Politics thread (USA Elections 2016) - Page 59

well at least new season of House of cards is out

On May 30 2017 23:35 Baalim wrote: Evergreen college students demand to forbid entrance for one day to all whites, and if his demands were not met they threatened that there would be violence, instead of expelling all the idiots, the rector agreed despise being yelled at in his face. Now Drone this is what I mean when I say im concerned where we are gong, this is not an isolated case in fact its what is happening in most american universities, these people will be in positions of powers and writing policy soon. So when you speak about gender inequality and talk about toxic masculinity, perhaps you have very specific reasonable ideas but that is not what these words truly mean anymore, they are political words used by a dogmatic group and by using them you empower them

Meh. I think this is stupid, but I also think it's not a big deal. I think this is more like a new 68er type of student action where rather than eradicating hierarchical structures they're aiming for eradicating racial inequality, but being young college students, a lot of them are pretty stupid about it, and the sensible ones are drowned out in the noise. My understanding is that 68ers also did a bunch of stupid disruptive stuff, a bunch of them became people in power, and imo, they largely made society better. I also don't think it helps that pretty much all stories are misconstrued in some way. (whites weren't actually forbidden from entering, but rather it was made clear that white people who shoved up wouldn't be considered 'allys of african americans' or whatever. Which is a strong form of coercion and I totally don't support it, but it's a bit different from being forbidden.)

I think racism black people face in the US is greater by a degree of several magnitudes than what white students not being allowed on campuses for one day constitutes, even if that was immediately implemented as a nationwide policy, it'd still be a non-issue compared to how differently black people and white people are treated by incarceration systems, how some states continue to engage in voter suppression.

So I think this is stupid, but sorry, I don't agree that it's a really big deal. I don't think freedom of speech is deteriorating - if anything, I think social media has empowered a lot of people to complain about cases that normally wouldn't even hit the radar. I also think your last argument, about me empowering these groups of people through affiliating with them and using their vernacular hits right back at you in the same way - through attacking these senseless liberals you are empowering pro-trumpists, and I consider Trump a far, far, far greater threat to the world than every single stupidly backwards regressive leftist or whatever combined.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I totally agree that this is entirely misguided on their behalf. I just don't agree that it's really dangerous.

Indeed some "Trumpists" will think you are an ally when you speak in any way against migration.

Did you read what I wrote about Hitler and ideas in the "truth" thread? that is why I dont think Trump is more dangerous, while he obviously have much more immediate impact he can only do so much, but when ideas start gaining momentum in young minds like leftist postmodernism I feel that has so much more potential for harm.

I think we are way more likely to fall into a terrible tyranny in the name of compassion and equality than we are to become a nationalistic racist society.

About the 68 student thing was about anti-vietnam war, it was a movement for peace, I dont see parallel with whats happening now besides its young people seeking some change of the status quo.

68 protests were definitely related to Vietnam, at least regionally, but it was much more than that. In the US, that mightve been the most important issue, in Europe it was not. In sweden, opposition to south african apartheid was a bigger trigger. germany was anti-authoritarianism and students rights, france was triggered by university reform.

what the different 68 protests had in common was advocating views that were at the time considered leftist / radically leftist. anti-imperialism, anti-authority, anti-racism, feminism, environmentalism, worker and student rights.. socialism in some areas, but I don't think that was universal. I'm not saying it's a perfect parallel though, but I think there are similarities. youth seeking to change status quo in ways that the older generation thinks is extreme, protests that are seen as 'disrupting' (not that I think you mind that particular aspect that much ), centered around colleges/universities, same left/right dichotomy that applied to 68.

And I think the outcome is gonna be much the same. Eventually, somewhat increased societal acceptance of some of the ideas argued for. But mostly everyone involved stops being part of the movement once they leave their colleges, and it's a temporary thing, not a new normal. Students are always gonna be upset with perceived injustice, and student loyalty tends to be really strong, which makes it easy for some charismatic student to get a mob going, so protests are gonna happen every now and then even when this current wave dies down.

I don't think we're gonna have a real tyranny in the name of compassion and equality or in a nationalistic racist way. Less societal cohesion and continued polarization seem likely, but I don't think we're at the brink of anything really terrible. Honestly I think a lot of the protests are fueled by hatred for a system that made Trump president and I think after republicans lose power in 2018 and 2020, much of it will die down.

I guess the worst parallel I can get on board with would be that these current students are the tea party version of the democrat party?

You might be right, I've read that apparently the generation after millennials are turning up to be considerably more conservative so this might not get any real traction.

Trump has made then louder but he definitely isn't the cause, this happened under Obama administration, arguably one of the main reasons Trump got elected was a polarization from centrists to right by the radicalization of the left.

Yeah 68 leaned to the left but thats how all young "revolutions" work, obviously a 20yo isn't going to pursue conservate values, strong economy and less taxation, they are idealists in the messianic age, but I suppose that only reinforce your post that this is normal and will die out.

Now time to turn up the heat 8)

You mentioned that racism was a big problem, could you please give an example of systemic racism towards black ppl in the US?

A couple undeniable ones are sentencing of different drugs, although reading up on it I can see that Obama introduced a bill to stop this. Anyway, 5 grams of crack gave the same sentence as 500 grams of cocaine, this was a deliberate effort to break up gangs, but it obviously impacted black people way more. When looking at illegal drug use in the US, about 5 times as many white people report using drugs as black people (which corresponds fairly well with population), but about 10 times as many black people are sent to prison for drug use.

There are some voter suppression programs that are pretty flagrant. Supreme court recently ruled that some gerrymandering in texas was motivated by desire to reduce black political influence.

In Alabama they apparently still have a law in place from 1901 which opens up for black voter suppression. That law was introduced with this opening address;
'In 1861, as now, the negro was the prominent factor in the issue. . . . And what is it that we want to do? Why it is
within the limits imposed by the Federal Constitution, to establish white supremacy in this State. . . . The justification for
whatever manipulation of the ballot that has occurred in this State has been the menace of negro domination. . . . These
provisions are justified in law and in morals, because it is said that the negro is not discriminated against on account of his
race, but on account of his intellectual and moral condition'
like, flat out stating that preserving white supremacy is the reasoning behind suppressing black voters. Jeff Sessions defended this as part of 'state's rights'.

Then there's stuff that isn't really institutional, but still so prevalent that it can be described as systemic; if you sent a job application with a black sounding name vs a white sounding name even if the applications are otherwise identical, the white sounding name gets 50% more callbacks. According to
the national bureau of economic research, that corresponds to a difference of 8 years of experience, obviously very significant.

I'm fairly certain it's very easy to find way, way more examples. I have no problems admitting that exceptionally capable black people can work their way to the top in the US, but if you are average, like most people are, then systemic discrimination is likely to hold you back.

On June 01 2017 07:34 Baalim wrote: You mentioned that racism was a big problem, could you please give an example of systemic racism towards black ppl in the US?

Cmon...

The shoot first ask questions later policy from cops is enough...

Drugs sentences are not really towards black people only it includes latinos as well as far as I've read.

These students are pretty fucking retarded if their idea is race equality and its disturbing that they cant see that. I admit I only watched a minute of the video before stoppipng it though

Why didnt you make it easy on me and mentioned the police like Spitfiree did, I had to actually make some research .

Well first for spitfire the cop thing is bullshit, less than 5% of the people police kill each year are black, police kills considerably more whites than blacks, also a recent study in the University of Washington showed that police are more hesitant to shoot black a black suspect than a white suspect, probably because they know it will create a shit-storm... I mean, the ferguson riots were caused because the police shot Michael Brown who had just committed a robbery and resisted arrest, and yeah US police is pretty brutal but I dont see any strong evidence for bias at all.

Now to adress some of Drone posts, about incarceration time, the disparity is under 10%, which indeed is significant, however men get sentences over 60% longer than women for the same crime, so just about 6 times worse of a problem.

But as you say its not just prison time, its slight worse odds on arrest likelyhood, higher bails etc and all these add up, granted, however correlation does not mean causation, meaning the avg income of the criminals vary considerably, poor people are more likely to fair worse in the penitentiary system.

gerrymandering has nothing to do with racism, its about getting votes for your party, republicans will always want to suppress non-wite voters because they vote democrat, and democrats will do the opposite.

Ill respond later to your last point on job applications dont have the time to research that just yet.

Anyway, you described racism as a big problem, and the usual narrative I assume you somewhat agree with is that racism is holding blacks down, that the systemic discrimination stops them from thriving as communities and individuals and I dont think its true at all, massive incarceration leniency doesn't propel women into thriving, what makes you think that this and a few other minor issues is the root of the problem?

Sure there are a lot of bigots from all races everywhere, you dont have to convince me people are shit, believe me, but the reason they are doing bad as a community is because 75% of blacks are raised without a father.

In the 60s in the so called war on poverty women were offered welfare only if there was no man in the house and the black community went from 25% of kids born out of wedlock to 75%.

So you have the government subsidizing bad parenting and bad decisions, incentivizing women to marry the government, and It is proved that kids from single parents perform fairly worse in all social metrics.

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Add that to the long list of ironic results from the compassionate left

Its strange to me that you discard postmodernism as just a harmless fad but see great problems in racism which has shrunk constantly for the past 200 years and racists are exiled from society, anybody wearing a Swastika would probably get punched in the face yet you see many young people wearing the sickle and hammer flag and faculty professors call themselves Leninist or "Bolchy".

You talk about all the damage Trump makes yet all he has done is a minuscule fraction of the damage Angela Merkel did to Germany when she opened the floodgates to migration.


I'm not putting you into the leftist box as I did before If I''m correct you don't support an open-border policy and I don't support any nationalist bullshit, I don't even believe in nations however I think you disproportionately see problems, some subtle inequalities worry you more than the social mayhem that waits for Germany when its filled with ghettos with millions of people with barbaric ideologies that wont integrate into society, just to mention an example.

oh man, I disagree completely that Merkel has done more damage to Germany than Trump has done to the US. I think Trump's campaign did more damage to the US than Merkel's opening of the floodgates did to Germany. And his presidency is a god damn continuous disaster. Merkel's approval rating has been rising as of late, she's gonna win the election, AFD is in the 10% region. Germany is basically completely fine. If anything Germany shows that a functional, well run western society is capable of handling a mass influx of immigrants with fairly few problems; the groping of cologne and christmas market attack are lone incidents, not the new normal.

Trump not signing Paris accord by itself is a way bigger problem to the US than anything Merkel has done is to germany. Honestly, I think of all heads of state in the world that I have some knowledge of, she might just be my favorite. (I actually dunno if him not signing paris accords is gonna be that consequential in terms of increasing pollution, it seems like his idiocy is just uniting the world in some type of, okay if the US is no longer gonna be a responsible actor, then we'll sideline them and pick up the tab, and individual american states and cities seem pretty determined to follow through anyway.)

There actually is one good aspect of Trump. He's been a complete disaster for European populists.

It was kind of expected, the guys that are financing him and half of his current staff will lose a shitton of money cause of the Paris Agreement. Exxon ain't giving fucks about the planet, when they can print money for a decade or two, die and then have the next generations suffer the consequences. It's why capitalism will destroy itself at some point.

Sadly this only proves that Clinton was the better choice as nasty as she is.

I ll leave you with this gem




Oh did I forget to mention that Nicaragua is actually not a part of the Paris Agreement because their president the measures there are laughable and should be MUCH HARSHER... the other country is Syria, which is demolished... So congrats to the United States, you are officially worse than North Korea on one of the most important topics on the planet

Is it weird that this guy's view on the Paris Agreement makes me interested?

https://youtu.be/QOFhpoDY0As

Oh did I forget to mention that Nicaragua is actually not a part of the Paris Agreement because their president the measures there are laughable and should be MUCH HARSHER... the other country is Syria, which is demolished... So congrats to the United States, you are officially worse than North Korea on one of the most important topics on the planet

What specifically do you think the US is going to do that it would not have done if it stayed in the Paris Agreement. I'm yet to read any credible op-ed's that have a better argument than "it's a bad look / bad optics".

I'm not big on ancap ideology but the free market seems to be accelerating green industries just fine without international treaties needing to be involved.

Half of the Paris signers vehemently refuse to build nuke plants, it's just a giant virtue signal with little teeth from what I can gather.