Gary Johnson didn’t have a chance of winning the presidency, anyway.
I’d say goodbye, except there’s another candidate who has continuously demonstrated appalling ignorance who is currently running in second place, so I don’t really think this will make any difference at all. Sadly.
It fits perfect, though: He says is an isolationist, so why wouldn’t he isolate himself from world events to the point of complete, utter and embarrassing ignorance? Why would he need to know anything about a world he doesn’t want to get involved in? Just stick your head in the sand.
He could have recovered by saying that he is being advised by a Syrian, who refers to the city by its Arabic name of “Ḥalab”…
Eh, probably not.
I have to admit I had to look it up. And while I guess it’s kind of embarrassing for a candidate for President to be caught a little flat footed on current global affairs, it’s exactly the kind of bullshit ‘gotcha’ that makes presidential horserace reporting so nauseating. A media figure pulls a name out of a hat that’s just obscure enough that the candidate might not know it, but just notable enough that they should, and then scores of articles appear raining mockery when the person just admits they don’t know. Johnson was never my pick, but he seems like a well-meaning, fairly smart, affable guy. He’s not a dolt, and since I’d guess that 98% of the public doesn’t know what Aleppo is either, there could easily be a backlash to the pile-on that will boost him temporarily in the polls.
Well Matt, two points. First of all, it’s really pretty sad that you didn’t know about Aleppo. It’s the most horrific humanitarian catastrophe on earth right now. People are starving to death, little kids are getting their limbs blown off and the hospitals that are left don’t have electricity or antibiotics, and it’s been all over the news with heartbreaking pictures. So you really need to start paying attention. It’s not an “obscure name” picked out of a hat.
Second, you aren’t running for president. Fortunately.
@Matt: Americans don’t give a fuck of what happens in the rest of the world and act surprised when they discover that a lot of people are actually angry at them.
Not impressed.
@Matt: Also, the question was not “What is Aleppo?” or “Can you find Aleppo on a map?” The question was what would he do about a major ongoing humanitarian crisis. To be caught completely unprepared for that shows how rinky-dink the entire campaign is. Gov. Johnson should have gotten a quick briefing from his staff over everything that is going on that he might be asked about. A competent candidate would have given a vague, generalized answer about how he’s got people studying that issue, and while it’s a difficult question we are confident that we can find solutions that are consistent with global humanitarian standards while not sacrificing our core [[insert principle here]]. This is why the whole exchange should disqualify him as a serious candidate, if he ever was a serious candidate.
Matt #3
srsly?
Which public?
@5 F.O. Well…can we count PZ Myers as part of those Americans then? I find myself agreeing with a lot of what Matt has said. I went and searched Pharyngula for “Aleppo.” 3 results. This one, one from about 3 weeks ago, and then another from 2013. If it is as terrible as cervantes @4 says it is (and it probably is), then I’m a bit surprised PZ has not said more about it.
And I’m not bashing PZ here. But it sure does seem hypocritical for commenters to bash people for not knowing something that PZ himself doesn’t even really talk about.
Oh come on Leo. This blog isn’t about international affairs. PZ can’t be expected to mention everything that’s going on in the world, he mostly focuses on rationality vs. superstition. I’m pretty sure he’d heard of Aleppo before todya.
Here are some other place-names: South Kordofan, Shingal, Rakhine, Kachin, Bangui, all sites of current ongoing humanitarian disasters. Why single out Aleppo? It’s really bad, and more cogently, the United States has diplomatic and military interest in the region. In other words, the expectation is that Johnson should know about it because it’s Syria–and Syria is the conflict-of-the-moment in U.S. political journalists’ eyes–not because it’s the site of an ongoing humanitarian disaster.
Note: it would have been easy for me to look up a few recent news stories and fake knowledge about Aleppo. Expertise is easy to forge on the internet. I didn’t do that; I’m not proud I didn’t know about Aleppo, but I suspect I’m also not really abnormal. There’s also a certain sense in which knowledge of and concern for distant atrocity shouldn’t stand in for actually doing anything about it. I already donate to the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch and Amnesty. I’m not sure that my knowing about Aleppo now means anything more than those. You don’t get citizen points for knowledge, but for right action.
And Johnson’s lack of knowledge about it has no effect whatsoever on my voting preference, since I would never have voted for him in the first place. It just struck me as a “You don’t know about Aleppo? What an ignorant moron you are!” kind of comment.
It is hard to keep track of USoA troops.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deployments
Standard libertarian response: “Why should we care about this Aleppo If those Allepo-ese losers can’t pull themselves up by there own free market bootstraps? The only thing that should matter to American is my right to make millions of untaxed dollars selling opium to teenagers while open-carrying my M4 carbine to the corner brothel! FREEEEEEDOOOM!!!!”
It may surprise you, but most of the commenters do not rely on a blog written by grumpy atheist, leftist biology professor who write about whatever he feels like writing about as a sloe source for news about international politics – not even the grumpy atheist leftists.
Dear Muslima…
It was a gotcha question – it was asked apropos of nothing and without context – especially given the incredulous response by the questioner. It’s kind of telling that the linked MSNBC description refers to Aleppo, Syria when the question didn’t include the country. That said, Johnson should have known it, and it’s a pretty clear indication that Johnson isn’t prepared to be president in January.
Reminds me of Herman Cain’s Libya disaster.
I almost agree, Matt. Horses for courses. Everyone has different ideas about what topics are important, what facts are obvious etc. As they say on certain quiz shows, it’s only easy if you know it. And yes, I too share a distaste for gotcha questions.
Having said that… I can’t really see how anyone can consider this a gotcha question. Most of us would consider “Who is the Prime Minister of Tonga?” to be a gotcha. Most would not consider “What is the capital of France?” a gotcha. And I’ve got to put “What do you think about Aleppo?” in there too.
Regardless of whether we should know about South Kordofan etc for humanitarian reasons, none of those have the geopolitical significance of the conflict in Syria, and it’s hard to imagine being even slightly knowledgeable about Syria and not knowing what Aleppo is.
Bad as his not knowing what Aleppo is is, I really think that his immediate recovery attempt of “we need to align with Russia” shows a much bigger issue with his ideology.
@14 Doesn’t apply. I’m not minimizing the atrocities at Aleppo, nor suggesting that there are other larger disasters more worthy of our concern, nor even suggesting that Johnson should ever have been taken seriously as a candidate. All I’m saying is that gotcha political journalism is caustic: it’s more about one-upsmanship than honestly evaluating the candidate. It allows a million internet denizens to feel smarter than Johnson as they madly Wikipedia ‘Aleppo’. It provides soundbyte headlines that provide no substance. In fact, google ‘Aleppo’ now and you’ll find a thousand gleeful articles that talk about Johnson’s misstep and its possible effect on his campaign, very few of which actually provide any detail about Aleppo.
Of course, I only know about Aleppo because of the old Avalon Hill war game Third Reich.
It’s clear from the video that he is aware of the Syrian refugee crisis (as who could not be?), and has a position on it (whether it’s a good or bad position is a separate question). To suggest that his ignorance of the city of Aleppo equals ignorance or unconcern with the crisis in Syria is a bit disingenuous. Criticizing his ignorance is fair game…
…ish. Politicians appearing on these shows are generally warned ahead of time what topics will be covered, and often what specific questions will be asked, and have a staff employed full-time to brief them ahead of time on the subject, their talking points, and often specific answers to questions. It’s unlikely that this third-party schmuck received similar “courtesies” from the interviewers, and very unlikely that he has a machine in place to prep him before interviews. This is a reflection on his personal knowledge of foreign affairs, certainly–but also on the fact that his budget is a fraction of the two ruling parties’, and that he isn’t backed by a multi-million-dollar machine whose sole purpose is to make him look good (or prevent him from looking bad).
It would be interesting to see a far-ranging discussion with [politician], in which there were no advance warnings about topics to be covered. Given that Obama, or Hillary, are in fact getting regular (daily?) briefings from various government agencies, I’d expect them to do quite well, but it would be interesting to see nonetheless.
@jimthefrog, watch the clip and notice the complete lack of context and the questioners demeanor. Not “the siege of Aleppo” or “the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo” or even “the city of Aleppo.” Combine that with the “you’ve got to be kidding” and it’s clear that this was an accusatory question designed to show Johnson lacked basic knowledge of world affairs rather than a question designed to elicit his opinion or proposed policy.
This bit I agree with. It’s not for nothing that they said, “What would you do about Aleppo?” rather than, say, “What would you do about the Syrian refugee crisis?” or, “What would you do about the civil war in Syria?” It’s clear that they were interested in seeing whether he would place Aleppo correctly, and not particularly interested in his actual position on the Syrian civil war.
None of this makes him a viable candidate for President, nor is it a denial that he’s ignorant of things he should know. Just that it was clearly intended as a “gotcha” question. In general, that style of question serves no clear purpose other than masturbation material for the asker.
Unrelated comment (except on the point that “asking this type of question generally marks one as an asshole”): I worked with a guy who frequented bars and strip clubs, and liked to ask the (women) wait-staff and other (women) employees various questions such as, “Who is the Vice President?” Or, “Who is the Senate Majority Leader?” Or, “Which side won the Civil War?” He has an endless list of questions that are easily answered by folks like his coworkers–with plenty of education and higher socio-economic backgrounds–but that most people on the street can’t answer. As near as I can tell, his entire purpose in doing so is to establish that, although they are attractive and he is not, and although they would never date him in 100 years, nevertheless he is smart and they are contemptible. When I hear “gotcha” questions in general, I think of this co-worker.
Matt:
Aleppo was all over the media for a considerable time. Even if you think Aleppo has been given disproportionate attention compared to other places currently being fucked up (and I don’t see how you could, given that you’d not heard of it before today) — this is about basic current events knowledge. It absolutely is embarrassing that someone who thinks they’re qualified for any job involving US foreign policy apparently doesn’t even watch the news (or else has the memory of a nematode worm). It may be a “gotcha question”, but he has legitimately been got.
Errm, I haven’t written about Aleppo, but then I haven’t said much about Istanbul either…but I still know where both are, what their historical significance is, and what major, world-relevant events have happened there recently. And I’m a biology professor, not a candidate for president of the United States!
If you’d even read a newspaper occasionally in the last month, you’d know about Aleppo. Doesn’t Johnson follow current events?
Also, I guarantee you that if Barnicle had asked the very same question in the very same tone of Hillary Clinton, she would have immediately shot back with knowledge of the concerns and maybe even a specific plan for how she’d deal with it (probably by bombing someone, but hey, she’d know about it).
“Her husband’s to Aleppo gone. the master o’ the Tiger”
-W. Shakespeare, Macbeth A.1, Sc. 3
Grade 10 English class, Matt. Not exactly obscure, arcane knowledge…
Reuters Visuals Editor Corinne Perkins answers the question in her recent twitter feed.
https://twitter.com/corinne_perkins
@qwints: I’m sorry, I disagree. What’s happening in Aleppo should be sufficiently well known to anyone even thinking about standing for president, that prefixing it with “the city of” or anything similar should really be unnecessary. And the “you’re kidding” is I think an honest reaction to his “What is Aleppo?” response.
As I indicated before, YMMV. But I do find it difficult to see an angle on this where not knowing anything about the largest and most important city/battleground in the most important international conflict in the world is not embarrassing to a presidential candidate.
PS. It may have been intended as a gotcha question, for all I know. And as I said before, in general I don’t like gotcha questions. But I’m not sure it really has any bearing on my reaction to the video. After all, “What would you do about Detroit?” could be intended as a gotcha if for some reason you thought Detroit and its problems were obscure. It wouldn’t stop “What is Detroit?” being a piss poor response.
And your source for this number.
I already know. You made it up.
Aleppo has been in the headlines for a year or so. They just suffered through a poison gas attack in the last few days. It’s a major humanitarian disaster and the site of a war crime.
For those who don’t at least look at headlines this is what happened.
Aleppo is only obscure to people who haven’t looked at news headlines for a year or two.
It’s a free country and nothing says you have to do anything or know anything.
But Gary Johnson is running for President of the USA and would be expected to have at least a basic knowledge of current affairs.
Ignorance in a Matt or qwints is understandable. Ignorance in a wannabe president is not.
re @29:
yes, exactly.
everyone knows that 93.4% of all statistics on the internet are totally made up, pulled out of their ~~~~
yup that 93.4% is perfectly accurate, believe me. believe me. believe me.
finis. abra~cada~bra. *poof*
Here’s Vox, doing an explainer:
http://www.vox.com/2016/9/8/12847184/what-is-aleppo-gary-johnson
Of course that was a completely legitimate question to ask of a candidate for POTUS.
His answer reminded me of pictures I have seen of a decorator crab gluing various detritus and debris on their back for camouflage. It was just words and phrases stuck together and the answer was we should defer to the gangster Putin and go along with his agenda.
I can understand how you could be surprised by something but his answer immediately disqualified him from me ever giving him another thought.
uncle frogy
@7, @29, and @32 Just to respond to all of that, you’re all deliberately misquoting my comment. Here’s my original quote (which is, you know, just upthread):
All of you have cut off the “I guess” to turn my deliberately hyperbolic and speculative statement into a putative statistic, which it was never meant to be, and which a reading of the whole statement makes clear.
@jimthefrog, I’m not sure we disagree that much. It was an embarrassing and disqualifying answer. Your Detroit analogy is a good one. Another one would be “what would you do about Flint?” I just think that we can simultaneously see the mechanics of a system designed to manufacture and exploit gaffes. It’s significant that the New York Times issued multiple corrections about Aleppo when reporting on this. via Slate
Matt
Let me guess: You googled these in order to declare victory. As others have said: this isn’t about whether we’Re paying enough attention to other disasters but about one specific catastrophe and about somebody who should really know more about international affairs than your average Jane and Joe.
Leo Buzalsky
I didn’t know Pharyngula was an international news outlet…
+++
I find it fascinating how people believe that the question was specifically designed to make Johnson look stupid, with malicious intent and not, say, a simple way of addressing an ongoing humanitarian crisis because for well informed people the name “Aleppo” is intrinsically linked to that crisis.
BTW, both my kids know what Aleppo is and one of them can’t even read yet.
It would be a gotcha question when aimed at someone not seriously running for president of the United States.
Matt #3
These statements do not compute. Explain to me how a “well-meaning” person who is “fairly smart” and “not a dolt” could not only promote Libertarianism, but try to lead the country with it? That is incoherent.
Either he realizes how horrific his political construct is for poor and marginalized people, and doesn’t give a shit – which would disqualify someone from being “well-meaning”, I would think.
or
He has maneuvered his way into being the top candidate for a political system which he doesn’t understand the real-world implications of – which doesn’t qualify as “fairly smart” and “not a dolt”.
Of course I googled them. Here’s another quote from that same comment:
That was part of my point. Here’s how I answered the question I posed: “Why single out Aleppo?”
My point was that he didn’t get asked about, for instance, the Kachin independence movement in Myanmar and its suppression by the Burmese government. (I googled that too.) And I doubt that he’d get much flak if he was asked about it and knew nothing. (Clinton would be knowledgeable; she went there in 2011.) It’s notable because it’s Syria, not merely because it’s horrible. Reporting on Aleppo at major newspapers and sources in the U.S. is, while copious, confined to the World sections, and as far as I could tell, never front paged. I don’t listen to the radio or watch broadcast TV and my news sources (The Atlantic, Vox, Google News) apparently don’t focus much on international affairs either. I’ll agree that Johnson should have known about it, though it’s hardly the most disqualifying aspect of his candidacy. But what corpus of knowledge do we expect candidates to have? Where do the boundaries lie?
Your kids are smarter and better informed than I am.
To be fair it is pretty difficult for a Libertarian to see the big picture with their heads up their own asses like that.
Matt #39,
From The Atlantic:
The New Face of the Syrian Civil War from August 18, 2016.
Air Strikes Hit Five Aleppo Hospitals from July 24, 2016.
The ‘Great Epic Battle of Aleppo’ from August 3, 2016.
There are more results to be found at The Atlantic. I found these links using Google with the search words: the atlantic aleppo. Results for vox aleppo yield another list of links. Google News shows stories about Syria (and Aleppo in particular) as recent as 7 hours prior to my post here. I think we can safely say that the news sources you’ve cited as not focusing on international affairs have reported regularly and recently on what is happening in Syria.
Matt, after what you’ve told us about your news habits I’m beginning to suspect you’re being particularly defensive of Johnson here because you feel people’s criticism of him somehow affects your honour as a fellow Person Who Knows Fuck-All About World Events. But your ignorance is just kind of a shame, while he has absolutely no excuse, seeing as he’s applying for a job that consists in large parts of conducting foreign policy.
If you don’t know what mumps is that’s just a gap in your education. If someone claiming to be a qualified pediatrician doesn’t know what mumps is, you should think twice about leaving them alone with your kid. Same thing here, just substitute “president”, “Aleppo” and “country” for “pediatrician”, “mumps” and “kid”.
The flaw in libertarianism is only “obvious” if one realizes that privilege is a thing, basically. I.e., that systemic discrimination can exist in the absence of overt hostile acts, and that a majority — in fact practically everyone — might be participating in systemic discrimination, most of them unwittingly. If it were true that hostile aims require overtly hostile acts, and that most people are non-hostile most of the time, then libertarianism would actually work.
Johnson strikes me as the oblivious sort of libertarian who means well enough, but fails to appreciate the effect of systemic bias or unexamined privilege. (He’s also a clownish doofus, but I’m only commenting on his libertarianism.)
Disclaimer: in my path from a “Reagan Republican” Fundie to whatever the hell I am today, I went through a libertarian stage, and basically fit the description above: I generally wished everyone well and opposed overt racism, classism, misogyny, etc., but was full of unexamined privilege. What led me out of libertarianism was a natural progression of recognizing these systemic problems. To someone who enjoys privilege, it is far from obvious how it’s possible to harm others without committing any overt acts of physical aggression, so it’s initially plausible that banning all initiation of physical aggression creates the conditions for all other problems to be solved. Although I’m no longer libertarian, I think the readiness on both left and right to resort to brute force to impose one’s “solutions” on others is indeed problematic. [Insert stock quote about a dangerous servant and a terrifying master, and all that.]
matt
I check BBC, NPR and a few other news services every day. As it happens, I’ve seen lots of reports with warnings like – some viewers may find these images disturbing – about Aleppo and especially the kids, the chlorine and so on. I’ve seen zero, zilch, nothing about any such events in Myanmar let alone in the last few weeks.
I fully understand that Johnson can’t afford a large policy staff nor the time to do a lot of research himself. But there are plenty of “clippings” and similar news digest services that he could use to ensure he was on top of the latest domestic and international news. He’d only need to read 10-15 minutes a day to be sure he at least knew the names of the places most severely or recently newsworthy because of conflict, flooding, fire, earthquake and the like.
I expect a whole lot, but all of them fail to know everything they should. Current events are one thing, but a wider view of human history and culture is also important. Of course, Aleppo, like Damascus for another Syrian example, is included in that picture as well. Trivial things like the recognizing the name of an important city isn’t nearly enough for what I’m talking about, but it is a start.
I don’t know where the boundary goes or how sharp the line should be drawn. Maybe we have different ideas of what the purpose of such a boundary is. Is there an upper limit on what my expectations should be like? Maybe so, but I think there’s room for concern and criticism beyond that point.
I know very well that Hillary Clinton, although she is very knowledgeable, doesn’t meet certain expectations that I have. When I’m at that stage of the problem, I want to say that that means she should be very open to learning from advisors and critics who know what they’re talking about, and any preconceptions or half-baked plans she may have formed about the subject will simply have to go. I don’t think my first instinct should be to brush aside the issue, to assume that I can’t reasonably expect a presidential candidate to know such things and leave it at that. I want to know what it says about their qualifications, including their capacity to listen to criticism and learn from expects, but also their ability to honestly admit what they don’t know or understand (hard to find in a politician, granted). I think you can and should assess that kind of stuff, whichever side of this boundary it’s on, whether or not it by itself counts as something a qualified candidate should know.
When Johnson goes on to offer his advice about Syria (which was pretty awful anyway), I don’t think it’s wrong to bring all of that into context with the fact that he didn’t even know what Aleppo is. Before forming his strategy and proposing it on national television as a presidential candidate, shouldn’t he have already learned simple things like this? Maybe he didn’t know about the city before a year or two ago, when he (should have) asked more informed people to help him with the subject — in which case, I don’t care — but that’s not the situation we’re seeing here. He didn’t know, then apparently didn’t attempt to learn anything, then started spewing some preconceived, fact-free, ideologically-motivated bullshit. That’s what definitely counts as a red flag for me.
What on earth led you to believe that?
I’ve seen his net worth as somewhere between 3-10 million dollars, and that’s supposedly not enough to hire some people to do work for him, an he can’t somehow find some time in his ~oh so busy~ life as a millionaire ceo to browse the news occasionally?
no, yu all rite. me dum moran. I go now. tanx for fish.
I think Johnson would be such a disaster as president that I would seriously consider voting for Trump if those two were absolutely the only choices. And I think Trump would be catastrophic.
That said, if Johnson were otherwise the best candidate, I would not in any way consider his answer to be disqualifying. I recognize the name Aleppo for various reasons, but if I were on the political campaign trail every day, I might not recognize the media crisis du jour if you just said a name like Aleppo. A fair question would be “What about the humanitarian crisis in Syria, particularly in Aleppo?” or preferably “the city of Aleppo.” A media interviewer could pull all kinds of names out of the air that, at any given moment, a candidate – and a lot of other people – might not recognize right off the bat.
What’s more important is a candidate’s overall view of events in Syria, or better, U.S. policies in the Mideast. In that sense, Johnson and Stein are superior to war-monger, war-criminal-embracing Clinton and ignorant bigot Trump because both have indicated some reluctance to blow up other countries. Hell, Trump might even be better than Clinton if his real views (impossible to know) were to avoid starting or supporting wars and coups unless really important to the U.S. If the Powers That Be in this country had followed such a policy, millions of people – foreigners mostly but also U.S. soldiers – would not have been killed or injured in the past 5-plus decades. I can think of few, if any, military interventions or other forms of involvement in other countries that fit that criterion.
And here’s a historical analogy: “What about Matsu and Quemoy?” Those of a certain age or political history interest will recognize the names of two islands that the Chinese Nationalists kept, near the coast of China, after the Communists took over the mainland. When Nixon and Kennedy were asked about their policies over 2 obscure islands in 1960, I bet much of the TV audience that night had to pull out an atlas (today it would be to hit Google) in order to know what they were talking about.
A Masked Avenger #43
The problem is,
1. You are no longer either a Reagan Republican Fundie or a libertarian today. And you recognized the problems and effects of these ideologies and outgrew/abandoned them.
2. You outgrew and abandoned these ideologies, somehow, without continuing to believe them so thoroughly and strongly that you ran for president under their banner and did so presumably not having looked into them as deeply as you would have had you tried to run the country based upon them.
3. This demonstrates to me that you probably were well-meaning (which motivated you to abandoned such things), and that you were smart enough to recognize the real-world implications (without having to look into them as deeply as I assume you would have before you tried to run the country).
Gary Johnson, however, demonstrates none of this. So, I don’t see anything here that changes my opinion. He isn’t some college kid, absent-mindedly spouting off his guesswork, common sense beliefs to his buddies at a coffee shop. He’s trying to run the country on them.
If he hasn’t bothered to figure it out by now – before running for president on the platform – and is actively attempting to, unknowingly in his ignorance, mire underprivileged and marginalized people in even more suffering than they face now, he isn’t that bright.
Or he just doesn’t give a shit how it really shakes out and he isn’t well-meaning.
This is kind of similar to the other discussion. This isn’t some random person we are talking about, he isn’t some run-of-the-mill young dudebro who might be pretty good at heart but hasn’t had the time or inclination to look very deeply into his positions as a libertarian. Hasn’t looked into the world enough to recognize what’s what in terms of privilege, poverty, wealth, power, systemic issues.
He’s leading the party of it, and is a candidate on the issue.
Me, just now:
Although you did say he was still a “clownish doofus”, which pretty much means you weren’t actually disputing what I said, and were probably rather just elaborating, fleshing things out, or adding your input.
So, my comment might be a little pointless under those circumstances. :P
Meh. I’m not American so my opinion on this doesn’t matter much. But I’m so tired of the unquestioned assumption in American politics that the US should be a player at all in Middle East conflicts that a presidential candidate who doesn’t know or care much about the region, and apparently just wants to leave, is actually slightly refreshing.
I kind of agree with both sides – yes, this was a “gotcha” question, and yes, those are obnoxious, but a presidential candidate is reasonably expected to know quite a bit more about current events than an ordinary person on the street. It certainly doesn’t make him look good to not even recognize the name of Aleppo.
It may be related to the fact that many libertarians tend to be isolationist (one of the few areas where they would agree with most of the commenters at FTB and Pharyngula), and don’t think that the USA should be involved with Syria in any way.
Sigh, Merkins celebrating Freedumb and Ignorance of world affairs, what a surprise.
Matt #47
pitiful dismount
1/10
Lofty #53
I don’t think that anyone is celebrating ignorance of world affairs, some people are just noting that Johnson’s ignorance might not be as surprising as it seems. Personally I think that it might be connected to the isolationism that a lot of libertarians support. People tend to be best informed about things that they find relevant and that they care about. If you don’t think that the US should be actively involved with the rest of the world, there is less reason to care about what is going on there.
#Matt 47
If I were, for some unknowable reason inclined to raise a defense of a presidential candidate offering a blank stare when asked what he would personally do as President about one of the worst things currently happening in the world, well I believe I would at least think twice about selecting this forum to voice that view. Particularly if I was unable to easily absorb incredulous eye rolling and lip curling.
Two things make the situation in Aleppo important even for an isolationist:
(1) What happens in Alep stays *out* of Alep when it can and sends another several hundred thousand to a million refugees into our already completely fucked system for helping refugees, which means more pressure on Fortress Europe and more fascist wannabes getting elected in Europe.
(2) Turkey is an important NATO ally and is on one side of the battle for Aleppo; Russia is on the other side. They’ve shot at each other and killed each other’s soldiers. WW3 is not something to blow off. Neither is the opposite: the risk that Turkey decides to tell NATO to fuck itself and stops being our ally.
Curiously, the New York Times, which doesn’t have to provide information from memory, in the course of explaining what Aleppo is, got it wrong and had to print a correction.
No, Johnson is not “well-meaning” in his applied libertarianism as his record in New Mexico aptly demonstrates, nor in his desire to see, for example, social security ended.
Why do so many people assume it was a deliberate “gotcha” and not simply a question a reasonably well informed person might ask?
No, it most certainly would not. In the absence of systematic, collective measures to prevent it doing so (such as progressive taxation, legislation to protect employees from arbitrary dismissal, trades unions with legal immunities, state-funded education, health care and legal assistance…) a “free market”* economy will lead to ever-increasing inequality, because richer people always have mutiple advantages: they can afford to wait longer for the right price, they can buy in bulk, they can get their health problems dealt with quickly and skillfully, they can get better investment advice and better lawyers – and they can leave their wealth to their relatives. Even if everyone started equal, and was equally talented and industrious, sheer luck would produce inequality, which would then grow without bounds. There are also, of course, negative externalities – one of which, the emission of greenhouse gases, is currently the most serious threat to civilization, with the possible exception of nuclear war. LIbertarianism is – at best – a load of ignorant garbage.
*I use the scare-quotes because of course there’s no such thing: there are always rules, backed by force, about who can sell what, what constitutes a contract, what happens if one side cannot or will not fulfill their side of it… and these are inevitably the subject of political contestation.
This is such a ludicrous mischaracterisation it’s hard to believe it was intended seriously. Opposition to American military intervention abroad does not constitute isolationism. Isolationism means minimising any form of governmental involvement with the outside world – humanitarian aid, international agreements to limit armaments, pollution, slavery etc. or to promote or regulate trade, participation in the UN and other world bodies…
Speculating — and deliberately ignoring those who are genuinely ignorant (more on this below) — some mixture of bigotry(in this case), isolationism(in this case), and “not what I consider important”-ism. The subject either rates rather low in the individual’s concerns or else triggers reactions of a conspiracy-like nature. E.g., for the conspiracy-minded, #BlackLivesMatter transforms into #AllLivesMatter, or the situation in Syria is “radical moolsin terrorism / job-stealing furriners” or some other nonsense.
If X is not too important to you, and especially if you morph it into a conspiracy, then a comment-on, or question-about, X, has some sort of an ulterior motive — a “gottcha”. And if you’re distrustful of the questioner, then you are perhaps more likely to assume there is an ulterior motive. I seem to frequently see grumbling about the “MSM” or “LameStream Media”, so I suspect there is a fair amount of questioner-distrust.
(Obviously, the claim “X not seen as important implies an ulterior motive to the question” is too strong, so I speculate those who do not make that leap-in-“logic” are among those who do not see the question as a “gotcha”, perhaps even if they have some unreasonable degree of questioner-distrust.)
Which leaves ignorance (I’m ignoring simple misunderstandings, such as mishearing as “what about a leppo?”). This is a USAian problem in general with “foreign” subjects: USAians are remarkably untraveled (e.g., less than 20% carry a passport(as I recall), not all of which are used for travel). USAian’s ignorance or misinterpreting / misinforming — even by liberals — is rather notorious, along with stereotypes such as the “ugly american”. People’s reactions to a question about something they know nothing about differ considerably, ranging from what seems to have happened here (a request for more information / clarification), to — perhaps especially in what I am calling the conspiracy-minded — hostility, a “gottcha”.
All of the above speculation assumes there is some honesty in the questioner, questioned, and audience. Change one or more to a liar (or just paranoid), and anything can become a conspiracy, a hostile or “gotcha” plot.
(In this case, the questioned — due to the reason he was being questioned — should have something more than a cartoon-level knowledge of the situation in Syria, which then must include Aleppo. Hence the astonishment at the apparently-genuine ignorance.)
IMHO important, but no. The fundamental flaw of libertarianism is that it leads to robber barons and a breakdown of society, which is generally bad for just about everyone. That and it’s intellectually inconsistent, morally reprehensible self-centered economic drivel, fit only for the 14 year olds who first read Ayn Rand and who hopefully soon grow out of it. These problems are true regardless of any actual class discrimination, sex, gender, race, religion, etc., and this fundamental problem would be just as bad even if you could magically wave a wand and somehow remove all such class distinctions – except the money distinction of course.
KG in post 61 covers the same important points.