12-08-2018, 11:11 AM
(12-08-2018, 10:40 AM)David Horn Wrote:(12-08-2018, 04:10 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(12-07-2018, 06:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I just can't understand how anyone can excuse a murderous tyrant like Assad except "he may be a brute, but he is our brute". Even that excuse usually implodes at some time.
It is just tribal thinking. Assad would only be brutal towards people who he does not consider to be part of his tribe. He would not consider people who oppose him to count, that morality does not apply to them.
The Enlightenment virtues of equality and human rights do not apply to an autocratic leader. He might be perfectly a nice guy to members of his tribe, and a brutal autocrat at the same time.
You know, I've heard Trump described in similar fashion: a really nice guy, on-on-one. Maybe that's a character trait shared by the scumbags of the world. It's certainly self-serving, which is a universal character trait in this class of sub-humans.
Not just the guys at the top. I lean blue and am dubious about the people of the middle of the country. I am ready to believe a lot of them, though, are good people who treat each other and folks they consider like them decently. If you lean towards extremism, and you judge by attitudes towards blues or minorities, all bets are off. Suddenly one is in another tribe. Decency does not apply. The mythical deplorable has optional morality. Deplorables are used to being in the majority, and if you are in the minority you are (expletive deleted) out of luck.
I would like to say there are not blue extremists who would apply a flip flop to that sort of... logic? I fear there is no lack of the same sort of stereotyping.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.