{"id":32846,"date":"2018-06-24T13:23:49","date_gmt":"2018-06-24T20:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=32846"},"modified":"2018-06-24T13:23:49","modified_gmt":"2018-06-24T20:23:49","slug":"to-shame-or-not-to-shame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/24\/to-shame-or-not-to-shame\/","title":{"rendered":"To Shame or Not to Shame?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have followed politics ever since my teens (over 50 years), and I have known people who were killed for their support of civil rights or their opposition to the war in Vietnam.  Extreme right wingers have committed political atrocities as long as I can remember, but for the first time atrocity has become a part of national policy as Trump and the Republican Party openly brag about tearing families apart and torturing children.  So the time has come to ask, at what point does civility end?<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"0624HukabeeSanders\"<\/p>\n

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders \u2014 whose lies are piling up at a furious rate and whose defense of the child-separation policy prompted a reporter to exclaim<\/a>, \u201cCome on, Sarah, you\u2019re a parent\u201d \u2014 was reportedly asked to leave<\/a> a restaurant in Virginia on Friday because she works for President Trump. In a tweet, she explained<\/a> that \u201cI was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS<\/a> and I politely left.\u201d She then couldn\u2019t help lying again: \u201cI always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so.\u201d Anyone who has seen her sneer, insult and condescend to the press knows that\u2019s not the case.<\/p>\n

This episode follows one on Tuesday in which Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was heckled<\/a> at a Mexican restaurant, a culinary choice as jarring as Melania Trump\u2019s jacket<\/a> given the administration\u2019s deliberate cruelty exhibited toward Hispanic children and their families. The loud protesters who gathered prompted her to leave. In addition, anti-immigrant zealot Stephen Miller, who pushed as hard as anyone for snatching kids from their parents, was dining in a different Mexican restaurant last Sunday when, according to<\/a> the New York Post,  a protester called out, \u201cHey look guys, whoever thought we\u2019d be in a restaurant with a real-life fascist begging [for] money for new ca<\/strong>ges?\u201d<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, the restaurant confrontations became a source of debate on cable television. On CNN, Ana Navarro tartly observed<\/a>, \u201cYou make choices in life. And there is a cost to being an accomplice to this cruel, deceitful administration<\/strong>.\u201d So, are these reactions to Trump aides reassuring and appropriate acts of social ostracism that communicate to the cogs in a barbaric bureaucracy that they cannot escape the consequences of their actions? Alternatively, should we view these as a sign of our descent into incivility, evidence that we are so polarized we literally cannot stand to be in the same room as those with whom we disagree?<\/p>\n

It depends on how you view the child-separation policy. If you think the decision to separate children from parents as a means of deterring  other asylum seekers is simply one more policy choice, like tax cuts or negotiations with North Korea, then, yes, screaming at political opponents is inappropriate. Such conduct is contrary to the democratic notion that we do not personally destroy our political opponents but, rather, respect differences and learn to fight and perhaps compromise on another day. If, however, you think the child-separation policy is in a different class \u2014 a human rights crime, an inhumane policy for which the public was primed by efforts to dehumanize a group of people (\u201canimals,\u201d \u201cinfest,\u201d etc.) \u2014 then it is both natural and appropriate for decent human beings to shame and shun the practitioners of such a policy<\/strong>… [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Washington Post<\/a>><\/p>\n

Yesterday I opted not to share a clip, in which Bill Maher argued with an NRA TV propagandist, but treated him courteously.  It is my view that people who knowingly represent organizations that willfully kill and injure others are not worthy of courtesy.<\/font><\/p>\n

Let me be clear.  I do not favor shunning and shaming people,  who commit outrages out of ignorance.  Such people may be redeemable.<\/font><\/p>\n

However, people who know what they are doing to murdered school children and their families or to refugee children and their families, should be shamed, shunned, and condemned in every possible way, short of violence.<\/font><\/p>\n

RESIST!!<\/font><\/font><\/h1>\n

VOTE BLUE!!<\/font><\/font><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have followed politics ever since my teens (over 50 years), and I have known people who were killed for their support of civil rights or their opposition to the war in Vietnam.  Extreme right wingers have committed political atrocities as long as I can remember, but for the first time atrocity has become a […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}