The rest is politics - “The Taliban took over the country and it's much safer”

[HiggledyPiggledy33]

Just outraged at what I’ve just heard in the rest is politics.

They are discussing why aren’t we boycotting Afghanistan, and I can’t believe what Rory is saying.

“For the first time in over 20 years, you can travel safely through the country.”

Well maybe you can Rory, but I don’t think women can - is that fine? Throw half the population under the bus, as long as you’re OK.

“The Taliban have very repressive views on women, but they've also in other ways changed”
oh well that’s ok then.

“We're in a culture now where it really suits a lot of people, particularly on the far right, to emphasise Muslim countries where women are not treated correctly”
Women not being treated correctly is the problem. Once that’s sorted, let’s look at any sensitivity about muslims.

From The Rest Is Politics: Question Time: Assad’s People - Syria, Torture, and Justice, 9 Jan 2025

Those words don’t mean anything. So a bunch of ill-informed won Twitter agreed with Vance? And what does that prove, apart from the fact that lots of people on Twitter haven’t read the Bible?

Call me old-fashioned, but in my view the person who wins the argument is the person who gets the facts right, not the person who manages to get a majority of dribbling fools on his side.

I’ve just been looking at the exchange with Vance on X and Rory says: An honour to have my IQ questioned by you Mr VP. But your attempts to speak for Christ are false and dangerous. Nowhere does Jesus suggest that love is to be prioritized in concentric circles. His love is universal.

Ya gotta love him, despite his blindness on women.

Can't say I'm very taken with men arguing about Jesus really.

I don't like to put all of Rory's blind spots down to his education, but PG Wodehouse (a Dulwich College alumnus, and therefore a bit of a pleb in public school terms) could be very sharp on the insularity of Etonians.

“Didn't Frankenstein get married?"

"Did he?" said Eggy. "I don't know. I never met him. Harrow man, I expect.”

crikey, you're easily impressed

i thought that Rory said that everyone should be equally loved and that this was according to the scripture? And then thought that he had put the hillbilly in his place?

and that Vance told him to qoogle Oro Amoris - which is a concept that Tomas Aquinas has written about?

personally I think it is funny that hillbilly Vance, from a really poor background put Etonian, overconfident, woman hater Rory in his place but referring to Tomas Aquinas 🤷‍♀️ , bet Rory did not see that one coming…

Regardless of the theological argument (I could do with brushing up on my knowledge of Thomas Aquinas), Vance is obviously the one speaking sense here.

Humans do not love everyone equally. They love their families more than strangers. That's been fundamental to our survival as a species.

How unpleasant. I really don’t like the phrase tearing someone a new arsehole. I don’t think that kind of casual sexual violence belongs on a feminist board.

I don’t think Rory Stewart is a woman hater either, just totally oblivious.

I think Rory Stewart is the epitome of the phrase “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”

the idea of someone framing one man using christian theological concepts about love as 'tearing a new one' on another man tells you rather a lot about humans in general and humans on the internet in particular.

I don't much like Rory Stewart but he is clearly right on this. Jesus's big idea was that we should love complete strangers as much as we love ourselves. He wasn't at all interested in families - he required his disciples to leave their families to follow him. Is he even recorded as mentioning his mother in the New Testament? I don't think he is.

Of course Vance is right to say that most of us love our families more than we love strangers, and you could argue, probably most would, that we have special obligations to our immediate family that we don't owe to strangers. But this isn't a Christian idea. Christianity says the complete opposite. That is Rory Stewart's point, but everyone seems determined to misunderstand it.

was that not partially sarcastic though? Maybe I was flippant with regards to calling Rory a woman hater, but his indifference to women’s plight in Afghanistan is indefensible in my mind.

but do people really think that the Trump administration cares about Women’s right? Trump may be on the fence but my understanding is that the republicans are trying very hard to ban abortion? Just because they disagree with trans, does not make them pro women in other areas.

I thought the exchange was funny (because of how Rory thought he could patronise someone he thought was lesser than himself) - and because of the Afghanistan comments, even funnier.

I think this is brilliantly put. Smart does not equal good at everything, or realising that you're not good at everything.

‘I am cleverer.’
‘No I’m cleverer.’
‘I have the stick of cleverness.’
‘My stick’s cleverer and I wave it above my head to show everyone how I have all the clever.’

It reminds me of a David Attenborough programme, seeing the two male chimps screeching it out, standing up, fur on end looking at each other and grabbing the nearest branch to wave about to gesture how they’re the strongest. The females gather in groups with the youngsters, looking at it kicking off getting a bit tense again but the older ones rolling their eyes going ‘not this again’.

Then all the male posturing stops until next time.

Vance is a recent convert to Catholicism and knowledgeable about his faith. He also isn't a dumb hillbilly. Wikipedia says that in 2007, Vance left the military and used the G.I. Bill to study political science and philosophy at Ohio State University. He graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude. He then attended Yale Law School, where he was a member of The Yale Law Journal. I hold no brief for his politics, but like to give credit where it's due. Given his deprived and difficult childhood, that's a real achievement.

@NotAtMyAge I know that Vance has done very well and I agree with you that it gives him a lot of credit. I called him a hillbilly based on his memoir (Hillbilly Elegy).

I do believe that Rory Stewart just considered himself superior, whether because of background or because of perceived moral superiority. You should never underestimate your opponent.

@HooverIsAlwaysBroken Oh, I agree with you. Rory is one of many in politics and the media who give off an aura of effortless superiority they are barely conscious of.

I think Rory Stewart is the epitome of the phrase “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”

I think it's a bit of a stretch to call him a "good man". An indifferent man, more like.

I don't know Rory personally, but we know some of the same people, and I think the best way of putting it is that he identifies as a good man.

His sense of moral superiority is probably the main thing that drives him. I don't think he's unaware of how extraordinarily privileged he is, but he feels that, as a good man, that doesn't influence him.

His massive blind spots are very revealing.

If we wanted to do the religion thing, I'd give JD Vance the advantage as a Christian, because if you ever listen to Vance being interviewed, he's intensely aware of his own flaws and how he needs to try and be better. I've never got that sense from Rory.

If we wanted to do the religion thing, I'd give JD Vance the advantage as a Christian, because if you ever listen to Vance being interviewed, he's intensely aware of his own flaws and how he needs to try and be better. I've never got that sense from Rory.

This is a man who is willing to put aside his own feelings about Trump who he described as an "idiot" and being like "Hitler" - also describing himself as a "never Trump" - to become Trump's right-hand man. That absolutely reeks of cynical opportunism: he's had a whiff of power (Trump is 78, after all) and will put aside any moral qualms to pursue it. What a vile man. Can't say I'm a fan of Rory Stewart, but I don't think he's even in the same league of moral turpitude as Vance.

@SionnachRuadh As someone who has had an interest in RS since he came into politics, who knows people who have worked with/for him and who listens religiously to his podcasts with AC, I feel rather closer to him than is perhaps quite sane (lol).

While I’m sure he is absolutely determined to be a good and thoughtful person, and a good father and husband, I cannot help feel that he holds a deep hurt about various rejections, including as leader of the Cons Party and as mayor of London.

I think R was raised to see himself as someone who would effect change in the world, and he’s been extremely frustrated by the fact that he’s been thwarted and that his abilities and efforts sometimes go unrecognised (eg David Cameron/ Osborne).

While a lot of people find him pompous, I have to say that I don’t, just interesting, earnest, hard-working and fallible, very human, in fact. His certainty over the outcome of the US election and lack of humility thereafter were maddening and endearing. But he now mentions it often, ruefully pokes fun at himself.

His blind spot over women and their always precarious rights, however, makes me both sad and cross.

People can't be separated out into white-hats and black-hats. And this kind of simplistic, binary (!) thinking is half of what's wrong with today's world. Rory Stewart is clearly no exception.

So you've never reassessed your position when presented with new information?

Way to go with your critical thinking skills 😒

@SmudgeHughes Yes, as infuriating as I find RS, it's difficult to actually dislike him. He's got this quixotic strand to his character that's sometimes endearing and sometimes quite bonkers.

I've no doubt he means well and he's frustrated by the rejection he's experienced in politics, but politics is a job where eccentrics rarely make it off the backbenches. He could have made an impact in that kind of backbench gadfly role, but I don't think he'd have been satisfied with anything that wasn't ministerial office.

I wonder if he was ever in the right business.

Gosh. I wonder which new information it was that persuaded Vance that Trump wasn't like Hitler after all? Was it when Trump refused to accept the result of the 2020 election? When he described the Capitol rioters assaulting police officers as "great people"? When a jury found him liable of sexual abuse against Jean Carroll?

So very many examples of Trump's fine character to choose from.

@RoyalCorgi well he’s certainly not on his own in changing his mind on Trump, the American electorate certainly did let alone countless other notable figures, both domestically and globally.