“Everyone lies!” “They’re all corrupt!” Even if that’s true, you still have to look at scale.
There’s a difference between drizzle, rain that you can use an umbrella for, and a hurricane.
Don’t make excuses for a hurricane because it might be raining somewhere else.
Facebook still insists it’s totally OK for them to help politicians lie to you for $$$.
Not just misleading ads, or controversial opinions, or varying interpretations, but outright lies. Totally fine with it!
Facebook says they don’t want to be in the business of fact-checking, but they have policies against false commercial advertising. Truth in advertising is critical because commerce requires trust and informed choices.
SO. DOES. DEMOCRACY.
It’s even more important in politics.
Off-duty cop fires ten shots at an unarmed intellectually disabled man and his family from twenty feet away, killing him and critically wounding his parents, because he pushed him in a Costco food line 3.8 seconds earlier.
No charges filed, because he had “no choice.”
And yet he had “no choice but to use deadly force.”
You’re seriously telling me there were no other choices?
It’s still not clear what started it. But the dead man had schizophrenia and was adjusting to a change in his medication, and his parents were trying to de-escalate the situation when they were shot.
Which the cop could’ve tried if he hadn’t started shooting immediately.
Update June 2020: His parents both survived, minus a few organs. The LAPD determined that the shooting “violated department policy.”
Update October 2021: A jury awarded the family $17 million in damages from the city of Los Angeles, finding that the officer was acting within the scope of his employment in the LAPD. And while Riverside County (where the shooting occurred) declined to press charges, the state of California charged him with manslaughter and assault.
Update August 2022: A preliminary hearing determined there was enough evidence for the former officer to stand trial.
So, does denying California the ability to set its own environmental standards fall under “states’ rights” or federalism? And is it pro-business to tell automakers that they’re not allowed to make deals with the state?
Your daily reminder that the GOP only cares about states rights when the states are trying to interfere with people’s civil rights, and only cares about federalism when, well, more or less the same, and is only pro-business when they like the business. And of course they’re only pro-family when the families look like theirs, and they’re only pro-freedom of religion when it’s their own religion, and so on down the line.
They talk a lot about conservative principles, but judging by actions, they’re just rationalizations.
If you have a big problem and a small problem, and you solve the small problem in a way that makes the big problem worse, that’s a bad solution.
Imagine “solving” a squeaky air conditioner fan by breaking the AC completely!
In the US, people voting who shouldn’t is a much smaller problem than people who should be allowed to vote not being able to, or mishandling of ballots after the vote. Voter ID laws and roll purges “solve” the smaller problem by making the bigger problem worse.
(You might already have an acceptable ID, or the documentation needed to get it — and the time and money to handle it. But what if it’s hard to get the time off? What if you can’t cover the fee without skipping meals? What if you need to cross two states to get the docs and can’t afford the car/gas/motels?)
If you assume good faith? Pushing to block people from voting, while simultaneously refusing to protect registration rolls or polling machines from mishandling or cyberattacks that we know are ongoing, is bad problem solving at best.
But it’s hard to assume good faith. Because those ID requirements and purges are more likely to unfairly disenfranchise people who might vote Democratic. And the ongoing Russian attacks that Mitch McConnell doesn’t want to guard against have favored the Republicans.
So it’s really easy to conclude that GOP politicians don’t want fair elections. They want elections tilted in their favor. Even if it means leaving the door open for a hostile foreign government to attack.
And anyone else who finds those vulnerabilities.
