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On September 24 2016 04:31 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 01:21 xDaunt wrote:On September 23 2016 22:50 ChristianS wrote:On September 23 2016 21:18 xDaunt wrote:On September 23 2016 18:42 Acrofales wrote:On September 23 2016 17:16 ChristianS wrote:On September 23 2016 15:49 Danglars wrote:On September 23 2016 15:03 ChristianS wrote:
Jesus this thread is depressing sometimes.
The last ~24 hours of discussion have put a sobering thought into my head, and I wonder what you guys think of it. Basically, in the last 50 or so years, there's been a strong anti-racist movement in the country as a whole. Laws that discriminate against blacks became widely considered unacceptable, public figures are shunned for expressing racist ideas or using racist epithets. The implied justification was that we as a society were making a concerted effort to eliminate racism as much as possible, and drive whatever resistant strains that survived to . Considered with other historical moves towards equality (elimination of slavery, blacks joining the military, Brown v. Board, etc.), it fit nicely with an overarching narrative of racial progress.
Maybe this is just a problem with anecdotal evidence, but it seems to me those attitudes are completely different in a lot of people today. Hardened Trump supporters often try to deny that Trump is a racist, but far more frequently I see people that just don't seem to care much. They might even lean toward thinking he probably is, but it's just not that important an issue. This is really baffling to me, since for my whole life there's been a widespread cultural agreement that overt racism is one of the ugliest sides of human civilization and absolutely cannot be tolerated, but in the broad view of history, racism is absolutely the norm. Not always as bad as early American South racism, but it's always been pretty normal to distrust people with different cultural and ethnic background than you, treat them worse, value their life less than that of your family or friends or tribe members. I always figured that was just part of progress – unlike humans for most of history, we have cars and refrigerators and computers and a prevailing cultural understanding that racism is bad. It's a nice stroll through memory lane, but you make a sudden leap into modern times by contrasting the civil rights era with Trump and his supporters. Sit at the back of the bus was racism. Separate eating establishments based on race was racism. Immigration policy isn't. Political invective on several issues isn't (though abrasive speech will still cause others to bristle no matter the subject). You're right to call it anecdotal, and it's intensely subjective. You'll see the comparisons to late 1800s racism and xenophobia, others will see you as a wannabe crusader longing for a bygone era but without a real civil rights cause today. Worth noting I never said Trump's immigration policy means he's racist. I was honestly more focused on Trump himself. Being prosecuted by Nixon's Justice Department for really explicitly discriminating against black tenants in his hotels back in the 70's. That stuff by Jack O'Donnell about how when he was president of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, Trump went off about not wanting a black guy as an accountant because blacks are lazy, and he only wants Jews counting his money. Calling Mexicans rapists. Those shitty stereotypes he embraced talking to the Republican Jewish Coalition. Y'know, that stuff. But I wasn't really looking to pick a fight either. I don't really long to be a civil rights crusader. The 50's and 60's sound awful, and I'm glad I didn't have to be around for it. I honestly wish that we were having a relatively normal election between, like, Tim Kaine and Jeb Bush, and I could tune out and read the occasional headline without click on it and maybe get around to registering to vote if I had nothing better to do, but I probably never would because I wouldn't care that much who won. Instead we've got a large, disgruntled population of lower- and middle-class white people who feel that they've been wronged by the world. They think they used to have some kind of glory and power, but now their manufacturing jobs are fading away and they're losing their privileged place in the world, and they feel betrayed and unsafe and powerless. We've got a demagogue candidate who's appealing to this population by telling them that they lost their power because of Mexicans and Muslims and China. He's parading around families of people that were raped or murdered by illegal Mexicans to gin up a rage against these foreigners that are raping and murdering their wives and children. He's saying the whole world is laughing at them because they don't win any more. And he's promising them that if they support him, then by the time he's done, nobody will laugh at them again. This is not a drill, this is how real life racial persecution gets started. This is the type of movement that used to lead to pogroms and lynchings and blood libel. People get so caught up in the movement and the propaganda and the cult of personality around a charismatic leader that they stop paying attention to facts and policy, to the point that you can explain to them that the crime rate is down, not up, that they lost their manufacturing jobs to the inexorable forces of globalism and no one can bring them back, and that illegal immigrants actually commit violent crime at a lower rate than the rest of the population, but it has absolutely no bearing on how they feel. My sobering thought was this: what if we're not on an inevitable march toward progress and greater racial equality? What if the anti-racist attitudes of the last 50 years aren't a lasting cultural achievement, but just a temporary backlash against the ugly racism of the 40's and 50's? People saw how hideous that Nazi movement was, and they saw the horrible treatment of blacks in the South, and the lynching of Emmett Till, and the dogs and firehoses deployed against civil rights protesters, and for a while it became fashionable to be against racism.
But now that all that stuff isn't such recent memory, racism takes on all of the advantages that made it prevalent in human society before. Scapegoating is an easy way to feel better about your problems. Stereotyping is almost inescapable in the psychology of how humans understand the world. Many apparent virtues that people are encouraged to cultivate (e.g. loyalty, empathy) can subconsciously promote tribalism (e.g. loyalty involves favoring those you're close to over those you're not, empathy encourages greater connection to people who are more like you). Racial minorities are often small enough in number that society can get weird impressions of them simply from having too small a sample size, and once a weird (especially negative) bias gets in place, confirmation bias and self-fulfilling prophecy effects tend to maintain or expand that bias.
I've been hoping all the bigotry of the Trump movement would be remembered by history as a weird spike of bigotry as the white American middle class came to terms with several realities it had been in denial about for years. But what if history remembers these past ~50 years as that brief period where American society was largely anti-racist? My sobering thought is this: what if the current campaign against out-of-fashion ideas and racial realism won't be reversed for many years? What if the zealots of today, the current victors of the culture war, won't realize how hideous their own movement has become, nor how the '60s rebellion against authority became a puritanical persecution from authority (cultural leadership brought to you by Your Moral Betters™). Scapegoating and stereotyping of Trump supporters for social ills could continue, as much as I wish it would not. It is intensely psychological and the fight in every generation is to inspire the better angels of our nature. I'm hoping the atmosphere of moral scolds today are later regarded as a weird period of American history when people embraced racializing every issue to the detriment of true debate on the issues. When language was so bastardized and social media lynch mobs so emboldened that every political opinion was viewed by the color difference of the author & subject's skin. I look with some hope to the next generation. Today's left-leaning culture responds to criticism like a priest to sacrilege, and even young people today can see how bizarre it acts. It's far more likely that today's regress, disguised as progress, continues to win and that's a very sobering thought indeed. Seems like you're throwing out a lot of punches at stuff I'm not sure if you're assuming I support. I'm also not sure what's meant by terms like "racial realism." It seems to denote a position which acknowledges the realities of race (about which this "regressive left" is presumably in denial), but I'm not sure what realities you think those are. A white supremacist might say they're a "racial realist" for acknowledging that white people are better than black people. An SJW might call themselves a "racial realist" for acknowledging the power dynamics between whites and various minorities in America today, such that a "color-blind" approach can't solve racial issues. I assume you're in neither of these camps, so you probably mean something more along the lines of acknowledging black culture has some toxic trends which contribute to blacks' underprivileged state (which the regressive left insists is a racist position)? I'm only guessing at your meaning here. But you seem to be opposed to much of the social backlash that currently exists against people and positions viewed as "racist," and I assume you don't think we shouldn't stigmatize actual racism, so you must think the labels of racist and bigot have been over-applied by the left. I might even agree with that. Online articles trying to teach white people about "microagressions" and the like can be alright when they come from a place of earnestly trying to help whites understand how to make racial minorities feel more at ease and less alienated, but when they come in the form of condemning anyone who uses the question "So, where are you from?" in small talk as Grand Dragon of the KKK, I think it weakens the label of "racist" and makes it easier for actual racists to hide behind the cover of just being "politically incorrect." A lot of people that use terms like "cultural appropriation" and "gentrification" to explain how white people are literally Hitler are being sloppy in their reasoning, and mostly just making people think it's okay to be skeptical that they could possibly ever be racist. So I think you've assumed that I'm a member of that club, and I'm really not. Back in saner times, most of my online arguments were with those very people. But that group mostly just whines and blogs about Miley Cyrus appropriating this or that. This ethnocentrist movement wants to take over the world. I was hoping that, based on a progress-based view of racial equality, America had come far enough that it could tell the difference between telling an off-color joke to your friends (i.e. political incorrectness) and accusing Mexico of deliberately sending rapists across the border (i.e. racism). I was wrong, thus I am rethinking my assumption that racial equality has steadily improved over time and will only keep getting better. I think this is the first opinion since the "racism war" started about 20 pages back that is actually worth reading. His post is the saner and nicer version of Kwark's 40% of America is racist posts. And it's unsurprising to me that he, like everyone else on the other side of the issue, struggles with this part of Danglars' post: My sobering thought is this: what if the current campaign against out-of-fashion ideas and racial realism won't be reversed for many years? What if the zealots of today, the current victors of the culture war, won't realize how hideous their own movement has become, nor how the '60s rebellion against authority became a puritanical persecution from authority (cultural leadership brought to you by Your Moral Betters™). Scapegoating and stereotyping of Trump supporters for social ills could continue, as much as I wish it would not. It is intensely psychological and the fight in every generation is to inspire the better angels of our nature.
I'm hoping the atmosphere of moral scolds today are later regarded as a weird period of American history when people embraced racializing every issue to the detriment of true debate on the issues. When language was so bastardized and social media lynch mobs so emboldened that every political opinion was viewed by the color difference of the author & subject's skin. I look with some hope to the next generation. Today's left-leaning culture responds to criticism like a priest to sacrilege, and even young people today can see how bizarre it acts. It's far more likely that today's regress, disguised as progress, continues to win and that's a very sobering thought indeed. If by "struggles with" you mean "has trouble figuring out what he's getting at," you're absolutely right. I mean I've been puzzling over the term "racial realism" and I still can't figure out what it is supposed to mean. Racial realism is an idea from the alt right that there are differences between the races that should be recognized and accounted for as opposed to washing over those differences with the artificial (ie "the not real") construct of liberal/progressive egalitarianism. Depending upon how you define the alt right, different factions of the alt right reach different conclusions from this perspective, ranging from advocacy for western culture to advocacy for white nationalism. So if I understand correctly: -Racial realism is the idea that there are innate differences between races (sometimes called essentialism). Unclear whether these essentialist classifications imply a superior/inferior dynamic (although historically they almost always have).
The bolded part is more or less correct. The one thing left out is that the racial realist does not believe it to be taboo to discuss these things -- ie current paradigms of political correctness are no hindrance to the conversation. As for the unbolded part, racial realism doesn't imply any sort of outcome to the inquiry. It's a merely a perspective on the debate. Think of it as the equivalent to Marxism and history.
-Danglars believes there is a campaign against this essentialism, and considers it a sobering thought that this campaign might not stop at some point.
I'll leave it to Danglars to explain what he thinks on this point.
-xDaunt considers this the part that people on the "other side of the issue" like me always struggle with.
To be very precise, what I believe that the PC crowd struggles with is understanding how their racial policies of the past few generations have impacted the types of people who are now supporting Trump or who are turning to things like the alt right and its derivatives.
Are xDaunt and Danglars actually arguing that innate differences between races exist such that we should treat members of different races differently? Is that not an absolutely textbook definition of racism?
I'll let Danglars speak for himself.
As for me, I'm merely pointing out why there's a large contingent of Americans who are bucking the current PC norms. Again, race means essentially nothing to me as a politically significant classification.
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On September 24 2016 04:43 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:42 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:36 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:31 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:17 Yoav wrote:On September 24 2016 02:32 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 02:17 Doodsmack wrote:
Pretty amazing how much time Trump spent during the Republican debates talking about polls and the states he had won. It was almost his main focus. What if Hillary said, "look how much he harped on the polls, but ever since the conventions he has been losing to me". She needs to match his comebacks with confidence IMO.
He gets by policy questions by tying things back into his narrow populist stuff, for example anything to do with the economy is "China devaluation trade deficit bad". Also talked about his endorsements on different issues, like Joe Arpaio.
But he talks loudly and with a tone of conviction and assertiveness (different than his run of the mill TV interviews), giving the impression he's in command of the subjects. On the superficial front, he's obviously much better than Hillary on TV.
He has a fairly small grab bag of Hillary attacks, but they are very sweeping in their scope. For example, every single problem in the world currently is her fault because she was SoS (this actually is his position). Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, so the loss of manufacturing jobs is the Clintons' fault. Surely though, Clinton has prepared responses to each item in the grab bag.
She needs to diversify the conversation during the debate, to prevent Trump from being so narrow.
Tbh the debates might not be a trounce one way or another. Unless people really just grade it on presentation, in which case Trump could win. I don't know what in the hell to predict. I'm hoping for her to just go Presidential as fuck, give knowledgeable and detailed answers about the issues, why they matter and her own record on them. It'll contrast strongly with Trump's vague platitudes about how X is the worst and he'll make it the best. I feel like this belief is more generous to the average swing voter than I would be. I would hope so. But honestly, I doubt it. What we won't see but I would love to see would be HRC go all "values" on him. Not about instability or unfitness per se, though those are implied. Just about how this man doesn't represent American values. That Trump is wrong because behind all of his "Make America Great" rhetoric, his whole shtick is that he wants America to not be America. He wants the United States to join the "League of Ordinary Nations," where we put America first and tell the world to take a hike. And that this is an insult to everything our veterans have died for. I could workshop the language but I'm tired from work so you'll have to imagine. Maybe they'll have Kaine do it? He could make a neat values pitch (with a Christian spin). The founding fathers did not want America to be a world police. The founding fathers just wanted somewhere nice and quiet to answer to nobody and make black people do all their work for them without remuneration. I'm pretty happy America has strayed from that path. Exactly, America doesn't have a static definition. And the best course of action is to not bleed any more money to other people's affairs. No, it's not.
Someone doesn't understand how to manage their finances.
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United States42016 Posts
On September 24 2016 04:46 RealityIsKing wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:43 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:42 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:36 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:31 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:17 Yoav wrote:On September 24 2016 02:32 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 02:17 Doodsmack wrote:
Pretty amazing how much time Trump spent during the Republican debates talking about polls and the states he had won. It was almost his main focus. What if Hillary said, "look how much he harped on the polls, but ever since the conventions he has been losing to me". She needs to match his comebacks with confidence IMO.
He gets by policy questions by tying things back into his narrow populist stuff, for example anything to do with the economy is "China devaluation trade deficit bad". Also talked about his endorsements on different issues, like Joe Arpaio.
But he talks loudly and with a tone of conviction and assertiveness (different than his run of the mill TV interviews), giving the impression he's in command of the subjects. On the superficial front, he's obviously much better than Hillary on TV.
He has a fairly small grab bag of Hillary attacks, but they are very sweeping in their scope. For example, every single problem in the world currently is her fault because she was SoS (this actually is his position). Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, so the loss of manufacturing jobs is the Clintons' fault. Surely though, Clinton has prepared responses to each item in the grab bag.
She needs to diversify the conversation during the debate, to prevent Trump from being so narrow.
Tbh the debates might not be a trounce one way or another. Unless people really just grade it on presentation, in which case Trump could win. I don't know what in the hell to predict. I'm hoping for her to just go Presidential as fuck, give knowledgeable and detailed answers about the issues, why they matter and her own record on them. It'll contrast strongly with Trump's vague platitudes about how X is the worst and he'll make it the best. I feel like this belief is more generous to the average swing voter than I would be. I would hope so. But honestly, I doubt it. What we won't see but I would love to see would be HRC go all "values" on him. Not about instability or unfitness per se, though those are implied. Just about how this man doesn't represent American values. That Trump is wrong because behind all of his "Make America Great" rhetoric, his whole shtick is that he wants America to not be America. He wants the United States to join the "League of Ordinary Nations," where we put America first and tell the world to take a hike. And that this is an insult to everything our veterans have died for. I could workshop the language but I'm tired from work so you'll have to imagine. Maybe they'll have Kaine do it? He could make a neat values pitch (with a Christian spin). The founding fathers did not want America to be a world police. The founding fathers just wanted somewhere nice and quiet to answer to nobody and make black people do all their work for them without remuneration. I'm pretty happy America has strayed from that path. Exactly, America doesn't have a static definition. And the best course of action is to not bleed any more money to other people's affairs. No, it's not. Someone doesn't understand how to manage their finances.
Someone can't tell the difference between a person and a country.
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On September 24 2016 04:46 RealityIsKing wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:43 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:42 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:36 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:31 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:17 Yoav wrote:On September 24 2016 02:32 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 02:17 Doodsmack wrote:
Pretty amazing how much time Trump spent during the Republican debates talking about polls and the states he had won. It was almost his main focus. What if Hillary said, "look how much he harped on the polls, but ever since the conventions he has been losing to me". She needs to match his comebacks with confidence IMO.
He gets by policy questions by tying things back into his narrow populist stuff, for example anything to do with the economy is "China devaluation trade deficit bad". Also talked about his endorsements on different issues, like Joe Arpaio.
But he talks loudly and with a tone of conviction and assertiveness (different than his run of the mill TV interviews), giving the impression he's in command of the subjects. On the superficial front, he's obviously much better than Hillary on TV.
He has a fairly small grab bag of Hillary attacks, but they are very sweeping in their scope. For example, every single problem in the world currently is her fault because she was SoS (this actually is his position). Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, so the loss of manufacturing jobs is the Clintons' fault. Surely though, Clinton has prepared responses to each item in the grab bag.
She needs to diversify the conversation during the debate, to prevent Trump from being so narrow.
Tbh the debates might not be a trounce one way or another. Unless people really just grade it on presentation, in which case Trump could win. I don't know what in the hell to predict. I'm hoping for her to just go Presidential as fuck, give knowledgeable and detailed answers about the issues, why they matter and her own record on them. It'll contrast strongly with Trump's vague platitudes about how X is the worst and he'll make it the best. I feel like this belief is more generous to the average swing voter than I would be. I would hope so. But honestly, I doubt it. What we won't see but I would love to see would be HRC go all "values" on him. Not about instability or unfitness per se, though those are implied. Just about how this man doesn't represent American values. That Trump is wrong because behind all of his "Make America Great" rhetoric, his whole shtick is that he wants America to not be America. He wants the United States to join the "League of Ordinary Nations," where we put America first and tell the world to take a hike. And that this is an insult to everything our veterans have died for. I could workshop the language but I'm tired from work so you'll have to imagine. Maybe they'll have Kaine do it? He could make a neat values pitch (with a Christian spin). The founding fathers did not want America to be a world police. The founding fathers just wanted somewhere nice and quiet to answer to nobody and make black people do all their work for them without remuneration. I'm pretty happy America has strayed from that path. Exactly, America doesn't have a static definition. And the best course of action is to not bleed any more money to other people's affairs. No, it's not. Someone doesn't understand how to manage their finances.
Its been a while since we had "the poor are poor because they are stupid".
Thanks for bringing it up.
I was afraid the level of discourse in this thread would get to high.
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On September 24 2016 04:46 RealityIsKing wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:43 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:42 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:36 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:31 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:17 Yoav wrote:On September 24 2016 02:32 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 02:17 Doodsmack wrote:
Pretty amazing how much time Trump spent during the Republican debates talking about polls and the states he had won. It was almost his main focus. What if Hillary said, "look how much he harped on the polls, but ever since the conventions he has been losing to me". She needs to match his comebacks with confidence IMO.
He gets by policy questions by tying things back into his narrow populist stuff, for example anything to do with the economy is "China devaluation trade deficit bad". Also talked about his endorsements on different issues, like Joe Arpaio.
But he talks loudly and with a tone of conviction and assertiveness (different than his run of the mill TV interviews), giving the impression he's in command of the subjects. On the superficial front, he's obviously much better than Hillary on TV.
He has a fairly small grab bag of Hillary attacks, but they are very sweeping in their scope. For example, every single problem in the world currently is her fault because she was SoS (this actually is his position). Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, so the loss of manufacturing jobs is the Clintons' fault. Surely though, Clinton has prepared responses to each item in the grab bag.
She needs to diversify the conversation during the debate, to prevent Trump from being so narrow.
Tbh the debates might not be a trounce one way or another. Unless people really just grade it on presentation, in which case Trump could win. I don't know what in the hell to predict. I'm hoping for her to just go Presidential as fuck, give knowledgeable and detailed answers about the issues, why they matter and her own record on them. It'll contrast strongly with Trump's vague platitudes about how X is the worst and he'll make it the best. I feel like this belief is more generous to the average swing voter than I would be. I would hope so. But honestly, I doubt it. What we won't see but I would love to see would be HRC go all "values" on him. Not about instability or unfitness per se, though those are implied. Just about how this man doesn't represent American values. That Trump is wrong because behind all of his "Make America Great" rhetoric, his whole shtick is that he wants America to not be America. He wants the United States to join the "League of Ordinary Nations," where we put America first and tell the world to take a hike. And that this is an insult to everything our veterans have died for. I could workshop the language but I'm tired from work so you'll have to imagine. Maybe they'll have Kaine do it? He could make a neat values pitch (with a Christian spin). The founding fathers did not want America to be a world police. The founding fathers just wanted somewhere nice and quiet to answer to nobody and make black people do all their work for them without remuneration. I'm pretty happy America has strayed from that path. Exactly, America doesn't have a static definition. And the best course of action is to not bleed any more money to other people's affairs. No, it's not. Someone doesn't understand how to manage their finances.
that's pretty funny, but you're new here.
as a heads up, kwark probably manages his finances better than anyone else in this thread.
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On September 24 2016 04:46 RealityIsKing wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:43 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:42 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:36 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:31 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:17 Yoav wrote:On September 24 2016 02:32 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 02:17 Doodsmack wrote:
Pretty amazing how much time Trump spent during the Republican debates talking about polls and the states he had won. It was almost his main focus. What if Hillary said, "look how much he harped on the polls, but ever since the conventions he has been losing to me". She needs to match his comebacks with confidence IMO.
He gets by policy questions by tying things back into his narrow populist stuff, for example anything to do with the economy is "China devaluation trade deficit bad". Also talked about his endorsements on different issues, like Joe Arpaio.
But he talks loudly and with a tone of conviction and assertiveness (different than his run of the mill TV interviews), giving the impression he's in command of the subjects. On the superficial front, he's obviously much better than Hillary on TV.
He has a fairly small grab bag of Hillary attacks, but they are very sweeping in their scope. For example, every single problem in the world currently is her fault because she was SoS (this actually is his position). Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, so the loss of manufacturing jobs is the Clintons' fault. Surely though, Clinton has prepared responses to each item in the grab bag.
She needs to diversify the conversation during the debate, to prevent Trump from being so narrow.
Tbh the debates might not be a trounce one way or another. Unless people really just grade it on presentation, in which case Trump could win. I don't know what in the hell to predict. I'm hoping for her to just go Presidential as fuck, give knowledgeable and detailed answers about the issues, why they matter and her own record on them. It'll contrast strongly with Trump's vague platitudes about how X is the worst and he'll make it the best. I feel like this belief is more generous to the average swing voter than I would be. I would hope so. But honestly, I doubt it. What we won't see but I would love to see would be HRC go all "values" on him. Not about instability or unfitness per se, though those are implied. Just about how this man doesn't represent American values. That Trump is wrong because behind all of his "Make America Great" rhetoric, his whole shtick is that he wants America to not be America. He wants the United States to join the "League of Ordinary Nations," where we put America first and tell the world to take a hike. And that this is an insult to everything our veterans have died for. I could workshop the language but I'm tired from work so you'll have to imagine. Maybe they'll have Kaine do it? He could make a neat values pitch (with a Christian spin). The founding fathers did not want America to be a world police. The founding fathers just wanted somewhere nice and quiet to answer to nobody and make black people do all their work for them without remuneration. I'm pretty happy America has strayed from that path. Exactly, America doesn't have a static definition. And the best course of action is to not bleed any more money to other people's affairs. No, it's not. Someone doesn't understand how to manage their finances.
Well, I doubt that was intentional.
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United States42016 Posts
On September 24 2016 04:48 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:46 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:43 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:42 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:36 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:31 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:17 Yoav wrote:On September 24 2016 02:32 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 02:17 Doodsmack wrote:
Pretty amazing how much time Trump spent during the Republican debates talking about polls and the states he had won. It was almost his main focus. What if Hillary said, "look how much he harped on the polls, but ever since the conventions he has been losing to me". She needs to match his comebacks with confidence IMO.
He gets by policy questions by tying things back into his narrow populist stuff, for example anything to do with the economy is "China devaluation trade deficit bad". Also talked about his endorsements on different issues, like Joe Arpaio.
But he talks loudly and with a tone of conviction and assertiveness (different than his run of the mill TV interviews), giving the impression he's in command of the subjects. On the superficial front, he's obviously much better than Hillary on TV.
He has a fairly small grab bag of Hillary attacks, but they are very sweeping in their scope. For example, every single problem in the world currently is her fault because she was SoS (this actually is his position). Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, so the loss of manufacturing jobs is the Clintons' fault. Surely though, Clinton has prepared responses to each item in the grab bag.
She needs to diversify the conversation during the debate, to prevent Trump from being so narrow.
Tbh the debates might not be a trounce one way or another. Unless people really just grade it on presentation, in which case Trump could win. I don't know what in the hell to predict. I'm hoping for her to just go Presidential as fuck, give knowledgeable and detailed answers about the issues, why they matter and her own record on them. It'll contrast strongly with Trump's vague platitudes about how X is the worst and he'll make it the best. I feel like this belief is more generous to the average swing voter than I would be. I would hope so. But honestly, I doubt it. What we won't see but I would love to see would be HRC go all "values" on him. Not about instability or unfitness per se, though those are implied. Just about how this man doesn't represent American values. That Trump is wrong because behind all of his "Make America Great" rhetoric, his whole shtick is that he wants America to not be America. He wants the United States to join the "League of Ordinary Nations," where we put America first and tell the world to take a hike. And that this is an insult to everything our veterans have died for. I could workshop the language but I'm tired from work so you'll have to imagine. Maybe they'll have Kaine do it? He could make a neat values pitch (with a Christian spin). The founding fathers did not want America to be a world police. The founding fathers just wanted somewhere nice and quiet to answer to nobody and make black people do all their work for them without remuneration. I'm pretty happy America has strayed from that path. Exactly, America doesn't have a static definition. And the best course of action is to not bleed any more money to other people's affairs. No, it's not. Someone doesn't understand how to manage their finances. that's pretty funny, but you're new here. as a heads up, kwark probably manages his finances better than anyone else in this thread.
I appreciate the vote of confidence. I'm sure there are people who earn more than me who just outsource that shit to someone who knows as much as I plan to in a few years so whatever, they probably win. I am all about that shit though and will get the letters after my name to provide it soon(tm).
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On September 24 2016 04:47 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:46 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:43 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:42 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:36 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:31 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:17 Yoav wrote:On September 24 2016 02:32 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 02:17 Doodsmack wrote:
Pretty amazing how much time Trump spent during the Republican debates talking about polls and the states he had won. It was almost his main focus. What if Hillary said, "look how much he harped on the polls, but ever since the conventions he has been losing to me". She needs to match his comebacks with confidence IMO.
He gets by policy questions by tying things back into his narrow populist stuff, for example anything to do with the economy is "China devaluation trade deficit bad". Also talked about his endorsements on different issues, like Joe Arpaio.
But he talks loudly and with a tone of conviction and assertiveness (different than his run of the mill TV interviews), giving the impression he's in command of the subjects. On the superficial front, he's obviously much better than Hillary on TV.
He has a fairly small grab bag of Hillary attacks, but they are very sweeping in their scope. For example, every single problem in the world currently is her fault because she was SoS (this actually is his position). Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, so the loss of manufacturing jobs is the Clintons' fault. Surely though, Clinton has prepared responses to each item in the grab bag.
She needs to diversify the conversation during the debate, to prevent Trump from being so narrow.
Tbh the debates might not be a trounce one way or another. Unless people really just grade it on presentation, in which case Trump could win. I don't know what in the hell to predict. I'm hoping for her to just go Presidential as fuck, give knowledgeable and detailed answers about the issues, why they matter and her own record on them. It'll contrast strongly with Trump's vague platitudes about how X is the worst and he'll make it the best. I feel like this belief is more generous to the average swing voter than I would be. I would hope so. But honestly, I doubt it. What we won't see but I would love to see would be HRC go all "values" on him. Not about instability or unfitness per se, though those are implied. Just about how this man doesn't represent American values. That Trump is wrong because behind all of his "Make America Great" rhetoric, his whole shtick is that he wants America to not be America. He wants the United States to join the "League of Ordinary Nations," where we put America first and tell the world to take a hike. And that this is an insult to everything our veterans have died for. I could workshop the language but I'm tired from work so you'll have to imagine. Maybe they'll have Kaine do it? He could make a neat values pitch (with a Christian spin). The founding fathers did not want America to be a world police. The founding fathers just wanted somewhere nice and quiet to answer to nobody and make black people do all their work for them without remuneration. I'm pretty happy America has strayed from that path. Exactly, America doesn't have a static definition. And the best course of action is to not bleed any more money to other people's affairs. No, it's not. Someone doesn't understand how to manage their finances. Someone can't tell the difference between a person and a country.
Countries are run by resources.
People are run by resources.
If you are bleeding more resources than what you can profit off an investment, that's shit you want to get off asap no matter how messy it is.
That's just smart thinking.
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On September 24 2016 04:31 RealityIsKing wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:17 Yoav wrote:On September 24 2016 02:32 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 02:17 Doodsmack wrote:
Pretty amazing how much time Trump spent during the Republican debates talking about polls and the states he had won. It was almost his main focus. What if Hillary said, "look how much he harped on the polls, but ever since the conventions he has been losing to me". She needs to match his comebacks with confidence IMO.
He gets by policy questions by tying things back into his narrow populist stuff, for example anything to do with the economy is "China devaluation trade deficit bad". Also talked about his endorsements on different issues, like Joe Arpaio.
But he talks loudly and with a tone of conviction and assertiveness (different than his run of the mill TV interviews), giving the impression he's in command of the subjects. On the superficial front, he's obviously much better than Hillary on TV.
He has a fairly small grab bag of Hillary attacks, but they are very sweeping in their scope. For example, every single problem in the world currently is her fault because she was SoS (this actually is his position). Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, so the loss of manufacturing jobs is the Clintons' fault. Surely though, Clinton has prepared responses to each item in the grab bag.
She needs to diversify the conversation during the debate, to prevent Trump from being so narrow.
Tbh the debates might not be a trounce one way or another. Unless people really just grade it on presentation, in which case Trump could win. I don't know what in the hell to predict. I'm hoping for her to just go Presidential as fuck, give knowledgeable and detailed answers about the issues, why they matter and her own record on them. It'll contrast strongly with Trump's vague platitudes about how X is the worst and he'll make it the best. I feel like this belief is more generous to the average swing voter than I would be. I would hope so. But honestly, I doubt it. What we won't see but I would love to see would be HRC go all "values" on him. Not about instability or unfitness per se, though those are implied. Just about how this man doesn't represent American values. That Trump is wrong because behind all of his "Make America Great" rhetoric, his whole shtick is that he wants America to not be America. He wants the United States to join the "League of Ordinary Nations," where we put America first and tell the world to take a hike. And that this is an insult to everything our veterans have died for. I could workshop the language but I'm tired from work so you'll have to imagine. Maybe they'll have Kaine do it? He could make a neat values pitch (with a Christian spin). The founding fathers did not want America to be a world police.
And how do you argue this? If anything I'd argue the opposite. The DOI didn't specifi only americans and you can argue pretty easy that they wanted to spread this ideal to not only america but the rest of the colonies.
And where do you draw the line at being world police. You can't argue colonialism would have died a nonviolent death without america demanding it.
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On September 24 2016 04:44 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:31 ChristianS wrote:On September 24 2016 01:21 xDaunt wrote:On September 23 2016 22:50 ChristianS wrote:On September 23 2016 21:18 xDaunt wrote:On September 23 2016 18:42 Acrofales wrote:On September 23 2016 17:16 ChristianS wrote:On September 23 2016 15:49 Danglars wrote:On September 23 2016 15:03 ChristianS wrote:
Jesus this thread is depressing sometimes.
The last ~24 hours of discussion have put a sobering thought into my head, and I wonder what you guys think of it. Basically, in the last 50 or so years, there's been a strong anti-racist movement in the country as a whole. Laws that discriminate against blacks became widely considered unacceptable, public figures are shunned for expressing racist ideas or using racist epithets. The implied justification was that we as a society were making a concerted effort to eliminate racism as much as possible, and drive whatever resistant strains that survived to . Considered with other historical moves towards equality (elimination of slavery, blacks joining the military, Brown v. Board, etc.), it fit nicely with an overarching narrative of racial progress.
Maybe this is just a problem with anecdotal evidence, but it seems to me those attitudes are completely different in a lot of people today. Hardened Trump supporters often try to deny that Trump is a racist, but far more frequently I see people that just don't seem to care much. They might even lean toward thinking he probably is, but it's just not that important an issue. This is really baffling to me, since for my whole life there's been a widespread cultural agreement that overt racism is one of the ugliest sides of human civilization and absolutely cannot be tolerated, but in the broad view of history, racism is absolutely the norm. Not always as bad as early American South racism, but it's always been pretty normal to distrust people with different cultural and ethnic background than you, treat them worse, value their life less than that of your family or friends or tribe members. I always figured that was just part of progress – unlike humans for most of history, we have cars and refrigerators and computers and a prevailing cultural understanding that racism is bad. It's a nice stroll through memory lane, but you make a sudden leap into modern times by contrasting the civil rights era with Trump and his supporters. Sit at the back of the bus was racism. Separate eating establishments based on race was racism. Immigration policy isn't. Political invective on several issues isn't (though abrasive speech will still cause others to bristle no matter the subject). You're right to call it anecdotal, and it's intensely subjective. You'll see the comparisons to late 1800s racism and xenophobia, others will see you as a wannabe crusader longing for a bygone era but without a real civil rights cause today. Worth noting I never said Trump's immigration policy means he's racist. I was honestly more focused on Trump himself. Being prosecuted by Nixon's Justice Department for really explicitly discriminating against black tenants in his hotels back in the 70's. That stuff by Jack O'Donnell about how when he was president of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, Trump went off about not wanting a black guy as an accountant because blacks are lazy, and he only wants Jews counting his money. Calling Mexicans rapists. Those shitty stereotypes he embraced talking to the Republican Jewish Coalition. Y'know, that stuff. But I wasn't really looking to pick a fight either. I don't really long to be a civil rights crusader. The 50's and 60's sound awful, and I'm glad I didn't have to be around for it. I honestly wish that we were having a relatively normal election between, like, Tim Kaine and Jeb Bush, and I could tune out and read the occasional headline without click on it and maybe get around to registering to vote if I had nothing better to do, but I probably never would because I wouldn't care that much who won. Instead we've got a large, disgruntled population of lower- and middle-class white people who feel that they've been wronged by the world. They think they used to have some kind of glory and power, but now their manufacturing jobs are fading away and they're losing their privileged place in the world, and they feel betrayed and unsafe and powerless. We've got a demagogue candidate who's appealing to this population by telling them that they lost their power because of Mexicans and Muslims and China. He's parading around families of people that were raped or murdered by illegal Mexicans to gin up a rage against these foreigners that are raping and murdering their wives and children. He's saying the whole world is laughing at them because they don't win any more. And he's promising them that if they support him, then by the time he's done, nobody will laugh at them again. This is not a drill, this is how real life racial persecution gets started. This is the type of movement that used to lead to pogroms and lynchings and blood libel. People get so caught up in the movement and the propaganda and the cult of personality around a charismatic leader that they stop paying attention to facts and policy, to the point that you can explain to them that the crime rate is down, not up, that they lost their manufacturing jobs to the inexorable forces of globalism and no one can bring them back, and that illegal immigrants actually commit violent crime at a lower rate than the rest of the population, but it has absolutely no bearing on how they feel. My sobering thought was this: what if we're not on an inevitable march toward progress and greater racial equality? What if the anti-racist attitudes of the last 50 years aren't a lasting cultural achievement, but just a temporary backlash against the ugly racism of the 40's and 50's? People saw how hideous that Nazi movement was, and they saw the horrible treatment of blacks in the South, and the lynching of Emmett Till, and the dogs and firehoses deployed against civil rights protesters, and for a while it became fashionable to be against racism.
But now that all that stuff isn't such recent memory, racism takes on all of the advantages that made it prevalent in human society before. Scapegoating is an easy way to feel better about your problems. Stereotyping is almost inescapable in the psychology of how humans understand the world. Many apparent virtues that people are encouraged to cultivate (e.g. loyalty, empathy) can subconsciously promote tribalism (e.g. loyalty involves favoring those you're close to over those you're not, empathy encourages greater connection to people who are more like you). Racial minorities are often small enough in number that society can get weird impressions of them simply from having too small a sample size, and once a weird (especially negative) bias gets in place, confirmation bias and self-fulfilling prophecy effects tend to maintain or expand that bias.
I've been hoping all the bigotry of the Trump movement would be remembered by history as a weird spike of bigotry as the white American middle class came to terms with several realities it had been in denial about for years. But what if history remembers these past ~50 years as that brief period where American society was largely anti-racist? My sobering thought is this: what if the current campaign against out-of-fashion ideas and racial realism won't be reversed for many years? What if the zealots of today, the current victors of the culture war, won't realize how hideous their own movement has become, nor how the '60s rebellion against authority became a puritanical persecution from authority (cultural leadership brought to you by Your Moral Betters™). Scapegoating and stereotyping of Trump supporters for social ills could continue, as much as I wish it would not. It is intensely psychological and the fight in every generation is to inspire the better angels of our nature. I'm hoping the atmosphere of moral scolds today are later regarded as a weird period of American history when people embraced racializing every issue to the detriment of true debate on the issues. When language was so bastardized and social media lynch mobs so emboldened that every political opinion was viewed by the color difference of the author & subject's skin. I look with some hope to the next generation. Today's left-leaning culture responds to criticism like a priest to sacrilege, and even young people today can see how bizarre it acts. It's far more likely that today's regress, disguised as progress, continues to win and that's a very sobering thought indeed. Seems like you're throwing out a lot of punches at stuff I'm not sure if you're assuming I support. I'm also not sure what's meant by terms like "racial realism." It seems to denote a position which acknowledges the realities of race (about which this "regressive left" is presumably in denial), but I'm not sure what realities you think those are. A white supremacist might say they're a "racial realist" for acknowledging that white people are better than black people. An SJW might call themselves a "racial realist" for acknowledging the power dynamics between whites and various minorities in America today, such that a "color-blind" approach can't solve racial issues. I assume you're in neither of these camps, so you probably mean something more along the lines of acknowledging black culture has some toxic trends which contribute to blacks' underprivileged state (which the regressive left insists is a racist position)? I'm only guessing at your meaning here. But you seem to be opposed to much of the social backlash that currently exists against people and positions viewed as "racist," and I assume you don't think we shouldn't stigmatize actual racism, so you must think the labels of racist and bigot have been over-applied by the left. I might even agree with that. Online articles trying to teach white people about "microagressions" and the like can be alright when they come from a place of earnestly trying to help whites understand how to make racial minorities feel more at ease and less alienated, but when they come in the form of condemning anyone who uses the question "So, where are you from?" in small talk as Grand Dragon of the KKK, I think it weakens the label of "racist" and makes it easier for actual racists to hide behind the cover of just being "politically incorrect." A lot of people that use terms like "cultural appropriation" and "gentrification" to explain how white people are literally Hitler are being sloppy in their reasoning, and mostly just making people think it's okay to be skeptical that they could possibly ever be racist. So I think you've assumed that I'm a member of that club, and I'm really not. Back in saner times, most of my online arguments were with those very people. But that group mostly just whines and blogs about Miley Cyrus appropriating this or that. This ethnocentrist movement wants to take over the world. I was hoping that, based on a progress-based view of racial equality, America had come far enough that it could tell the difference between telling an off-color joke to your friends (i.e. political incorrectness) and accusing Mexico of deliberately sending rapists across the border (i.e. racism). I was wrong, thus I am rethinking my assumption that racial equality has steadily improved over time and will only keep getting better. I think this is the first opinion since the "racism war" started about 20 pages back that is actually worth reading. His post is the saner and nicer version of Kwark's 40% of America is racist posts. And it's unsurprising to me that he, like everyone else on the other side of the issue, struggles with this part of Danglars' post: My sobering thought is this: what if the current campaign against out-of-fashion ideas and racial realism won't be reversed for many years? What if the zealots of today, the current victors of the culture war, won't realize how hideous their own movement has become, nor how the '60s rebellion against authority became a puritanical persecution from authority (cultural leadership brought to you by Your Moral Betters™). Scapegoating and stereotyping of Trump supporters for social ills could continue, as much as I wish it would not. It is intensely psychological and the fight in every generation is to inspire the better angels of our nature.
I'm hoping the atmosphere of moral scolds today are later regarded as a weird period of American history when people embraced racializing every issue to the detriment of true debate on the issues. When language was so bastardized and social media lynch mobs so emboldened that every political opinion was viewed by the color difference of the author & subject's skin. I look with some hope to the next generation. Today's left-leaning culture responds to criticism like a priest to sacrilege, and even young people today can see how bizarre it acts. It's far more likely that today's regress, disguised as progress, continues to win and that's a very sobering thought indeed. If by "struggles with" you mean "has trouble figuring out what he's getting at," you're absolutely right. I mean I've been puzzling over the term "racial realism" and I still can't figure out what it is supposed to mean. Racial realism is an idea from the alt right that there are differences between the races that should be recognized and accounted for as opposed to washing over those differences with the artificial (ie "the not real") construct of liberal/progressive egalitarianism. Depending upon how you define the alt right, different factions of the alt right reach different conclusions from this perspective, ranging from advocacy for western culture to advocacy for white nationalism. So if I understand correctly: -Racial realism is the idea that there are innate differences between races (sometimes called essentialism). Unclear whether these essentialist classifications imply a superior/inferior dynamic (although historically they almost always have). The bolded part is more or less correct. The one thing left out is that the racial realist does not believe it to be taboo to discuss these things -- ie current paradigms of political correctness are no hindrance to the conversation. As for the unbolded part, racial realism doesn't imply any sort of out of outcome to the inquiry. It's a merely a perspective on the debate. Think of it as the equivalent to Marxism and history. Show nested quote +-Danglars believes there is a campaign against this essentialism, and considers it a sobering thought that this campaign might not stop at some point. I'll leave it to Danglars to explain what he thinks on this point. Show nested quote +-xDaunt considers this the part that people on the "other side of the issue" like me always struggle with. To be very precise, what I believe that the PC crowd struggles with is understanding how their racial policies of the past few generations have impacted the types of people who are now supporting Trump or who are turning to things like the alt right and its derivatives. Show nested quote +Are xDaunt and Danglars actually arguing that innate differences between races exist such that we should treat members of different races differently? Is that not an absolutely textbook definition of racism? I'll let Danglars speak for himself. As for me, I'm merely pointing out why there's a large contingent of Americans who are bucking the current PC norms. Again, race means essentially nothing to me as a politically significant classification.
Are you Kellyanne Conway in disguise for Danglars?
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United States42016 Posts
On September 24 2016 04:52 RealityIsKing wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:47 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:46 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:43 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:42 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:36 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:31 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:17 Yoav wrote:On September 24 2016 02:32 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 02:17 Doodsmack wrote:
Pretty amazing how much time Trump spent during the Republican debates talking about polls and the states he had won. It was almost his main focus. What if Hillary said, "look how much he harped on the polls, but ever since the conventions he has been losing to me". She needs to match his comebacks with confidence IMO.
He gets by policy questions by tying things back into his narrow populist stuff, for example anything to do with the economy is "China devaluation trade deficit bad". Also talked about his endorsements on different issues, like Joe Arpaio.
But he talks loudly and with a tone of conviction and assertiveness (different than his run of the mill TV interviews), giving the impression he's in command of the subjects. On the superficial front, he's obviously much better than Hillary on TV.
He has a fairly small grab bag of Hillary attacks, but they are very sweeping in their scope. For example, every single problem in the world currently is her fault because she was SoS (this actually is his position). Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, so the loss of manufacturing jobs is the Clintons' fault. Surely though, Clinton has prepared responses to each item in the grab bag.
She needs to diversify the conversation during the debate, to prevent Trump from being so narrow.
Tbh the debates might not be a trounce one way or another. Unless people really just grade it on presentation, in which case Trump could win. I don't know what in the hell to predict. I'm hoping for her to just go Presidential as fuck, give knowledgeable and detailed answers about the issues, why they matter and her own record on them. It'll contrast strongly with Trump's vague platitudes about how X is the worst and he'll make it the best. I feel like this belief is more generous to the average swing voter than I would be. I would hope so. But honestly, I doubt it. What we won't see but I would love to see would be HRC go all "values" on him. Not about instability or unfitness per se, though those are implied. Just about how this man doesn't represent American values. That Trump is wrong because behind all of his "Make America Great" rhetoric, his whole shtick is that he wants America to not be America. He wants the United States to join the "League of Ordinary Nations," where we put America first and tell the world to take a hike. And that this is an insult to everything our veterans have died for. I could workshop the language but I'm tired from work so you'll have to imagine. Maybe they'll have Kaine do it? He could make a neat values pitch (with a Christian spin). The founding fathers did not want America to be a world police. The founding fathers just wanted somewhere nice and quiet to answer to nobody and make black people do all their work for them without remuneration. I'm pretty happy America has strayed from that path. Exactly, America doesn't have a static definition. And the best course of action is to not bleed any more money to other people's affairs. No, it's not. Someone doesn't understand how to manage their finances. Someone can't tell the difference between a person and a country. Countries are run by resources. People are run by resources. If you are bleeding more resources than what you can profit off an investment, that's shit you want to get off asap no matter how messy it is. That's just smart thinking.
And yet, somehow, it's wrong. Some people like to speculate that the global economy is actually more complicated than three lines. Who can really say.
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On September 24 2016 03:31 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 03:24 RuiBarbO wrote:On September 24 2016 02:58 oBlade wrote:On September 24 2016 02:46 RuiBarbO wrote:On September 24 2016 02:15 oBlade wrote:On September 24 2016 01:46 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 01:40 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 24 2016 01:32 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 01:26 Nyxisto wrote:
racial realism is nothing but another term for 1930s race pseudo-science. It's a form of essentialism that's politically motivated. Variation among the human population can be accounted for without resorting to race classifications. Pretty much. We saw the same shit with gender. Women made shitty scientists and inventors right up until the point where we started educating them at which point they became fine at it (although gender biased teaching is still an observable phenomenon in terms of teacher time allocation and expectations). The outcome was only linked to the premise by a complete refusal to account for external factors. Also easy to note that "racial realism" is complete B.S. since genetic research has pretty conclusively shown that race doesn't actually have a genetic basis. I thought the main issue with saying that one group is biologically superior to another is that firstly, we have no real way of testing that and accounting for externalities so the whole exercise is pointless and that secondly, that even if it is true, all humans fall on the same bell curve which overlaps heavily such that an above average member of an "inferior" group will still be better than an average member of a "superior" group. There is sufficient variance within groups that broad conclusions about which group is better will consist mostly of exceptions to the rule. This would be a sound way of debunking privilege if you were motivated to change contexts. I'm not sure you're using the most charitable definition of "privilege." Which is understandable since some elements on the left like to bandy the term around as though it's common knowledge, and as though it's only about race. You seem to be suggesting that, if privilege were real, all white people should be generally well-off. This is actually not what privilege suggests, at all. Even if we accept that privilege exists, we can still understand why a number of white people in the United States are impoverished, chronically un- or underemployed, poorly educated, disproportionately affected by drug dependency, and so forth. Privilege doesn't say that this can't happen, it just says that being white is more helpful than being anything else (particularly black), all else being equal. To which one might respond, "but all else is never equal." This is absolutely true. In fact, it is so true that it is really frustrating to me when people say things like "white people have it easier," because, while I get where that idea comes from, it obscures the fact that race is never the only factor. But as it happens, privilege accommodates this. In addition to racial privilege, we have a number of other things to consider, including but not limited to: class privilege gender privilege mental illness physical appearance sexuality All of which have a bearing on an individual person's life course. If you're white but extremely poor, your white privilege could conceivably work against you: people may judge you more harshly than a black person in similar circumstances, because the norm to which they are unconsciously comparing you sets a higher bar. But at the same time, it's often harder to escape from poverty if you're black. This is because people are quicker to associate poverty with blackness---and, consequently, the expectations set for poor black people are much lower, and there is less effort put into encouraging them to rise above their initial circumstances. Edited for clarity. Do you think black privilege exists like Kwark does? Well, I dunno. What does he mean by "black privilege"? You gave an example of it in your original post. A poor black person may not be perceived as a failure in the same way that a poor white person might. Not every subjective experience of a black person will be more negative than those of a white person, that'd be crazy.
I think others have given good, concise answers to this, but in case you're wondering what I think, I would personally not call that "privilege." We don't actually need any concept of "black privilege" to explain the underlying threads of the scenario I offered earlier---whereas "white privilege" is pretty crucial, as far as I can see.
Also, as we've both said, "privilege" doesn't entail that every black person is worse off than any white person. Consequently, that fact alone shouldn't lead us to conclude that a black person who is better off than a white person is experiencing "black privilege."
At the risk of diving way too much into musing on theory, it may be helpful to think about it this way: "privilege" is a phenomenon in its own right, with its own particular idiosyncrasies. It isn't just a way of saying "y group is superior to x group"; it's a way of saying, "here is why x group continues to struggle disproportionately with these assorted things." Of course, many people like to oversimplify and say, "white privilege = things are better for white people," which is frustrating because that will not make sense to anyone unfamiliar with the notion of privilege as I'm using it.
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United States42016 Posts
On September 24 2016 04:53 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:31 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:17 Yoav wrote:On September 24 2016 02:32 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 02:17 Doodsmack wrote:
Pretty amazing how much time Trump spent during the Republican debates talking about polls and the states he had won. It was almost his main focus. What if Hillary said, "look how much he harped on the polls, but ever since the conventions he has been losing to me". She needs to match his comebacks with confidence IMO.
He gets by policy questions by tying things back into his narrow populist stuff, for example anything to do with the economy is "China devaluation trade deficit bad". Also talked about his endorsements on different issues, like Joe Arpaio.
But he talks loudly and with a tone of conviction and assertiveness (different than his run of the mill TV interviews), giving the impression he's in command of the subjects. On the superficial front, he's obviously much better than Hillary on TV.
He has a fairly small grab bag of Hillary attacks, but they are very sweeping in their scope. For example, every single problem in the world currently is her fault because she was SoS (this actually is his position). Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, so the loss of manufacturing jobs is the Clintons' fault. Surely though, Clinton has prepared responses to each item in the grab bag.
She needs to diversify the conversation during the debate, to prevent Trump from being so narrow.
Tbh the debates might not be a trounce one way or another. Unless people really just grade it on presentation, in which case Trump could win. I don't know what in the hell to predict. I'm hoping for her to just go Presidential as fuck, give knowledgeable and detailed answers about the issues, why they matter and her own record on them. It'll contrast strongly with Trump's vague platitudes about how X is the worst and he'll make it the best. I feel like this belief is more generous to the average swing voter than I would be. I would hope so. But honestly, I doubt it. What we won't see but I would love to see would be HRC go all "values" on him. Not about instability or unfitness per se, though those are implied. Just about how this man doesn't represent American values. That Trump is wrong because behind all of his "Make America Great" rhetoric, his whole shtick is that he wants America to not be America. He wants the United States to join the "League of Ordinary Nations," where we put America first and tell the world to take a hike. And that this is an insult to everything our veterans have died for. I could workshop the language but I'm tired from work so you'll have to imagine. Maybe they'll have Kaine do it? He could make a neat values pitch (with a Christian spin). The founding fathers did not want America to be a world police. And how do you argue this? If anything I'd argue the opposite. The DOI didn't specifi only americans and you can argue pretty easy that they wanted to spread this ideal to not only america but the rest of the colonies. And where do you draw the line at being world police. You can't argue colonialism would have died a nonviolent death without america demanding it.
It's well known that the Founding Fathers, and Thomas Jefferson in particular, did not involve themselves in the stability and security of anywhere outside of the United States, and the Barbary Coast in particular. Anyone who thinks that America has always seen her own national interests as linked to the securing of trade and peace needs to get a history book, and then burn it without reading it.
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On September 24 2016 04:52 RealityIsKing wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:47 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:46 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:43 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:42 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:36 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:31 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:17 Yoav wrote:On September 24 2016 02:32 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 02:17 Doodsmack wrote:
Pretty amazing how much time Trump spent during the Republican debates talking about polls and the states he had won. It was almost his main focus. What if Hillary said, "look how much he harped on the polls, but ever since the conventions he has been losing to me". She needs to match his comebacks with confidence IMO.
He gets by policy questions by tying things back into his narrow populist stuff, for example anything to do with the economy is "China devaluation trade deficit bad". Also talked about his endorsements on different issues, like Joe Arpaio.
But he talks loudly and with a tone of conviction and assertiveness (different than his run of the mill TV interviews), giving the impression he's in command of the subjects. On the superficial front, he's obviously much better than Hillary on TV.
He has a fairly small grab bag of Hillary attacks, but they are very sweeping in their scope. For example, every single problem in the world currently is her fault because she was SoS (this actually is his position). Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, so the loss of manufacturing jobs is the Clintons' fault. Surely though, Clinton has prepared responses to each item in the grab bag.
She needs to diversify the conversation during the debate, to prevent Trump from being so narrow.
Tbh the debates might not be a trounce one way or another. Unless people really just grade it on presentation, in which case Trump could win. I don't know what in the hell to predict. I'm hoping for her to just go Presidential as fuck, give knowledgeable and detailed answers about the issues, why they matter and her own record on them. It'll contrast strongly with Trump's vague platitudes about how X is the worst and he'll make it the best. I feel like this belief is more generous to the average swing voter than I would be. I would hope so. But honestly, I doubt it. What we won't see but I would love to see would be HRC go all "values" on him. Not about instability or unfitness per se, though those are implied. Just about how this man doesn't represent American values. That Trump is wrong because behind all of his "Make America Great" rhetoric, his whole shtick is that he wants America to not be America. He wants the United States to join the "League of Ordinary Nations," where we put America first and tell the world to take a hike. And that this is an insult to everything our veterans have died for. I could workshop the language but I'm tired from work so you'll have to imagine. Maybe they'll have Kaine do it? He could make a neat values pitch (with a Christian spin). The founding fathers did not want America to be a world police. The founding fathers just wanted somewhere nice and quiet to answer to nobody and make black people do all their work for them without remuneration. I'm pretty happy America has strayed from that path. Exactly, America doesn't have a static definition. And the best course of action is to not bleed any more money to other people's affairs. No, it's not. Someone doesn't understand how to manage their finances. Someone can't tell the difference between a person and a country. Countries are run by resources. People are run by resources. If you are bleeding more resources than what you can profit off an investment, that's shit you want to get off asap no matter how messy it is. That's just smart thinking.
You think we don't benif from the petrodollar and unthreatened access to emerging markets and under developed nations rescources?
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On September 24 2016 04:53 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:31 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:17 Yoav wrote:On September 24 2016 02:32 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 02:17 Doodsmack wrote:
Pretty amazing how much time Trump spent during the Republican debates talking about polls and the states he had won. It was almost his main focus. What if Hillary said, "look how much he harped on the polls, but ever since the conventions he has been losing to me". She needs to match his comebacks with confidence IMO.
He gets by policy questions by tying things back into his narrow populist stuff, for example anything to do with the economy is "China devaluation trade deficit bad". Also talked about his endorsements on different issues, like Joe Arpaio.
But he talks loudly and with a tone of conviction and assertiveness (different than his run of the mill TV interviews), giving the impression he's in command of the subjects. On the superficial front, he's obviously much better than Hillary on TV.
He has a fairly small grab bag of Hillary attacks, but they are very sweeping in their scope. For example, every single problem in the world currently is her fault because she was SoS (this actually is his position). Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, so the loss of manufacturing jobs is the Clintons' fault. Surely though, Clinton has prepared responses to each item in the grab bag.
She needs to diversify the conversation during the debate, to prevent Trump from being so narrow.
Tbh the debates might not be a trounce one way or another. Unless people really just grade it on presentation, in which case Trump could win. I don't know what in the hell to predict. I'm hoping for her to just go Presidential as fuck, give knowledgeable and detailed answers about the issues, why they matter and her own record on them. It'll contrast strongly with Trump's vague platitudes about how X is the worst and he'll make it the best. I feel like this belief is more generous to the average swing voter than I would be. I would hope so. But honestly, I doubt it. What we won't see but I would love to see would be HRC go all "values" on him. Not about instability or unfitness per se, though those are implied. Just about how this man doesn't represent American values. That Trump is wrong because behind all of his "Make America Great" rhetoric, his whole shtick is that he wants America to not be America. He wants the United States to join the "League of Ordinary Nations," where we put America first and tell the world to take a hike. And that this is an insult to everything our veterans have died for. I could workshop the language but I'm tired from work so you'll have to imagine. Maybe they'll have Kaine do it? He could make a neat values pitch (with a Christian spin). The founding fathers did not want America to be a world police. And how do you argue this? If anything I'd argue the opposite. The DOI didn't specifi only americans and you can argue pretty easy that they wanted to spread this ideal to not only america but the rest of the colonies. And where do you draw the line at being world police. You can't argue colonialism would have died a nonviolent death without america demanding it.
If a disaster hurt American investments/assets, do something about it.
If there are some civil war going on and the damage won't be affecting American investment/assets.
Stay out of it, unless there is a positive risk/award analysis done.
It is important to perform the risk/award analysis. The moment that situation changes, it time to dip.
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On September 24 2016 04:53 ragz_gt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:44 xDaunt wrote:On September 24 2016 04:31 ChristianS wrote:On September 24 2016 01:21 xDaunt wrote:On September 23 2016 22:50 ChristianS wrote:On September 23 2016 21:18 xDaunt wrote:On September 23 2016 18:42 Acrofales wrote:On September 23 2016 17:16 ChristianS wrote:On September 23 2016 15:49 Danglars wrote:On September 23 2016 15:03 ChristianS wrote:
Jesus this thread is depressing sometimes.
The last ~24 hours of discussion have put a sobering thought into my head, and I wonder what you guys think of it. Basically, in the last 50 or so years, there's been a strong anti-racist movement in the country as a whole. Laws that discriminate against blacks became widely considered unacceptable, public figures are shunned for expressing racist ideas or using racist epithets. The implied justification was that we as a society were making a concerted effort to eliminate racism as much as possible, and drive whatever resistant strains that survived to . Considered with other historical moves towards equality (elimination of slavery, blacks joining the military, Brown v. Board, etc.), it fit nicely with an overarching narrative of racial progress.
Maybe this is just a problem with anecdotal evidence, but it seems to me those attitudes are completely different in a lot of people today. Hardened Trump supporters often try to deny that Trump is a racist, but far more frequently I see people that just don't seem to care much. They might even lean toward thinking he probably is, but it's just not that important an issue. This is really baffling to me, since for my whole life there's been a widespread cultural agreement that overt racism is one of the ugliest sides of human civilization and absolutely cannot be tolerated, but in the broad view of history, racism is absolutely the norm. Not always as bad as early American South racism, but it's always been pretty normal to distrust people with different cultural and ethnic background than you, treat them worse, value their life less than that of your family or friends or tribe members. I always figured that was just part of progress – unlike humans for most of history, we have cars and refrigerators and computers and a prevailing cultural understanding that racism is bad. It's a nice stroll through memory lane, but you make a sudden leap into modern times by contrasting the civil rights era with Trump and his supporters. Sit at the back of the bus was racism. Separate eating establishments based on race was racism. Immigration policy isn't. Political invective on several issues isn't (though abrasive speech will still cause others to bristle no matter the subject). You're right to call it anecdotal, and it's intensely subjective. You'll see the comparisons to late 1800s racism and xenophobia, others will see you as a wannabe crusader longing for a bygone era but without a real civil rights cause today. Worth noting I never said Trump's immigration policy means he's racist. I was honestly more focused on Trump himself. Being prosecuted by Nixon's Justice Department for really explicitly discriminating against black tenants in his hotels back in the 70's. That stuff by Jack O'Donnell about how when he was president of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, Trump went off about not wanting a black guy as an accountant because blacks are lazy, and he only wants Jews counting his money. Calling Mexicans rapists. Those shitty stereotypes he embraced talking to the Republican Jewish Coalition. Y'know, that stuff. But I wasn't really looking to pick a fight either. I don't really long to be a civil rights crusader. The 50's and 60's sound awful, and I'm glad I didn't have to be around for it. I honestly wish that we were having a relatively normal election between, like, Tim Kaine and Jeb Bush, and I could tune out and read the occasional headline without click on it and maybe get around to registering to vote if I had nothing better to do, but I probably never would because I wouldn't care that much who won. Instead we've got a large, disgruntled population of lower- and middle-class white people who feel that they've been wronged by the world. They think they used to have some kind of glory and power, but now their manufacturing jobs are fading away and they're losing their privileged place in the world, and they feel betrayed and unsafe and powerless. We've got a demagogue candidate who's appealing to this population by telling them that they lost their power because of Mexicans and Muslims and China. He's parading around families of people that were raped or murdered by illegal Mexicans to gin up a rage against these foreigners that are raping and murdering their wives and children. He's saying the whole world is laughing at them because they don't win any more. And he's promising them that if they support him, then by the time he's done, nobody will laugh at them again. This is not a drill, this is how real life racial persecution gets started. This is the type of movement that used to lead to pogroms and lynchings and blood libel. People get so caught up in the movement and the propaganda and the cult of personality around a charismatic leader that they stop paying attention to facts and policy, to the point that you can explain to them that the crime rate is down, not up, that they lost their manufacturing jobs to the inexorable forces of globalism and no one can bring them back, and that illegal immigrants actually commit violent crime at a lower rate than the rest of the population, but it has absolutely no bearing on how they feel. My sobering thought was this: what if we're not on an inevitable march toward progress and greater racial equality? What if the anti-racist attitudes of the last 50 years aren't a lasting cultural achievement, but just a temporary backlash against the ugly racism of the 40's and 50's? People saw how hideous that Nazi movement was, and they saw the horrible treatment of blacks in the South, and the lynching of Emmett Till, and the dogs and firehoses deployed against civil rights protesters, and for a while it became fashionable to be against racism.
But now that all that stuff isn't such recent memory, racism takes on all of the advantages that made it prevalent in human society before. Scapegoating is an easy way to feel better about your problems. Stereotyping is almost inescapable in the psychology of how humans understand the world. Many apparent virtues that people are encouraged to cultivate (e.g. loyalty, empathy) can subconsciously promote tribalism (e.g. loyalty involves favoring those you're close to over those you're not, empathy encourages greater connection to people who are more like you). Racial minorities are often small enough in number that society can get weird impressions of them simply from having too small a sample size, and once a weird (especially negative) bias gets in place, confirmation bias and self-fulfilling prophecy effects tend to maintain or expand that bias.
I've been hoping all the bigotry of the Trump movement would be remembered by history as a weird spike of bigotry as the white American middle class came to terms with several realities it had been in denial about for years. But what if history remembers these past ~50 years as that brief period where American society was largely anti-racist? My sobering thought is this: what if the current campaign against out-of-fashion ideas and racial realism won't be reversed for many years? What if the zealots of today, the current victors of the culture war, won't realize how hideous their own movement has become, nor how the '60s rebellion against authority became a puritanical persecution from authority (cultural leadership brought to you by Your Moral Betters™). Scapegoating and stereotyping of Trump supporters for social ills could continue, as much as I wish it would not. It is intensely psychological and the fight in every generation is to inspire the better angels of our nature. I'm hoping the atmosphere of moral scolds today are later regarded as a weird period of American history when people embraced racializing every issue to the detriment of true debate on the issues. When language was so bastardized and social media lynch mobs so emboldened that every political opinion was viewed by the color difference of the author & subject's skin. I look with some hope to the next generation. Today's left-leaning culture responds to criticism like a priest to sacrilege, and even young people today can see how bizarre it acts. It's far more likely that today's regress, disguised as progress, continues to win and that's a very sobering thought indeed. Seems like you're throwing out a lot of punches at stuff I'm not sure if you're assuming I support. I'm also not sure what's meant by terms like "racial realism." It seems to denote a position which acknowledges the realities of race (about which this "regressive left" is presumably in denial), but I'm not sure what realities you think those are. A white supremacist might say they're a "racial realist" for acknowledging that white people are better than black people. An SJW might call themselves a "racial realist" for acknowledging the power dynamics between whites and various minorities in America today, such that a "color-blind" approach can't solve racial issues. I assume you're in neither of these camps, so you probably mean something more along the lines of acknowledging black culture has some toxic trends which contribute to blacks' underprivileged state (which the regressive left insists is a racist position)? I'm only guessing at your meaning here. But you seem to be opposed to much of the social backlash that currently exists against people and positions viewed as "racist," and I assume you don't think we shouldn't stigmatize actual racism, so you must think the labels of racist and bigot have been over-applied by the left. I might even agree with that. Online articles trying to teach white people about "microagressions" and the like can be alright when they come from a place of earnestly trying to help whites understand how to make racial minorities feel more at ease and less alienated, but when they come in the form of condemning anyone who uses the question "So, where are you from?" in small talk as Grand Dragon of the KKK, I think it weakens the label of "racist" and makes it easier for actual racists to hide behind the cover of just being "politically incorrect." A lot of people that use terms like "cultural appropriation" and "gentrification" to explain how white people are literally Hitler are being sloppy in their reasoning, and mostly just making people think it's okay to be skeptical that they could possibly ever be racist. So I think you've assumed that I'm a member of that club, and I'm really not. Back in saner times, most of my online arguments were with those very people. But that group mostly just whines and blogs about Miley Cyrus appropriating this or that. This ethnocentrist movement wants to take over the world. I was hoping that, based on a progress-based view of racial equality, America had come far enough that it could tell the difference between telling an off-color joke to your friends (i.e. political incorrectness) and accusing Mexico of deliberately sending rapists across the border (i.e. racism). I was wrong, thus I am rethinking my assumption that racial equality has steadily improved over time and will only keep getting better. I think this is the first opinion since the "racism war" started about 20 pages back that is actually worth reading. His post is the saner and nicer version of Kwark's 40% of America is racist posts. And it's unsurprising to me that he, like everyone else on the other side of the issue, struggles with this part of Danglars' post: My sobering thought is this: what if the current campaign against out-of-fashion ideas and racial realism won't be reversed for many years? What if the zealots of today, the current victors of the culture war, won't realize how hideous their own movement has become, nor how the '60s rebellion against authority became a puritanical persecution from authority (cultural leadership brought to you by Your Moral Betters™). Scapegoating and stereotyping of Trump supporters for social ills could continue, as much as I wish it would not. It is intensely psychological and the fight in every generation is to inspire the better angels of our nature.
I'm hoping the atmosphere of moral scolds today are later regarded as a weird period of American history when people embraced racializing every issue to the detriment of true debate on the issues. When language was so bastardized and social media lynch mobs so emboldened that every political opinion was viewed by the color difference of the author & subject's skin. I look with some hope to the next generation. Today's left-leaning culture responds to criticism like a priest to sacrilege, and even young people today can see how bizarre it acts. It's far more likely that today's regress, disguised as progress, continues to win and that's a very sobering thought indeed. If by "struggles with" you mean "has trouble figuring out what he's getting at," you're absolutely right. I mean I've been puzzling over the term "racial realism" and I still can't figure out what it is supposed to mean. Racial realism is an idea from the alt right that there are differences between the races that should be recognized and accounted for as opposed to washing over those differences with the artificial (ie "the not real") construct of liberal/progressive egalitarianism. Depending upon how you define the alt right, different factions of the alt right reach different conclusions from this perspective, ranging from advocacy for western culture to advocacy for white nationalism. So if I understand correctly: -Racial realism is the idea that there are innate differences between races (sometimes called essentialism). Unclear whether these essentialist classifications imply a superior/inferior dynamic (although historically they almost always have). The bolded part is more or less correct. The one thing left out is that the racial realist does not believe it to be taboo to discuss these things -- ie current paradigms of political correctness are no hindrance to the conversation. As for the unbolded part, racial realism doesn't imply any sort of out of outcome to the inquiry. It's a merely a perspective on the debate. Think of it as the equivalent to Marxism and history. -Danglars believes there is a campaign against this essentialism, and considers it a sobering thought that this campaign might not stop at some point. I'll leave it to Danglars to explain what he thinks on this point. -xDaunt considers this the part that people on the "other side of the issue" like me always struggle with. To be very precise, what I believe that the PC crowd struggles with is understanding how their racial policies of the past few generations have impacted the types of people who are now supporting Trump or who are turning to things like the alt right and its derivatives. Are xDaunt and Danglars actually arguing that innate differences between races exist such that we should treat members of different races differently? Is that not an absolutely textbook definition of racism? I'll let Danglars speak for himself. As for me, I'm merely pointing out why there's a large contingent of Americans who are bucking the current PC norms. Again, race means essentially nothing to me as a politically significant classification. Are you Kellyanne Conway in disguise for Danglars?
I know what Danglars was saying, but given the penchant of certain shitposters to liberally label people as racists when this topic comes up, I'd rather not say anything inadvertently that results in him dealing with a bunch of needless shit.
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On September 24 2016 04:57 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:52 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:47 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:46 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:43 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:42 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:36 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 04:31 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:17 Yoav wrote:On September 24 2016 02:32 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
I'm hoping for her to just go Presidential as fuck, give knowledgeable and detailed answers about the issues, why they matter and her own record on them. It'll contrast strongly with Trump's vague platitudes about how X is the worst and he'll make it the best. I feel like this belief is more generous to the average swing voter than I would be. I would hope so. But honestly, I doubt it. What we won't see but I would love to see would be HRC go all "values" on him. Not about instability or unfitness per se, though those are implied. Just about how this man doesn't represent American values. That Trump is wrong because behind all of his "Make America Great" rhetoric, his whole shtick is that he wants America to not be America. He wants the United States to join the "League of Ordinary Nations," where we put America first and tell the world to take a hike. And that this is an insult to everything our veterans have died for. I could workshop the language but I'm tired from work so you'll have to imagine. Maybe they'll have Kaine do it? He could make a neat values pitch (with a Christian spin). The founding fathers did not want America to be a world police. The founding fathers just wanted somewhere nice and quiet to answer to nobody and make black people do all their work for them without remuneration. I'm pretty happy America has strayed from that path. Exactly, America doesn't have a static definition. And the best course of action is to not bleed any more money to other people's affairs. No, it's not. Someone doesn't understand how to manage their finances. Someone can't tell the difference between a person and a country. Countries are run by resources. People are run by resources. If you are bleeding more resources than what you can profit off an investment, that's shit you want to get off asap no matter how messy it is. That's just smart thinking. You think we don't benif from the petrodollar and unthreatened access to emerging markets and under developed nations rescources?
Short term wise, maybe for the oil companies.
But long term wise, it is much better to develop renewable source of energy such as improving the safety on radioactive plants and/or introducing mass produced solar energy panels.
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United States42016 Posts
On September 24 2016 04:57 RealityIsKing wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:53 Sermokala wrote:On September 24 2016 04:31 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:17 Yoav wrote:On September 24 2016 02:32 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 02:17 Doodsmack wrote:
Pretty amazing how much time Trump spent during the Republican debates talking about polls and the states he had won. It was almost his main focus. What if Hillary said, "look how much he harped on the polls, but ever since the conventions he has been losing to me". She needs to match his comebacks with confidence IMO.
He gets by policy questions by tying things back into his narrow populist stuff, for example anything to do with the economy is "China devaluation trade deficit bad". Also talked about his endorsements on different issues, like Joe Arpaio.
But he talks loudly and with a tone of conviction and assertiveness (different than his run of the mill TV interviews), giving the impression he's in command of the subjects. On the superficial front, he's obviously much better than Hillary on TV.
He has a fairly small grab bag of Hillary attacks, but they are very sweeping in their scope. For example, every single problem in the world currently is her fault because she was SoS (this actually is his position). Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, so the loss of manufacturing jobs is the Clintons' fault. Surely though, Clinton has prepared responses to each item in the grab bag.
She needs to diversify the conversation during the debate, to prevent Trump from being so narrow.
Tbh the debates might not be a trounce one way or another. Unless people really just grade it on presentation, in which case Trump could win. I don't know what in the hell to predict. I'm hoping for her to just go Presidential as fuck, give knowledgeable and detailed answers about the issues, why they matter and her own record on them. It'll contrast strongly with Trump's vague platitudes about how X is the worst and he'll make it the best. I feel like this belief is more generous to the average swing voter than I would be. I would hope so. But honestly, I doubt it. What we won't see but I would love to see would be HRC go all "values" on him. Not about instability or unfitness per se, though those are implied. Just about how this man doesn't represent American values. That Trump is wrong because behind all of his "Make America Great" rhetoric, his whole shtick is that he wants America to not be America. He wants the United States to join the "League of Ordinary Nations," where we put America first and tell the world to take a hike. And that this is an insult to everything our veterans have died for. I could workshop the language but I'm tired from work so you'll have to imagine. Maybe they'll have Kaine do it? He could make a neat values pitch (with a Christian spin). The founding fathers did not want America to be a world police. And how do you argue this? If anything I'd argue the opposite. The DOI didn't specifi only americans and you can argue pretty easy that they wanted to spread this ideal to not only america but the rest of the colonies. And where do you draw the line at being world police. You can't argue colonialism would have died a nonviolent death without america demanding it. If a disaster hurt American investments/assets, do something about it. If there are some civil war going on and the damage won't be affecting American investment/assets. Stay out of it, unless there is a positive risk/award analysis done. It is important to perform the risk/award analysis. The moment that situation changes, it time to dip.
And you believe America's rise to a position as the sole superpower and richest nation on earth is the result of a long line of people not performing risk/reward analysis and acting in a way that weakens America? And that you're the first person to come up with the revolutionary idea of doing things that make America stronger? What if I were to tell you that the ascent of America was actually linked to America protecting and strengthening her own interests as a matter of deliberate policy.
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On September 24 2016 04:59 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:53 ragz_gt wrote:On September 24 2016 04:44 xDaunt wrote:On September 24 2016 04:31 ChristianS wrote:On September 24 2016 01:21 xDaunt wrote:On September 23 2016 22:50 ChristianS wrote:On September 23 2016 21:18 xDaunt wrote:On September 23 2016 18:42 Acrofales wrote:On September 23 2016 17:16 ChristianS wrote:On September 23 2016 15:49 Danglars wrote:
[quote]
It's a nice stroll through memory lane, but you make a sudden leap into modern times by contrasting the civil rights era with Trump and his supporters. Sit at the back of the bus was racism. Separate eating establishments based on race was racism. Immigration policy isn't. Political invective on several issues isn't (though abrasive speech will still cause others to bristle no matter the subject). You're right to call it anecdotal, and it's intensely subjective. You'll see the comparisons to late 1800s racism and xenophobia, others will see you as a wannabe crusader longing for a bygone era but without a real civil rights cause today. Worth noting I never said Trump's immigration policy means he's racist. I was honestly more focused on Trump himself. Being prosecuted by Nixon's Justice Department for really explicitly discriminating against black tenants in his hotels back in the 70's. That stuff by Jack O'Donnell about how when he was president of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, Trump went off about not wanting a black guy as an accountant because blacks are lazy, and he only wants Jews counting his money. Calling Mexicans rapists. Those shitty stereotypes he embraced talking to the Republican Jewish Coalition. Y'know, that stuff. But I wasn't really looking to pick a fight either. I don't really long to be a civil rights crusader. The 50's and 60's sound awful, and I'm glad I didn't have to be around for it. I honestly wish that we were having a relatively normal election between, like, Tim Kaine and Jeb Bush, and I could tune out and read the occasional headline without click on it and maybe get around to registering to vote if I had nothing better to do, but I probably never would because I wouldn't care that much who won. Instead we've got a large, disgruntled population of lower- and middle-class white people who feel that they've been wronged by the world. They think they used to have some kind of glory and power, but now their manufacturing jobs are fading away and they're losing their privileged place in the world, and they feel betrayed and unsafe and powerless. We've got a demagogue candidate who's appealing to this population by telling them that they lost their power because of Mexicans and Muslims and China. He's parading around families of people that were raped or murdered by illegal Mexicans to gin up a rage against these foreigners that are raping and murdering their wives and children. He's saying the whole world is laughing at them because they don't win any more. And he's promising them that if they support him, then by the time he's done, nobody will laugh at them again. This is not a drill, this is how real life racial persecution gets started. This is the type of movement that used to lead to pogroms and lynchings and blood libel. People get so caught up in the movement and the propaganda and the cult of personality around a charismatic leader that they stop paying attention to facts and policy, to the point that you can explain to them that the crime rate is down, not up, that they lost their manufacturing jobs to the inexorable forces of globalism and no one can bring them back, and that illegal immigrants actually commit violent crime at a lower rate than the rest of the population, but it has absolutely no bearing on how they feel. [quote]
My sobering thought is this: what if the current campaign against out-of-fashion ideas and racial realism won't be reversed for many years? What if the zealots of today, the current victors of the culture war, won't realize how hideous their own movement has become, nor how the '60s rebellion against authority became a puritanical persecution from authority (cultural leadership brought to you by Your Moral Betters™). Scapegoating and stereotyping of Trump supporters for social ills could continue, as much as I wish it would not. It is intensely psychological and the fight in every generation is to inspire the better angels of our nature.
I'm hoping the atmosphere of moral scolds today are later regarded as a weird period of American history when people embraced racializing every issue to the detriment of true debate on the issues. When language was so bastardized and social media lynch mobs so emboldened that every political opinion was viewed by the color difference of the author & subject's skin. I look with some hope to the next generation. Today's left-leaning culture responds to criticism like a priest to sacrilege, and even young people today can see how bizarre it acts. It's far more likely that today's regress, disguised as progress, continues to win and that's a very sobering thought indeed. Seems like you're throwing out a lot of punches at stuff I'm not sure if you're assuming I support. I'm also not sure what's meant by terms like "racial realism." It seems to denote a position which acknowledges the realities of race (about which this "regressive left" is presumably in denial), but I'm not sure what realities you think those are. A white supremacist might say they're a "racial realist" for acknowledging that white people are better than black people. An SJW might call themselves a "racial realist" for acknowledging the power dynamics between whites and various minorities in America today, such that a "color-blind" approach can't solve racial issues. I assume you're in neither of these camps, so you probably mean something more along the lines of acknowledging black culture has some toxic trends which contribute to blacks' underprivileged state (which the regressive left insists is a racist position)? I'm only guessing at your meaning here. But you seem to be opposed to much of the social backlash that currently exists against people and positions viewed as "racist," and I assume you don't think we shouldn't stigmatize actual racism, so you must think the labels of racist and bigot have been over-applied by the left. I might even agree with that. Online articles trying to teach white people about "microagressions" and the like can be alright when they come from a place of earnestly trying to help whites understand how to make racial minorities feel more at ease and less alienated, but when they come in the form of condemning anyone who uses the question "So, where are you from?" in small talk as Grand Dragon of the KKK, I think it weakens the label of "racist" and makes it easier for actual racists to hide behind the cover of just being "politically incorrect." A lot of people that use terms like "cultural appropriation" and "gentrification" to explain how white people are literally Hitler are being sloppy in their reasoning, and mostly just making people think it's okay to be skeptical that they could possibly ever be racist. So I think you've assumed that I'm a member of that club, and I'm really not. Back in saner times, most of my online arguments were with those very people. But that group mostly just whines and blogs about Miley Cyrus appropriating this or that. This ethnocentrist movement wants to take over the world. I was hoping that, based on a progress-based view of racial equality, America had come far enough that it could tell the difference between telling an off-color joke to your friends (i.e. political incorrectness) and accusing Mexico of deliberately sending rapists across the border (i.e. racism). I was wrong, thus I am rethinking my assumption that racial equality has steadily improved over time and will only keep getting better. I think this is the first opinion since the "racism war" started about 20 pages back that is actually worth reading. His post is the saner and nicer version of Kwark's 40% of America is racist posts. And it's unsurprising to me that he, like everyone else on the other side of the issue, struggles with this part of Danglars' post: My sobering thought is this: what if the current campaign against out-of-fashion ideas and racial realism won't be reversed for many years? What if the zealots of today, the current victors of the culture war, won't realize how hideous their own movement has become, nor how the '60s rebellion against authority became a puritanical persecution from authority (cultural leadership brought to you by Your Moral Betters™). Scapegoating and stereotyping of Trump supporters for social ills could continue, as much as I wish it would not. It is intensely psychological and the fight in every generation is to inspire the better angels of our nature.
I'm hoping the atmosphere of moral scolds today are later regarded as a weird period of American history when people embraced racializing every issue to the detriment of true debate on the issues. When language was so bastardized and social media lynch mobs so emboldened that every political opinion was viewed by the color difference of the author & subject's skin. I look with some hope to the next generation. Today's left-leaning culture responds to criticism like a priest to sacrilege, and even young people today can see how bizarre it acts. It's far more likely that today's regress, disguised as progress, continues to win and that's a very sobering thought indeed. If by "struggles with" you mean "has trouble figuring out what he's getting at," you're absolutely right. I mean I've been puzzling over the term "racial realism" and I still can't figure out what it is supposed to mean. Racial realism is an idea from the alt right that there are differences between the races that should be recognized and accounted for as opposed to washing over those differences with the artificial (ie "the not real") construct of liberal/progressive egalitarianism. Depending upon how you define the alt right, different factions of the alt right reach different conclusions from this perspective, ranging from advocacy for western culture to advocacy for white nationalism. So if I understand correctly: -Racial realism is the idea that there are innate differences between races (sometimes called essentialism). Unclear whether these essentialist classifications imply a superior/inferior dynamic (although historically they almost always have). The bolded part is more or less correct. The one thing left out is that the racial realist does not believe it to be taboo to discuss these things -- ie current paradigms of political correctness are no hindrance to the conversation. As for the unbolded part, racial realism doesn't imply any sort of out of outcome to the inquiry. It's a merely a perspective on the debate. Think of it as the equivalent to Marxism and history. -Danglars believes there is a campaign against this essentialism, and considers it a sobering thought that this campaign might not stop at some point. I'll leave it to Danglars to explain what he thinks on this point. -xDaunt considers this the part that people on the "other side of the issue" like me always struggle with. To be very precise, what I believe that the PC crowd struggles with is understanding how their racial policies of the past few generations have impacted the types of people who are now supporting Trump or who are turning to things like the alt right and its derivatives. Are xDaunt and Danglars actually arguing that innate differences between races exist such that we should treat members of different races differently? Is that not an absolutely textbook definition of racism? I'll let Danglars speak for himself. As for me, I'm merely pointing out why there's a large contingent of Americans who are bucking the current PC norms. Again, race means essentially nothing to me as a politically significant classification. Are you Kellyanne Conway in disguise for Danglars? I know what Danglars was saying, but given the penchant of certain shitposters to liberally label people as racists when this topic comes up, I'd rather not say anything inadvertently that results in him dealing with a bunch of needless shit.
I know you don't think you're racist, but do you at least admit to yourself that you do and say racist things? Or do you genuinely believe you are impervious to the undeniably racist culture you grew up in?
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On September 24 2016 04:57 RealityIsKing wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2016 04:53 Sermokala wrote:On September 24 2016 04:31 RealityIsKing wrote:On September 24 2016 04:17 Yoav wrote:On September 24 2016 02:32 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2016 02:17 Doodsmack wrote:
Pretty amazing how much time Trump spent during the Republican debates talking about polls and the states he had won. It was almost his main focus. What if Hillary said, "look how much he harped on the polls, but ever since the conventions he has been losing to me". She needs to match his comebacks with confidence IMO.
He gets by policy questions by tying things back into his narrow populist stuff, for example anything to do with the economy is "China devaluation trade deficit bad". Also talked about his endorsements on different issues, like Joe Arpaio.
But he talks loudly and with a tone of conviction and assertiveness (different than his run of the mill TV interviews), giving the impression he's in command of the subjects. On the superficial front, he's obviously much better than Hillary on TV.
He has a fairly small grab bag of Hillary attacks, but they are very sweeping in their scope. For example, every single problem in the world currently is her fault because she was SoS (this actually is his position). Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, so the loss of manufacturing jobs is the Clintons' fault. Surely though, Clinton has prepared responses to each item in the grab bag.
She needs to diversify the conversation during the debate, to prevent Trump from being so narrow.
Tbh the debates might not be a trounce one way or another. Unless people really just grade it on presentation, in which case Trump could win. I don't know what in the hell to predict. I'm hoping for her to just go Presidential as fuck, give knowledgeable and detailed answers about the issues, why they matter and her own record on them. It'll contrast strongly with Trump's vague platitudes about how X is the worst and he'll make it the best. I feel like this belief is more generous to the average swing voter than I would be. I would hope so. But honestly, I doubt it. What we won't see but I would love to see would be HRC go all "values" on him. Not about instability or unfitness per se, though those are implied. Just about how this man doesn't represent American values. That Trump is wrong because behind all of his "Make America Great" rhetoric, his whole shtick is that he wants America to not be America. He wants the United States to join the "League of Ordinary Nations," where we put America first and tell the world to take a hike. And that this is an insult to everything our veterans have died for. I could workshop the language but I'm tired from work so you'll have to imagine. Maybe they'll have Kaine do it? He could make a neat values pitch (with a Christian spin). The founding fathers did not want America to be a world police. And how do you argue this? If anything I'd argue the opposite. The DOI didn't specifi only americans and you can argue pretty easy that they wanted to spread this ideal to not only america but the rest of the colonies. And where do you draw the line at being world police. You can't argue colonialism would have died a nonviolent death without america demanding it. If a disaster hurt American investments/assets, do something about it. If there are some civil war going on and the damage won't be affecting American investment/assets. Stay out of it, unless there is a positive risk/award analysis done. It is important to perform the risk/award analysis. The moment that situation changes, it time to dip.
If we followed that logic we would only know war. You can make a positive risk reward analysis to invade Africa and just remake it in our image like some blood soaked god nation.
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