Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Network Donor Events

tintory@lemm.ee to politics @lemmy.world – 492 points –
Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Network Donor Events
propublica.org
63

You are viewing a single comment

anyone who likes logical consistency

That's the neat part, they don't.

... An "in group" that is protected by laws but not bound by them and an "out group" that is bound by the laws but not protected by them.

This is a (paraphrased) description of the conservative world-view that I saw the other day (sorry I don't remember who to attribute) here on Lemmy. Anyway it sure seems to track with their hypocrisy.

Wilhoit's Law

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect

Francis M. Wilhoit

Can anyone explain what “to wit” means in this instance?

It’s the same as saying “namely”, or “that is to say”. In this instance it means, “and that one proposition is..”

The missing bit of context to make it logically consistent is that they think we all live in a hierarchy (social, class, gender, race etc) in which the rules apply differently to folks lower in it than they do to folks above them.

If you accept that as your premise, everything about their behavior is logically consistent- except for the part about inventing a magical hierarchy that only exists in their agreement that it does, in which they are your superiors and it is their right to tell you what to do but never vice-versa.

If you look at it in this light, when they howl at democrats for breaking rules they don't think apply to republicans, they aren't invoking anything like a set of shared rules applying to everyone, they're invoking the hierarchy and they think they're putting people in their rightful places (never mind that it's colossally arrogant and entitled to assume you're here to rule over your inferiors when there's no agreement that anyone here is anyone's superior)

There always has to be a bigger fish

I recommend the youtube series "The Alt-Right Playbook"

It suddenly makes Conservative Ideology make sense, not in that it's a good ideology mind you, but it makes it easy to understand why they are the way they are... What goes through their heads...

They see the world very differently from the rest of us.

I hate having to resort to "Us/Them", but they made the game that way, not us..... Yes I'm aware of the irony of that statement.

To add to this, the GOP are the smart ones who know how to acquire power. The capability to gain the office is what qualifies them for it.

Do you want the smart people to lead, or do you want the ones who wring their hands about the rules?

My response to this would be the Douglas Adams idea, anyone who wants to lead that badly should in no way be allowed to do so.