US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8580

On August 29 2017 06:07 mozoku wrote:

Are they? In Alabama, for example, it was the majority opposition (I'm assuming) of a fairly racist state and majority ignorance for most of the rest of the country. Like xDaunt, I had no idea what was going on Alabama, and lumping Alabama Republicans with NY or IL Republicans on social issues makes little sense, as they have very different views.

For the cases where it's not majority ignorance, I have a feeling the cases you're thinking of aren't as clear cut to most people as you believe they should be. Then again, talking in generalities is pretty useless for this discussion I think.


This is an argument that I really don't like. Arguing for Nazi free speech when the Google memo, Charlottesville, and several other controversial protest/free speech incidents have been in the news does not mean that you're valuing Nazi free speech over minority voting rights or some other civil liberty. It's just talking about what's in the news, and talking about what other people are currently discussing. I don't have a "priority list" of civil rights violations to talk about based on some utilitarian calculation that guides what I focus my posts on.

On August 29 2017 06:35 Plansix wrote:

Remember when Obama’s staff accidently gave the royal family classic movies DVD’s from the wrong region and Republicans mocked his diplomacy? Those were cute times.

On August 29 2017 06:36 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:


Interesting note. I'm a film major and I didn't know about regional differences until I started trying to buy john woo movies

On August 29 2017 04:55 Plansix wrote:

Stuff like this makes me wonder if the Republicans are going to have to rewrite their primary rules about how can run on their tickets. Or if they are going to continue to play with fire and see if we al get burned.

On August 29 2017 07:13 Plansix wrote:
https://twitter.com/yvonnewingett/status/902276367575687169

The +$200 million in lawsuits AZ had to deal with because of him disagrees. If you suffer from a case of racism, try not being racist for at least 5 years. If racism continues to be a problem, seek professional help.

Sebastian Gorka, the former special adviser to President Trump who was forced out over the weekend, railed against his former colleagues in a string of interviews on Monday, warning that the president’s vision for the country is being corrupted by interlopers.

In a Monday interview on Fox News Radio’s “Brian Kilmeade Show,” Gorka said he was determined to resign after Trump’s speech about bolstering troop levels in Afghanistan failed to mention the threat of radical Islamic terrorism.

“The fact is I knew after the Afghan speech that the anti-MAGA [Make America Great Again] forces were in ascendance,” Gorka said.

“Not one mention of radical Islam in that speech that was written from the president. So last week I emailed General Kelly, I said I wanted to meet with him today on Monday because I will be resigning effective Friday, last Friday. I spoke to him on the telephone on Friday and said that I am resigning today and I reinforced that with an email.
“That’s how it happened because I realized I work for Steve Bannon, he’s gone and the wrong people are at the helm of policy issues,” Gorka said. “We will right that ship from the outside but for the time being the best I can do is to be effective as a private citizen.”

The Federalist first reported that Gorka had resigned on Friday night, but White House officials disputed that characterization, insinuating that he had been fired by chief of staff John Kelly.

Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, was forced out of the White House a week before Gorka and was also handed his walking papers by Kelly. Both Bannon, who maintains that he resigned, and Gorka will return to Breitbart News.

Also on Monday, Gorka criticized national security adviser H.R. McMaster in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, saying McMaster has a liberal worldview on the threat posed by radical Islamic extremists.

McMaster “sees the threat of Islam through an Obama administration lens, meaning that religion has nothing to do with the war we are in,” Gorka said.

“He believes — and he told me in his office — that all of these people are just criminals,” Gorka said. “That is simply wrong.”

Gorka also questioned Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s credentials in the interview with Kilmeade. Tillerson was once CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp.

“I’m a bit puzzled,” Gorka said.

“I don’t expect counterterrorism expertise from a former oil industry mogul, but to say that the president’s speech on Afghanistan shouldn’t be about radical Islamic terrorism, it should be about all forms of terrorism,” Gorka said.

“Brian, I would like to hear the secretary tell me about all the animal rights terrorists or the white supremacists terrorists that are coming out of the Hindu Kush or Tora Bora. I’m a little bit confused by what he said because it doesn’t make any sense.”

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Tillerson disputed Gorka's claim that the president's team removed any references to "radical Islamic terror" from his Afghanistan speech.

"He’s completely wrong," Tillerson said. "And I think it shows a lack of understanding of the president's broader policy when it comes to protecting Americans at home and abroad from all acts of terrorism. Terrorism, as we've said, manifests itself in many types of organization."

On August 29 2017 06:23 KwarK wrote:

The news isn't an external agent, it's a reflection of the priorities of the consumers of the news. The reason the news doesn't just consist of nothing but "holy shit people in Africa are dying all the fucking time because the entire village lacks a well that would cost like $500 to drill, watch as we interview this guy shitting to death" is because we have collectively decided that we just don't really care that much. That we're basically fine with that happening. I'll willingly admit my own complicity in that. I could save a bunch of Africans. I choose not to. The logical conclusion is that I just don't like Africans very much.

The news runs "white conservative guy fired from Google" and people are really worked up about it and want to know more. The news runs with "black people still can't fucking vote" and nobody gives a shit. Civil rights violations in America don't make the news daily because on the whole the country has accepted that they're not happening to people like them. Meanwhile if a white conservative could get fired from Google then that could happen to someone like you.

It's shitty but it's the world we live in.

That's why the shit happening in Ferguson got absolutely no notice by anyone until the riot. "Local police department targets African Americans" isn't a story that people want to hear, it's just not interesting. MLK said it best when he said "a riot is the language of the unheard".

We're trapped in a loop where the racist status quo is left unchanged by a majority who basically don't give a shit because it's not happening to them but will then lose their shit if a football player takes a knee in protest. Universal rights are ignored as "identity politics" until the social contract has been completely destroyed by state violence against minorities, at which point it'll inevitably tip into a popular protest. Then the voices who ignored the status quo for so long will show up and happily condemn the protesters, insisting that no matter how much abuse they receive from society they are still obliged to uphold their end of a bankrupt social contract. And those same voices will cheer for an end of the "war on police" and attack "identity politics".

What I'm describing isn't an intentional process by the average citizen, although the likes of Fox News are certainly complicit, but that doesn't make it excusable. Accidental racism stemming from ignorance doesn't have any less of a racist outcome. I don't think that you do have a priority list for civil rights that lists all the different violations on it and orders them by how much of a shit you give. But that list absolutely exists, and the people who select your news for you have a pretty good idea of where things rank on it.

On August 29 2017 08:18 mozoku wrote:
My expectation is that it'll be the stuff that GH constantly talks about, and last time I was in discussion with him involving with race he tried to tell me that the actual homicide rate for blacks is lower than whites, but the racist police force was miscounting or something. Something unbelievable to the point where I wasn't interested in continuing the conversation,.

On August 29 2017 08:18 mozoku wrote:

My issue with this is that I rarely come across clear cut issues of civil rights violations that aren't already in the legal system or already resolved. If they're so widespread, would you (or someone else) be able to point some out?

My expectation is that it'll be the stuff that GH constantly talks about, and last time I was in discussion with him involving with race he tried to tell me that the actual homicide rate for blacks is lower than whites, but the racist police force was miscounting or something. Something unbelievable to the point where I wasn't interested in continuing the conversation,.