Image by Donkey Hotey
By Elaine Magliaro
Bill Kristol–neoconservative political analyst and commentator, founder and editor of The Weekly Standard, and clueless pundit who is wrong about everything–got into a heated discussion with Bloomberg’s Politics Editor John Heilemann on Morning Joe Wednesday. Kristol had warned about “a campaign to disrespect the memory of Confederate soldiers in the wake of the South Carolina church massacre.”
Brendan James of TPM said that Kristol–in several tweets that he posted yesterday and on Morning Joe earlier today–“accused ‘the left’ of trying to tear down Confederate statues and ban the teaching of speeches by Abraham Lincoln” after retailers like Amazon and eBay announced that they would discontinue selling Confederate memorabilia.
Heilemann responded, “Nobody is talking about any of those things. Literally, I know of no one. This is the classic exercise of straw man building and knocking down.” He then added, “And I know it’s fun for you. You are trolling by doing these things, because no one on the left is suggesting what you’re suggesting.”
Echoing remarks that he had made in his tweets, Kristol told the Morning Joe panel “that he disliked the ‘cheap self righteousness’ of ‘the left’ and asked whether it was now inappropriate to honor Robert E. Lee or Confederate monuments at Gettysburg or Arlington.”
Bill Kristol
✔@BillKristol
The Left’s 21st century agenda: expunging every trace of respect, recognition or acknowledgment of Americans who fought for the Confederacy.
2:54 PM – 23 Jun 2015
Kristol complained that the left is using what happened in Charleston last week to push its agenda. He said, “Do we think Amazon and Walmart should not sell memorabilia of the Confederacy?” He added, “I don’t think they should not sell Mein Kampf. It is an important historical document. People need to read it to understand the Nazi regime.”
Heilemann disagreed with Kristol, saying, “If I understand your ideology right, you’re a big fan of the free market, and that companies should make decisions in their rational self-interests about what they should and shouldn’t sell. If Amazon and Walmart decide it’s in their business interest not to sell any given product, they should not sell it. So let’s leave it at that.”
Kristol shot back, “Let’s not leave it at that…”
“They’re responding to the free market!” Heilemann snapped.
You can watch Kristol’s and Heilemann’s verbal interchange in the following video:
Bloomberg’s John Heilemann Gets Into Shouting Match With Bill Kristol
SOURCES
Bill Kristol And Bloomberg Editor Explode Over The Confederate Flag (TPM)
Bill Kristol on Companies Dropping Confederate Flag: ‘Pathetic Catering to Political Correctness’ (Mediaite)
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
It must be nice to be unable to think at all let alone rationally. Oh, wait. No. No. “Nice” isn’t the word I was looking for. “Terrifying”. Yeah. That’s the one. Then again, perhaps ignorance is bliss. Kristol’s ability to be thoroughly and completely wrong though is a marvel of consistency.
The man who promoted Sarah Palin………
Petulance
I see a need rising, I am selling confederate flags for $125/sq ft if anyone wants one.
Bill is a classic strausian neo-con, what do you expect?
so is he for or against the subjugation of human beings?
When southern republicans argue with me about slavery, I just tell them slavery is a 100% tax on labor but you get free meals and housing.
I still wonder how anyone could think it was ok to force other human beings to work for them for free. or to think that a regime which supported that abomination was fighting for a noble cause.
Those people are delusional.
Actually, those who say that the flag is about their heritage are correct. They just don’t want to acknowledge that the heritage is one of enslavement and the whole plantation concept. They also don’t want to acknowledge that it’s the flag of the KKK and white supremacists.
Bron said:
“I still wonder how anyone could think it was ok to force other human beings to work for them for free. or to think that a regime which supported that abomination was fighting for a noble cause.
Those people are delusional.”
Never underestimate people’s ability to countenance (or commit) despicable acts when they believe their cause is noble. Cognitive biases can be scarily powerful and we’ve all got benign versions that could turn malignant if we’re not careful.
As I understand Kristol, he is not in favor of racism of selling racist paraphernalia.
He just thinks it is in inappropriate for those on the left to make comments and take other action to bring about results they consider desirable.
On the other hand it is ok, perhaps even a duty, for those on the right to engage in high minded debate to bring about results they consider desirable – like telling those on the left they should not be doing what they are doing.
OK, I think I am beginning to see the important principle at stake here.
“When southern republicans argue with me about slavery, I just tell them slavery is a 100% tax on labor but you get free meals and housing.”
When you say southern republicans you mean southern republicans like the influential southerner Bill Kristol?
bfm:
I should clarify, they aren’t for slavery, they think that the civil war was not about slavery but about states rights. I think it was all about slavery and rectifying, as Dr. Rice puts it, our birth defect.
Using the example of 100% taxation on labor is putting slavery on the far end of the continuum between absolute economic freedom where labor is not taxed and absolute economic tyranny where labor is fully taxed.
@braon98:
I thought the 100% taxation with free food and board remark was pretty clever, not to mention hilarious.
I am pretty sure one of these days I am going to steal your material – haven’t made up my mind whether I will give credit or not.
But don’t start planning your case just yet. Nobody has ever paid me for anything I say, so I am essentially suit proof.
I can’t wait to see the changes in the shading on the cheeks of some wannabe Kristol as it goes from deathly pale to bright red when I use that line.
You see, even you and I sometimes share common ground and agree. Many thanks.
Bron,
I think you’re missing the difference between “fully taxed” and “complete subjugation” because you are thinking only in balance sheet terms. Slavery is much more onerous than full taxation on labor. What you’re thinking of is more analogous to indentured servitude or the tenant farmer/serf systems historically, but it isn’t the evil of slavery. Both are wrong, but slavery is the greater evil. You don’t just own their labor, you own everything about the person. An entirely different proposition.
Gene:
how so? so how do you live? there is no difference but the length of time for an indentured servant. you cannot be taxed at 100% and not be a slave.
So if you own the person you can force them to pick up arms to fight your battles, you can force them to use your doctor, you can tell them what they can eat and drink, what they can put into their bodies, you can basically force them to do whatever you want them to do with no thought about what they want. is that right?
Bron: “So if you own the person you can force them to pick up arms to fight your battles, you can force them to use your doctor, you can tell them what they can eat and drink, what they can put into their bodies, you can basically force them to do whatever you want them to do with no thought about what they want. is that right?”
“[O]ne of the most essential sticks in the bundle of rights that are commonly characterized as property [is] the right to exclude others.” Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U.S. 164 (1979)
Within that bundle of sticks making up the inalienable right of self-ownership, the right to ‘exclude others’ is at the core as being the most essential. That right of self determination, i.e. to be let alone, is secured under the social compact itself. By distinguishing the ‘inalienable sticks’ known as “duties of virtue” from the ‘alienable sticks’ known as “duties of right”, the lines by which neither the state nor state empowered individuals (e.g. slave holders) may cross are established.
Duties of virtue are those duties you owe yourself while duties of right are the duties you owe society.
“All duties are either duties of right, that is, juridical duties (officia juris), or duties of virtue, that is, ethical duties (officia virtutis s. ethica). Juridical duties are such as may be promulgated by external legislation; ethical duties are those for which such legislation is not possible”
Accordingly, when the government exercises power over an individual’s duty of virtue and promulgates it as if it were a duty of right, it transforms the CITIZEN OF into the PROPERTY OF the state.
Bron,
Let me tell you about how I view helmet laws and I’ll use Bob’s Kantian distillation of duties of virtue and duties of right.
It is both a duty of virtue and a duty of right to wear a motorcycle helmet in states with helmet laws. How can this be?
It is a duty of virtue because self-preservation is the highest duty of virtue there is even at the state of nature where no laws play into the equation. Sure, you can ride without a helmet as a matter of free will, but a simply knowledge of physics will tell you that it is really a bad idea no matter how good the wind in your hair feels. That deceleration trauma is most unkind to the human skull, so if you value your life, you’ll wear a helmet.
In a state with a helmet law it is also a duty of right because while you have a right to freely travel you do not have a right to use a motorcycle without license any more than you do to operate a car, big truck or a plane. The state may not limit your right to travel (with some rational legal exceptions such as for parole) but they can limit how you travel. It is a reasonable restriction on the licensing of motorcycle drivers to require they wear helmets.
Compare this to Free Exercise. You are free to believe anything you like, but you are not free to practice that belief in any way that you like and especially when that practice tramples the rights of others or needs to be voided for other valid public policy reasons. You can worship Tlaloc all you like but if you’re a Fundamentalist worshiper of Tlaloc and feel you need to offer up human sacrifice to make it rain, you are going to prison for murder. The duty of virtue is the self-determination to decide what defines your relationship to the rest of the universe through religious choice (including no religion at all). The duty of right is you can believe what you want but human sacrifice is still by definition murder and prohibited as such for all of the ethical and logical reasons murder is illegal in the first place.
When you look at laws like those banning certain types of foods or ingredients, most of the time there is some kind of perfectly valid public policy reason that supports that decision even if it displeases some individuals.
And here comes the rub for you.
Society is more than just a bunch of individuals. It is an interrelated complex system. As such, no one is ever going to be happy with the law 100% of the time as they’ll feel if infringes upon their free will, but sometimes for the good of the whole, actions have to be limited for some or all of the populace. The exchange of free action under the state of nature in exchange for mutual benefit is the very nature of the social compact. That is why you have such a hard time with this line of discussion. Your Randian worldview depends on the fantasy that all actors are both rational and that self-interest is always in the best interest of the whole of society when it manifestly is not.
I know over the years your view of Objectivism has changed somewhat. It is not the paragon of perfection you once viewed it as. I would love it if you’d finally make that last leap of understanding to realize that it is more than just imperfect, but fundamentally broken. However, I am not holding my breath.
Bob:
So how do you prevent tyranny? We are headed that way at warp speed now. Anything can be done through legislation without guiding principles. As you say, our Constitution has become a urinal puck that our legislators, president and supreme court piss on, on a regular basis.
So much for juridical duties.
“So how do you prevent tyranny?”
Vigilance, an informed electorate and keeping money out of politics is a good way to start the pendulum swinging the other direction. Democracy requires all three of these to work properly. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, democracy is the worst form of governance but it is better than all the others we’ve tried. But you can only keep it if you know how and when to fight for it and what your rights actually are. Even then? There are those who will always aspire to tyranny. It is in our nature. It is up to the rest of us to make sure those kind of people have power over absolutely no one.
“Vigilance, an informed electorate and keeping money out of politics is a good way to start the pendulum swinging the other direction. Democracy requires all three of these to work properly. ”
I think it also helps to have at least two vibrant parties. Sure, I lean a bit more one way. But I don’t trust any party to maintain balance. It is important to have a different party to pull in a different direction during times of excess, which I believe are inevitable.
Yep. I have often said two is the illusion of choice. Three isn’t much better. The multi-party structure you see in most Parliamentary systems is much better at diverse representation.
Gene: “When you look at laws like those banning certain types of foods or ingredients, most of the time there is some kind of perfectly valid public policy reason that supports that decision even if it displeases some individuals.”
“Laws provide, as much as is possible, that the goods and health of subjects be not injured by the fraud and violence of others; they do not guard them from the negligence or ill-husbandry of the possessors themselves. No man can be forced to be rich or healthful whether he will or no. Nay, God Himself will not save men against their wills.” — John Locke (And every founding father)
Gene: “Society is more than just a bunch of individuals. It is an interrelated complex system. As such, no one is ever going to be happy with the law 100% of the time as they’ll feel if infringes upon their free will, but sometimes for the good of the whole, actions have to be limited for some or all of the populace.”
The social compact has nothing to do with “feelings.” It’s about the distinct boundaries and restrictions necessary to keep the compact from becoming illusory.
Appealing to emotions and hooking people on narratives only serves to remove vigilance and create a country of compliant junkies willing to give up their freedoms for their next fix.
Bob,
Is the restriction on a particular food ingredient like trans fats protecting one from “the negligence or ill-husbandry of the possessors themselves” or “the fraud and violence of others” in particular a food industry that uses such products in pursuit of their bottom line (economic violence). I say the latter.
“The social compact has nothing to do with “feelings.” It’s about the distinct boundaries and restrictions necessary to keep the compact from becoming illusory. ”
True enough, but satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the state of a given social compact is simply a naturally following result. I did not claim feelings were a basis for formulating social compacts. Even the case against allowing murder has a rational ethical basis that is totally removed from the abject horror such a notion as legal murder can create in an individual.
“Appealing to emotions and hooking people on narratives only serves to remove vigilance and create a country of compliant junkies willing to give up their freedoms for their next fix.”
Agreed. There are also many other insidious ways to manipulate people into giving up their rights. That’s part of the reason I started the Propaganda Series.
DDT comes to mind, millions have died because one woman wrote a book. Feelings had everything to do with it and not science.
Bron,
Just because DDT helped fight malaria doesn’t mean that its use was justified considering the toll it took on wildlife and its toxicity to humans. Feelings have nothing to do with that. Its a cost/benefit question you can prove on a piece of paper with a pencil.