06-02-2017, 09:47 PM
(05-26-2017, 03:09 PM)Galen Wrote:(05-26-2017, 12:07 PM)Eric the (Insult redacted) Wrote: Apparently less than half of the apparent 700,000 registered voters voted, and most of them voted early. So this result was due to many Montana citizens not voting in a special election. Their only recourse now, if they want to have someone other than a thug represent them, is to recall him, if they can. Polls also show that they still approve of the thug in the White House who inspired Gianforte's behavior. This also needs to change, if Montana is to join the civilized world again.
Given the current reputation of the mainstream media beating up that reporter was probably helped him get elected. Newspapers have been on life support for some time and these days only the geezers watch TV news.
One step beyond beating reporters is murdering them.
The problem isn't that the reporter reported something that a political candidate didn't like. The two problems were that (1) the reporter was beaten, and (2) someone culpable in the beating got elected.
Surely, Galen the Obtuse, you must see something terribly wrong in the bar-room brawl as a means of debating issues lest you wish to show serious lapses in your moral compass.
Beatings are impressive ways to make a point, no matter how wrong the point is. The appeal to force is one of the most powerful and effective fallacies in the book -- logical or historical. It is the shakiest in logic.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.