Elizabeth Warren's Pregnant Pause

[Sam]

I do Jim, but that is just what he has offered up, opinion pieces. You just happen to agree. We both know history isn’t a hard science, like physics, and is heavily dependent on the historians opinions. I can make anyone look good or bad, depending on who I ask, what I choose to highlight, or choose to downplay. Look at the presidency of Lincoln. Most modern historians rank him as among America’s best presidents, but his contemporaries wouldn’t agree. He was surrounded by negative press through his presidency. He even had to arrive in DC, in secret, for fear he would be assassinated before ever taking office. Truman is another such figure that history has looked a little kinder on. I’m sorry Jim, but I’m right and I’m sure you know it. History is heavily based on people’s opinions and Presidents are no different. History might look at Trump as great or it might look at him as a dismal failure, we simply are too involved and don’t know enough to judge more accurately.

OK, do Pol Pot.

[oxmixmudd]

I do Jim, but that is just what he has offered up, opinion pieces. You just happen to agree. We both know history isn’t a hard science, like physics, and is heavily dependent on the historians opinions. I can make anyone look good or bad, depending on who I ask, what I choose to highlight, or choose to downplay. Look at the presidency of Lincoln. Most modern historians rank him as among America’s best presidents, but his contemporaries wouldn’t agree. He was surrounded by negative press through his presidency. He even had to arrive in DC, in secret, for fear he would be assassinated before ever taking office. Truman is another such figure that history has looked a little kinder on. I’m sorry Jim, but I’m right and I’m sure you know it. History is heavily based on people’s opinions and Presidents are no different. History might look at Trump as great or it might look at him as a dismal failure, we simply are too involved and don’t know enough to judge more accurately.

I still see what you are saying as more of an excuse than anything else. The things Trump is doing are wrong on so many levels that there is almost no chance anyone will be vindicated at some future time when history looks 'kinder' at him. I believe the far more likely outcome is that historians will marvel at how, once again, a large number of seemingly decent people have become blinded to obvious wrong in the face of a charismatic public figure.

Jim

[lilpixieofterror]

Here you offer up just another excuse not to listen to that which you don't already agree with or believe. How about trying to understand what has been said and then, if you still disagree with it, offer something substantial as a counter to it?


Jim

I do Jim, but that is just what he has offered up, opinion pieces. You just happen to agree. We both know history isn’t a hard science, like physics, and is heavily dependent on the historians opinions. I can make anyone look good or bad, depending on who I ask, what I choose to highlight, or choose to downplay. Look at the presidency of Lincoln. Most modern historians rank him as among America’s best presidents, but his contemporaries wouldn’t agree. He was surrounded by negative press through his presidency. He even had to arrive in DC, in secret, for fear he would be assassinated before ever taking office. Truman is another such figure that history has looked a little kinder on. I’m sorry Jim, but I’m right and I’m sure you know it. History is heavily based on people’s opinions and Presidents are no different. History might look at Trump as great or it might look at him as a dismal failure, we simply are too involved and don’t know enough to judge more accurately.

[oxmixmudd]

And you offer up more opinion. Fun fact, history is heavily influenced by the personal opinion of the writer.

Here you offer up just another excuse not to listen to that which you don't already agree with or believe. How about trying to understand what has been said and then, if you still disagree with it, offer something substantial as a counter to it?


Jim

[lilpixieofterror]

No, I believe it absolutely can be shown to be objectively true and keeping good company with a number of American historians hasn't dissuaded me of that belief. We simply haven't had anything like this in modern history - not the subversion of the DOJ, not the corruption of State Department, not the reliance on "acting" agency members or the gutting of career officials and staff, not the blackout of Pentagon accountability.

It may be an opinion as opposed to what we might call "plain fact" but it's certainly an objective opinion that actually draws its inference from an unprecedented set of facts.

The "Obama/IRS" thing is another point in favor of what I'm saying: people who bring it up simply didn't follow the story to where the facts led. The IRS, as we eventually discovered, was "targeting" progressive SuperPAC groups just as much as conservative ones. The facts out of that story led to an agency suddenly overwhelmed by the Citizens United decision struggling to find an expeditious way to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Which brings me to your last point: most of these things aren't fundamentally opinions on the partisan divide. That's your framing but if there are such things as facts and if those facts make one opinion or inference more rational than another then it is not partisan to advocate for the rational inference. And the fact that the "partisan divide" keeps changing on this front, as right-leaning and conservative people like David Frum, Max Boot, and George Will get lumped into the same side as Warren or Obama or Bill Clinton should serve as a warning that just because people might make a thing partisan doesn't mean it fundamentally is that way.

In any case, the basic fact remains the same: this is a cynicism. It's no good to simply project partisanship onto an issue when the issue can be rationally resolved. In this case, Warren is telling a set of stories that can easily be understood to be parts of a consistent whole. If someone wants to do the same thing for a story Trump tells, they're free to assemble the pieces and see if they fit. But there is a truth and it's more important that people work for that truth than just looking at things as yet another partisan squabble.

--Sam

And you offer up more opinion. Fun fact, history is heavily influenced by the personal opinion of the writer.