A BBC opinion piece suggests
Citizen's United is back in America's courtrooms. But, this time, the famous US Supreme Court case isn't facing scrutiny, it's deciding who's sitting on the bench in the first place....
States pick their judges in a variety of ways. Thirty-nine states opt to elect either some or all of their judges. Others use a merit system, in which there is a short list drawn up from which the local governor then chooses. That judge periodically faces retention elections.In states where elections are taking place, however, they are starting to remind voters more of congressional elections, with the same money and harsh rhetoric.
As i understand it, rhetoric was taught in old Rome as an essential for public service. And it was just as bombastic as today.
ReplyDeleteOldCharlie, you might be confusing Rhetoric with how it's used or misused. (Much the way Statistics is frequently misused.)
DeleteBTW -- Rhetoric, the study of persuasive speech, began not in Ancient Rome but earlier in Ancient Greece. The study did and continues to take the audience into account.
When we disdain what politicians do and say we should also think about the hideous traits in ourselves, perhaps, and our fellow citizens that the politicians are playing to.
It is unfortunate that Rhetoric is not formally taught in high school or college. It would give more citizens a basis to listen more critically and to speak more wisely.
At the very least a wider undertanding of rhetoric might mean that when I watch Fox News I wouldn't hear that eveything Obama the Pretender does is horrendous, and when I watch MSNBC I wouldn't heard how everything President Obama does is amazing and wonderful.
HPF -- I was once out to dinner with an Oxbridge educated woman who was set, pre-Thatcher obviously, on becoming England's first female prime minister. She was a brilliant woman whose intelligence could become somewhat tedious ... as for example, when we had become gently drunk over the dinner table and she said she had studied debating in school and would be happy to prove to my satisfaction that a chocolate milk shake was vanilla. I had no doubt she could do it and begged her not to since the food was really pretty good.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry if i've offended your sense of an ennobled school of rhetoric. And no doubt it has a lineage predating rome. But i've read of accounts of it being misused in the courts of rome. I've read that the rhetoric courses of rome included the theatrical gestures to raise the listeners to emotional heights. I don't know if teaching it today would improve the conversation. But the bombast has continued.
ReplyDeleteWhat scares me is:
DeleteNot that there are wars, not that wars are alright, what scares me is when I am starting or inheriting one for one and all..
Not that there are plunders, not that plunders are alright, what scares me is when I am starting or inheriting one for one and all..
Not that there are prostitutions, not that prostitutions are alright, what scares me is when I am starting or inheriting one for one and all..
Not that there are coverups, not that coverups are alright, what scares me is when I am starting or inheriting one for one and all..
Not that there are punishments, not that punishments are alright, what scares me is when I am starting or inheriting one for one and all..