DNC chairwoman will resign in aftermath of committee email controversy

Re:DNC chairwoman will resign in aftermath of committee emai... by nl on Monday July 25, 2016 @12:30AM (#12156477)

The joke, which reveals a deeper personal value judgement on behalf of the person telling it, speaks of a "good gay" as if to stereotype gay men by a particular behavior, denying the possibility that you can be a "good" gay man but have a different cultural outlook. That, to me, is unquestionably a form of intolerance. Making light of someone can be a form of intolerance, depending on what property it is by which you make light of them and whether or not it is based in a harmful generalization. Another way to say it is: you can't claim tolerance if you're happy to propagate harmful stereotypes or generalizations.

I think this is a fair point, and one I'm quite sympathetic to. I agree that it is all too easy to say "it's a joke, ha ha" when people say very offensive things.

I think you've persuaded me that it was pretty bad judgement to say that.

BTW, I think this one is inexcusable: https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/7643

It's frankly shocking to me that someone would suggest it's just boring gossip to be unconcerned with. I cannot reconcile that with any notion of caring about even the tiniest component of civic duty

I think that this is a great ideal to stand by, but I can't imagine finding any large group where this kind of behaviour doesn't occur.

Maybe I'm too old and cynical to fight that kind of fight any more. Maybe I shouldn't give up so easily, but I just don't see any possibility of an organisation existing with ideals as high as that and yet still be able to win elections.

Bismark said: Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.

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Re:DNC chairwoman will resign in aftermath of committee emai... by p4wnc6 on Monday July 25, 2016 @12:37AM (#12156498)

I like David Deutsch's idea of an effective form of government too: how easy is it to eject the current one and try something new? Then, if we must be subordinate to the idea that we're just making small changes, aking to "the art of the next best" that you quote, at least we make it easy to displace bad ideas and try something else.

I think one way of ensuring no bad forms of government entrench themselves, thus making it impractically difficult to ever even try that next best thing, is to be vigilant when it comes to all of this.

Am I expecting zero gossip? Of course not. But do I think the opportunity of a massive email leak that exposes behavior that is, at minimum, inexcusably unprofessional, should go by without trumpets blaring? Absolutely not.

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