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On October 01 2020 05:07 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2020 04:30 Introvert wrote:On October 01 2020 04:18 Nebuchad wrote:On October 01 2020 03:13 dUTtrOACh wrote:On October 01 2020 02:54 Arghmyliver wrote:On October 01 2020 02:39 dUTtrOACh wrote:On October 01 2020 02:19 Nebuchad wrote:On October 01 2020 02:05 dUTtrOACh wrote:On October 01 2020 01:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 01 2020 01:08 dUTtrOACh wrote:
[quote]
The KKK's shift from Democrat to Republican was pre-Trump, though. The only way they wouldn't have endorsed the Republicans' candidate at that point would have been if he wasn't white, right?
Is this one of those "Democrats were the real racists because something something slavery / KKK" mistakes? The parties literally switched names when their identities changed, which is why "Dixiecrats" was a thing, and yet now the Republicans are the ones in the South. Rather than using labels of Democrat and Republican, which is historically confusing and literally backwards at some point in time, it's probably clearer to talk about liberals/progressives and conservatives. The party with socially progressive views is not the party that wanted to perpetuate slavery nor supported the KKK. The social liberals want gender/sex/LGBT/race equality/equity, in some capacity or another. The social conservatives are resistant to change. Notoriously racist and sexist groups extremely, disproportionately favor the current Republican party because that is the name of the current socially conservative group... that's why their rhetoric is xenophobic and sexist, and why they push for anti-immigration laws and anti-women laws. Conservatives are resistant to sudden and drastic overhauls to avoid diving into the deep end on day one. It's not an unreasonable method to tread carefully as you progress forward. There is definitely an element in every country, not just America, that are too conservative. There obviously has to be some forward progress, and I think America is less racist now than it was historically, but there's clearly room for improvement. On the subject of the blurred interpretive lines of equality and equity, they are not the same. With equality, everyone starts at the start line. With equity, everyone finishes the race at the same time. Life isn't equitable, and some people start the race in a Lamborghini while others have a bicycle. Having generational wealth isn't a crime. If you truly believe in religious freedoms, then you have to respect that an issue like abortion being not universally agreed upon is inevitable, along with other issues that religion can be sticky about. Gender-based disparities in income are not typically related to a gender-based disparity in hourly wage, but rather in hours worked. If you think conservative women who vote Republican on the basis that they are better for the economy than Democrats are somehow stupid, or prefer to be downtrodden, then you underestimate the social empowerment that can be gained through economic empowerment. The people that you describe, who want slow, careful change, are liberal democrats in the US. The republican party doesn't want to progress slower, it wants to revert back the recent progress, "make America great again". The only time the slow, moderate change republican exists in the framework of republican politics is when someone wants to get elected and they specify that they are NOT like this, that they will fight actively to get the results republicans want. It is common for republicans, when talking to liberals, to hide behind conservatism because it's a politically correct position. But they aren't that, we can see that through all of their beliefs and actions. What you are describing are regressives, not conservatives. Not all supporters of the Republicans are regressives. The idea that a statement like MAGA is akin to "let's turn back the clock in all aspects" is reductive. The idea that America was a once-great nation that in recent times has fallen from grace is not a uniquely Republican one. Perhaps the innocent interpretation is that some Americans really naively want their country to be elavated to the level it once was, not just feared for their military might. I'm not saying Trump will be able do that or even that it's somehow possible; the world is competitive af right now. I just don't see Joe Biden as a non-racist (he's said enough dumb shit to substantiate at least that), nor do I see him as a good candidate. What I see is a decrepit establishment politician trying to masquerade as an agent of change. TLDR: It's giant douche vs turd sandwich all over again. This is the first thing you've said that makes any sense. The problem is that the recent fall from grace is directly related to the current GOP and the regressive nature of American politics in general. We have a two party system that glorifies the adversarial nature of the two parties to play to the win/lose dichotomy that pervades American culture. At this point the system is just designed to perpetuate itself. The parties are paid as long as the engine is running, but the car doesn't have to actually go anywhere. As such the "liberal" and "conservative" nature of the parties skews further right over time to the point where we have actual whiny Hitler. We don't want Biden but we sure as hell don't want someone flooring it in reverse. I don't really have any hope, I'm trying to get plans together to leave, but I'll vote Biden before I go. I'd probably point at the time of the Vietnam war as the beginning of America's gradual fall from grace. It tied in to the hipocrisy of being conscripted to fight for "freedom" abroad when [black/non-white] Americans themselves were not free. The impression of the government being "good" or "incorruptable" was shattered at that time. Dismissing the fear of communism isn't helping the Democrats, particularly not as they recruit from further and further left into their upper echelons. One of the observable trends of american politics is the democratic party shifting right, which starts under Carter. That's why conservatives used to be rightwing, because the left was actual left. You're scared of democrats moving left but that was one of the conditions of the period you liked. (Also socialism is good) As much as I wish I had time for "what happened to the parties! [in the South]" that will have to be for another day. The Democrat party has obviously moved left, just more slowly than the 30s and 40s and not always on all issues at once. The reason they came to "moderate" is because when the nation wasnt in economic crisis Democrat presidential candidates mostly got their clocks cleaned. Carter won after Nixon stomped in 72. Clinton came in after Reagan/Bush won three straight presidential elections with two being some of the largest landslides ever and the third being a huge rout. Even before FDR the GOP won a large majority of presidential races post civil war. And Carter, Clinton, and Obama all benefitted immensely from economic slowdowns. Democrats simply have some sort of self-preservation instinct that tells them that when they say "look at the polls our radical ideas are popular!", they are wrong. I'm reading that they had a good reason to do so, not that they didn't do it
eh, I put "moderate" in quotes for a reason. Biden the "centrist" is still further left than Biden the "centrist" of the 70s. He's been in politics so long that he actually makes an excellent study for how the Democrat party has moved. It's moved left.
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On October 01 2020 05:49 NrG.Bamboo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2020 03:51 Danglars wrote:
The trouble is the debate commission is old as hell and needs to be junked and replaced in the internet age.
One is president JFK’s appointee to the FCC. They’re mostly as old as Trump and Biden. Defund the commission. I feel like one of the biggest problems with this sort of a setting (outside of an inability to rein in the speakers) is that either person can just say bold claims that may or may not be true, and it doesn't really get fact-checked by anyone until afterwards (except the opponent who would obviously say things are false if they disagree anyway.) It's mostly making speeches towards each other, and it's on the viewer to believe/deny what's being said until they can research or refresh their memory later, which I suspect most people don't do. A while back when some people were trying to set up Joe Rogan to moderate conversation/debate between the two, I thought that was unironically a great idea. In a setting for which bullshit claims can be fact checked and arguments develop based on facts would be quite a thing to see from our presidential candidates. I think pulling up sources in real-time and going over them together would be a better demonstration of how each person actually intends on moving the country in a particular direction. For what it's worth, Trump agreed to the proposition.
I think the candidates themselves bear the responsibility to call out lies or non-answers during the debate itself. A free press then writes articles with a breadth of opinions can then publish articles going through why they think #1-50 statements were lies or half-truths. Right now, this is only accomplished by reading both left-wing and right-wing biased fact checks, as no one source gives a good neutral read at present time. The debates themselves need to show both candidates sustaining their point of view and responding to attacks, not to serve as a venue for instant fact checks. If Trump or Bush or Obama only gives interviews to friendly interviewers, the debate exchanges are a good first time for intense questioning to show voters they can give plausible responses. That's their value.
Joe Rogan would be a good choice just given his stature and disposition for inquiry. He would probably be fair about when to cut off crosstalk and keep candidates to whatever time restraints they agree to.
I think too much is made of the "dumb voter" hypothesis, in which voters are too stupid to look up the truth or falsehood of states on issues that matter to them. It's essential in a democracy to trust that enough citizens can seek these things out on their own and make evaluations on the arguments that are presented to them. The "real-time" sources and junk are way overrated.
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On October 01 2020 11:13 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2020 05:07 Nebuchad wrote:On October 01 2020 04:30 Introvert wrote:On October 01 2020 04:18 Nebuchad wrote:On October 01 2020 03:13 dUTtrOACh wrote:On October 01 2020 02:54 Arghmyliver wrote:On October 01 2020 02:39 dUTtrOACh wrote:On October 01 2020 02:19 Nebuchad wrote:On October 01 2020 02:05 dUTtrOACh wrote:On October 01 2020 01:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
[quote]
Is this one of those "Democrats were the real racists because something something slavery / KKK" mistakes? The parties literally switched names when their identities changed, which is why "Dixiecrats" was a thing, and yet now the Republicans are the ones in the South. Rather than using labels of Democrat and Republican, which is historically confusing and literally backwards at some point in time, it's probably clearer to talk about liberals/progressives and conservatives. The party with socially progressive views is not the party that wanted to perpetuate slavery nor supported the KKK. The social liberals want gender/sex/LGBT/race equality/equity, in some capacity or another. The social conservatives are resistant to change. Notoriously racist and sexist groups extremely, disproportionately favor the current Republican party because that is the name of the current socially conservative group... that's why their rhetoric is xenophobic and sexist, and why they push for anti-immigration laws and anti-women laws. Conservatives are resistant to sudden and drastic overhauls to avoid diving into the deep end on day one. It's not an unreasonable method to tread carefully as you progress forward. There is definitely an element in every country, not just America, that are too conservative. There obviously has to be some forward progress, and I think America is less racist now than it was historically, but there's clearly room for improvement. On the subject of the blurred interpretive lines of equality and equity, they are not the same. With equality, everyone starts at the start line. With equity, everyone finishes the race at the same time. Life isn't equitable, and some people start the race in a Lamborghini while others have a bicycle. Having generational wealth isn't a crime. If you truly believe in religious freedoms, then you have to respect that an issue like abortion being not universally agreed upon is inevitable, along with other issues that religion can be sticky about. Gender-based disparities in income are not typically related to a gender-based disparity in hourly wage, but rather in hours worked. If you think conservative women who vote Republican on the basis that they are better for the economy than Democrats are somehow stupid, or prefer to be downtrodden, then you underestimate the social empowerment that can be gained through economic empowerment. The people that you describe, who want slow, careful change, are liberal democrats in the US. The republican party doesn't want to progress slower, it wants to revert back the recent progress, "make America great again". The only time the slow, moderate change republican exists in the framework of republican politics is when someone wants to get elected and they specify that they are NOT like this, that they will fight actively to get the results republicans want. It is common for republicans, when talking to liberals, to hide behind conservatism because it's a politically correct position. But they aren't that, we can see that through all of their beliefs and actions. What you are describing are regressives, not conservatives. Not all supporters of the Republicans are regressives. The idea that a statement like MAGA is akin to "let's turn back the clock in all aspects" is reductive. The idea that America was a once-great nation that in recent times has fallen from grace is not a uniquely Republican one. Perhaps the innocent interpretation is that some Americans really naively want their country to be elavated to the level it once was, not just feared for their military might. I'm not saying Trump will be able do that or even that it's somehow possible; the world is competitive af right now. I just don't see Joe Biden as a non-racist (he's said enough dumb shit to substantiate at least that), nor do I see him as a good candidate. What I see is a decrepit establishment politician trying to masquerade as an agent of change. TLDR: It's giant douche vs turd sandwich all over again. This is the first thing you've said that makes any sense. The problem is that the recent fall from grace is directly related to the current GOP and the regressive nature of American politics in general. We have a two party system that glorifies the adversarial nature of the two parties to play to the win/lose dichotomy that pervades American culture. At this point the system is just designed to perpetuate itself. The parties are paid as long as the engine is running, but the car doesn't have to actually go anywhere. As such the "liberal" and "conservative" nature of the parties skews further right over time to the point where we have actual whiny Hitler. We don't want Biden but we sure as hell don't want someone flooring it in reverse. I don't really have any hope, I'm trying to get plans together to leave, but I'll vote Biden before I go. I'd probably point at the time of the Vietnam war as the beginning of America's gradual fall from grace. It tied in to the hipocrisy of being conscripted to fight for "freedom" abroad when [black/non-white] Americans themselves were not free. The impression of the government being "good" or "incorruptable" was shattered at that time. Dismissing the fear of communism isn't helping the Democrats, particularly not as they recruit from further and further left into their upper echelons. One of the observable trends of american politics is the democratic party shifting right, which starts under Carter. That's why conservatives used to be rightwing, because the left was actual left. You're scared of democrats moving left but that was one of the conditions of the period you liked. (Also socialism is good) As much as I wish I had time for "what happened to the parties! [in the South]" that will have to be for another day. The Democrat party has obviously moved left, just more slowly than the 30s and 40s and not always on all issues at once. The reason they came to "moderate" is because when the nation wasnt in economic crisis Democrat presidential candidates mostly got their clocks cleaned. Carter won after Nixon stomped in 72. Clinton came in after Reagan/Bush won three straight presidential elections with two being some of the largest landslides ever and the third being a huge rout. Even before FDR the GOP won a large majority of presidential races post civil war. And Carter, Clinton, and Obama all benefitted immensely from economic slowdowns. Democrats simply have some sort of self-preservation instinct that tells them that when they say "look at the polls our radical ideas are popular!", they are wrong. I'm reading that they had a good reason to do so, not that they didn't do it eh, I put "moderate" in quotes for a reason. Biden the "centrist" is still further left than Biden the "centrist" of the 70s. He's been in politics so long that he actually makes an excellent study for how the Democrat party has moved. It's moved left.
The last Democrat president described himself as to the right of Nixon though, Democrats since the 90s seem to have leaned rightwards.
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On October 01 2020 05:34 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2020 05:14 StasisField wrote:On October 01 2020 04:53 Danglars wrote:
White supremacism and whatever the “nouveau return to western civilization” should be called are also idea.
They should be seen as plug and play ideologies that can be plugged into different groups run by malcontents. The ideas of Antifa themselves didn’t kill a dude in Portland a month ago, it was some hardcore Antifa guy. You do realize why there is a distinction between an idea and an organization, right? The KKK has a national leader that directs the KKK's actions and messages. Power within white supremacist movements like the Klan are centralized in a national leadership. They are an organization. Antifa does not have that. There is no overarching "Antifa" that all other Antifa branches follow and listen to. That's why you can't label Antifa as a terrorist organization or as an organization in general because there is no "Antifa" organization. You have random, independent branches scattered all across the U.S. who are deciding what they believe Antifa stands for and how their branch should go about expressing their independently formed beliefs. They are not even close to the same. You’re confusing the lack of a hierarchical national organizing body, with the lack of organization. The KKK would still be bad if it wasn’t centrally run, and each city instead organized on its own. Their ideology is repugnant. It’s no wonder that so many of these independent bodies have contributed to violence. Biden should condemn Antifa if he really wants to draw a line against Trump. Too bad Trumps too all over the place to articulate the point.
I'm not confusing it with a lack of organization though. People trying to argue that you can label anyone who identifies as Antifa as a terrorist are confusing organizations existing with there being an overarching, national organization. Trying to give Antifa in general a terrorist label for something a specific branch did is like trying to give everyone who follows Islam a terrorist label because of something done by ISIS. You can condemn the actions of the branch and even label that branch as a terrorist organization if their core tenants and actions are terrorist in nature but you can't label the general ideology terrorist in nature. That's why "Antifa" is an idea and not an organization. White Supremacist movements like the Klan, however have a national, centralized leadership, and actions done under the name of the Klan reflect the Klan as a whole. They are an organization.
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On October 01 2020 05:35 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2020 05:14 StasisField wrote:On October 01 2020 04:53 Danglars wrote:
White supremacism and whatever the “nouveau return to western civilization” should be called are also idea.
They should be seen as plug and play ideologies that can be plugged into different groups run by malcontents. The ideas of Antifa themselves didn’t kill a dude in Portland a month ago, it was some hardcore Antifa guy. You do realize why there is a distinction between an idea and an organization, right? The KKK has a national leader that directs the KKK's actions and messages. Power within white supremacist movements like the Klan are centralized in a national leadership. They are an organization. Antifa does not have that. There is no overarching "Antifa" that all other Antifa branches follow and listen to. That's why you can't label Antifa as a terrorist organization or as an organization in general because there is no "Antifa" organization. You have random, independent branches scattered all across the U.S. who are deciding what they believe Antifa stands for and how their branch should go about expressing their independently formed beliefs. They are not even close to the same. Most of the right-wing nuts who have gone on killing sprees in the last decade weren't part of organizations either, though.
I never said most were part of organizations. In fact, I never said any were. I used the Klan to show the difference between an organization and an idea.
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On October 01 2020 11:27 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2020 05:49 NrG.Bamboo wrote:On October 01 2020 03:51 Danglars wrote:
The trouble is the debate commission is old as hell and needs to be junked and replaced in the internet age.
One is president JFK’s appointee to the FCC. They’re mostly as old as Trump and Biden. Defund the commission. I feel like one of the biggest problems with this sort of a setting (outside of an inability to rein in the speakers) is that either person can just say bold claims that may or may not be true, and it doesn't really get fact-checked by anyone until afterwards (except the opponent who would obviously say things are false if they disagree anyway.) It's mostly making speeches towards each other, and it's on the viewer to believe/deny what's being said until they can research or refresh their memory later, which I suspect most people don't do. A while back when some people were trying to set up Joe Rogan to moderate conversation/debate between the two, I thought that was unironically a great idea. In a setting for which bullshit claims can be fact checked and arguments develop based on facts would be quite a thing to see from our presidential candidates. I think pulling up sources in real-time and going over them together would be a better demonstration of how each person actually intends on moving the country in a particular direction. For what it's worth, Trump agreed to the proposition. I think the candidates themselves bear the responsibility to call out lies or non-answers during the debate itself. A free press then writes articles with a breadth of opinions can then publish articles going through why they think #1-50 statements were lies or half-truths. Right now, this is only accomplished by reading both left-wing and right-wing biased fact checks, as no one source gives a good neutral read at present time. The debates themselves need to show both candidates sustaining their point of view and responding to attacks, not to serve as a venue for instant fact checks. If Trump or Bush or Obama only gives interviews to friendly interviewers, the debate exchanges are a good first time for intense questioning to show voters they can give plausible responses. That's their value. I can understand that there is certainly value in having them stand on their own as a competency evaluation, no doubt. I'd not like to replace or remove these debates at all, however:
I think too much is made of the "dumb voter" hypothesis, in which voters are too stupid to look up the truth or falsehood of states on issues that matter to them. It's essential in a democracy to trust that enough citizens can seek these things out on their own and make evaluations on the arguments that are presented to them. The "real-time" sources and junk are way overrated.
I'm not so sure about this. As you've said, fact checking thoroughly means looking at it from different perspectives, which I don't think most people do. Not doubling down on the "dumb voter" idea in the sense that they don't care enough, but rather pointing out that people might look back to see for themselves what's correct, but overlook the fact that these "fact checkers" are also biased. Most people just want to confirm what they already believe anyway, which is where I see the value of being able to check in real-time to steer the conversation into more productive endeavor. I'm curious why you feel that it is overrated?
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On October 01 2020 11:34 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2020 11:13 Introvert wrote:On October 01 2020 05:07 Nebuchad wrote:On October 01 2020 04:30 Introvert wrote:On October 01 2020 04:18 Nebuchad wrote:On October 01 2020 03:13 dUTtrOACh wrote:On October 01 2020 02:54 Arghmyliver wrote:On October 01 2020 02:39 dUTtrOACh wrote:On October 01 2020 02:19 Nebuchad wrote:On October 01 2020 02:05 dUTtrOACh wrote:
[quote]
Conservatives are resistant to sudden and drastic overhauls to avoid diving into the deep end on day one. It's not an unreasonable method to tread carefully as you progress forward. There is definitely an element in every country, not just America, that are too conservative. There obviously has to be some forward progress, and I think America is less racist now than it was historically, but there's clearly room for improvement.
On the subject of the blurred interpretive lines of equality and equity, they are not the same. With equality, everyone starts at the start line. With equity, everyone finishes the race at the same time. Life isn't equitable, and some people start the race in a Lamborghini while others have a bicycle. Having generational wealth isn't a crime.
If you truly believe in religious freedoms, then you have to respect that an issue like abortion being not universally agreed upon is inevitable, along with other issues that religion can be sticky about. Gender-based disparities in income are not typically related to a gender-based disparity in hourly wage, but rather in hours worked. If you think conservative women who vote Republican on the basis that they are better for the economy than Democrats are somehow stupid, or prefer to be downtrodden, then you underestimate the social empowerment that can be gained through economic empowerment. The people that you describe, who want slow, careful change, are liberal democrats in the US. The republican party doesn't want to progress slower, it wants to revert back the recent progress, "make America great again". The only time the slow, moderate change republican exists in the framework of republican politics is when someone wants to get elected and they specify that they are NOT like this, that they will fight actively to get the results republicans want. It is common for republicans, when talking to liberals, to hide behind conservatism because it's a politically correct position. But they aren't that, we can see that through all of their beliefs and actions. What you are describing are regressives, not conservatives. Not all supporters of the Republicans are regressives. The idea that a statement like MAGA is akin to "let's turn back the clock in all aspects" is reductive. The idea that America was a once-great nation that in recent times has fallen from grace is not a uniquely Republican one. Perhaps the innocent interpretation is that some Americans really naively want their country to be elavated to the level it once was, not just feared for their military might. I'm not saying Trump will be able do that or even that it's somehow possible; the world is competitive af right now. I just don't see Joe Biden as a non-racist (he's said enough dumb shit to substantiate at least that), nor do I see him as a good candidate. What I see is a decrepit establishment politician trying to masquerade as an agent of change. TLDR: It's giant douche vs turd sandwich all over again. This is the first thing you've said that makes any sense. The problem is that the recent fall from grace is directly related to the current GOP and the regressive nature of American politics in general. We have a two party system that glorifies the adversarial nature of the two parties to play to the win/lose dichotomy that pervades American culture. At this point the system is just designed to perpetuate itself. The parties are paid as long as the engine is running, but the car doesn't have to actually go anywhere. As such the "liberal" and "conservative" nature of the parties skews further right over time to the point where we have actual whiny Hitler. We don't want Biden but we sure as hell don't want someone flooring it in reverse. I don't really have any hope, I'm trying to get plans together to leave, but I'll vote Biden before I go. I'd probably point at the time of the Vietnam war as the beginning of America's gradual fall from grace. It tied in to the hipocrisy of being conscripted to fight for "freedom" abroad when [black/non-white] Americans themselves were not free. The impression of the government being "good" or "incorruptable" was shattered at that time. Dismissing the fear of communism isn't helping the Democrats, particularly not as they recruit from further and further left into their upper echelons. One of the observable trends of american politics is the democratic party shifting right, which starts under Carter. That's why conservatives used to be rightwing, because the left was actual left. You're scared of democrats moving left but that was one of the conditions of the period you liked. (Also socialism is good) As much as I wish I had time for "what happened to the parties! [in the South]" that will have to be for another day. The Democrat party has obviously moved left, just more slowly than the 30s and 40s and not always on all issues at once. The reason they came to "moderate" is because when the nation wasnt in economic crisis Democrat presidential candidates mostly got their clocks cleaned. Carter won after Nixon stomped in 72. Clinton came in after Reagan/Bush won three straight presidential elections with two being some of the largest landslides ever and the third being a huge rout. Even before FDR the GOP won a large majority of presidential races post civil war. And Carter, Clinton, and Obama all benefitted immensely from economic slowdowns. Democrats simply have some sort of self-preservation instinct that tells them that when they say "look at the polls our radical ideas are popular!", they are wrong. I'm reading that they had a good reason to do so, not that they didn't do it eh, I put "moderate" in quotes for a reason. Biden the "centrist" is still further left than Biden the "centrist" of the 70s. He's been in politics so long that he actually makes an excellent study for how the Democrat party has moved. It's moved left. The last Democrat president described himself as to the right of Nixon though, Democrats since the 90s seem to have leaned rightwards.
And Obama was wrong.
I disagree, but I feel I'm not going to make any progress. Biden is out there denouncing or ignoring a whole bunch of stuff from the 90s. I think Democrat vs leftist discussions and arguments from the thread over the years here are probably more helpful than I can be when talking with said Democrats and leftists.
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On October 01 2020 11:34 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2020 11:13 Introvert wrote:On October 01 2020 05:07 Nebuchad wrote:On October 01 2020 04:30 Introvert wrote:On October 01 2020 04:18 Nebuchad wrote:On October 01 2020 03:13 dUTtrOACh wrote:On October 01 2020 02:54 Arghmyliver wrote:On October 01 2020 02:39 dUTtrOACh wrote:On October 01 2020 02:19 Nebuchad wrote:On October 01 2020 02:05 dUTtrOACh wrote:
[quote]
Conservatives are resistant to sudden and drastic overhauls to avoid diving into the deep end on day one. It's not an unreasonable method to tread carefully as you progress forward. There is definitely an element in every country, not just America, that are too conservative. There obviously has to be some forward progress, and I think America is less racist now than it was historically, but there's clearly room for improvement.
On the subject of the blurred interpretive lines of equality and equity, they are not the same. With equality, everyone starts at the start line. With equity, everyone finishes the race at the same time. Life isn't equitable, and some people start the race in a Lamborghini while others have a bicycle. Having generational wealth isn't a crime.
If you truly believe in religious freedoms, then you have to respect that an issue like abortion being not universally agreed upon is inevitable, along with other issues that religion can be sticky about. Gender-based disparities in income are not typically related to a gender-based disparity in hourly wage, but rather in hours worked. If you think conservative women who vote Republican on the basis that they are better for the economy than Democrats are somehow stupid, or prefer to be downtrodden, then you underestimate the social empowerment that can be gained through economic empowerment. The people that you describe, who want slow, careful change, are liberal democrats in the US. The republican party doesn't want to progress slower, it wants to revert back the recent progress, "make America great again". The only time the slow, moderate change republican exists in the framework of republican politics is when someone wants to get elected and they specify that they are NOT like this, that they will fight actively to get the results republicans want. It is common for republicans, when talking to liberals, to hide behind conservatism because it's a politically correct position. But they aren't that, we can see that through all of their beliefs and actions. What you are describing are regressives, not conservatives. Not all supporters of the Republicans are regressives. The idea that a statement like MAGA is akin to "let's turn back the clock in all aspects" is reductive. The idea that America was a once-great nation that in recent times has fallen from grace is not a uniquely Republican one. Perhaps the innocent interpretation is that some Americans really naively want their country to be elavated to the level it once was, not just feared for their military might. I'm not saying Trump will be able do that or even that it's somehow possible; the world is competitive af right now. I just don't see Joe Biden as a non-racist (he's said enough dumb shit to substantiate at least that), nor do I see him as a good candidate. What I see is a decrepit establishment politician trying to masquerade as an agent of change. TLDR: It's giant douche vs turd sandwich all over again. This is the first thing you've said that makes any sense. The problem is that the recent fall from grace is directly related to the current GOP and the regressive nature of American politics in general. We have a two party system that glorifies the adversarial nature of the two parties to play to the win/lose dichotomy that pervades American culture. At this point the system is just designed to perpetuate itself. The parties are paid as long as the engine is running, but the car doesn't have to actually go anywhere. As such the "liberal" and "conservative" nature of the parties skews further right over time to the point where we have actual whiny Hitler. We don't want Biden but we sure as hell don't want someone flooring it in reverse. I don't really have any hope, I'm trying to get plans together to leave, but I'll vote Biden before I go. I'd probably point at the time of the Vietnam war as the beginning of America's gradual fall from grace. It tied in to the hipocrisy of being conscripted to fight for "freedom" abroad when [black/non-white] Americans themselves were not free. The impression of the government being "good" or "incorruptable" was shattered at that time. Dismissing the fear of communism isn't helping the Democrats, particularly not as they recruit from further and further left into their upper echelons. One of the observable trends of american politics is the democratic party shifting right, which starts under Carter. That's why conservatives used to be rightwing, because the left was actual left. You're scared of democrats moving left but that was one of the conditions of the period you liked. (Also socialism is good) As much as I wish I had time for "what happened to the parties! [in the South]" that will have to be for another day. The Democrat party has obviously moved left, just more slowly than the 30s and 40s and not always on all issues at once. The reason they came to "moderate" is because when the nation wasnt in economic crisis Democrat presidential candidates mostly got their clocks cleaned. Carter won after Nixon stomped in 72. Clinton came in after Reagan/Bush won three straight presidential elections with two being some of the largest landslides ever and the third being a huge rout. Even before FDR the GOP won a large majority of presidential races post civil war. And Carter, Clinton, and Obama all benefitted immensely from economic slowdowns. Democrats simply have some sort of self-preservation instinct that tells them that when they say "look at the polls our radical ideas are popular!", they are wrong. I'm reading that they had a good reason to do so, not that they didn't do it eh, I put "moderate" in quotes for a reason. Biden the "centrist" is still further left than Biden the "centrist" of the 70s. He's been in politics so long that he actually makes an excellent study for how the Democrat party has moved. It's moved left. The last Democrat president described himself as to the right of Nixon though, Democrats since the 90s seem to have leaned rightwards.
There's a lot of ... not misinformation, but only small facts being bandied about in this conversation that aren't really addressing the whole picture.
The parties were not truly ideological delineated for a very long time in the post WW2-era. There were
liberal republicans and conservative democrats (still are, on both of these, but they've been dwindling since the early 2000s).
There's been ideological realignments, starting most notably with Goldwater in 64 and continued with Nixon's southern strategy where he appealed to conservative democrats in the south.
Neither of these did in the liberal republican though. Reagan didn't do it either.
The rise of conservative talk radio and fox news coincided with the increase of conservatives in the GOP and decrease in liberals, but it's hard to credit anything with causing it.
The GOP fucked up the economy so hard in 1920s that from 1933-1995 they only controlled the house + senate at once for a total of 4 years for that 62 year period. So everyone had to work with democrats to get anything done, even if they happened to be republican presidents.
This is in part why the ideology didn't matter that much : the US was effectively a one party system for 6 decades on a legislative level.
This is also why "both sides are the same!" resonates so strongly with people above a certain age : it used to be true, in the literal sense.
The presidency was a different story, and that's part of where we get into the modern day candidates.
Democrats had run liberal candidates several times and they kept losing to conservative republicans - Reagan, specifically, who was very popular (and Reagan was probably similar to Obama in a lot of his policies, to give you an idea of how much things have shifted since then) and handily beat the liberal Carter and Mondale, and Bush Sr beat Dukakis. Nixon was also a conservative and had won the last truly contested election.
So democrats nominated a centrist, "new democrat" (or third way), Clinton, who ran as a centrist/conservative. The 94-95 house takeback was fueled by a perception he was actually governing as a liberal who had lied about being a centrist, so he needed conservatives to act as a restraint on his actions.
That campaign made the house a national rather than local race, and let the GOP effectively regain control of congress for most of the last 30 years (its architect was Gingrich).
Clinton royally pissed off the GOP by appropriating many of the Bush/Reagan's most popular talking points, so many of them moved further right so that they could keep attacking him as a leftist.
Obama ran as a progressive and governed as a centrist technocrat. So his language always sounded very liberal, but his actual actions were always basically a couple millimeters left of Reagan.
So, before 1995, I would say that there was ideologically almost no difference between the parties, and since then, it has steadily opened up.
Deregulations, for example, were all passed as easily under Clinton as they were under Bush Sr (with some of the worst ones happening under Clinton rather than Bush Jr's watch).
Trying to cap it off as just a short statement on how one party has become more or less conservative since X time is being a bit too pat and cute.
Democrats moved somewhat right on economics compared to <1995, and left socially since then. Republicans have moved right on both of these things. Biden would probably say he regrets the Anita Hill incident, and that interracial marriage should be legal, but that he wouldn't want to create the same welfare systems we had in 1975.
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On October 01 2020 11:53 StasisField wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2020 05:34 Danglars wrote:On October 01 2020 05:14 StasisField wrote:On October 01 2020 04:53 Danglars wrote:
White supremacism and whatever the “nouveau return to western civilization” should be called are also idea.
They should be seen as plug and play ideologies that can be plugged into different groups run by malcontents. The ideas of Antifa themselves didn’t kill a dude in Portland a month ago, it was some hardcore Antifa guy. You do realize why there is a distinction between an idea and an organization, right? The KKK has a national leader that directs the KKK's actions and messages. Power within white supremacist movements like the Klan are centralized in a national leadership. They are an organization. Antifa does not have that. There is no overarching "Antifa" that all other Antifa branches follow and listen to. That's why you can't label Antifa as a terrorist organization or as an organization in general because there is no "Antifa" organization. You have random, independent branches scattered all across the U.S. who are deciding what they believe Antifa stands for and how their branch should go about expressing their independently formed beliefs. They are not even close to the same. You’re confusing the lack of a hierarchical national organizing body, with the lack of organization. The KKK would still be bad if it wasn’t centrally run, and each city instead organized on its own. Their ideology is repugnant. It’s no wonder that so many of these independent bodies have contributed to violence. Biden should condemn Antifa if he really wants to draw a line against Trump. Too bad Trumps too all over the place to articulate the point. I'm not confusing it with a lack of organization though. People trying to argue that you can label anyone who identifies as Antifa as a terrorist are confusing organizations existing with there being an overarching, national organization. Trying to give Antifa in general a terrorist label for something a specific branch did is like trying to give everyone who follows Islam a terrorist label because of something done by ISIS. You can condemn the actions of the branch and even label that branch as a terrorist organization if their core tenants and actions are terrorist in nature but you can't label the general ideology terrorist in nature. That's why "Antifa" is an idea and not an organization. White Supremacist movements like the Klan, however have a national, centralized leadership, and actions done under the name of the Klan reflect the Klan as a whole. They are an organization.
I'm not hung up on the idea that you have to label them a terrorist organization. I think they're rightly described as Antifa, something that should be condemned in modern society by presidential candidates of both parties. They have an ideology that says, generally, there's fascists around that must be opposed by any means necessary, including violence. Anarchist, violent extremists hold to that banner, just as militia types on the opposite side of things (in the words of Christopher Wray).
It's like the relationship between million dollar cap AAA game developers and some indie shop with 20 employees. They're both businesses, and they're both in the same business, but just because of the size you can't call one not a video game developer. Antifa is several organizations headquartered in small chapters in cities that organize around opposing right-wing marches and holding their own usually-violent marches against police or capitalism or whatever event. Several of their members, and related groups, get arrested in cities regularly. When I say Antifa, I'm talking about the disparate organizations identifying with that name scattered across major cities in the United States. It doesn't matter to me that Portland Antifa claimed the head of a far-right guy, but some East Bay Antifa guy only managed to bludgeon a right-wing protester by swinging a bike lock, and the best Seattle Antifa members have been able to muster is smashing windows and possession of molotovs. Similar organizations, and a spectrum of crimes and charges. I see no reason to dismiss the commonalities for your insistence that it must be organized nationally to be called an organization.
I wouldn't say they were well-organized, though. Left-wingers tend to try and fail at that part.
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On October 01 2020 12:27 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2020 11:34 Zambrah wrote:On October 01 2020 11:13 Introvert wrote:On October 01 2020 05:07 Nebuchad wrote:On October 01 2020 04:30 Introvert wrote:On October 01 2020 04:18 Nebuchad wrote:On October 01 2020 03:13 dUTtrOACh wrote:On October 01 2020 02:54 Arghmyliver wrote:On October 01 2020 02:39 dUTtrOACh wrote:On October 01 2020 02:19 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]
The people that you describe, who want slow, careful change, are liberal democrats in the US. The republican party doesn't want to progress slower, it wants to revert back the recent progress, "make America great again". The only time the slow, moderate change republican exists in the framework of republican politics is when someone wants to get elected and they specify that they are NOT like this, that they will fight actively to get the results republicans want.
It is common for republicans, when talking to liberals, to hide behind conservatism because it's a politically correct position. But they aren't that, we can see that through all of their beliefs and actions. What you are describing are regressives, not conservatives. Not all supporters of the Republicans are regressives. The idea that a statement like MAGA is akin to "let's turn back the clock in all aspects" is reductive. The idea that America was a once-great nation that in recent times has fallen from grace is not a uniquely Republican one. Perhaps the innocent interpretation is that some Americans really naively want their country to be elavated to the level it once was, not just feared for their military might. I'm not saying Trump will be able do that or even that it's somehow possible; the world is competitive af right now. I just don't see Joe Biden as a non-racist (he's said enough dumb shit to substantiate at least that), nor do I see him as a good candidate. What I see is a decrepit establishment politician trying to masquerade as an agent of change. TLDR: It's giant douche vs turd sandwich all over again. This is the first thing you've said that makes any sense. The problem is that the recent fall from grace is directly related to the current GOP and the regressive nature of American politics in general. We have a two party system that glorifies the adversarial nature of the two parties to play to the win/lose dichotomy that pervades American culture. At this point the system is just designed to perpetuate itself. The parties are paid as long as the engine is running, but the car doesn't have to actually go anywhere. As such the "liberal" and "conservative" nature of the parties skews further right over time to the point where we have actual whiny Hitler. We don't want Biden but we sure as hell don't want someone flooring it in reverse. I don't really have any hope, I'm trying to get plans together to leave, but I'll vote Biden before I go. I'd probably point at the time of the Vietnam war as the beginning of America's gradual fall from grace. It tied in to the hipocrisy of being conscripted to fight for "freedom" abroad when [black/non-white] Americans themselves were not free. The impression of the government being "good" or "incorruptable" was shattered at that time. Dismissing the fear of communism isn't helping the Democrats, particularly not as they recruit from further and further left into their upper echelons. One of the observable trends of american politics is the democratic party shifting right, which starts under Carter. That's why conservatives used to be rightwing, because the left was actual left. You're scared of democrats moving left but that was one of the conditions of the period you liked. (Also socialism is good) As much as I wish I had time for "what happened to the parties! [in the South]" that will have to be for another day. The Democrat party has obviously moved left, just more slowly than the 30s and 40s and not always on all issues at once. The reason they came to "moderate" is because when the nation wasnt in economic crisis Democrat presidential candidates mostly got their clocks cleaned. Carter won after Nixon stomped in 72. Clinton came in after Reagan/Bush won three straight presidential elections with two being some of the largest landslides ever and the third being a huge rout. Even before FDR the GOP won a large majority of presidential races post civil war. And Carter, Clinton, and Obama all benefitted immensely from economic slowdowns. Democrats simply have some sort of self-preservation instinct that tells them that when they say "look at the polls our radical ideas are popular!", they are wrong. I'm reading that they had a good reason to do so, not that they didn't do it eh, I put "moderate" in quotes for a reason. Biden the "centrist" is still further left than Biden the "centrist" of the 70s. He's been in politics so long that he actually makes an excellent study for how the Democrat party has moved. It's moved left. The last Democrat president described himself as to the right of Nixon though, Democrats since the 90s seem to have leaned rightwards. And Obama was wrong. I disagree, but I feel I'm not going to make any progress. Biden is out there denouncing or ignoring a whole bunch of stuff from the 90s. I think Democrat vs leftist discussions and arguments from the thread over the years here are probably more helpful than I can be when talking with said Democrats and leftists.
My guess is a lot of what you would describe as the Democrats moving further left is the Democrats moving further socially liberal. This is not something that I take issue with.
To get back to a pre-Reagan state of politics in terms of left vs right, there's still a lot of road ahead. Both for the US and for the world, unfortunately.
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On October 01 2020 12:09 NrG.Bamboo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2020 11:27 Danglars wrote:On October 01 2020 05:49 NrG.Bamboo wrote:On October 01 2020 03:51 Danglars wrote:
The trouble is the debate commission is old as hell and needs to be junked and replaced in the internet age.
One is president JFK’s appointee to the FCC. They’re mostly as old as Trump and Biden. Defund the commission. I feel like one of the biggest problems with this sort of a setting (outside of an inability to rein in the speakers) is that either person can just say bold claims that may or may not be true, and it doesn't really get fact-checked by anyone until afterwards (except the opponent who would obviously say things are false if they disagree anyway.) It's mostly making speeches towards each other, and it's on the viewer to believe/deny what's being said until they can research or refresh their memory later, which I suspect most people don't do. A while back when some people were trying to set up Joe Rogan to moderate conversation/debate between the two, I thought that was unironically a great idea. In a setting for which bullshit claims can be fact checked and arguments develop based on facts would be quite a thing to see from our presidential candidates. I think pulling up sources in real-time and going over them together would be a better demonstration of how each person actually intends on moving the country in a particular direction. For what it's worth, Trump agreed to the proposition. I think the candidates themselves bear the responsibility to call out lies or non-answers during the debate itself. A free press then writes articles with a breadth of opinions can then publish articles going through why they think #1-50 statements were lies or half-truths. Right now, this is only accomplished by reading both left-wing and right-wing biased fact checks, as no one source gives a good neutral read at present time. The debates themselves need to show both candidates sustaining their point of view and responding to attacks, not to serve as a venue for instant fact checks. If Trump or Bush or Obama only gives interviews to friendly interviewers, the debate exchanges are a good first time for intense questioning to show voters they can give plausible responses. That's their value. I can understand that there is certainly value in having them stand on their own as a competency evaluation, no doubt. I'd not like to replace or remove these debates at all, however: Show nested quote +
I think too much is made of the "dumb voter" hypothesis, in which voters are too stupid to look up the truth or falsehood of states on issues that matter to them. It's essential in a democracy to trust that enough citizens can seek these things out on their own and make evaluations on the arguments that are presented to them. The "real-time" sources and junk are way overrated.
I'm not so sure about this. As you've said, fact checking thoroughly means looking at it from different perspectives, which I don't think most people do. Not doubling down on the "dumb voter" idea in the sense that they don't care enough, but rather pointing out that people might look back to see for themselves what's correct, but overlook the fact that these "fact checkers" are also biased. Most people just want to confirm what they already believe anyway, which is where I see the value of being able to check in real-time to steer the conversation into more productive endeavor. I'm curious why you feel that it is overrated?
Maybe the point I think you need to start accepting is that current fact-checking assignments are so polarized by political ideology that real-time fact-checking is impossible to perform. The only fair way to accomplish this is to have several journalistic institutions publish multiple fact checks and let voters assess their value by comparing them. I've had a couple people already talk to me about how many fact checks they saw that diminished Biden's lies but accentuated Trump's lies. That's the whole point! Everyone is going to come into it with their preexisting political views, and some percentage will go on to challenge them with the reverse. I'd like more people to encourage their friends to read hostile media and keep reading it to remedy this problem. Read the Wall Street Journal editorial page after the NYT and WaPo's editorial pages. Live fact checking is a spin-job, and the real alternative option is pairing biased sources from each side.
Encourage voters to consume a variety of media, instead of putting false hope in a universal fact-check, which is too flawed and very unproductive.
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Danglars, you're advocating labeling a philosophy as terrorism. Just making sure that is your intention? Labeling antifa as a terrorist organization is roughly analogous to making "very conservative libertarian" a terrorist organization.
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On October 01 2020 12:46 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2020 12:09 NrG.Bamboo wrote:On October 01 2020 11:27 Danglars wrote:On October 01 2020 05:49 NrG.Bamboo wrote:On October 01 2020 03:51 Danglars wrote:
The trouble is the debate commission is old as hell and needs to be junked and replaced in the internet age.
One is president JFK’s appointee to the FCC. They’re mostly as old as Trump and Biden. Defund the commission. I feel like one of the biggest problems with this sort of a setting (outside of an inability to rein in the speakers) is that either person can just say bold claims that may or may not be true, and it doesn't really get fact-checked by anyone until afterwards (except the opponent who would obviously say things are false if they disagree anyway.) It's mostly making speeches towards each other, and it's on the viewer to believe/deny what's being said until they can research or refresh their memory later, which I suspect most people don't do. A while back when some people were trying to set up Joe Rogan to moderate conversation/debate between the two, I thought that was unironically a great idea. In a setting for which bullshit claims can be fact checked and arguments develop based on facts would be quite a thing to see from our presidential candidates. I think pulling up sources in real-time and going over them together would be a better demonstration of how each person actually intends on moving the country in a particular direction. For what it's worth, Trump agreed to the proposition. I think the candidates themselves bear the responsibility to call out lies or non-answers during the debate itself. A free press then writes articles with a breadth of opinions can then publish articles going through why they think #1-50 statements were lies or half-truths. Right now, this is only accomplished by reading both left-wing and right-wing biased fact checks, as no one source gives a good neutral read at present time. The debates themselves need to show both candidates sustaining their point of view and responding to attacks, not to serve as a venue for instant fact checks. If Trump or Bush or Obama only gives interviews to friendly interviewers, the debate exchanges are a good first time for intense questioning to show voters they can give plausible responses. That's their value. I can understand that there is certainly value in having them stand on their own as a competency evaluation, no doubt. I'd not like to replace or remove these debates at all, however:
I think too much is made of the "dumb voter" hypothesis, in which voters are too stupid to look up the truth or falsehood of states on issues that matter to them. It's essential in a democracy to trust that enough citizens can seek these things out on their own and make evaluations on the arguments that are presented to them. The "real-time" sources and junk are way overrated.
I'm not so sure about this. As you've said, fact checking thoroughly means looking at it from different perspectives, which I don't think most people do. Not doubling down on the "dumb voter" idea in the sense that they don't care enough, but rather pointing out that people might look back to see for themselves what's correct, but overlook the fact that these "fact checkers" are also biased. Most people just want to confirm what they already believe anyway, which is where I see the value of being able to check in real-time to steer the conversation into more productive endeavor. I'm curious why you feel that it is overrated? Maybe the point I think you need to start accepting is that current fact-checking assignments are so polarized by political ideology that real-time fact-checking is impossible to perform. The only fair way to accomplish this is to have several journalistic institutions publish multiple fact checks and let voters assess their value by comparing them. I've had a couple people already talk to me about how many fact checks they saw that diminished Biden's lies but accentuated Trump's lies. That's the whole point! Everyone is going to come into it with their preexisting political views, and some percentage will go on to challenge them with the reverse. I'd like more people to encourage their friends to read hostile media and keep reading it to remedy this problem. Read the Wall Street Journal editorial page after the NYT and WaPo's editorial pages. Live fact checking is a spin-job, and the real alternative option is pairing biased sources from each side. Encourage voters to consume a variety of media, instead of putting false hope in a universal fact-check, which is too flawed and very unproductive.
Fair enough.
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On October 01 2020 12:35 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2020 11:53 StasisField wrote:On October 01 2020 05:34 Danglars wrote:On October 01 2020 05:14 StasisField wrote:On October 01 2020 04:53 Danglars wrote:
White supremacism and whatever the “nouveau return to western civilization” should be called are also idea.
They should be seen as plug and play ideologies that can be plugged into different groups run by malcontents. The ideas of Antifa themselves didn’t kill a dude in Portland a month ago, it was some hardcore Antifa guy. You do realize why there is a distinction between an idea and an organization, right? The KKK has a national leader that directs the KKK's actions and messages. Power within white supremacist movements like the Klan are centralized in a national leadership. They are an organization. Antifa does not have that. There is no overarching "Antifa" that all other Antifa branches follow and listen to. That's why you can't label Antifa as a terrorist organization or as an organization in general because there is no "Antifa" organization. You have random, independent branches scattered all across the U.S. who are deciding what they believe Antifa stands for and how their branch should go about expressing their independently formed beliefs. They are not even close to the same. You’re confusing the lack of a hierarchical national organizing body, with the lack of organization. The KKK would still be bad if it wasn’t centrally run, and each city instead organized on its own. Their ideology is repugnant. It’s no wonder that so many of these independent bodies have contributed to violence. Biden should condemn Antifa if he really wants to draw a line against Trump. Too bad Trumps too all over the place to articulate the point. I'm not confusing it with a lack of organization though. People trying to argue that you can label anyone who identifies as Antifa as a terrorist are confusing organizations existing with there being an overarching, national organization. Trying to give Antifa in general a terrorist label for something a specific branch did is like trying to give everyone who follows Islam a terrorist label because of something done by ISIS. You can condemn the actions of the branch and even label that branch as a terrorist organization if their core tenants and actions are terrorist in nature but you can't label the general ideology terrorist in nature. That's why "Antifa" is an idea and not an organization. White Supremacist movements like the Klan, however have a national, centralized leadership, and actions done under the name of the Klan reflect the Klan as a whole. They are an organization. I'm not hung up on the idea that you have to label them a terrorist organization. I think they're rightly described as Antifa, something that should be condemned in modern society by presidential candidates of both parties. They have an ideology that says, generally, there's fascists around that must be opposed by any means necessary, including violence. Anarchist, violent extremists hold to that banner, just as militia types on the opposite side of things (in the words of Christopher Wray). It's like the relationship between million dollar cap AAA game developers and some indie shop with 20 employees. They're both businesses, and they're both in the same business, but just because of the size you can't call one not a video game developer. Antifa is several organizations headquartered in small chapters in cities that organize around opposing right-wing marches and holding their own usually-violent marches against police or capitalism or whatever event. Several of their members, and related groups, get arrested in cities regularly. When I say Antifa, I'm talking about the disparate organizations identifying with that name scattered across major cities in the United States. It doesn't matter to me that Portland Antifa claimed the head of a far-right guy, but some East Bay Antifa guy only managed to bludgeon a right-wing protester by swinging a bike lock, and the best Seattle Antifa members have been able to muster is smashing windows and possession of molotovs. Similar organizations, and a spectrum of crimes and charges. I see no reason to dismiss the commonalities for your insistence that it must be organized nationally to be called an organization. I wouldn't say they were well-organized, though. Left-wingers tend to try and fail at that part.
I think the part people struggle with is that there's no governing body for Antifa, and therefore no structure saying "This person is Antifa, this person is not." and no accountability.
Compare it to the Proud Boys. I could declare myself a Proud Boy, go out and absolutely fuck up an old person because violence is "Our M.O.", and Proud Boys could issue a statement along the lines of "We have no idea who that is, but they fucked up an old person and we think that's funny and cool. They're not a Proud Boy but good effort." because they're an actual organization.
Similarly, I could declare myself ANTIFA (or, really, anyone could) and go set fire to a building or fuck up an old person, and there's no central agency to condemn or condone my actions, just reports and reporters who could (fairly) say that I 'was Antifa' and did a shitty thing.
I guess it's actually most similar to feminism, honestly. I consider feminism a very respectable ideal, and have encountered extremist feminists with shitty, toxic ideas that I suspect come from a place of great hurt. Similarly to antifa, there's no 'governing agency' for feminism overall, no president of feminism that can comment on where the message of the more extreme feminists lie, or governing body for the momentum of the movement. People self-declare themselves feminists, and while I'd personally be willing to hear arguments that the entire movement comes from a bad place or whatever, I would (and do) quickly correct people who want to blanket-declare feminism and feminists as undesireable based on interactions with extremist feminists who don't necessarily represent the core of the idea.
With that as framing, I do not agree with open denouncement of antifa, because antifa ideals as I understand them (Being anti-fascist, anti-homophobia/xenophobia) are things I see as good and would support, and do not believe regarding the entire idea as bad because that envelope contains some ugliness.
As points of clarification, I do recognize that feminism at large engages more bureaucratic methods of invoking change and doesn't endorse violence 'where needed'. I also recognize that I'm ultimately making a "few bad eggs" argument, which is why I mention a willingness to listen to an argument suggesting that antifa is rotten at the core of its ideas. Lastly, I will mention that I see antifa's 'inclusion of violence as an acceptable means of defending their ideals' is conceptually similar, to me, to the citizens of the US having a right to arm themselves against their own government - the idea there not being that US citizens are encouraged toward wanton use of force, but an acknowledgement that there are scenarios in which force is necessary.
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On October 01 2020 12:28 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2020 11:34 Zambrah wrote:On October 01 2020 11:13 Introvert wrote:On October 01 2020 05:07 Nebuchad wrote:On October 01 2020 04:30 Introvert wrote:On October 01 2020 04:18 Nebuchad wrote:On October 01 2020 03:13 dUTtrOACh wrote:On October 01 2020 02:54 Arghmyliver wrote:On October 01 2020 02:39 dUTtrOACh wrote:On October 01 2020 02:19 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]
The people that you describe, who want slow, careful change, are liberal democrats in the US. The republican party doesn't want to progress slower, it wants to revert back the recent progress, "make America great again". The only time the slow, moderate change republican exists in the framework of republican politics is when someone wants to get elected and they specify that they are NOT like this, that they will fight actively to get the results republicans want.
It is common for republicans, when talking to liberals, to hide behind conservatism because it's a politically correct position. But they aren't that, we can see that through all of their beliefs and actions. What you are describing are regressives, not conservatives. Not all supporters of the Republicans are regressives. The idea that a statement like MAGA is akin to "let's turn back the clock in all aspects" is reductive. The idea that America was a once-great nation that in recent times has fallen from grace is not a uniquely Republican one. Perhaps the innocent interpretation is that some Americans really naively want their country to be elavated to the level it once was, not just feared for their military might. I'm not saying Trump will be able do that or even that it's somehow possible; the world is competitive af right now. I just don't see Joe Biden as a non-racist (he's said enough dumb shit to substantiate at least that), nor do I see him as a good candidate. What I see is a decrepit establishment politician trying to masquerade as an agent of change. TLDR: It's giant douche vs turd sandwich all over again. This is the first thing you've said that makes any sense. The problem is that the recent fall from grace is directly related to the current GOP and the regressive nature of American politics in general. We have a two party system that glorifies the adversarial nature of the two parties to play to the win/lose dichotomy that pervades American culture. At this point the system is just designed to perpetuate itself. The parties are paid as long as the engine is running, but the car doesn't have to actually go anywhere. As such the "liberal" and "conservative" nature of the parties skews further right over time to the point where we have actual whiny Hitler. We don't want Biden but we sure as hell don't want someone flooring it in reverse. I don't really have any hope, I'm trying to get plans together to leave, but I'll vote Biden before I go. I'd probably point at the time of the Vietnam war as the beginning of America's gradual fall from grace. It tied in to the hipocrisy of being conscripted to fight for "freedom" abroad when [black/non-white] Americans themselves were not free. The impression of the government being "good" or "incorruptable" was shattered at that time. Dismissing the fear of communism isn't helping the Democrats, particularly not as they recruit from further and further left into their upper echelons. One of the observable trends of american politics is the democratic party shifting right, which starts under Carter. That's why conservatives used to be rightwing, because the left was actual left. You're scared of democrats moving left but that was one of the conditions of the period you liked. (Also socialism is good) As much as I wish I had time for "what happened to the parties! [in the South]" that will have to be for another day. The Democrat party has obviously moved left, just more slowly than the 30s and 40s and not always on all issues at once. The reason they came to "moderate" is because when the nation wasnt in economic crisis Democrat presidential candidates mostly got their clocks cleaned. Carter won after Nixon stomped in 72. Clinton came in after Reagan/Bush won three straight presidential elections with two being some of the largest landslides ever and the third being a huge rout. Even before FDR the GOP won a large majority of presidential races post civil war. And Carter, Clinton, and Obama all benefitted immensely from economic slowdowns. Democrats simply have some sort of self-preservation instinct that tells them that when they say "look at the polls our radical ideas are popular!", they are wrong. I'm reading that they had a good reason to do so, not that they didn't do it eh, I put "moderate" in quotes for a reason. Biden the "centrist" is still further left than Biden the "centrist" of the 70s. He's been in politics so long that he actually makes an excellent study for how the Democrat party has moved. It's moved left. The last Democrat president described himself as to the right of Nixon though, Democrats since the 90s seem to have leaned rightwards. There's a lot of ... not misinformation, but only small facts being bandied about in this conversation that aren't really addressing the whole picture. The parties were not truly ideological delineated for a very long time in the post WW2-era. There were liberal republicans and conservative democrats (still are, on both of these, but they've been dwindling since the early 2000s). There's been ideological realignments, starting most notably with Goldwater in 64 and continued with Nixon's southern strategy where he appealed to conservative democrats in the south. Neither of these did in the liberal republican though. Reagan didn't do it either. The rise of conservative talk radio and fox news coincided with the increase of conservatives in the GOP and decrease in liberals, but it's hard to credit anything with causing it. The GOP fucked up the economy so hard in 1920s that from 1933-1995 they only controlled the house + senate at once for a total of 4 years for that 62 year period. So everyone had to work with democrats to get anything done, even if they happened to be republican presidents. This is in part why the ideology didn't matter that much : the US was effectively a one party system for 6 decades on a legislative level. This is also why "both sides are the same!" resonates so strongly with people above a certain age : it used to be true, in the literal sense. The presidency was a different story, and that's part of where we get into the modern day candidates. Democrats had run liberal candidates several times and they kept losing to conservative republicans - Reagan, specifically, who was very popular (and Reagan was probably similar to Obama in a lot of his policies, to give you an idea of how much things have shifted since then) and handily beat the liberal Carter and Mondale, and Bush Sr beat Dukakis. Nixon was also a conservative and had won the last truly contested election. So democrats nominated a centrist, "new democrat" (or third way), Clinton, who ran as a centrist/conservative. The 94-95 house takeback was fueled by a perception he was actually governing as a liberal who had lied about being a centrist, so he needed conservatives to act as a restraint on his actions. That campaign made the house a national rather than local race, and let the GOP effectively regain control of congress for most of the last 30 years (its architect was Gingrich). Clinton royally pissed off the GOP by appropriating many of the Bush/Reagan's most popular talking points, so many of them moved further right so that they could keep attacking him as a leftist. Obama ran as a progressive and governed as a centrist technocrat. So his language always sounded very liberal, but his actual actions were always basically a couple millimeters left of Reagan. So, before 1995, I would say that there was ideologically almost no difference between the parties, and since then, it has steadily opened up. Deregulations, for example, were all passed as easily under Clinton as they were under Bush Sr (with some of the worst ones happening under Clinton rather than Bush Jr's watch). Trying to cap it off as just a short statement on how one party has become more or less conservative since X time is being a bit too pat and cute. Democrats moved somewhat right on economics compared to <1995, and left socially since then. Republicans have moved right on both of these things. Biden would probably say he regrets the Anita Hill incident, and that interracial marriage should be legal, but that he wouldn't want to create the same welfare systems we had in 1975.
Eh, I'll let most of this slide, even the parts that are just as absurd today as they were the first time they were said (Reagan millimeters to the right of Obama).
And I agree that the Democrat dominance in Congress also limited a lot of what Republican presidents could do.
...you know what, I had a longer post written up what I think happened, but this isn't even a permanent thread, so I will look for the next available opportunity to post it there, when the topic comes up again. The spoiler is that I think the increasing nationalization, and thus, perhaps, ideological sorting, of the two parties has a very plausible cause. But it's not the left's boogymen of talk radio or Fox.
But again I think I'm just too far from my leftist counterparts in this thread.
edited out a few things, not carrying this on to tomorrow.
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On October 01 2020 13:39 JimmiC wrote:
I have to say Trumps latest defense that he didn't know who the proud boys are is so awful. First because he is obviously does.
But let's pretend he does not because that actually makes him look WAY worse. So Wallace is asking him to condemn white supremacists and Trump says who who? Biden says the proud boys, so he asked for a white supremacist group, got one and then says stand back but stand by. How is that better? First he is saying that he is wildly out of touch with America for not knowing, then he will just say stand by to any white supremacist group? Got to have them all at the ready?
WTF? Who gives him this advice or is it him?
Because of course he courted the Proud Boys to commit violence on his behalf in the same breath where he supposedly condemns the KKK. So now he has to walk it back and say he has no idea who they are - his usual move when he deals with someone super fucked up and people find out.
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On October 01 2020 13:25 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2020 12:35 Danglars wrote:On October 01 2020 11:53 StasisField wrote:On October 01 2020 05:34 Danglars wrote:On October 01 2020 05:14 StasisField wrote:On October 01 2020 04:53 Danglars wrote:
White supremacism and whatever the “nouveau return to western civilization” should be called are also idea.
They should be seen as plug and play ideologies that can be plugged into different groups run by malcontents. The ideas of Antifa themselves didn’t kill a dude in Portland a month ago, it was some hardcore Antifa guy. You do realize why there is a distinction between an idea and an organization, right? The KKK has a national leader that directs the KKK's actions and messages. Power within white supremacist movements like the Klan are centralized in a national leadership. They are an organization. Antifa does not have that. There is no overarching "Antifa" that all other Antifa branches follow and listen to. That's why you can't label Antifa as a terrorist organization or as an organization in general because there is no "Antifa" organization. You have random, independent branches scattered all across the U.S. who are deciding what they believe Antifa stands for and how their branch should go about expressing their independently formed beliefs. They are not even close to the same. You’re confusing the lack of a hierarchical national organizing body, with the lack of organization. The KKK would still be bad if it wasn’t centrally run, and each city instead organized on its own. Their ideology is repugnant. It’s no wonder that so many of these independent bodies have contributed to violence. Biden should condemn Antifa if he really wants to draw a line against Trump. Too bad Trumps too all over the place to articulate the point. I'm not confusing it with a lack of organization though. People trying to argue that you can label anyone who identifies as Antifa as a terrorist are confusing organizations existing with there being an overarching, national organization. Trying to give Antifa in general a terrorist label for something a specific branch did is like trying to give everyone who follows Islam a terrorist label because of something done by ISIS. You can condemn the actions of the branch and even label that branch as a terrorist organization if their core tenants and actions are terrorist in nature but you can't label the general ideology terrorist in nature. That's why "Antifa" is an idea and not an organization. White Supremacist movements like the Klan, however have a national, centralized leadership, and actions done under the name of the Klan reflect the Klan as a whole. They are an organization. I'm not hung up on the idea that you have to label them a terrorist organization. I think they're rightly described as Antifa, something that should be condemned in modern society by presidential candidates of both parties. They have an ideology that says, generally, there's fascists around that must be opposed by any means necessary, including violence. Anarchist, violent extremists hold to that banner, just as militia types on the opposite side of things (in the words of Christopher Wray). It's like the relationship between million dollar cap AAA game developers and some indie shop with 20 employees. They're both businesses, and they're both in the same business, but just because of the size you can't call one not a video game developer. Antifa is several organizations headquartered in small chapters in cities that organize around opposing right-wing marches and holding their own usually-violent marches against police or capitalism or whatever event. Several of their members, and related groups, get arrested in cities regularly. When I say Antifa, I'm talking about the disparate organizations identifying with that name scattered across major cities in the United States. It doesn't matter to me that Portland Antifa claimed the head of a far-right guy, but some East Bay Antifa guy only managed to bludgeon a right-wing protester by swinging a bike lock, and the best Seattle Antifa members have been able to muster is smashing windows and possession of molotovs. Similar organizations, and a spectrum of crimes and charges. I see no reason to dismiss the commonalities for your insistence that it must be organized nationally to be called an organization. I wouldn't say they were well-organized, though. Left-wingers tend to try and fail at that part. I think the part people struggle with is that there's no governing body for Antifa, and therefore no structure saying "This person is Antifa, this person is not." and no accountability. Compare it to the Proud Boys. I could declare myself a Proud Boy, go out and absolutely fuck up an old person because violence is "Our M.O.", and Proud Boys could issue a statement along the lines of "We have no idea who that is, but they fucked up an old person and we think that's funny and cool. They're not a Proud Boy but good effort." because they're an actual organization. Similarly, I could declare myself ANTIFA (or, really, anyone could) and go set fire to a building or fuck up an old person, and there's no central agency to condemn or condone my actions, just reports and reporters who could (fairly) say that I 'was Antifa' and did a shitty thing. I guess it's actually most similar to feminism, honestly. I consider feminism a very respectable ideal, and have encountered extremist feminists with shitty, toxic ideas that I suspect come from a place of great hurt. Similarly to antifa, there's no 'governing agency' for feminism overall, no president of feminism that can comment on where the message of the more extreme feminists lie, or governing body for the momentum of the movement. People self-declare themselves feminists, and while I'd personally be willing to hear arguments that the entire movement comes from a bad place or whatever, I would (and do) quickly correct people who want to blanket-declare feminism and feminists as undesireable based on interactions with extremist feminists who don't necessarily represent the core of the idea. With that as framing, I do not agree with open denouncement of antifa, because antifa ideals as I understand them (Being anti-fascist, anti-homophobia/xenophobia) are things I see as good and would support, and do not believe regarding the entire idea as bad because that envelope contains some ugliness. As points of clarification, I do recognize that feminism at large engages more bureaucratic methods of invoking change and doesn't endorse violence 'where needed'. I also recognize that I'm ultimately making a "few bad eggs" argument, which is why I mention a willingness to listen to an argument suggesting that antifa is rotten at the core of its ideas. Lastly, I will mention that I see antifa's 'inclusion of violence as an acceptable means of defending their ideals' is conceptually similar, to me, to the citizens of the US having a right to arm themselves against their own government - the idea there not being that US citizens are encouraged toward wanton use of force, but an acknowledgement that there are scenarios in which force is necessary.
I don't see any reason why the Proud Boys would disavow, and the local Antifa branch would not. You don't present one.
I think the Antifa ideal should be denounced pretty easily, even by somebody like you. A civil society cannot tolerate actors that appoint themselves to label certain movements fascist and respond with violence. I include violence against property and against persons in this description. They're behaving and have behaved as an advance group taking active measures against who they view as fascists. This should be easily differentiated from time-honored defensive efforts protecting person, family, and property. Street melee and molotovs aren't transferable between arming yourself for self-defense. Maybe some imaginative, reformed Antifa could make better use of their second amendment rights and publish pamphlets denouncing tyranny directed against them ... and I wish you all the luck with that, if you're disposed to it.
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EPT
