Helen Thomas forced to retire after 67 year career for criticizing Israel

[Magus]

She seemed to implying it was anywhere but Palestine, which doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's her opinion and she's entitled to it.

Anyway, I'm not surprised the White House went along with railroading her after seeing this video from June 1st where she criticizes the administration for not condemning the flotilla massacre:

Helen Thomas mocks Gibb over White House's Lack of Condemnation Over Israel's Act of War

Are you guys seriously going to keep arguing over the concept of "professionalism" when nobody at the top gives a fuck about that and it has nothing to do with why she has been blacklisted?

[Archbio]

Archie argued that if a standard isn't enforced in every situation, then no standard exists. I offered a counter-example. Simple as that.

Actually, no. Not "simple as that."

If a "standard" is applied, in practice, sometimes and arbitrarily, then it becomes likely that what is actually being applied isn't a standard; the image of a standard it's a simple pretext for those times where it's applied. That's a pretty far cry from "no standard exists," from "there shouldn't be a standard," or from even "in theory no standard is supposed to be applied."

If there's no standard that's actually enforced (and this is just justified after the fact by a supposed standard) then saying that this was justified because of the standard isn't correct. It just so happens that you think her being forced to retire would be approrpiate anyway, incidentally, because she was being unprofessional. Conflating the reason why it happened with the reason you thought it's good it happened is what's irking me.

And I'd hardly call just saying "racism" a counter-anything.

Edit: I really should have stepped out after the "racism" bit, so I'll do that now. Ciao.

[Magus]

All I can say that is if Helen Thomas had said, "I would respectfully like to say that Israel should get out of Palestine. Remember, these people are occupied and it's not their land. It's not Germany's. It's not Poland's...They should go home...Germany, Poland...and America and everywhere else" and would not have been lambasted by people who disagree with her opinion then society is either incredibly super ideal about their standards for professionalism or incredibly dumb after seeing what happened.

I'm leaning towards incredibly dumb. Occam's Razor and all that. If we only we could see the alternate time streams where Republicans don't call for Thomas to be fired and blacklisted for all eternity because she didn't say "hell"...

[Kim]

There are two kinds of standards, in my experience. There's what something is normally held to, and what something should be held to. I was talking about the latter. There is a standard that public figures should be held to. Even if they aren't as often as they should be, that doesn't change that they should be. When someone actually is held to that standard, even if it's unfair singling out, that others aren't being held to it doesn't exempt that person.

[Magus]

Originally Posted by NonCon

There are two kinds of standards, in my experience. There's what something is normally held to, and what something should be held to. I was talking about the latter. There is a standard that public figures should be held to. Even if they aren't as often as they should be [Never?], that doesn't change that they should be. When someone actually is held to that standard, even if it's unfair singling out, that others aren't being held to it doesn't exempt that person.

Brackets, emphasis added.

Well that makes no sense but okay then. Join us in reality when you are done worrying about your absolute standards, the rest of us will stick with our relative societal standards and actually talk about how she is being unfairly railroaded for speaking her opinion.

[Kim]

This very argument has been made for why it's not okay for Fox News guys to be racist even though some other guys that were liberal got away with making racist remarks and didn't end up called out on it. Everyone was okeedokee A-OK with it then. Not that I'm siding with Fox News, because FUCK Fox News, but your relative standards aren't very consistent. This is why I was of the opinion you were siding with her just because you agree with her and no other reason.

[Magus]

Well, I'm glad you know what the absolute standard of professionalism is, and what the absolute standard for racism is. Please share them with us, we who are bound only to our quite imperfect human opinions, and my opinion is that everybody and their mother are blacklisting her because of her opinion, not because she broke their standards of professionalism, which are relative and hypocritical anyway. You see, the average person isn't like you, in possession of the absolute standard of professionalism. They're a bunch of petty creeps who call for people to be fired because they disagree with their opinion on something.

This is why I was of the opinion you were siding with her just because you agree with her and no other reason.

Well, now we're getting somewhere!

I don't agree with her opinion, I believe she is entitled to her opinion. I believe everyone is entitled to their opinion and in the absence of it even being a racist opinion I can't go along with her being blacklisted. These are entirely separate matters. I've given my criticism of her opinion above.

[Kim]

Originally Posted by Magus

everybody and their mother are blacklisting her because of her opinion

I guess that makes me nobody? Since I actually agree with her opinion but think she still deserved to be fired?

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by NonCon

The alternate response was to pretend I actually had any respect for that viewpoint, wherein Smarty derails this into "Why professionalism is bad" and I'm just not in the mood to walk down that incredibly stupid road.

You can't insult Smarty no matter how stupid he's being. That's my job.

[Magus]

Originally Posted by NonCon

I guess that makes me nobody? Since I actually agree with her opinion but think she still deserved to be fired?

I wish I could understand your argument. Does it go like this?:

1. There is an absolute standard of professionalism.
2. Society doesn't often follow this absolute standard of professionalism and many people in this society break it all the time without being called out on it, including elected officials.
3. Helen Thomas, a 67-year career journalist, broke this absolute standard of professionalism by saying the word "hell" on camera.
4. Helen Thomas happened to be called out on something entirely unrelated to her professionalism and was fired and blacklisted for it unfairly, but cosmically, she still deserved to be fired because she broke the absolute standard of professionalism.

Did I get it right or wrong? If I got it right, can we agree and move on to whether or not it was fair to fire her for her opinion? Pretty please?