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On October 30 2024 22:05 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 21:57 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 21:50 oBlade wrote:
Senators in California and mayors in Chicago are not subject to an electoral college. Ask people if their votes for Senator and mayor there matter more than for president. And were we just talking about senators? No, we were talking about presidents. Also, of course you specify senators in California. But if you talk about senators in general, you once again get the problem that some votes matter a lot more than others. If you live in California, you get about 1 in 20 millionth of a senator. If you live in Montana, you get about 1 in 500kth of a senator, or 40 times as many senators. Once again, some votes count more than others. And multiply that by 2 and you get the share of a governor that a citizen is voting for. What percent of the mayor does a resident of Chicago vote for vs. a resident of Bozeman?
Dude, you can't be this daft and not get this.
We were talking about the presidency. Some votes matter for the presidency, most don't. That is a problem.
I will not let myself get distracted into the sidepoint you are trying to talk about. You already know what was meant, and are trying to obfuscate and distract. You are not as stupid as you act.
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Speaking of DEI, i remember hearing a podcast from Stacey Abrams where she suggested we lean into it. She made a valid point that, for example , appalachia is DEI. "EQUITY" AND "INCLUSION". Poor rural areas are net receivers of a disproportionate amount of money from the larger more populous cities and states.
From a business case stand point there would be no roads, utilities, or mail delivered in some of these places but for the net good of society and in the spirit of equity and inclusion we provide these services.
It seems like the "Diversity" aspect is the only thing people really have a problem with. Although diversity is more than race. Having a poor person,or a rural person, or an appalachian person could be forms of diversity.
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On October 30 2024 22:07 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 22:05 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 21:57 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 21:50 oBlade wrote:
Senators in California and mayors in Chicago are not subject to an electoral college. Ask people if their votes for Senator and mayor there matter more than for president. And were we just talking about senators? No, we were talking about presidents. Also, of course you specify senators in California. But if you talk about senators in general, you once again get the problem that some votes matter a lot more than others. If you live in California, you get about 1 in 20 millionth of a senator. If you live in Montana, you get about 1 in 500kth of a senator, or 40 times as many senators. Once again, some votes count more than others. And multiply that by 2 and you get the share of a governor that a citizen is voting for. What percent of the mayor does a resident of Chicago vote for vs. a resident of Bozeman? Dude, you can't be this daft and not get this. We were talking about the presidency. Some votes matter for the presidency, most don't. That is a problem. I will not let myself get distracted into the sidepoint you are trying to talk about. You already know what was meant, and are trying to obfuscate and distract. You are not as stupid as you act.
If you have no answer, that's fine. Obviously I'm going to be making a different point than you as we're different individuals.
You specifically said "your vote only matters in a state that might go both ways." NOT "your vote is worth more in low population states." Obfuscate your own damn self.
But fine, let's take your new idea. Explain something to me. Why is it, or not, a problem that a Montana vote for governor counts for more than a California vote for governor?
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On October 30 2024 12:16 Turbovolver wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 10:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Cool gaslighting, bro. You've mentioned that phrase over and over again in the past, and aimed it squarely at Harris and KBJ. Maybe stop bringing up their race and sex. I got curious about this so I searched all BlackJack posts. Five come up, all of them extremely recent, and four of them in response to others' posts. The first one, this one, Show nested quote +“Is there any way we can brag about Kamala Harris being a DEI success story while simultaneously denying that her success is attributable to DEI?” sort of implies that BlackJack thinks her success is attributable to DEI, but is also a response to ongoing discussion in the thread. I'm not sure where the arguments about KBJ are, but no, BlackJack has not repeatedly used "this phrase" over and over again in the past. That was oBlade. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not invested in defending BlackJack's apparent opinions about Kamala's credentials, I just wanted to see if any gaslighting was going on.
I agree that oBlade has talked a lot about that too. I don't want to relitigate all of the previous conversations surrounding BlackJack's takes on DEI, only caring about race and sex, diversity hires, what is/isn't racist or sexist, and other positions he's had about whether or not KBJ's and Harris's qualifications were truly considered by Biden/Democrats, but he's written a lot of posts in those conversations.
Here's the bottom line for me: Merit also matters, period. BlackJack said that merit doesn't matter. I think that's wrong, and it seems to be the case that most people here also think that's wrong, because Harris (and KBJ) are indeed qualified individuals.
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On October 30 2024 22:24 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 22:07 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 22:05 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 21:57 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 21:50 oBlade wrote:
Senators in California and mayors in Chicago are not subject to an electoral college. Ask people if their votes for Senator and mayor there matter more than for president. And were we just talking about senators? No, we were talking about presidents. Also, of course you specify senators in California. But if you talk about senators in general, you once again get the problem that some votes matter a lot more than others. If you live in California, you get about 1 in 20 millionth of a senator. If you live in Montana, you get about 1 in 500kth of a senator, or 40 times as many senators. Once again, some votes count more than others. And multiply that by 2 and you get the share of a governor that a citizen is voting for. What percent of the mayor does a resident of Chicago vote for vs. a resident of Bozeman? Dude, you can't be this daft and not get this. We were talking about the presidency. Some votes matter for the presidency, most don't. That is a problem. I will not let myself get distracted into the sidepoint you are trying to talk about. You already know what was meant, and are trying to obfuscate and distract. You are not as stupid as you act. If you have no answer, that's fine. Obviously I'm going to be making a different point than you as we're different individuals. You specifically said "your vote only matters in a state that might go both ways." NOT "your vote is worth more in low population states." Obfuscate your own damn self. But fine, let's take your new idea. Explain something to me. Why is it, or not, a problem that a Montana vote for governor counts for more than a California vote for governor?
Presidency. We were talking about the presidency. Stop distracting.
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On October 30 2024 22:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 12:16 Turbovolver wrote:On October 30 2024 10:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Cool gaslighting, bro. You've mentioned that phrase over and over again in the past, and aimed it squarely at Harris and KBJ. Maybe stop bringing up their race and sex. I got curious about this so I searched all BlackJack posts. Five come up, all of them extremely recent, and four of them in response to others' posts. The first one, this one, “Is there any way we can brag about Kamala Harris being a DEI success story while simultaneously denying that her success is attributable to DEI?” sort of implies that BlackJack thinks her success is attributable to DEI, but is also a response to ongoing discussion in the thread. I'm not sure where the arguments about KBJ are, but no, BlackJack has not repeatedly used "this phrase" over and over again in the past. That was oBlade. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not invested in defending BlackJack's apparent opinions about Kamala's credentials, I just wanted to see if any gaslighting was going on. I agree that oBlade has talked a lot about that too. I don't want to relitigate all of the previous conversations surrounding BlackJack's takes on DEI, only caring about race and sex, diversity hires, what is/isn't racist or sexist, and other positions he's had about whether or not KBJ's and Harris's qualifications were truly considered by Biden/Democrats, but he's written a lot of posts in those conversations. Here's the bottom line for me: Merit also matters, period. BlackJack said that merit doesn't matter. I think that's wrong, and it seems to be the case that most people here also think that's wrong, because Harris (and KBJ) are indeed qualified individuals.
To add to this, merit not only matters within the Democrat party, it is visibly the only thing that matters. I posted two infographics roughly a week ago proving this point. If DEI is responsible, then it has resulted in the ethnic/gender makeup of the party to be highly representative of the American population. That is as close to real merit as it gets (so far). Unless someone were to argue that merit should lead to unequal representation - not likely an argument that would convince a Democrat.
The Republican party is the exact opposite. They represent white males above all else. It's close to 90%.
If I had to judge these two parties based on merit, Democrats would get an A and Republicans would get an F.
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On October 30 2024 21:22 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 21:13 Billyboy wrote:
It is not like the republicans are not picking based on identity. Kavanaugh was picked because of his age and faith, as was Barnett. Think of all the older and atheists that were screwed and not picked in spite of their merit.
The whole concept of merit is hard when you are talking about "representing" people to begin with mind you. And that right there is why I am NEUTRAL on Affirmative Action. Because I know damn well that if policies like it were not in place, people WOULD discriminate their hiring practices on this sort of shit exactly. If we could trust people to not be so goddamn biased and prejudiced with their hiring practices then we wouldn't need shit like Affirmative Action. But the Religious Right in this country loves to CONSTANTLY remind us exactly why it's a neccessary evil that we definitely do still need to have.
Totally agree.
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On October 30 2024 22:38 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 22:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 12:16 Turbovolver wrote:On October 30 2024 10:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Cool gaslighting, bro. You've mentioned that phrase over and over again in the past, and aimed it squarely at Harris and KBJ. Maybe stop bringing up their race and sex. I got curious about this so I searched all BlackJack posts. Five come up, all of them extremely recent, and four of them in response to others' posts. The first one, this one, “Is there any way we can brag about Kamala Harris being a DEI success story while simultaneously denying that her success is attributable to DEI?” sort of implies that BlackJack thinks her success is attributable to DEI, but is also a response to ongoing discussion in the thread. I'm not sure where the arguments about KBJ are, but no, BlackJack has not repeatedly used "this phrase" over and over again in the past. That was oBlade. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not invested in defending BlackJack's apparent opinions about Kamala's credentials, I just wanted to see if any gaslighting was going on. I agree that oBlade has talked a lot about that too. I don't want to relitigate all of the previous conversations surrounding BlackJack's takes on DEI, only caring about race and sex, diversity hires, what is/isn't racist or sexist, and other positions he's had about whether or not KBJ's and Harris's qualifications were truly considered by Biden/Democrats, but he's written a lot of posts in those conversations. Here's the bottom line for me: Merit also matters, period. BlackJack said that merit doesn't matter. I think that's wrong, and it seems to be the case that most people here also think that's wrong, because Harris (and KBJ) are indeed qualified individuals. To add to this, merit not only matters within the Democrat party, it is visibly the only thing that matters. I posted two infographics roughly a week ago proving this point. If DEI is responsible, then it has resulted in the ethnic/gender makeup of the party to be highly representative of the American population. That is as close to real merit as it gets (so far). Unless someone were to argue that merit should lead to unequal representation - not likely an argument that would convince a Democrat. The Republican party is the exact opposite. They represent white males above all else. It's close to 90%. If I had to judge these two parties based on merit, Democrats would get an A and Republicans would get an F.
The argument is flawed from the start. Merit simply does not matter, just look at Trump. There was no one more "meritorious" than Hillary Clinton and look how far that got her.
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On October 30 2024 23:08 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 22:38 Magic Powers wrote:On October 30 2024 22:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 12:16 Turbovolver wrote:On October 30 2024 10:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Cool gaslighting, bro. You've mentioned that phrase over and over again in the past, and aimed it squarely at Harris and KBJ. Maybe stop bringing up their race and sex. I got curious about this so I searched all BlackJack posts. Five come up, all of them extremely recent, and four of them in response to others' posts. The first one, this one, “Is there any way we can brag about Kamala Harris being a DEI success story while simultaneously denying that her success is attributable to DEI?” sort of implies that BlackJack thinks her success is attributable to DEI, but is also a response to ongoing discussion in the thread. I'm not sure where the arguments about KBJ are, but no, BlackJack has not repeatedly used "this phrase" over and over again in the past. That was oBlade. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not invested in defending BlackJack's apparent opinions about Kamala's credentials, I just wanted to see if any gaslighting was going on. I agree that oBlade has talked a lot about that too. I don't want to relitigate all of the previous conversations surrounding BlackJack's takes on DEI, only caring about race and sex, diversity hires, what is/isn't racist or sexist, and other positions he's had about whether or not KBJ's and Harris's qualifications were truly considered by Biden/Democrats, but he's written a lot of posts in those conversations. Here's the bottom line for me: Merit also matters, period. BlackJack said that merit doesn't matter. I think that's wrong, and it seems to be the case that most people here also think that's wrong, because Harris (and KBJ) are indeed qualified individuals. To add to this, merit not only matters within the Democrat party, it is visibly the only thing that matters. I posted two infographics roughly a week ago proving this point. If DEI is responsible, then it has resulted in the ethnic/gender makeup of the party to be highly representative of the American population. That is as close to real merit as it gets (so far). Unless someone were to argue that merit should lead to unequal representation - not likely an argument that would convince a Democrat. The Republican party is the exact opposite. They represent white males above all else. It's close to 90%. If I had to judge these two parties based on merit, Democrats would get an A and Republicans would get an F. The argument is flawed from the start. Merit simply does not matter, just look at Trump. There was no one more "meritorious" than Hillary Clinton and look how far that got her.
Merit doesn't matter for Trump supporters, but merit does matter for those who thought/think that Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris would be good presidents.
Edit/Disclaimer: I'm generalizing and there are surely exceptions to those groups caring or not caring about merit, but there are huge double standards.
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On October 30 2024 23:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 23:08 EnDeR_ wrote:On October 30 2024 22:38 Magic Powers wrote:On October 30 2024 22:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 12:16 Turbovolver wrote:On October 30 2024 10:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Cool gaslighting, bro. You've mentioned that phrase over and over again in the past, and aimed it squarely at Harris and KBJ. Maybe stop bringing up their race and sex. I got curious about this so I searched all BlackJack posts. Five come up, all of them extremely recent, and four of them in response to others' posts. The first one, this one, “Is there any way we can brag about Kamala Harris being a DEI success story while simultaneously denying that her success is attributable to DEI?” sort of implies that BlackJack thinks her success is attributable to DEI, but is also a response to ongoing discussion in the thread. I'm not sure where the arguments about KBJ are, but no, BlackJack has not repeatedly used "this phrase" over and over again in the past. That was oBlade. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not invested in defending BlackJack's apparent opinions about Kamala's credentials, I just wanted to see if any gaslighting was going on. I agree that oBlade has talked a lot about that too. I don't want to relitigate all of the previous conversations surrounding BlackJack's takes on DEI, only caring about race and sex, diversity hires, what is/isn't racist or sexist, and other positions he's had about whether or not KBJ's and Harris's qualifications were truly considered by Biden/Democrats, but he's written a lot of posts in those conversations. Here's the bottom line for me: Merit also matters, period. BlackJack said that merit doesn't matter. I think that's wrong, and it seems to be the case that most people here also think that's wrong, because Harris (and KBJ) are indeed qualified individuals. To add to this, merit not only matters within the Democrat party, it is visibly the only thing that matters. I posted two infographics roughly a week ago proving this point. If DEI is responsible, then it has resulted in the ethnic/gender makeup of the party to be highly representative of the American population. That is as close to real merit as it gets (so far). Unless someone were to argue that merit should lead to unequal representation - not likely an argument that would convince a Democrat. The Republican party is the exact opposite. They represent white males above all else. It's close to 90%. If I had to judge these two parties based on merit, Democrats would get an A and Republicans would get an F. The argument is flawed from the start. Merit simply does not matter, just look at Trump. There was no one more "meritorious" than Hillary Clinton and look how far that got her. Merit doesn't matter for Trump supporters, but merit does matter for those who thought/think that Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris would be good presidents.
Yeah, something like this. How the two party's candidates get treated by the media is obviously a nauseating double standard, Kamala has 0 room for mistakes but Trump gets to be a bumbling racist moron and gets every pass in the world. But in terms of the Democrat's priorities, they can and should be pushing for competency on the ground level. Harris has no shortage of qualifications for the job, especially when you consider that "be a citizen over 35" is the actual qualification and so many presidents, especially Trump, barely clear that much.
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On October 30 2024 22:32 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 22:24 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 22:07 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 22:05 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 21:57 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 21:50 oBlade wrote:
Senators in California and mayors in Chicago are not subject to an electoral college. Ask people if their votes for Senator and mayor there matter more than for president. And were we just talking about senators? No, we were talking about presidents. Also, of course you specify senators in California. But if you talk about senators in general, you once again get the problem that some votes matter a lot more than others. If you live in California, you get about 1 in 20 millionth of a senator. If you live in Montana, you get about 1 in 500kth of a senator, or 40 times as many senators. Once again, some votes count more than others. And multiply that by 2 and you get the share of a governor that a citizen is voting for. What percent of the mayor does a resident of Chicago vote for vs. a resident of Bozeman? Dude, you can't be this daft and not get this. We were talking about the presidency. Some votes matter for the presidency, most don't. That is a problem. I will not let myself get distracted into the sidepoint you are trying to talk about. You already know what was meant, and are trying to obfuscate and distract. You are not as stupid as you act. If you have no answer, that's fine. Obviously I'm going to be making a different point than you as we're different individuals. You specifically said "your vote only matters in a state that might go both ways." NOT "your vote is worth more in low population states." Obfuscate your own damn self. But fine, let's take your new idea. Explain something to me. Why is it, or not, a problem that a Montana vote for governor counts for more than a California vote for governor? Presidency. We were talking about the presidency. Stop distracting.
In other words, your vote for President in a non-swing state doesn't matter, but your vote for Senator does? Inquiring minds want to know.
I understand you were originally talking about the president because you didn't consider the repercussions of your point. However, since you brought up the issue of close races, can you do me the courtesy of expending the least amount of effort to figure out what you think about it?
People in Montana do not vote for the equivalent of 40 times as many presidents as people in California. Not even close.
I'll take this to mean you've backed off your initial "close race" claim because you realized it's not self-consistent.
The reason the US uses what you pejoratively refer to as "FPTP" (normally referred to as "winning") is that the Electoral College and Senate are specifically created to balance each other. Not the checkers or chess balance where everyone gets the same thing. But the Starcraft balance. I'll be extreme as possible: At the moment 51% of the 12 biggest states could choose the president at the expense of even 100% of the other states. The difference is those states would have 76 Senators, controlling half of Congress.
This is by design for 2 reasons: 1) it creates an inherently safe, long-lasting system that operates with a balance of power and doesn't result in one group gaining total control and fucking everything up, which is why there have been like 7 Germanies and Frances in the same time as there have been two Americas, the Founders knew what the Continent was like, and 2) after becoming independent, it was a necessary compromise to unify the sovereign and autonomous colonies into more than a confederation, and for each subsequent state that joined the union.
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On October 30 2024 21:55 Magic Powers wrote:
Trump is 100% unqualified to be president. Nobody in this thread has ever brought up the fact that he's so unqualified because he's a rich white male, but that case can certainly be made (I certainly would). Do we all agree that Trump is an unqualified DEI hire? If so, then we have a very valid starting point from which we can also discuss Harris' merit based on DEI or otherwise. Because then at least I see no double standard.
We wouldn't be talking about Harris being a DEI-based presidential candidate if someone else was VP instead of her. Assume, purely hypothetically, that any white male with equal qualifications was chosen as Biden's VP. Strike that, the white male could even be less qualified. If that VP was then chosen to run for office as Biden's replacement, no one would bat an eye. Literally not a single person would be saying anything about that white male's identity. The fact that we're having this discussion, but we literally never have that same discussion in the other direction, proves a double standard.
Why are white male Republicans never being criticized for being unqualified due to their white-maleness?
Bolded - we definitely dont. First of all he was not hired he got elected (whether he is qualified or not is a different discussion). Claiming that Trump is DEI hire has as much sense as claiming that Bezos is DEI hire.
Edit:
On October 30 2024 23:30 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 23:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 23:08 EnDeR_ wrote:On October 30 2024 22:38 Magic Powers wrote:On October 30 2024 22:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 12:16 Turbovolver wrote:On October 30 2024 10:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Cool gaslighting, bro. You've mentioned that phrase over and over again in the past, and aimed it squarely at Harris and KBJ. Maybe stop bringing up their race and sex. I got curious about this so I searched all BlackJack posts. Five come up, all of them extremely recent, and four of them in response to others' posts. The first one, this one, “Is there any way we can brag about Kamala Harris being a DEI success story while simultaneously denying that her success is attributable to DEI?” sort of implies that BlackJack thinks her success is attributable to DEI, but is also a response to ongoing discussion in the thread. I'm not sure where the arguments about KBJ are, but no, BlackJack has not repeatedly used "this phrase" over and over again in the past. That was oBlade. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not invested in defending BlackJack's apparent opinions about Kamala's credentials, I just wanted to see if any gaslighting was going on. I agree that oBlade has talked a lot about that too. I don't want to relitigate all of the previous conversations surrounding BlackJack's takes on DEI, only caring about race and sex, diversity hires, what is/isn't racist or sexist, and other positions he's had about whether or not KBJ's and Harris's qualifications were truly considered by Biden/Democrats, but he's written a lot of posts in those conversations. Here's the bottom line for me: Merit also matters, period. BlackJack said that merit doesn't matter. I think that's wrong, and it seems to be the case that most people here also think that's wrong, because Harris (and KBJ) are indeed qualified individuals. To add to this, merit not only matters within the Democrat party, it is visibly the only thing that matters. I posted two infographics roughly a week ago proving this point. If DEI is responsible, then it has resulted in the ethnic/gender makeup of the party to be highly representative of the American population. That is as close to real merit as it gets (so far). Unless someone were to argue that merit should lead to unequal representation - not likely an argument that would convince a Democrat. The Republican party is the exact opposite. They represent white males above all else. It's close to 90%. If I had to judge these two parties based on merit, Democrats would get an A and Republicans would get an F. The argument is flawed from the start. Merit simply does not matter, just look at Trump. There was no one more "meritorious" than Hillary Clinton and look how far that got her. Merit doesn't matter for Trump supporters, but merit does matter for those who thought/think that Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris would be good presidents. Yeah, something like this. How the two party's candidates get treated by the media is obviously a nauseating double standard, Kamala has 0 room for mistakes but Trump gets to be a bumbling racist moron and gets every pass in the world. But in terms of the Democrat's priorities, they can and should be pushing for competency on the ground level. Harris has no shortage of qualifications for the job, especially when you consider that "be a citizen over 35" is the actual qualification and so many presidents, especially Trump, barely clear that much.
Bolded - Claim that Trump is treated by media better than Kamala is surreal.
Italic - most important qualification of president is ability to get elected, in primaries and presidential election. So far Trump won 3 primaries and one presidential. Kamala won exactly 0 of each.
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On October 30 2024 23:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 23:08 EnDeR_ wrote:On October 30 2024 22:38 Magic Powers wrote:On October 30 2024 22:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 12:16 Turbovolver wrote:On October 30 2024 10:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Cool gaslighting, bro. You've mentioned that phrase over and over again in the past, and aimed it squarely at Harris and KBJ. Maybe stop bringing up their race and sex. I got curious about this so I searched all BlackJack posts. Five come up, all of them extremely recent, and four of them in response to others' posts. The first one, this one, “Is there any way we can brag about Kamala Harris being a DEI success story while simultaneously denying that her success is attributable to DEI?” sort of implies that BlackJack thinks her success is attributable to DEI, but is also a response to ongoing discussion in the thread. I'm not sure where the arguments about KBJ are, but no, BlackJack has not repeatedly used "this phrase" over and over again in the past. That was oBlade. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not invested in defending BlackJack's apparent opinions about Kamala's credentials, I just wanted to see if any gaslighting was going on. I agree that oBlade has talked a lot about that too. I don't want to relitigate all of the previous conversations surrounding BlackJack's takes on DEI, only caring about race and sex, diversity hires, what is/isn't racist or sexist, and other positions he's had about whether or not KBJ's and Harris's qualifications were truly considered by Biden/Democrats, but he's written a lot of posts in those conversations. Here's the bottom line for me: Merit also matters, period. BlackJack said that merit doesn't matter. I think that's wrong, and it seems to be the case that most people here also think that's wrong, because Harris (and KBJ) are indeed qualified individuals. To add to this, merit not only matters within the Democrat party, it is visibly the only thing that matters. I posted two infographics roughly a week ago proving this point. If DEI is responsible, then it has resulted in the ethnic/gender makeup of the party to be highly representative of the American population. That is as close to real merit as it gets (so far). Unless someone were to argue that merit should lead to unequal representation - not likely an argument that would convince a Democrat. The Republican party is the exact opposite. They represent white males above all else. It's close to 90%. If I had to judge these two parties based on merit, Democrats would get an A and Republicans would get an F. The argument is flawed from the start. Merit simply does not matter, just look at Trump. There was no one more "meritorious" than Hillary Clinton and look how far that got her. Merit doesn't matter for Trump supporters, but merit does matter for those who thought/think that Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris would be good presidents. Edit/Disclaimer: I'm generalizing and there are surely exceptions to those groups caring or not caring about merit, but there are huge double standards.
I dispute that merit ranks anywhere near the top 5 'qualities you're looking for in a candidate' even for Democratic voters. I believe you wouldn't care at all about merit if your preferred candidate embodied the values you stood for and made you feel good about your vote, even if that person was, to provide a relevant extreme example, a convicted felon.
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On October 30 2024 23:41 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 23:30 NewSunshine wrote:On October 30 2024 23:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 23:08 EnDeR_ wrote:On October 30 2024 22:38 Magic Powers wrote:On October 30 2024 22:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 12:16 Turbovolver wrote:On October 30 2024 10:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Cool gaslighting, bro. You've mentioned that phrase over and over again in the past, and aimed it squarely at Harris and KBJ. Maybe stop bringing up their race and sex. I got curious about this so I searched all BlackJack posts. Five come up, all of them extremely recent, and four of them in response to others' posts. The first one, this one, “Is there any way we can brag about Kamala Harris being a DEI success story while simultaneously denying that her success is attributable to DEI?” sort of implies that BlackJack thinks her success is attributable to DEI, but is also a response to ongoing discussion in the thread. I'm not sure where the arguments about KBJ are, but no, BlackJack has not repeatedly used "this phrase" over and over again in the past. That was oBlade. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not invested in defending BlackJack's apparent opinions about Kamala's credentials, I just wanted to see if any gaslighting was going on. I agree that oBlade has talked a lot about that too. I don't want to relitigate all of the previous conversations surrounding BlackJack's takes on DEI, only caring about race and sex, diversity hires, what is/isn't racist or sexist, and other positions he's had about whether or not KBJ's and Harris's qualifications were truly considered by Biden/Democrats, but he's written a lot of posts in those conversations. Here's the bottom line for me: Merit also matters, period. BlackJack said that merit doesn't matter. I think that's wrong, and it seems to be the case that most people here also think that's wrong, because Harris (and KBJ) are indeed qualified individuals. To add to this, merit not only matters within the Democrat party, it is visibly the only thing that matters. I posted two infographics roughly a week ago proving this point. If DEI is responsible, then it has resulted in the ethnic/gender makeup of the party to be highly representative of the American population. That is as close to real merit as it gets (so far). Unless someone were to argue that merit should lead to unequal representation - not likely an argument that would convince a Democrat. The Republican party is the exact opposite. They represent white males above all else. It's close to 90%. If I had to judge these two parties based on merit, Democrats would get an A and Republicans would get an F. The argument is flawed from the start. Merit simply does not matter, just look at Trump. There was no one more "meritorious" than Hillary Clinton and look how far that got her. Merit doesn't matter for Trump supporters, but merit does matter for those who thought/think that Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris would be good presidents. Yeah, something like this. How the two party's candidates get treated by the media is obviously a nauseating double standard, Kamala has 0 room for mistakes but Trump gets to be a bumbling racist moron and gets every pass in the world. But in terms of the Democrat's priorities, they can and should be pushing for competency on the ground level. Harris has no shortage of qualifications for the job, especially when you consider that "be a citizen over 35" is the actual qualification and so many presidents, especially Trump, barely clear that much. Bolded - Claim that Trump is treated by media better than Kamala is surreal.Italic - most important qualification of president is ability to get elected, in primaries and presidential election. So far Trump won 3 primaries and one presidential. Kamala won exactly 0 of each.
Trump is treated more fairly by the media than Harris is, when comparing what Trump is/says/does and what Harris is/says/does, and what the media decides to focus on.
And for your italics part, I think you mean candidate, not president. The candidate needs to win the election, but the president needs to be able to actually do the job.
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On October 30 2024 23:41 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 21:55 Magic Powers wrote:
Trump is 100% unqualified to be president. Nobody in this thread has ever brought up the fact that he's so unqualified because he's a rich white male, but that case can certainly be made (I certainly would). Do we all agree that Trump is an unqualified DEI hire? If so, then we have a very valid starting point from which we can also discuss Harris' merit based on DEI or otherwise. Because then at least I see no double standard.
We wouldn't be talking about Harris being a DEI-based presidential candidate if someone else was VP instead of her. Assume, purely hypothetically, that any white male with equal qualifications was chosen as Biden's VP. Strike that, the white male could even be less qualified. If that VP was then chosen to run for office as Biden's replacement, no one would bat an eye. Literally not a single person would be saying anything about that white male's identity. The fact that we're having this discussion, but we literally never have that same discussion in the other direction, proves a double standard.
Why are white male Republicans never being criticized for being unqualified due to their white-maleness? Bolded - we definitely dont. First of all he was not hired he got elected (whether he is qualified or not is a different discussion). Claiming that Trump is DEI hire has as much sense as claiming that Bezos is DEI hire. Edit: Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 23:30 NewSunshine wrote:On October 30 2024 23:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 23:08 EnDeR_ wrote:On October 30 2024 22:38 Magic Powers wrote:On October 30 2024 22:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 12:16 Turbovolver wrote:On October 30 2024 10:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Cool gaslighting, bro. You've mentioned that phrase over and over again in the past, and aimed it squarely at Harris and KBJ. Maybe stop bringing up their race and sex. I got curious about this so I searched all BlackJack posts. Five come up, all of them extremely recent, and four of them in response to others' posts. The first one, this one, “Is there any way we can brag about Kamala Harris being a DEI success story while simultaneously denying that her success is attributable to DEI?” sort of implies that BlackJack thinks her success is attributable to DEI, but is also a response to ongoing discussion in the thread. I'm not sure where the arguments about KBJ are, but no, BlackJack has not repeatedly used "this phrase" over and over again in the past. That was oBlade. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not invested in defending BlackJack's apparent opinions about Kamala's credentials, I just wanted to see if any gaslighting was going on. I agree that oBlade has talked a lot about that too. I don't want to relitigate all of the previous conversations surrounding BlackJack's takes on DEI, only caring about race and sex, diversity hires, what is/isn't racist or sexist, and other positions he's had about whether or not KBJ's and Harris's qualifications were truly considered by Biden/Democrats, but he's written a lot of posts in those conversations. Here's the bottom line for me: Merit also matters, period. BlackJack said that merit doesn't matter. I think that's wrong, and it seems to be the case that most people here also think that's wrong, because Harris (and KBJ) are indeed qualified individuals. To add to this, merit not only matters within the Democrat party, it is visibly the only thing that matters. I posted two infographics roughly a week ago proving this point. If DEI is responsible, then it has resulted in the ethnic/gender makeup of the party to be highly representative of the American population. That is as close to real merit as it gets (so far). Unless someone were to argue that merit should lead to unequal representation - not likely an argument that would convince a Democrat. The Republican party is the exact opposite. They represent white males above all else. It's close to 90%. If I had to judge these two parties based on merit, Democrats would get an A and Republicans would get an F. The argument is flawed from the start. Merit simply does not matter, just look at Trump. There was no one more "meritorious" than Hillary Clinton and look how far that got her. Merit doesn't matter for Trump supporters, but merit does matter for those who thought/think that Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris would be good presidents. Yeah, something like this. How the two party's candidates get treated by the media is obviously a nauseating double standard, Kamala has 0 room for mistakes but Trump gets to be a bumbling racist moron and gets every pass in the world. But in terms of the Democrat's priorities, they can and should be pushing for competency on the ground level. Harris has no shortage of qualifications for the job, especially when you consider that "be a citizen over 35" is the actual qualification and so many presidents, especially Trump, barely clear that much. Italic - most important qualification of president is ability to get elected, in primaries and presidential election. So far Trump won 3 primaries and one presidential. Kamala won exactly 0 of each.
Except saying "the most important qualification upon which to elect someone is their ability to get elected" is inherently circular. Which kind of gets at the fact that there are no hard qualifications a candidate needs to have, despite Republicans pretending so when it comes to Harris. Trump's biggest qualification was that he was a TV personality. If you really want to get in the "hard skills" weeds, Republicans lose immediately. She was a prosecutor, attorney general, and a senator, and is directly experienced with things that lend to a position of Presidential leadership.
But still, somehow, we're pretending that she's "not qualified" (again, whatever that means), and that she's the candidate solely because of her demographic qualities. I recognize the argument that we didn't get to pick her in a primary election, but likewise, there's the argument that all the delegates rallied behind Harris so rapidly for a reason. She's the candidate because she's the Democrats best bet right now. That's all there is to it.
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On October 30 2024 23:54 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 23:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 23:08 EnDeR_ wrote:On October 30 2024 22:38 Magic Powers wrote:On October 30 2024 22:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 12:16 Turbovolver wrote:On October 30 2024 10:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Cool gaslighting, bro. You've mentioned that phrase over and over again in the past, and aimed it squarely at Harris and KBJ. Maybe stop bringing up their race and sex. I got curious about this so I searched all BlackJack posts. Five come up, all of them extremely recent, and four of them in response to others' posts. The first one, this one, “Is there any way we can brag about Kamala Harris being a DEI success story while simultaneously denying that her success is attributable to DEI?” sort of implies that BlackJack thinks her success is attributable to DEI, but is also a response to ongoing discussion in the thread. I'm not sure where the arguments about KBJ are, but no, BlackJack has not repeatedly used "this phrase" over and over again in the past. That was oBlade. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not invested in defending BlackJack's apparent opinions about Kamala's credentials, I just wanted to see if any gaslighting was going on. I agree that oBlade has talked a lot about that too. I don't want to relitigate all of the previous conversations surrounding BlackJack's takes on DEI, only caring about race and sex, diversity hires, what is/isn't racist or sexist, and other positions he's had about whether or not KBJ's and Harris's qualifications were truly considered by Biden/Democrats, but he's written a lot of posts in those conversations. Here's the bottom line for me: Merit also matters, period. BlackJack said that merit doesn't matter. I think that's wrong, and it seems to be the case that most people here also think that's wrong, because Harris (and KBJ) are indeed qualified individuals. To add to this, merit not only matters within the Democrat party, it is visibly the only thing that matters. I posted two infographics roughly a week ago proving this point. If DEI is responsible, then it has resulted in the ethnic/gender makeup of the party to be highly representative of the American population. That is as close to real merit as it gets (so far). Unless someone were to argue that merit should lead to unequal representation - not likely an argument that would convince a Democrat. The Republican party is the exact opposite. They represent white males above all else. It's close to 90%. If I had to judge these two parties based on merit, Democrats would get an A and Republicans would get an F. The argument is flawed from the start. Merit simply does not matter, just look at Trump. There was no one more "meritorious" than Hillary Clinton and look how far that got her. Merit doesn't matter for Trump supporters, but merit does matter for those who thought/think that Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris would be good presidents. Edit/Disclaimer: I'm generalizing and there are surely exceptions to those groups caring or not caring about merit, but there are huge double standards. I dispute that merit ranks anywhere near the top 5 'qualities you're looking for in a candidate' even for Democratic voters. I believe you wouldn't care at all about merit if your preferred candidate embodied the values you stood for and made you feel good about your vote, even if that person was, to provide a relevant extreme example, a convicted felon.
When I think about a political candidate having merit, I think of them having a proven track record of relevant experience and being effective in their prior political positions. I think that a candidate having such merit is especially important when selecting - as you pointed out - a candidate embodying your personal values, because you want to make sure that your candidate can actually make a difference and carry out actions that are consistent with your values, rather than simply virtue signaling or being otherwise useless.
It's like collecting resumes from applicants, where the first round of keeping/removing applications is seeing if they have the bare minimum level of experience. If they don't, then they're disqualified. I see it as essentially prerequisite or foundational, and then moving upwards from there. Harris and Clinton had/have political careers, while Trump didn't have one and just wanted to jump straight to the most important political position in the country. I've heard that many Trump supporters specifically liked Trump because he was so utterly unqualified for the job - because he wasn't a political insider and he had no idea how politics worked - and that made him an attractive choice to people who wanted to drain the swamp and start with a blank slate. Putting aside the fact that Trump was clearly lying about his original campaign promises and saying whatever he needed to say to fool Republicans, a lack of merit is not what appeals to me, because I can still vote for someone who wants to shake up the system yet still also has lifelong experience in this field (e.g., Bernie Sanders).
You and I might have different perspectives on the usefulness of merit (or even different definitions of the word), and that's fine too.
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I actually think that letting everyone have their own definition of a term that is used in a smilar context, creates shit discussions like these, where we get bogged down in the absolute basics of what it means when we use this certain word.
Maybe post-modernism wasn't such a good idea after all, lol
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On October 30 2024 23:38 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 22:32 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 22:24 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 22:07 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 22:05 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 21:57 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 21:50 oBlade wrote:
Senators in California and mayors in Chicago are not subject to an electoral college. Ask people if their votes for Senator and mayor there matter more than for president. And were we just talking about senators? No, we were talking about presidents. Also, of course you specify senators in California. But if you talk about senators in general, you once again get the problem that some votes matter a lot more than others. If you live in California, you get about 1 in 20 millionth of a senator. If you live in Montana, you get about 1 in 500kth of a senator, or 40 times as many senators. Once again, some votes count more than others. And multiply that by 2 and you get the share of a governor that a citizen is voting for. What percent of the mayor does a resident of Chicago vote for vs. a resident of Bozeman? Dude, you can't be this daft and not get this. We were talking about the presidency. Some votes matter for the presidency, most don't. That is a problem. I will not let myself get distracted into the sidepoint you are trying to talk about. You already know what was meant, and are trying to obfuscate and distract. You are not as stupid as you act. If you have no answer, that's fine. Obviously I'm going to be making a different point than you as we're different individuals. You specifically said "your vote only matters in a state that might go both ways." NOT "your vote is worth more in low population states." Obfuscate your own damn self. But fine, let's take your new idea. Explain something to me. Why is it, or not, a problem that a Montana vote for governor counts for more than a California vote for governor? Presidency. We were talking about the presidency. Stop distracting. In other words, your vote for President in a non-swing state doesn't matter, but your vote for Senator does? Inquiring minds want to know. I understand you were originally talking about the president because you didn't consider the repercussions of your point. However, since you brought up the issue of close races, can you do me the courtesy of expending the least amount of effort to figure out what you think about it? People in Montana do not vote for the equivalent of 40 times as many presidents as people in California. Not even close. I'll take this to mean you've backed off your initial "close race" claim because you realized it's not self-consistent. The reason the US uses what you pejoratively refer to as "FPTP" (normally referred to as "winning") is that the Electoral College and Senate are specifically created to balance each other. Not the checkers or chess balance where everyone gets the same thing. But the Starcraft balance. I'll be extreme as possible: At the moment 51% of the 12 biggest states could choose the president at the expense of even 100% of the other states. The difference is those states would have 76 Senators, controlling half of Congress. This is by design for 2 reasons: 1) it creates an inherently safe, long-lasting system that operates with a balance of power and doesn't result in one group gaining total control and fucking everything up, which is why there have been like 7 Germanies and Frances in the same time as there have been two Americas, the Founders knew what the Continent was like, and 2) after becoming independent, it was a necessary compromise to unify the sovereign and autonomous colonies into more than a confederation, and for each subsequent state that joined the union.
You keep trying to get me to talk about different things then "why do some votes for the presidency count more than others?". I am willing to do that after we are done with this topic.
I have not backed off from anything. There are multiple problems with the US system which all make it not very democractic. One is that most votes for president don't count. Another is that someone can become president despite getting less votes than the other candidate.
Do you admit that this is a problem? Or is it okay that some votes are better than others?
You claim that this leads to stability through "balance". But it doesn't seem balanced when the same minority of people can seat both the president and a majority of senators. It seems to just favor one group of people over the majority.
And FPTP is FPTP. It is not just "winning". There are other systems out there in which you can also win. FPTP is the prototype of democracy, but by far not the best system. You put a lot of faith in "the founders", but ultimately, one would expect to learn more stuff with experience.
The first democracy was definitively better than no democracy, but since then, we have learned a lot, to the point that even the US did not try to put a US style system in place in Germany after WW2, and instead put into place a system based on more modern knowledge.
There are other problems with senators, or mayors, or whatever. But i am not currently talking about these.
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Northern Ireland22448 Posts
On October 31 2024 00:27 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 23:38 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 22:32 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 22:24 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 22:07 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 22:05 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 21:57 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 21:50 oBlade wrote:
Senators in California and mayors in Chicago are not subject to an electoral college. Ask people if their votes for Senator and mayor there matter more than for president. And were we just talking about senators? No, we were talking about presidents. Also, of course you specify senators in California. But if you talk about senators in general, you once again get the problem that some votes matter a lot more than others. If you live in California, you get about 1 in 20 millionth of a senator. If you live in Montana, you get about 1 in 500kth of a senator, or 40 times as many senators. Once again, some votes count more than others. And multiply that by 2 and you get the share of a governor that a citizen is voting for. What percent of the mayor does a resident of Chicago vote for vs. a resident of Bozeman? Dude, you can't be this daft and not get this. We were talking about the presidency. Some votes matter for the presidency, most don't. That is a problem. I will not let myself get distracted into the sidepoint you are trying to talk about. You already know what was meant, and are trying to obfuscate and distract. You are not as stupid as you act. If you have no answer, that's fine. Obviously I'm going to be making a different point than you as we're different individuals. You specifically said "your vote only matters in a state that might go both ways." NOT "your vote is worth more in low population states." Obfuscate your own damn self. But fine, let's take your new idea. Explain something to me. Why is it, or not, a problem that a Montana vote for governor counts for more than a California vote for governor? Presidency. We were talking about the presidency. Stop distracting. In other words, your vote for President in a non-swing state doesn't matter, but your vote for Senator does? Inquiring minds want to know. I understand you were originally talking about the president because you didn't consider the repercussions of your point. However, since you brought up the issue of close races, can you do me the courtesy of expending the least amount of effort to figure out what you think about it? People in Montana do not vote for the equivalent of 40 times as many presidents as people in California. Not even close. I'll take this to mean you've backed off your initial "close race" claim because you realized it's not self-consistent. The reason the US uses what you pejoratively refer to as "FPTP" (normally referred to as "winning") is that the Electoral College and Senate are specifically created to balance each other. Not the checkers or chess balance where everyone gets the same thing. But the Starcraft balance. I'll be extreme as possible: At the moment 51% of the 12 biggest states could choose the president at the expense of even 100% of the other states. The difference is those states would have 76 Senators, controlling half of Congress. This is by design for 2 reasons: 1) it creates an inherently safe, long-lasting system that operates with a balance of power and doesn't result in one group gaining total control and fucking everything up, which is why there have been like 7 Germanies and Frances in the same time as there have been two Americas, the Founders knew what the Continent was like, and 2) after becoming independent, it was a necessary compromise to unify the sovereign and autonomous colonies into more than a confederation, and for each subsequent state that joined the union. You keep trying to get me to talk about different things then "why do some votes for the presidency count more than others?". I am willing to do that after we are done with this topic. I have not backed off from anything. There are multiple problems with the US system which all make it not very democractic. One is that most votes for president don't count. Another is that someone can become president despite getting less votes than the other candidate. Do you admit that this is a problem? Or is it okay that some votes are better than others? You claim that this leads to stability through "balance". But it doesn't seem balanced when the same minority of people can seat both the president and a majority of senators. It seems to just favor one group of people over the majority. And FPTP is FPTP. It is not just "winning". There are other systems out there in which you can also win. FPTP is the prototype of democracy, but by far not the best system. You put a lot of faith in "the founders", but ultimately, one would expect to learn more stuff with experience. The first democracy was definitively better than no democracy, but since then, we have learned a lot, to the point that even the US did not try to put a US style system in place in Germany after WW2, and instead put into place a system based on more modern knowledge. There are other problems with senators, or mayors, or whatever. But i am not currently talking about these.
I think there is perhaps a place for systems that account for big regional disparities, but you already have that in the composition of two legislative chambers.
It seems to me overkill to run a 3rd election for the executive representative of the nation factoring this in as well.
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One of Trump's judicial appointees in Florida, Judge Aileen Cannon, is back in the news for a reason other than her controversial actions in the Trump vs. United States case that involved Trump's mishandling of classified documents. This new reason is that she's also been selected to handle the case of Ryan Routh, the man who allegedly tried to assassinate Trump a second time at/near Trump's golf course. She has refused to recuse herself from this other trial, despite being appointed by Trump and being considered for Attorney General by Trump: https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4959386-us-district-judge-refuses-recuse/
I don't care about Ryan Routh, but holy crap is that unfortunate for him. The guy still deserves a fair trial.
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EPT
