You have no idea how furious I am to agree with Robin McAlpine on this. Centrism is the Golden Mean Fallacy made manifest in politics: if one party says the sky's blue & the other says it's red, the centre concludes that the sky must clearly be purple.

I was working on something before the election that became the election...

Color revolutions are real and we just witnessed one live and direct...

1.

Met a Brazilian-American Lyft driver from San Diego who passionately attacked the racism of Republicans, then switched to passionately defending Bolsonaro.

If I were Thomas Friedman, I could tell you what this means.

Met a Haitian-American in a restaurant who said he'd always vote for Democrats because of the immigration issue, but that he has conservative beliefs too. "I don't want to pay for someone's abortion!", he declared.

Met a Latino Lyft driver from San Jose who said that while he was liberal, California was getting too liberal for him and he was considering moving to San Antonio.

Again, not being Tom Friedman, I am unable to offer any commentary on the political and policy implications of these conversations.

I guess my only thought is that political opinions are pretty complex and multidimensional, out there in the real world.

(end)

1/ A Short Thread About Civility and Calling Politicians Liars.

Nice people are sometimes uncomfortable that I call some politicians "liar". And I don't apologize for it.

But I don't call every politician "liar". Only the ones who deliberately tell provable lies and do so

2/ repeatedly. A lie is different from an accidental misstatement. For example, when @michaelaglasgo lied about her church's carbon tax, it could have been a genuine mistake. But she doubled down by telling other lies. And has since been caught in more.

#cdnpoli #abpoli #ableg

3/ When @KayceeMaduYEG is caught lying, he doesn't do the right thing. He just plows ahead. As if lying doesn't matter.

So which is more uncivil: calling out people who lie a lot OR being in a position of public trust and lying to people in the first place?

4/ I think it's important that once a politician is found to lie repeatedly, like @jkenney , we never forget that anything they say could be a lie. We need to always weigh it. Look for lies of omission.

Civil discourse cannot survive if politicians lie all the time. It can't.

5/ So as rude as it might be, when members of @UCPCaucus tell lies, we should be calling them "liar" every time. As long as they think they're getting away with it, they won't stop. So shame them.

If the politician is a lawyer, report their behaviour to the Law Society.