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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3951 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 23, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Take, for example, a vehemently pro-life politician who nonetheless makes his mistress get an abortion when he accidentally knocks her up.

I know it’s a hypothetical, but if this was a scenario that happened then you would expect it to be a major scandal that’s prominent in the news, even if said politician is like a West Virginia state legislator or something equally irrelevant. As strong on family values politicians get in trouble for having mistresses regularly enough for nobody to be surprised, and occasionally have children with those mistresses, but there’s not a lot of news stories about their mistresses getting abortions, we can surmise that their commitment to pro-life values extends at least that far.

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2017-10-04/pro-life-rep-tim-murphy-pressured-mistress-to-get-abortion

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2012/10/scott-desjarlais-recorded-abortion-call-with-mistress.html

Just reading the link gets you all the info you need in this case.

That's just the best examples from a quick Google. There's a few cattycorner examples mixed in there as well (campaign operatives, or having a girlfriend get an abortion as a teen) but these two are recent and on all fours with the hypothetical.

Now you can quibble with what this means: out of how many pro life politicians so maybe this isn't that many, or should we only count out of pro lifers who have affairs, or should we assume that this kind of thing happens 12 times in secret for every time it happens in public so this is only the tip of the iceberg, or whatever you want. But it's certainly not an absurdity.

Indeed, I included that as an example not to make a point about pro-life politicians or anything, but just because it is a handy example that has readily available real-world examples.

That's what virtue signalling is. You scream loudly about a moral position you claim to hold, but when the time comes to apply that position you back down instantly. So you get to feel good about 'supporting' the right thing but have no intention of behaving in accordance with it.

Your signal is unreliable, and you intend for others to believe it but you don't care to be bound by it nor incur the costs of enforcing it.

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