Saturday, May 25, 2019

An open letter to Christian supporters of Donald Trump

Dear Christian supporters of Donald Trump:

I occasionally hear some of you complain that we west-coast liberals don't take you seriously.  Well, if you want me to take you seriously, then one of you is going to have to explain to me how this is not bearing false witness against your neighbor:
U.S. President Donald Trump, engaged in personal attacks on House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, retweeted a heavily edited video that falsely claimed the Democratic leader had difficulty speaking to reporters.
And, while I'm at it, maybe one of you would be good enough to explain to me how you square your support for Trump with Matthew 19:24?  Are there some really tiny camels out there (or some really big needles) that I don't know about?

Seriously, I want to understand you and reach a place of mutual respect.  But you sure aren't making it easy for me.

Sincerely,
Ron

6 comments:

Publius said...

#FakeNews

No, That “Drunk” Pelosi Video Wasn’t Doctored

No, Trump Did NOT Share A ‘Doctored’ Video of Pelosi

Publius said...

oh, and:

metaphor

Ron said...

There were two "doctored" videos. One slowed down the action, and the other was "heavily edited". Trump retweeted the second one. But it was just as intentionally misleading as the first.

False witness != fake news.

armateur said...

>Seriously, I want to understand you and reach a place of mutual respect. But you sure aren't making it easy for me.

So sayeth Paul Alinsky, "Make the enemy live up to his own book of rules."

So say we all.

Peter Donis said...

So sayeth Paul Alinsky, "Make the enemy live up to his own book of rules."

I assume you mean *Saul* Alinsky? The one who dedicated his book to Lucifer?

Luke said...

@Publius

> No, That “Drunk” Pelosi Video Wasn’t Doctored
>
> No, Trump Did NOT Share A ‘Doctored’ Video of Pelosi

From the second article:

>> … The Hill described the video Trump shared as “edited to make it seem like [Nancy Pelosi] was stuttering” … (No, Trump Did NOT Share A ‘Doctored’ Video of Pelosi)
>>
>> There’s just one problem. The video not manipulated. It is not doctored or altered or fake. Whatever word you want to use, it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t even deceptively edited. No matter what Trump’s opponents claim, one thing is undeniable: Nancy’s speech is not altered in the video. The video is a series of clips made into a montage—a common method for saving time. …

Do you truly believe that someone watching the unedited portion of Pelosi's speech would come to the same conclusion about her character and her intellectual ability (under pressure) by watching the "montage" version? We can of course allow for the "montage" producing a coarser-grained impression. But do you think that someone watching the full version would conclude, as the Lou Dobbs video has text saying at 9:47, that "PELOSI URGES TRUMP 'INTERVENTION'; STAMMERS THROUGH NEWS CONFERENCE"? Incidentally, the video develops a terrible audio sync problem which aggravates the matter.

On the one hand I want to say that the best response would be for Pelosi supports to do this "montage" thing to Trump. But I'm not sure I'd be able to tell the difference, given that it's Trump! I do know that people have regularly done the "montage" thing to me, to fuck with me. One of the beautiful things about text records in discussions online is that it's trivial to go back to the source. Anyhow, Pelosi supporters could make a "montage" of some respected Republican who generally speaks coherently for a few minutes on end and see whether the result is "deceptive" or not—as judged by supporters of said Republican. Fair's fair, right?