When you ask yourself why do they use propaganda you inevitably conclude “Because it works”. It worked yesterday and it will work today as long as the majority of the masses are uneducated .
Tfw you write an article about the horrors of sophistry while selectively quoting from Plato to allege that the Capitol riot that killed no one was bad and the BLM riots that killed numerous people were good. Obviously, your argument is predicated on the idea that the BLM riots were justified, but, ill-equipped to make that argument head on, you take it as granted, assuming it as a predicate of your argument, and cowardly engage in semantic sophistry about the use of the word "insurrection" to cover up your sophistry. Even when playing with all these handicaps, you still lose the argument easily, considering that many BLM rioters openly admitted that their desire was to overthrow the government. "But it was for a good cause!" You plead, proving that all of your philosophical posturing was merely an empty facade. You could have simply written "Rioting is bad, except if you're the good guys," and it would've been much, much more intelligent.
Even if we assume that "many" BLM protesters openly admitted to the desire to overthrow the government, they had no mechanism, no administration in waiting, no leader, and were overwhelmingly peaceful. If the metric is deaths then the Rodney King riots were more of an insurrection than both, I think we can agree that's a silly conclusion. And yes, this piece is about how the word insurrection is used among the American right wing so it focuses on how the word is employed.
Regarding the Capitol riot being more of an "insurrection" than the BLM riots, because the latter had no leader, no "mechanism", no "administration in waiting," etc., I'm not sure why you would think this. Your definition of "insurrection" seems to be highly idiosyncratic. Eisenhower invoked the insurrection act against the segregationists during school de-segregation. Are you saying that he was wrong to do so, because of your very novel personal interpretation of the word? The segregationists weren't trying to overthrow the U.S. government, after all. They didn't have a leader, or an administration in waiting, ready to replace Eisenhower. And Bush invoked the insurrection act during the Rodney King riots, for whatever it's worth. It seems that you are annoyed that the generally accepted definition of insurrection doesn't conform to your own personal use of it. The word "insurrection" is derived from the Latin for "uprising." They are synonyms. If you're going to engage in talmudic semantic sophistry regarding whether the Rodney King riots were an insurrection or an uprising, you deserve talmudic semantic sophistry in return.
Now, if you're going to then argue that semantics don't matter, and you never really cared about in the first place, but would rather discuss the really material, substantive facts of the matter ("The BLM riots were good because racism is bad and the riots were against racism", etc.), I'm all ears. I agree that the number of deaths during a protest hardly affects whether it is an insurrection, but I hope you can agree that the number of deaths does affect whether a protest is more or less peaceful. In what way were the George Floyd riots more peaceful than the Capitol riot? I live in Minneapolis. I'm not the smartest guy on the planet, but "overwhelmingly peaceful" is one verbal trick that will never work on me.
Perhaps you will argue that, since a couple of old people holding signs outside of a small town could technically be considered part of the BLM riots, and since there was more of that going on (I'm not sure there was, but for the sake of argument, I'll grant it) than the lootings, shootings, beatings, and burnings occurring in Kenosha, the Twin Cities, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc., the BLM riots can be considered a mostly peaceful event.
Since you've clearly studied this subject, I shouldn't need to to remind you that there were Anti-Biden "Stop the Steal" protests in most major American cities, leading up to the Capitol riot. By your own logic, you would have to concede that the Anti-Biden riots were "overwhelmingly peaceful", even more peaceful, in fact, than the BLM riots. But instead, you arbitrarily single out the Capitol riot, and speciously compare it to a handful of BLM riots. Of course, I could single out the BLM riot in my city, compare it to the numerous Anti-Biden riots, and conclude, as a result, that the BLM riots were overwhelmingly violent. It's a highly dishonest way of cooking the statistics.
"The people who converged on the capitol building did so with the intent to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power and at the behest of a want-to-be dictator desperately attempting to overthrow a democratic government. The people who protested George Floyd’s extrajudicial murder did so for racial justice, with no intent to deprive the American people of a duly elected democratic government."
Call it a coup, putsch, or insurrection. The people who went to the Capitol showed up at the behest, and in support, of a strong man attempting to overthrow a democratic government, and the BLM rioters didn't. No amount of hand-wringing or wordplay will negate this fact.
I wouldn’t want to deprive the world of sophistry. Where else could one illicit such an exquisite example as in the comment section of an article on that very topic?
I think it is misleading to assign Socrates the role of knight opposing the excesses of monetized sophistry. Socrates the influencer of Plato and reportedly numerous others was a war hero and suicidal veteran who was well known for his conservative reservations about Athens' radical democracy and clear allegiance to the militarism of his times. Indeed it was the popular revulsion of Athens to the strategoi of Arginusae who found themselves unable to recover the bodies of the dead, although victorious, Athenians at that sea battle which eventually led to the turn in popular sentiment of a humbled Athens and Socrates condemnation and famous inevitable compliance with the order of the court. Socrates and his associate Plato perhaps had more in common with the views of Donald J6 McTrump in our own times whose only reservation about military defense at home and abroad is whether or not it is paid for. Splitting rhetorical hairs about words used in legal defenses is alternatively a much preferable form of disagreement and it may be that like Socrates' arguably facist politics McTrump may find his democratic Waterloo in court where just as much as today dispute resolution was monetized in ancient Athens.
That role was assigned to Plato more than to Socrates, and I doubt he would care whether the sophistry was monetized. It is true that Plato was rather conservative. He essentially advocated for a kind of aristocracy, but he did so with well reasoned arguments--not rhetorical word games. So I'm not sure what the relevance of Socrates's personal political views were given that I wrote about Plato and his contention with sophistry over the corruption of language.
When you ask yourself why do they use propaganda you inevitably conclude “Because it works”. It worked yesterday and it will work today as long as the majority of the masses are uneducated .
Yes! My next post will be about what people do when they seek information to be informed. Thank you for commenting Paul
Tfw you write an article about the horrors of sophistry while selectively quoting from Plato to allege that the Capitol riot that killed no one was bad and the BLM riots that killed numerous people were good. Obviously, your argument is predicated on the idea that the BLM riots were justified, but, ill-equipped to make that argument head on, you take it as granted, assuming it as a predicate of your argument, and cowardly engage in semantic sophistry about the use of the word "insurrection" to cover up your sophistry. Even when playing with all these handicaps, you still lose the argument easily, considering that many BLM rioters openly admitted that their desire was to overthrow the government. "But it was for a good cause!" You plead, proving that all of your philosophical posturing was merely an empty facade. You could have simply written "Rioting is bad, except if you're the good guys," and it would've been much, much more intelligent.
Even if we assume that "many" BLM protesters openly admitted to the desire to overthrow the government, they had no mechanism, no administration in waiting, no leader, and were overwhelmingly peaceful. If the metric is deaths then the Rodney King riots were more of an insurrection than both, I think we can agree that's a silly conclusion. And yes, this piece is about how the word insurrection is used among the American right wing so it focuses on how the word is employed.
Regarding the Capitol riot being more of an "insurrection" than the BLM riots, because the latter had no leader, no "mechanism", no "administration in waiting," etc., I'm not sure why you would think this. Your definition of "insurrection" seems to be highly idiosyncratic. Eisenhower invoked the insurrection act against the segregationists during school de-segregation. Are you saying that he was wrong to do so, because of your very novel personal interpretation of the word? The segregationists weren't trying to overthrow the U.S. government, after all. They didn't have a leader, or an administration in waiting, ready to replace Eisenhower. And Bush invoked the insurrection act during the Rodney King riots, for whatever it's worth. It seems that you are annoyed that the generally accepted definition of insurrection doesn't conform to your own personal use of it. The word "insurrection" is derived from the Latin for "uprising." They are synonyms. If you're going to engage in talmudic semantic sophistry regarding whether the Rodney King riots were an insurrection or an uprising, you deserve talmudic semantic sophistry in return.
Now, if you're going to then argue that semantics don't matter, and you never really cared about in the first place, but would rather discuss the really material, substantive facts of the matter ("The BLM riots were good because racism is bad and the riots were against racism", etc.), I'm all ears. I agree that the number of deaths during a protest hardly affects whether it is an insurrection, but I hope you can agree that the number of deaths does affect whether a protest is more or less peaceful. In what way were the George Floyd riots more peaceful than the Capitol riot? I live in Minneapolis. I'm not the smartest guy on the planet, but "overwhelmingly peaceful" is one verbal trick that will never work on me.
Perhaps you will argue that, since a couple of old people holding signs outside of a small town could technically be considered part of the BLM riots, and since there was more of that going on (I'm not sure there was, but for the sake of argument, I'll grant it) than the lootings, shootings, beatings, and burnings occurring in Kenosha, the Twin Cities, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc., the BLM riots can be considered a mostly peaceful event.
Since you've clearly studied this subject, I shouldn't need to to remind you that there were Anti-Biden "Stop the Steal" protests in most major American cities, leading up to the Capitol riot. By your own logic, you would have to concede that the Anti-Biden riots were "overwhelmingly peaceful", even more peaceful, in fact, than the BLM riots. But instead, you arbitrarily single out the Capitol riot, and speciously compare it to a handful of BLM riots. Of course, I could single out the BLM riot in my city, compare it to the numerous Anti-Biden riots, and conclude, as a result, that the BLM riots were overwhelmingly violent. It's a highly dishonest way of cooking the statistics.
"The people who converged on the capitol building did so with the intent to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power and at the behest of a want-to-be dictator desperately attempting to overthrow a democratic government. The people who protested George Floyd’s extrajudicial murder did so for racial justice, with no intent to deprive the American people of a duly elected democratic government."
Call it a coup, putsch, or insurrection. The people who went to the Capitol showed up at the behest, and in support, of a strong man attempting to overthrow a democratic government, and the BLM rioters didn't. No amount of hand-wringing or wordplay will negate this fact.
That's all you've got? If that's all you can defend from this article, why didn't you just save everyone a lot of time, and write that?
I wouldn’t want to deprive the world of sophistry. Where else could one illicit such an exquisite example as in the comment section of an article on that very topic?
*Elicit. Also, what do did you mean by "similarities and exacerbations"? I found that part especially confusing.
I think it is misleading to assign Socrates the role of knight opposing the excesses of monetized sophistry. Socrates the influencer of Plato and reportedly numerous others was a war hero and suicidal veteran who was well known for his conservative reservations about Athens' radical democracy and clear allegiance to the militarism of his times. Indeed it was the popular revulsion of Athens to the strategoi of Arginusae who found themselves unable to recover the bodies of the dead, although victorious, Athenians at that sea battle which eventually led to the turn in popular sentiment of a humbled Athens and Socrates condemnation and famous inevitable compliance with the order of the court. Socrates and his associate Plato perhaps had more in common with the views of Donald J6 McTrump in our own times whose only reservation about military defense at home and abroad is whether or not it is paid for. Splitting rhetorical hairs about words used in legal defenses is alternatively a much preferable form of disagreement and it may be that like Socrates' arguably facist politics McTrump may find his democratic Waterloo in court where just as much as today dispute resolution was monetized in ancient Athens.
That role was assigned to Plato more than to Socrates, and I doubt he would care whether the sophistry was monetized. It is true that Plato was rather conservative. He essentially advocated for a kind of aristocracy, but he did so with well reasoned arguments--not rhetorical word games. So I'm not sure what the relevance of Socrates's personal political views were given that I wrote about Plato and his contention with sophistry over the corruption of language.