Joe Biden.

[icarus]

Joe Biden just won my heart.

I agree with him on foreign policy, respect him as senator. But my perspective on him just completely changed.

There's a real person under there.


ETA: More detail, for those who didn't want to watch the debates.

I showed up with a fork and knife for some Palin schadenfreude pie. But she did well, disappointing me greatly. Yeah, she was vague and folksy and didn't seem to be saying very much, but there was a lot of feel good language that made you smile now and think later.

At first she came across as the "real person" in the debate.

Then, after she'd casually rattled off her lines about her family for the third or fourth time, Biden came back with, "You know, men are single parents, too" and the genuine choking up over his son...

... suddenly, she started looking like a carefully manufactured product, while he was the real thing.

I didn't expect the debates to showcase Biden.

Comments

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't really know them all. Not being married myself.

[elf]

Oh, being married, I don't know them all. The "privilege communication" bit comes from watching Law & Order--married people can't testify about what they've said to each other. Not even if they want to. Communication between spouses is somewhat more protected than communication between client & lawyer, or doctor & patient.

However, communication between parent & child is NOT. Which is rather fucked up.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I can see how that would be important in child abuse cases though.

[elf]

However, it plays havoc with the purpose of privilege: to encourage free communication between some people. Lawyer communication is privileged so that people will talk to their lawyers, not try to hide stuff that might get them in trouble and (1) shoot their own case in the foot (of little interest to society at large) or (2) fail to help the lawyer figure out what "justice" is and track down the Real Bad Guys, whoever those are.

Doc communication is priv'd so that people will tell their doctor what really caused their problems, so we don't have untreatably-sick people spreading diseases.

Priest communication (some of it) is priv'd so that people will get counseling (of sorts), because criminals who have confessed and "been forgiven by god" are less likely to go on rampages than those who have not. (Or so the theory goes.) Counselor/psych communication, ditto: society has decided it's better for people to *get help* for their griefs & stresses, than to be able to prosecute every minor crime.

And spousal priv exists to support family unity, 'cos society figures it's better to have stable families than people who are so paranoid that their spouse might turn them in that they go crazy. HOWEVER... parents not having priv'd communication with their kids, means that if the kids commit a crime, or saw someone commit a crime & tell the parent, the parent can be subpoena'd for that.

So parents who want to avoid turning in their own kids need to tell them "don't talk to me about your teenage problems & what happens to you. Talk to a lawyer, or a priest, or your doctor... don't tell me what you saw." Which, umm. Not the most sensible arrangement.