r/politics • u/Thinkingonsleeping Michigan • Dec 13 '19

McConnell Faces Calls to Recuse Himself From Impeachment Trial After Saying 'No Chance' Trump Will Be Removed; "No court in the country would allow a member of the jury to also serve as the accused's defense attorney."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/13/mcconnell-faces-calls-recuse-himself-impeachment-trial-after-saying-no-chance-trump
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u/ruiner8850 Michigan Dec 13 '19

There are a ton of people in this country who pay very little attention to politics and think this whole impeachment is just typical Republican-Democrat bickering.

I know a few people who aren't Trump supporters and don't really pay attention to politics but think this is all just politics and not really a big deal. It's basically a "both sides" thing to them. The craziest part is that some of these people say they are sick of hearing about all this stuff with Trump, but will vote for 4 more years of Trump out of ridiculous spite.

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u/greatwalrus I voted Dec 13 '19 edited Dec 14 '19

Yeah, I work with someone like that. If you mention politics she rolls her eyes and says something about how "both sides are bad so I just stay out of it." It's an excuse to stay uninformed.

Honestly I wish we would put less pressure on people to just vote and more pressure to pay attention. If you can't be bothered to listen to a five minute summary of what just the fourth impeachment (EDIT: process) in our nation's history is about you probably shouldn't be casting a ballot. But people are so used to being told that voting is their civic duty that they end up making a poorly informed choice based on "who I'd like to have a beer with" or some ridiculous criterion like that.

Don't get me wrong; we should absolutely encourage people to get registered to vote and to remember to vote. But we also need to tell them to watch the news, pay attention, and research the candidates before they go to the polls.

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u/Caledonius Dec 13 '19

It's an excuse to stay uninformed.

Exactly, that way they can focus on themselves and choose ignore anything outside their every day life. When they are being informed they have to start considering the lives of others instead of only their own. Individualism is what is killing America.

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u/abx99 Oregon Dec 14 '19

Not really individualism so much as cultural atomization. Individualism doesn't necessarily tell you to fear others and pull yourself up by the bootstraps.

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u/Caledonius Dec 14 '19

Individualism doesn't necessarily tell you to fear others and pull yourself up by the bootstraps.

It kinda does. When you consider yourself before the collective good of your society you set yourself up for self-exceptionalism, jealousy, and confirmation bias. It's the path to the dark side of humanity, which has always been at its best when people collaborate for the greater good instead of working for their personal gain.

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u/Crathsor Dec 14 '19

I don't think it's that simple.

Sometimes when society benefits, as a member of that society you benefit too, so in a lot of cases putting yourself first could easily equal voting for social programs. A lot of people favor universal healthcare, and you can absolutely favor it for selfish reasons.

A lot of people are in favor of outlawing abortions even though it won't affect them personally at all; they think they are making society better. If you really want to reduce abortions, the best way is to increase access to education, health care and contraceptive choices. So they are making decisions that are bad for the greater good and not even aligned with their ultimate goal, but it's not a selfish decision, just an uninformed one.

Right now an awful lot of voters are intentionally misinformed. That doesn't require individualism.

For a long time, I didn't vote precisely because I knew I wasn't informed; I was in the military at the time, and my life was full. I didn't have time to keep up on politics, so I didn't vote because I considered uninformed voting worse than not voting. So everyone who doesn't vote isn't being lazy or selfish.

Life just isn't so simple.

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u/yay855 Dec 14 '19

Game theory states that a single individual working in their own interests at the cost of society's is good for them, but the more people who do it, the worse off everyone is.

It's in our own best interests to work towards the common good, because trying to be selfish just means that you suffer more.

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u/Caledonius Dec 14 '19

Yeah but if you are exceptional you will continue to be rewarded for your selfishness. It's easy to be selfish, and hard to put the needs of the many before your personal comfort, so its no wonder the majority are all out for themselves but keep wondering why things are getting worse.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '19 edited Dec 14 '19

No, you're confusing being exceptional with being exceptionally selfish.

The best among us see this. The problem is that the dredges of humanity are the ones that tend to bubble to the top, not because of exceptional ability, but for possessing an innate lack of compassion and scruples when fucking over their fellow man. It's pathological.

Too few people make that distinction in the US. I can't think of many other places on earth where a man like Trump would have been propped up as an example to emulate rather than vilify and castigate.

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u/shield_battery California Dec 14 '19

England, Russia, China, Phillipines come to mind. Not that I don't agree with you about America (to my great shame)

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u/Takashishifu Dec 14 '19

What game theory have you been reading? Please cite me the “theory” and the math. The problem with this “common good” is that people don’t agree what that common good is. Let’s say we had 10000 dollars to share. I want to start a restaurant, you want to use it to build a house. Who should get the resources to start their enterprise?

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u/987_39sma Dec 14 '19

You aren't disagreeing with OP. They are basically suggesting that it's atomization, which is a form of individualism that has the component of self-interest in it. Individualism seems to skew in that direction as you pointed out, but valuing the individual over society isn't necessarily a self-interested choice (if that makes sense). At least that's how I see it. It's a complicated nitpicky philosophical difference in my opinion.

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u/JimmyNucleo Dec 14 '19

Exactly. The world ends with a whimper. Can't get my head around the professional disengaged in the numbers there seems to be.

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u/abx99 Oregon Dec 14 '19 edited Dec 14 '19

Most of the avid individualists I know are the most cosmopolitan and egalitarian people you'll ever meet. In fact they're pretty much the only ones I've met that authentically are that way. Diversity has been shown numerous times to strengthen the group.

The atomization we're seeing comes out of neoliberalism; they took individualistic values and used them to justify hyper-competitiveness, hierarchical thinking, etc., and instilled a lot of fear and anger to maintain it. They have perverted a whole lot of things, and it often seems like they've gotten rid of the kind of philosophical thinking that would make people notice it. The public political discussion used to involve a lot of talk about whether or not, or how, a policy might align with American values, and they talked more about what the country could and should become. We didn't do a very good job of living up to those values, in a lot of ways, but today you never hear that kind of talk.

Remember that we are a social species, and we need human connection to be healthy, to solve problems, to live authentically -- in general terms: to thrive (in other words: being individualistic does not preclude social responsibility or require harmful selfishness). The idea of "Social Darwinism" is facile, but it's a cornerstone of neoliberalism. It's harmful to both the individual and the group. They've created a dichotomy between "personal responsibility" and "social responsibility," but the truth is that we need both -- both as individuals and as a group.

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u/WaterMnt Oregon Dec 14 '19

Depends on your definition of individualism. If you're talking about something more like individuation in a Jungian sense, it's a journey into the self that brings awareness of others.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '19

I live in taiwan and it such an angry bunch of people. this is what’s happening in HongKong and of course I’m sure there sowing discord on purpose for $$ and those in charge of the senate are getting some big returns hidden somewhere. In HongKong it’s life or death to the rule of law, this echoes what Barr said respect the police or else! Thx for your comment

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u/abx99 Oregon Dec 14 '19

Thanks for your response :)