Phooey. Missed it by that much! When I searched my Facebook feed this morning for one of my FBF’s freakouts, all I could find was a relatively tame rant about Republicans giving tax cuts to the rich. Then, just a few hours later and after I had posted “Groundhog Day Ethics Update: Post-Election Freak-Out and More!,” this masterpiece was posted by someone whom I have known since 1978. After her name, there were over a hundred signatories.
Comments are solicited.
Enjoy!
***
This is where I stand. The 47th President, his power hungry cronies taking positions of authority in his Cabinet and administration, and the majority of Republicans in Congress are a real and active threat to me, my way of life, and all or most of the people I love.
Some people are saying that we should give Trump a chance, that we should “work together” with him because he won the election and he is “everyone’s president.” This is my response:
•I will not forget how badly he and so many others treated former President Barack Obama for 8 years…Lies about his legitimacy and hatred for his principles and his attempts to work within the system.
•I will not “work together” to privatize Medicare, cut Social Security and Medicaid.
•I will not “work together” to subvert the Constitution by illegitimately pushing unfit Cabinet nominees through on recess appointments without the advice and consent of the Senate.
•I will not “work together” to build a wall.
•I will not “work together” to persecute Muslims.
•I will not “work together” to shut out refugees from other countries.
•I will not “work together” to lower taxes on the 1% and increase taxes on the middle class and poor.
•I will not “work together” to help Trump use the Presidency to line his pockets and those of his family and cronies.
•I will not “work together” to weaken and demolish environmental protection.
•I will not “work together” to sell American lands, especially National Parks, to companies which then despoil those lands.
•I will not “work together” to enable the killing of whole species of animals just because they are predators, or inconvenient for a few, or because some people want to get their thrills killing them.
•I will not “work together” to remove civil rights from anyone.
•I will not “work together” to alienate countries that have been our allies for as long as I have been alive.
•I will not “work together” to slash funding for education.
•I will not “work together” to take basic assistance from people who are at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.
•I will not “work together” to get rid of common sense regulations on guns.
•I will not “work together” to eliminate the minimum wage.
•I will not “work together” to support so-called “Right To Work” laws, or undermine, weaken or destroy Unions in any way.
•I will not “work together” to suppress scientific research, be it on climate change, fracking, or any other issue where a majority of scientists agree that Trump and his supporters are wrong on the facts.
•I will not “work together” to criminalize abortion or restrict health care for women.
•I will not “work together” to increase the number of nations that have nuclear weapons.
•I will not “work together” to put even more “big money” into politics.
•I will not “work together” to violate the Geneva Convention.
•I will not “work together” to give the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazi Party and white supremacists a seat at the table, or to normalize their hatred.
•I will not “work together” to deny health care to people who need it.
•I will not “work together” to deny medical coverage to people on the basis of a “pre-existing condition.”
•I will not “work together” to increase voter suppression.
•I will not “work together” to normalize tyranny.
•I will not “work together” to eliminate or reduce ethical oversight at any level of government.
•I will not “work together” with anyone who is, or admires, tyrants and dictators.
•I will not support anyone that thinks it’s OK to put a pipeline to transport oil on Sacred Ground for Native Americans. And, it would run under the Missouri River, which provides drinking water for millions of people. An accident waiting to happen.
•I will not “work together” to legitimize racism, sexism, and authoritarianism.
This is my line, and I am drawing it.
•I WILL stand for honesty, love, respect for all living beings, and for the beating heart that is the center of Life itself.
•I WILL use my voice and my hands, to reach out to the uninformed, and to anyone who will LISTEN:
That “winning”, “being great again”, “rich” or even “beautiful” is nothing… When others are sacrificed to glorify its existence
Ethics Alarms 
Proof, I suppose, that the only thing worse than the uninformed are the misinformed.
Or the deranged.
This is dumb.
it’s a rhetorical filibuster.
it wants no response and makes a response impossible.
it is a post that is overwhelming because it intends to overwhelm. It wants no response.
many, if not most of these statements are so vague that establishing its meaning requires a discussion. But, it does not want a discussion.
it is a filibuster. It is a dogmatic filibuster. It is not designed to be analyzed. In fact, it is designed to thwart analysis
and that is probably because people who make such assertions are not capable of defending their positions
that is why they filibuster
and, confident in their own moral superiority, their confidence is only bolstered by the lack of any coherent opposition
-Jut
And yet my friend, who signed this thing, is definitely NOT dumb. This is what indoctrination will do to someone…
Just because you can memorize things well, doesn’t mean that you aren’t ‘Weak of Mind’ and easily influenced. Remember, only 10-20% of the population is capable of independent thought (Milgram Experiment). The rest do as they are told.
I agree. This is the social-media equivalent of a Gish gallop. Anyone who wants to object has so many different items to try to handle that it is simply impossible to address them all in any meaningful way, in any meaningful amount of time. Trying to handle just a couple leaves one open to the rebuttal, “what about all the other points?”
I think if there is any meaningful response, it would have to be something that pulls the rug out from under the entire list. Perhaps it could be something along the lines of, “The sheer number of lies from the Democratic party that have been exposed and continue to be exposed has raised the question as to whether any of those things that Democrats claim Trump will do have any merit at all. Giving Trump a chance might be just waiting to see what additional Left-wing hysteria outs itself as such.”
Either that, or Post the Nicene Creed in response.
-Jut
Dang.
I think that makes Trump the worst “work together” president ever. At least until and unless he decides to do more than a couple of those items.
Honestly my eyes glazed over halfway down the list. Jack is a better man than I to be able to make it through a screed like that without running straight to the woodchipper.
Ah, projection, thy name is AUC.
I will not “work together” to criminalize abortion.
I WILL stand for honesty, love, respect for all living beings, and for the beating heart that is the center of Life itself.
Well done. Yes, a bit of evident contradiction there….
Jack,
I am moving this week. The last thing I need is my cerebrum splattered across the ceiling.
Joking hyperbole aside, not a one of these points is actually hard to fisk. I could have fun with one or two, but each one requires more time and effort to clear up than they took to say, and by the time such a fisking is complete, the resultant effort would be a dissertation. I once had a friend sent a list like this of why her son hated her religion. It was a mishmash of intentionally misstated theology and bad assumptions. He didn’t even try to make a logical list. My husband sat down and tried to answer each of his points and the final document (which covered only about the first third before we threw our hands up) was massive. It’s not worth it. You can either Julie Principles these people (X gotta throw hysterics) or cut them out. I’ve done both with family and friends since 2016. I really wonder what it is about Donald Trump that makes the derangement into an actual mental condition.
There is no good way to tackle this issue head on, and I doubt someone who would sign this rant would be willing to listen anyway. If you wish to work on a single point, perhaps a private conversation where you use some of EC’s approaches might bear some minor fruit, but that’s going to be a long hard haul.
I’d say it’s not worth it. Anyone who would sign their name to this bowel movement in written form is too far gone. A former friend came on my Facebook page to insult me and tell me to shut the f up after I dared to support the current president and then blocked me when I told him to get bent and not to talk to me like that. The thing is, this guy was once an intelligent person and a lawyer, but I guess the prospect of Trump returning sent him over the edge. He started talking about how his son was at Ohio State and registering to vote in Ohio so he could make a difference. He also started shilling for a recent anti-racist (read: anti-white) group, actually trying to recruit other white men. He certainly failed with me.
The real problem is ‘What do you do when 30+% of the population is indoctrinated to hate 50+% of the population and they are not going to change?” How do you continue on as a country. In the 1980’s a Soviet defector told us that the ‘fellow travelers’ in our media and education were working to that goal. What do we do now that they have succeeded?
We have really big problems. What do you do when you find out that the Treasury Department is really just a money laundering operation? What do you do to someone who intentionally fraudulently distributed perhaps $1 trillion annually? What do you do with the USAID people who have been distributing taxpayer money to leftist political causes? What do you do when you find out that politicians like Lindsey Graham are paid for being on the board of a ‘nonprofit’ whose only source of funding is USAID? What do you do when you find out that Lindsey Graham is one of the few Republicans voting against Trump’s picks who are fighting to eliminate those payments?
Her post is a virtue signaling lawn sign on steroids. For as long as I read the items, they seemed to be projection. For example, wasn’t it the Biden family that enriched themselves for all fifty years of Joe’s career in “public service.”
•I will not “work together” to remove civil rights from anyone.
Like the right to keep and bear arms?
•I will not “work together” to get rid of common sense regulations on guns.
My longtime Usenet ally, Christopher Charles Morton, put it best.
Common sense gun regulations are of a kind with:
Common sense Jim Crow
Common sense Sharia
Common sense anti-sodomy laws
Common sense slavery
Common sense Nuremberg laws
That’s a good observation by Morton.
They won’t be able to give in on that one, though, Michael. Demonizing firearms absolves them of having to hold individuals responsible for their actions. It also shifts the focus from the fact that the majority of murders and firearms-use crimes are committed by those in demographics that lean heavily democrat.
Like many laws, firearms restrictions mainly serve to provide an avenue for punishing bad acts. It’s more deceptive wordplay to call firearm regulations “common sense” when they do next to nothing to deter criminals, and are unnecessary for a hundred+ million owner households who do not and never would use a firearm wrongly, even in the absence of laws,
Most supporters of these laws fear the street thug and the gangbanger.
Tragically, too many of them have compelling reasons to fear the street thug and the gangbanger.
There is a vocal minority of supporters of these laws who are not motivated by a desire to suppress street crime.
They consider the White male conservative to be their enemy.
And as they associate private gun ownership with the White male conservative, so they oppose it.
They are motivated by animus against the White male conservative.
I received the exact same rant from one of my Axis friends. I assume there must be a distribution list among the Left!
Is there a concise descriptor for these people? Would “irrational hysterics” begin to cover it? More and more often I’m reminded of P.J. O’Rourke’s (I miss him) observation:
“At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child — miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.”
“Is there a concise descriptor for these people?”
In The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes Of POLITICAL MADNESS, Dr. Lyle Rossiter, Jr. tries his level best:
“The radical left’s efforts to regulate the people from cradle to grave. To rescue us from our troubled lives, the liberal agenda:
*recommends denial of personal responsibility,
*encourages self-pity and other-pity,
*fosters government dependency,
*promotes sexual indulgence,
*rationalizes violence,
*excuses financial obligation,
*justifies theft,
*ignores rudeness,
*prescribes complaining and blaming,
*denigrates marriage and the family,
*legalizes all abortion,
*defies religious and social tradition,
*declares inequality unjust, and
*rebels against the duties of citizenship.
“Through multiple entitlements to unearned goods, services and social status, the liberal politician promises to ensure everyone’s material welfare, provide for everyone’s healthcare, protect everyone’s self-esteem, correct everyone’s social and political disadvantage, educate every citizen, and eliminate all class distinctions.
“Radical liberalism thus assaults the foundations of civilized freedom. Given its irrational goals, coercive methods and historical failures, and given its perverse effects on character development, there can be no question of the radical agenda’s madness.
“Only an irrational agenda would advocate a systematic destruction of the foundations on which ordered liberty depends.”
PWS
Yet a lot of these victims aren’t even hard left liberal/progressives. Trump has just driven them clinically mad, like George Will and Jennifer Rubin.
I wonder why people let themselv es be driven clinically mad instead of taking a step back.
“Evil isn’t the real threat to the world. Stupid is just as destructive as Evil, maybe more so, and it’s a hell of a lot more common. What we really need is a crusade against Stupid. That might actually make a difference”
Jim Butcher
“Bias makes you stupid”
Jack Marshall
I just heard a talk show guy (Erick Erickson) relate information about a hierarchy of mental illness broken down by race/sex/political leanings, but didn’t catch the source of the study he was quoting. basically, it was like this, highest % to lowest:
White leftist women
White leftist men
Black leftist women
Black leftist men
White conservative women
White conservative men
It may have been something along the lines of THIS (see the chart a little way down the page).