? Context matters sure, but not to the extent that actual words mean nothing at all. Your position here is that what people say they believe doesn't actually matter in the slightest, and should be ignored in favour of vaguely defined "context". Who defines this context? I guess you do. In fact in this world view Cotton can say something as clearly as possible and it should still be ignored, because what he "really" means is - obviously - the exact opposite.
But you're also trying to have it both ways:
"This is a US Senator whose essay was reviewed by his editorial staff before being sent to the times. He is saying exactly what he meant to say"
So now I think we're all hopelessly confused. Which is it? Is Cotton saying "exactly what he meant to say" or is he saying the opposite of what he meant?
Finally, you state "I’m trying to address the reasons why his op ed was deemed to be so revolting". I'm afraid you aren't succeeding. I can't figure out if it was revolting because of the words he wrote, or the words he didn't write, or if those words are meaningless and it's all about "context", in which case it appears no op-ed written by him could have ever passed muster regardless of what it said. This looks a lot like a slippery argument that Sen Cotton simply shouldn't be allowed to speak at all.
> Words in isolation mean absolutely nothing? Context matters sure, but not to the extent that actual words mean nothing at all. Your position here is that what people say they believe doesn't actually matter in the slightest, and should be ignored in favour of vaguely defined "context". Who defines this context? I guess you do. In fact in this world view Cotton can say something as clearly as possible and it should still be ignored, because what he "really" means is - obviously - the exact opposite.
I’ve provided enough reasoning about why context is important in my other comments and I’ve sure you’ve read that since you’ve been reading all of them. Context is important to understand what the outcome of a policy results in. It is not an academic debate as people on this forum seem to think. You can be a racist without saying explicitly racist stuff; adding a disclaimer that one is not racist doesn’t really change anything.
> So now I think we're all hopelessly confused. Which is it? Is Cotton saying "exactly what he meant to say" or is he saying the opposite of what he meant?
That was in response to 2 different things. He said exactly what he meant wrt giving no quarter (isolated tweet, different from essay) while paying lip service to the distinction between peaceful protestors and rioters in the essay. Which is why, again, context matters.
> Finally, you state "I’m trying to address the reasons why his op ed was deemed to be so revolting". I'm afraid you aren't succeeding. I can't figure out if it was revolting because of the words he wrote, or the words he didn't write, or if those words are meaningless and it's all about "context", in which case it appears no op-ed written by him could have ever passed muster regardless of what it said. This looks a lot like a slippery argument that Sen Cotton simply shouldn't be allowed to speak at all.
It’s possible, yes. I am human and I make mistakes. Not perfect. But the amount of length that people like you go to try and discredit others rather than take a moment to understand another perspective is staggering, while simultaneously claiming to “fail to see why his essay was controversial”. It points to not a failure to understand but an unwillingness to.
Literally, "no quarter" means that combatants are to be killed rather than taken prisoner. Figuratively, it means to give one's full effort to achieve an overwhelming victory. Especially with the inclusion of anarchists, it's hard to reconcile that with the idea that he really wants to cast this as a matter of law enforcement. His is, to put it bluntly, a fascist sentiment.
I know some people feel like the f-word is overused, but it's pretty well accepted that one of the elements that separates a genuinely fascist movement from mere authoritarianism is the normalization of extrajudicial violence against political opponents. Not to put too fine a point on it: historically, anarchists were often specifically targeted for such fascist violence.
I can't tell you that Tom Cotton is a fascist in his heart, but he is very definitely speaking their language.
Insurrection, rioting and looting are actions that are breaking the law. How long should this behavior be tolerated? Perhaps it's just a phase the people need to go through in order to release pent up energy. The concern is, though, that each time a city is burned and looted and people are beaten and killed and the rest of the country sees no consequence to the rioters, looters and insurrectionists, it lowers the barrier to partaking.
By reporting only the mayhem, the press becomes the gateway drug to anarchy.
>no pity or mercy —used to say that an enemy, opponent, etc., is treated in a very harsh way
It's plausible that he meant this in the way you describe, but I think it's more likely he was using fancy language to emphasise that the city and police shouldn't tolerate things like the CHAZ or rioting and looting. Essentially, he's trying to criticize the local governments for tolerating these things and not putting a stop to it. (Easy way to try to score political points.)
And should everything anyone says be given the worst possible interpretation, or should we, as in the Hacker News guidelines, "respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."
Most Senior Government officials do, yes.
And Occam’s razor applies: I would argue that using an alternate interpretation of what he said rather than the well known one is going absolutely against the spirit of that hacker news guideline.
Is it? Because to me he very clearly and explicitly talks about people that are breaking the law - rioters and looters.
The opinion piece by Cotton literally says this:
>Those excuses are built on a revolting moral equivalence of rioters and looters to peaceful, law-abiding protesters. A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn’t be confused with bands of miscreants.
>But the rioting has nothing to do with George Floyd, whose bereaved relatives have condemned violence. On the contrary, nihilist criminals are simply out for loot and the thrill of destruction, with cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa infiltrating protest marches to exploit Floyd’s death for their own anarchic purposes.
How can you read these lines and say that it is very clear to anyone that he meant deploying troops against peaceful protesters?
It is true that it does start of by talking about violence, rioters, and harm that's come to the police. But after that he explicitly says that these should not be confused by the protesters:
> Some elites have excused this orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic, calling it an understandable response to the wrongful death of George Floyd. Those excuses are built on a revolting moral equivalence of rioters and looters to peaceful, law-abiding protesters. A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn't be confused with bands of miscreants.
The majority of the op-ed is a fairly straightforward argument for deploying federal resources to help police, how that might be done, and why it needs to be done.
This is the most controversial paragraph it would appear (following the above paragraph).
> One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers. But local law enforcement in some cities desperately needs backup, while delusional politicians in other cities refuse to do what's necessary to uphold the rule of law.
The op-ed doesn't seem particularly controversial to me. Whether or not a given city takes the action outlines in it -- yes, sure, that might be controversial. But this seems like the basic argument that is made by people in support of sending in troops to supplant police. I struggle to see why the views of a good chunk of the population should not have a public platform to be presented & discussed.
He’s railing against, ultimately, the evolution of information distribution.
He’s calling the media industry recent exclusion of one journalist the end times?
Go start a YouTube channel. Someone THAT good shouldn’t need a day job.
A hundred years ago most people were self employed.
This weird bubble of human history where we all got talked into working for “financially viable” tribes is deflating.
Taibbi is ultimately sticking with what he knows, being all alarmist the world is changing and not buying into what he thinks is important anymore. He doesn’t have the same monopoly on visibility.
The real overton window has moved a little bit, but a lot of this is really about Twitter. Many institutions, including universities and publishers, act like Twitter outrage represents their real readers and communities.
This isn't true. Twitter is a thick bubble that gives the loudest voice to the angriest, most passionate outrage-mongers. Sometimes they use it for good causes, other times they're way outside the mainstream. They also firmly believe, in a way that's constantly contradicted by polling, surveys, and talking to people in real life, that they're not only right but the majority.
I can't say for sure that it's getting worse, but it feels like.
That’s not an Overton Window shift, even if it was happening (which it is not); an Overton Window shift would change what the outrages are; making questioning popular outrages less tenable would be a narrowing of the window rather than a shift. But there is widespread and viable news media coverage questioning the outrages of the day, more than any time previously I would venture. It's just that the media is more focussed on catering to various isolated demographic and ideological markets (some more for advertising sales reasons, some more for political propaganda reasons, but the net effect is the same), and so in any particular outlet there is probably less tolerance for stories questioning the outrages of that outlets target audience. But, while the Overton Window may have shifted and/or narrowed/widened over time, this isn't a sign of it so much as the increasingly narrow audience focus of much of the media.