Is Iowa the next step to civil war? ( unherd.com )

NightGaunts , 5 months ago

This is the kind of article that piques my suspicion. It tends towards sensationalism, e.g.:

'For over two decades now, Americans have been battered by non-stop crises at home and abroad...'

Have we been 'battered' ? Have the crisis really been non-stop? Fox news/cable outlets tell us we have, but what's driving their agenda.

And what is the source of this article? Some partisan conservative think-tank guy who isn't particularly insightful, even as far as this type of writing goes.

This moment may be fraught, but imagine living through the period from JFK's assassination to Watergate. That period must have felt like it was all crumbling.

BaldProphet OP , 5 months ago

I mean, we had 9/11, the War on Terror, the 2008 financial crisis, the entire Trump presidency, various natural disasters, COVID-19, an incessant housing crisis, and the economic problems that followed the pandemic (such as inflation). I don't think it's hyperbole to say that the United States has been battered by a full barrage of crises and disasters since the start of the century, with the exception of a few years of relative stability in between. The kind of privilege it would require to have been able to live through the past twenty years without feeling battered is hard for me to fathom.

NightGaunts , 5 months ago

Respectfully, I will disagree. 2009 was a tough year and 2020/21 was pretty apocalyptic but day to day life didn't feel as described in this opinion piece (to me at least). I spent much of that period installing irrigation systems and getting by on temp jobs, it wasn't cake, but it wasn't tumbleweeds adrift in a hellish nightmare-scape either.

I guess what compels me to bother disagreeing is the author is such a fraud, telling us how the last twenty years he spent at 'think-tanks' with catered lunch, and in academia (which is about as far removed from reality as can be) have been just oh-so-awful.
The last twenty years in Russia, Venezuela, etc., the argument is compelling, but in the U.S., I just don't agree.

NightGaunts , 5 months ago

Another annoying thing about this guy is his both sides shit, what an asshole.

BaldProphet OP , 5 months ago

That's fair. Comparing the United States to third-world countries to invalidate the argument that we have experienced a series of crises is fallacious, however ("fallacy of relative privation", a form of red herring fallacy).