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Co'tor Shas wrote: I agree, the thing is it's a state thing, not a federal thing . It needs to go, but can only be done at that state level.
The problem is that there are some states that are really bad in education. The state government doesn't make it a funding priority, and when they do care they try to add in garbage like creationism, right-wing revisionist history, etc. It would be nice if things were different, but right now there needs to be a higher authority to tell the states "you are required to follow the consensus positions of the experts in the relevant fields".
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
What has happened in America should not be seen as a victory for hatefulness over decency. It is more accurately understood as a repudiation of the American power structure.
At the core of that structure are the political leaders of both parties, their political operatives, and fundraisers; the major media, centered in New York and Washington DC; the country’s biggest corporations, their top executives, and Washington lobbyists and trade associations; the biggest Wall Street banks, their top officers, traders, hedge-fund and private-equity managers, and their lackeys in Washington; and the wealthy individuals who invest directly in politics.
At the start of the 2016 election cycle, this power structure proclaimed Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush shoo-ins for the nominations of the Democratic and Republican parties. After all, both of these individuals had deep bases of funders, well-established networks of political insiders, experienced political advisers and all the political name recognition any candidate could possibly want.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the White House. The presidency was won by Donald Trump, who made his fortune marketing office towers and casinos, and, more recently, starring in a popular reality-television program, and who has never held elective office or had anything to do with the Republican party. Hillary Clinton narrowly won the popular vote, but not enough of the states and their electors secure a victory.
Hillary Clinton’s defeat is all the more remarkable in that her campaign vastly outspent the Trump campaign on television and radio advertisements, and get-out-the-vote efforts. Moreover, her campaign had the support in the general election not of only the kingpins of the Democratic party but also many leading Republicans, including most of the politically active denizens of Wall Street and the top executives of America’s largest corporations, and even former Republican president George HW Bush. Her campaign team was run by seasoned professionals who knew the ropes. She had the visible and forceful backing of Barack Obama, whose popularity has soared in recent months, and his popular wife. And, of course, she had her husband.
Trump, by contrast, was shunned by the power structure. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate in 2012, actively worked against Trump’s nomination. Many senior Republicans refused to endorse him, or even give him their support. The Republican National Committee did not raise money for Trump to the extent it had for other Republican candidates for president.
What happened?
There had been hints of the political earthquake to come. Trump had won the Republican primaries, after all. More tellingly, Clinton had been challenged in the Democratic primaries by the unlikeliest of candidates – a 74-year-old Jewish senator from Vermont who described himself as a democratic socialist and who was not even a Democrat. Bernie Sanders went on to win 22 states and 47% of the vote in those primaries. Sanders’ major theme was that the country’s political and economic system was rigged in favor of big corporations, Wall Street and the very wealthy.
The power structure of America wrote off Sanders as an aberration, and, until recently, didn’t take Trump seriously. A respected political insider recently told me most Americans were largely content with the status quo. “The economy is in good shape,” he said. “Most Americans are better off than they’ve been in years.”
Recent economic indicators may be up, but those indicators don’t reflect the insecurity most Americans continue to feel, nor the seeming arbitrariness and unfairness they experience. Nor do the major indicators show the linkages many Americans see between wealth and power, stagnant or declining real wages, soaring CEO pay, and the undermining of democracy by big money.
Median family income is lower now than it was 16 years ago, adjusted for inflation. Workers without college degrees – the old working class – have fallen furthest. Most economic gains, meanwhile, have gone to top. These gains have translated into political power to elicit bank bailouts, corporate subsidies, special tax loopholes, favorable trade deals and increasing market power without interference by anti-monopoly enforcement – all of which have further reduced wages and pulled up profits.
Wealth, power and crony capitalism fit together. Americans know a takeover has occurred, and they blame the establishment for it.
The Democratic party once represented the working class. But over the last three decades the party has been taken over by Washington-based fundraisers, bundlers, analysts, and pollsters who have focused instead on raising campaign money from corporate and Wall Street executives and getting votes from upper middle-class households in “swing” suburbs.
Democrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years, and for four of those years had control of both houses of Congress. But in that time they failed to reverse the decline in working-class wages and economic security. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama ardently pushed for free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.
They stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the white working class – failing to reform labor laws to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violate them, or help workers form unions with simple up-or-down votes. Partly as a result, union membership sank from 22% of all workers when Bill Clinton was elected president to less than 12% today, and the working class lost bargaining leverage to get a share of the economy’s gains.
Bill Clinton and Obama also allowed antitrust enforcement to ossify – with the result that large corporations have grown far larger, and major industries more concentrated. The unsurprising result of this combination – more trade, declining unionization and more industry concentration – has been to shift political and economic power to big corporations and the wealthy, and to shaft the working class. This created an opening for Donald Trump’s authoritarian demagoguery, and his presidency.
Now Americans have rebelled by supporting someone who wants to fortify America against foreigners as well as foreign-made goods. The power structure understandably fears that Trump’s isolationism will stymie economic growth. But most Americans couldn’t care less about growth because for years they have received few of its benefits, while suffering most of its burdens in the forms of lost jobs and lower wages.
The power structure is shocked by the outcome of the 2016 election because it has cut itself off from the lives of most Americans. Perhaps it also doesn’t wish to understand, because that would mean acknowledging its role in enabling the presidency of Donald Trump.
We had the opportunity, on the democrat side, to represent the working class still (or, again, if you prefer).... And I think it's still the case at the grassroots level, but this article does seem spot on that the current party leadership is more blatant about it's corporate ties/sponsorship/preference than even the Republican party leadership.
Co'tor Shas wrote: I agree, the thing is it's a state thing, not a federal thing . It needs to go, but can only be done at that state level.
The problem is that there are some states that are really bad in education. The state government doesn't make it a funding priority, and when they do care they try to add in garbage like creationism, right-wing revisionist history, etc. It would be nice if things were different, but right now there needs to be a higher authority to tell the states "you are required to follow the consensus positions of the experts in the relevant fields".
And some of those states go against those guidelines regardless....
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/11/11 03:01:08
What has happened in America should not be seen as a victory for hatefulness over decency. It is more accurately understood as a repudiation of the American power structure.
At the core of that structure are the political leaders of both parties, their political operatives, and fundraisers; the major media, centered in New York and Washington DC; the country’s biggest corporations, their top executives, and Washington lobbyists and trade associations; the biggest Wall Street banks, their top officers, traders, hedge-fund and private-equity managers, and their lackeys in Washington; and the wealthy individuals who invest directly in politics.
At the start of the 2016 election cycle, this power structure proclaimed Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush shoo-ins for the nominations of the Democratic and Republican parties. After all, both of these individuals had deep bases of funders, well-established networks of political insiders, experienced political advisers and all the political name recognition any candidate could possibly want.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the White House. The presidency was won by Donald Trump, who made his fortune marketing office towers and casinos, and, more recently, starring in a popular reality-television program, and who has never held elective office or had anything to do with the Republican party. Hillary Clinton narrowly won the popular vote, but not enough of the states and their electors secure a victory.
Hillary Clinton’s defeat is all the more remarkable in that her campaign vastly outspent the Trump campaign on television and radio advertisements, and get-out-the-vote efforts. Moreover, her campaign had the support in the general election not of only the kingpins of the Democratic party but also many leading Republicans, including most of the politically active denizens of Wall Street and the top executives of America’s largest corporations, and even former Republican president George HW Bush. Her campaign team was run by seasoned professionals who knew the ropes. She had the visible and forceful backing of Barack Obama, whose popularity has soared in recent months, and his popular wife. And, of course, she had her husband.
Trump, by contrast, was shunned by the power structure. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate in 2012, actively worked against Trump’s nomination. Many senior Republicans refused to endorse him, or even give him their support. The Republican National Committee did not raise money for Trump to the extent it had for other Republican candidates for president.
What happened?
There had been hints of the political earthquake to come. Trump had won the Republican primaries, after all. More tellingly, Clinton had been challenged in the Democratic primaries by the unlikeliest of candidates – a 74-year-old Jewish senator from Vermont who described himself as a democratic socialist and who was not even a Democrat. Bernie Sanders went on to win 22 states and 47% of the vote in those primaries. Sanders’ major theme was that the country’s political and economic system was rigged in favor of big corporations, Wall Street and the very wealthy.
The power structure of America wrote off Sanders as an aberration, and, until recently, didn’t take Trump seriously. A respected political insider recently told me most Americans were largely content with the status quo. “The economy is in good shape,” he said. “Most Americans are better off than they’ve been in years.”
Recent economic indicators may be up, but those indicators don’t reflect the insecurity most Americans continue to feel, nor the seeming arbitrariness and unfairness they experience. Nor do the major indicators show the linkages many Americans see between wealth and power, stagnant or declining real wages, soaring CEO pay, and the undermining of democracy by big money.
Median family income is lower now than it was 16 years ago, adjusted for inflation. Workers without college degrees – the old working class – have fallen furthest. Most economic gains, meanwhile, have gone to top. These gains have translated into political power to elicit bank bailouts, corporate subsidies, special tax loopholes, favorable trade deals and increasing market power without interference by anti-monopoly enforcement – all of which have further reduced wages and pulled up profits.
Wealth, power and crony capitalism fit together. Americans know a takeover has occurred, and they blame the establishment for it.
The Democratic party once represented the working class. But over the last three decades the party has been taken over by Washington-based fundraisers, bundlers, analysts, and pollsters who have focused instead on raising campaign money from corporate and Wall Street executives and getting votes from upper middle-class households in “swing” suburbs.
Democrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years, and for four of those years had control of both houses of Congress. But in that time they failed to reverse the decline in working-class wages and economic security. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama ardently pushed for free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.
They stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the white working class – failing to reform labor laws to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violate them, or help workers form unions with simple up-or-down votes. Partly as a result, union membership sank from 22% of all workers when Bill Clinton was elected president to less than 12% today, and the working class lost bargaining leverage to get a share of the economy’s gains.
Bill Clinton and Obama also allowed antitrust enforcement to ossify – with the result that large corporations have grown far larger, and major industries more concentrated. The unsurprising result of this combination – more trade, declining unionization and more industry concentration – has been to shift political and economic power to big corporations and the wealthy, and to shaft the working class. This created an opening for Donald Trump’s authoritarian demagoguery, and his presidency.
Now Americans have rebelled by supporting someone who wants to fortify America against foreigners as well as foreign-made goods. The power structure understandably fears that Trump’s isolationism will stymie economic growth. But most Americans couldn’t care less about growth because for years they have received few of its benefits, while suffering most of its burdens in the forms of lost jobs and lower wages.
The power structure is shocked by the outcome of the 2016 election because it has cut itself off from the lives of most Americans. Perhaps it also doesn’t wish to understand, because that would mean acknowledging its role in enabling the presidency of Donald Trump.
Sounds about right. I think that's one of the big reasons for Sanders' rise.
Homosexuality is the #1 cause of gay marriage.
kronk wrote: Every pizza is a personal sized pizza if you try hard enough and believe in yourself.
sebster wrote: Yes, indeed. What a terrible piece of cultural imperialism it is for me to say that a country shouldn't murder its own citizens
BaronIveagh wrote: Basically they went from a carrot and stick to a smaller carrot and flanged mace.
But Hillary is better due to blackmailing, harrassing, intimidating, and otherwise doing everything in her power to grind women under who threatened her by sleeping with her husband?
How in the hell does Hilary get a pass for 30 years of the same sins or worse!? It is all false and made up? The sexist label on Trump may be true, but her hands are just as bloody. Meaning at best hurling that bomb is hipocracy if not worse.
He is a jack$$$, but be honest at least please. She did all the same sins, and possibly worse.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/11/11 03:48:08
But Hillary is better due to blackmailing, harrassing, intimidating, and otherwise doing everything in her power to grind women under who threatened her by sleeping with her husband?
How in the hell does Hilary get a pass for 30 years of the same sins or worse!? It is all false and made up? The sexist label on Trump may be true, but her hands are just as bloody. Meaning at best hurling that bomb is hipocracy if not worse.
He is a jack$$$, but be honest at least please. She did all the same sins, and possibly worse.
So he scammed over 20 thousand people out of money, sexual assaulted many women, went in changing rooms with minors and possibly even raped a child, scammed many other contractors and other small businesses, refused to rent/sell to minorities and that is "not as bad as hillary"
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/11/11 03:55:24
But Hillary is better due to blackmailing, harrassing, intimidating, and otherwise doing everything in her power to grind women under who threatened her by sleeping with her husband?
How in the hell does Hilary get a pass for 30 years of the same sins or worse!? It is all false and made up? The sexist label on Trump may be true, but her hands are just as bloody. Meaning at best hurling that bomb is hipocracy if not worse.
He is a jack$$$, but be honest at least please. She did all the same sins, and possibly worse.
This is so true. One thing I found is that everyone was so busy pointing fingers at Trump for what he said, and then completely ignoring the things Hillary did. This is basically what the news media did. I'm not sure but what the media's negativity towards Trump is part of what got him the presidency. They oversold it, and the public realized that they were being manipulated and quit listening to them. I know all I saw on the news was "some horrible revelation about Donald Trump" just about every night. Never heard one negative word about Hillary on the news.
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You know... all of this arguing over who was scummier between the two, mean while there was another candidate who had none of this controversy sitting over them...
djones520 wrote: You know... all of this arguing over who was scummier between the two, mean while there was another candidate who had none of this controversy sitting over them...
Gary "The sun will expand and consume the earth so screw global warming" johnson or Jill "Lets ban nuclear power and GMOs" Stein
Seaward wrote: Perhaps people should have thought about the dangers of expanding executive power when it was their guy who had it? Nah, that'd be a little too close to libertarian thinking.
Or maybe lots of people were saying that very thing. But oh look, you're back to liberal hive mind stuff again. Don't ever change.
Meanwhile, you changed the subject, to pretend there's no problem. Your party put up Trump, and now he's won an election based on a campaign of vague promises that pretty much amount to gibberish. This is a problem, both for the next four years, and for what the Republican party will stand for 4 years from now.
You can pretend this isn't a problem, but that probably won't help.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
djones520 wrote: You know... all of this arguing over who was scummier between the two, mean while there was another candidate who had none of this controversy sitting over them...
Gary "The sun will expand and consume the earth so screw global warming" johnson or Jill "Lets ban nuclear power and GMOs" Stein
Oh, so policy does matter? All we've been talking about is how horrible of a person someone is, I forgot that policy had anything to do with it.
I probably would have agreed with you before election night about "it's just racial resentment." Now I think the story is more complex and the article captures that. It isn't just race. It's a broad set of complicated factors that get summed up as "way of life" or "culture." Boiling it down to race is what many better, or usually better?, papers not only got wrong but in getting it wrong mobilized them.
You think so? I was inclined to read that quote as just being a rural vs city thing, with the rural resenting the increasing cultural dominance of the city, compounded by a lack of respect for city living. Except there's the last bit there, "Today, they are the people who are accused of creating every social injustice imaginable; when anything in society fails, they get blamed."
No-one says 'oh those people living small towns are to blame for everything that's gone wrong'. What's being referenced there is the trend towards blaming white people. It's a clear reference to race.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
djones520 wrote: You know... all of this arguing over who was scummier between the two, mean while there was another candidate who had none of this controversy sitting over them...
Gary "The sun will expand and consume the earth so screw global warming" johnson or Jill "Lets ban nuclear power and GMOs" Stein
Oh, so policy does matter? All we've been talking about is how horrible of a person someone is, I forgot that policy had anything to do with it.
Except most people agree Trumps policies are terrible so it goes without saying.
But Hillary is better due to blackmailing, harrassing, intimidating, and otherwise doing everything in her power to grind women under who threatened her by sleeping with her husband?
How in the hell does Hilary get a pass for 30 years of the same sins or worse!? It is all false and made up? The sexist label on Trump may be true, but her hands are just as bloody. Meaning at best hurling that bomb is hipocracy if not worse.
He is a jack$$$, but be honest at least please. She did all the same sins, and possibly worse.
What? How does that work? How is that the same at all?
Homosexuality is the #1 cause of gay marriage.
kronk wrote: Every pizza is a personal sized pizza if you try hard enough and believe in yourself.
sebster wrote: Yes, indeed. What a terrible piece of cultural imperialism it is for me to say that a country shouldn't murder its own citizens
BaronIveagh wrote: Basically they went from a carrot and stick to a smaller carrot and flanged mace.
Seaward wrote: Isn't it sad that that's still better than not even caring enough to lie to them? Democrats chose not to even bother with lies this time around, because those people matter so little to them that they thought they could get away with it.
No, instead Democrats tried to give them policies that would help them. What Trump had was someone to blame for their problems (China, illegal immigrants), and a big promise (that he would return the jobs by having America make things again).
It turns out a clear statement, even if it is a pretty obvious lie, will draw more support than a series of individual policies with no specific vision. For all the talk about how different this election was, in this one case perhaps this is the oldest lesson of all.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
But Hillary is better due to blackmailing, harrassing, intimidating, and otherwise doing everything in her power to grind women under who threatened her by sleeping with her husband?
How in the hell does Hilary get a pass for 30 years of the same sins or worse!? It is all false and made up? The sexist label on Trump may be true, but her hands are just as bloody. Meaning at best hurling that bomb is hipocracy if not worse.
He is a jack$$$, but be honest at least please. She did all the same sins, and possibly worse.
So he scammed over 20 thousand people out of money, sexual assaulted many women, went in changing rooms with minors and possibly even raped a child, scammed many other contractors and other small businesses, refused to rent/sell to minorities and that is "not as bad as hillary"
I said he is a jerk, but it is tossed out like Hillary is a saint. Shady land deals, check, harrassing women, check, stirring the race pot, check... check check check check check.
If everyone who voted for Trump is a sexist, racist, bigot, then so is everyone who voted for Clinton. Oh wait that is all lies and the Trump stuff is all true, because Republicans are evil right? Call him names, he probably deserves some, not all, but some. Just be honest and fair in dishing it out to Hilary and her supporters to. You can only cry wolf so often before people don't come and you get eaten when it really does show up.
I lost track of the I am voting for Obama cause he's black and I want to be a part of that the last two times ( which is as racist as the tools who voted against him because he is black). Vote because of their policies or records, but don't act the saint when the plank in your own eye is just as big.
Maybe, if we are honest, people actually looked at Clinton's record and said hell no. Her gender had nothing to do with it...or is that not okay? I can't have an opinion that you did not approve of? Do I have to gloss over all failures and short comings of a person if it fits with the push for diversity? Any disagreements over policy should be ignored and I should be a racist/sexist/bigot and vote them in?
I voted Liberatarian, because I thought Johnson was the right choice. I am not ashamed of that, the Republican party hasn't had my vote for president for many elections. Hell, I voted Perot in his second run, even knowing he would loose. Wait, I can't do that... I must mindlessly conform or be shamed, tarred, and then feathered because I did not vote for candidate x.
Zywus wrote: Many realize that he won't be able to achieve most of his crazy promises. They don't care. They're so fed up with being looked down upon. Being talked about but not talked with.
And that's what's so insane. People are willing to vote for someone who is going to actively work to make their lives worse, simply because he's willing to lie and tell them he cares about them as he does it.
I've made fun of a bunch of people on this forum who believed some ridiculous claims from various right wing sources, that were not only obviously wrong but easily proven. Each time I've joked around, saying these people wanted to be lied to, that they didn't care if they were sold obvious lies and played as suckers, as long as the lies were things they wanted to hear.
It's actually not very funny at all, though.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Smacks wrote: This might be a controversial opinion, but I think a lot of people might be overestimating Trump's actual impact on this election. It's not like he flipped solid blue states like New York (even though it's his home town). What happened across most of the country was people voted the same way that they always vote, and probably the same way their parents voted. A lot of the analysis that I read, during the run-up to this election, predicted a republican swing this year (regardless of who the candidate was). All this talk about "Trump tapped into something" is affording him more credit than he deserves. What really happened (IMO), is both candidates were uninspiring, so there was a low voter turnout, and a higher than usual percentage of the votes went to third-parties. There is also the difficulty of maintaining power for a third term. All these things suggested a Republican win, irrespective of what Trump said or did.
Trump showed himself to be ignorant, crass, misogynistic etc... and while people in the public eye (including republicans) tried to distance themselves from him, it made no difference to most voters. There was no way hard-line republicans were voting for some hippy democrat, and true-blue democrats view all republican candidates as Ignorant bible-bashing racists, so Trump really just fulfilled expectations. He didn't do anything special, or sway lots of people. He was just in the right place at the right time, and managed to benefit from a low democrat turnout (and a low turnout generally). That's all that happened.
I think that probably describes a lot of what happened. In addition to what you mentioned above, it's also interesting to note that there were no purple states - in no case did Clinton win a state that voted in a Republican senator, or Trump win a state that elected a Democrat. The vote in the senate was the most nationalised in US history. The electorate is more polarised than ever, and that means when the Republican base is energised (as it is coming off two terms of a Democratic president) then they will get out in better numbers even if their candidate is a awful.
Probably one of the most telling events in the election was when people starting seeing that the polls for Clinton and Trump had a clear gravity effect - when Clinton or Trump had bad news in the media, the effect was temporary, and polls always returned to a three point lead to Clinton. That three point lead can be put down to a polling miss (shy Trumpers, pollsters missing certain segments, mistakes in likely voter screens etc)... what is interesting is that gravity effect. It seems when bad news happened enthusiasm dampened, people stopped responding to polls for their favoured candidate, or moved to undecided, but they always returned once the bad news died down, and they turned up on election day.
A spent a lot of time in this campaign telling people that the idea that voters were already decided was wrong because of the big swings in the polls. Turns out the polls, and certainly me, were probably quite wrong in that regard.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/11/11 04:37:52
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
But please try to understand where I'm coming from when I say this statement "The Pro-Trump voters (at least what I've experinced) have range from racist donkey-caves to people who just don't know any better." is . . . disappointing.
That's the thing though. Recall Bob, from my example. Just like him trump voters not that are voting out of hate must still either:
A) Be ignorant of his racist positions.
B) Not care about his racist positions enough to be turned off voting for him.
There is really no other option. If they knew about his positions and care about them, they wouldn't vote for him. You cannot both comprehend trump's racism and care about it while still voting for him. The same holds true for the stances he's championed on other disadvantaged groups during his campaign. You must either not know about, or simply not care about it enough to sway your thoughts.
Allow me to propose an alternative position;
C) They abide by the maxim "Do not judge your fellow, until you have reached his place." That is the formulation of Rav. Hillel, Christians will be more familiar with “Judge not, that you be not judged" from the Gospel of Matthew.
While superficially similar to B, it reflects not Indifference, but Humility. In B above, the person has made a determination and decided that it is not relevant to the overall matter (which is entirely defensible, but separate from C). What I propose in C is a deliberate effort to not make a determination: to recognize that it is not given to us to have enough information or insight to make judgments in a given matter.
While that ideal springs from 'old books' (to use the lingo of the kids)... it's worthwhile pointing out that this is an objectively good idea. How many terrible events in just the last two years or so come down to violating this principle?
"Hands Up, Don't Shoot!"?
Freddie Grey and the Baltimore Six?
UVA, Rolling Stone and the saga of "Jackie"?
Columbia and the Mattress Girl?
Chongara wrote: I'd also like to add I should clarify when I saw racist I should probably say "Very Racist" or "Actively Racist". Truth is we're all racist to some extent. Me, you, Trump voters, Trump haters all of us. Tribalism is built into the human soul. You know who you are, what group you're in and who isn't in it. That will always, always introduce natural biases. How cognizant of and guarded against one's own biases one is, varies quite a bit. I'd wager the "I voted for trump but I'm not racist crowd" is on average just a bit less strong in those areas than the "I like a lot of what he's saying, but I just can't vote for him" crowd is.
The big problem with the classifications you are making here is you seem to be drawing the Venn diagram of "Racist" in such a way that it loses all meaning and moral character. Another way of saying it is the Syndrome Rule: "If everyone is Racist, no one will be Racist."
If mere tribal loyalty is racism, merely having unexpressed bias is racism, then you've expanded the definition to such a degree that it conflates inherently immoral behavior (i.e., treating morally identical people as if they were morally distinct people) with morally virtuous behavior (i.e., treating morally distinct people as morally distinct).
If I may be permitted an aside, this touches on a fundamental difference between the Jewish and Christian moral frameworks;
-The general rule in Jewish Halacha is that motives are irrelevant, only actions. So, for example, there is nothing objectionable in a man performing a 'good deed' only because he is motivated by the praise he receives for doing so. It is still a meritorious deed.
-Christians, by contrast, believe that motives are paramount. Contrary to the above, a 'good deed' motivated by a desire for praise is without merit.
By the by, when I say this is a difference, I mean an explicit difference; "So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others."
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Trump and Putin don't have to like each other, but a solid working relationship over things like fighting ISIL, would be good for both nations IMO.
If Putin wanted a solid working relatinship in fighting ISIS, he would have it. There isn't one, because Putin is much more interested in helping his mate Assad defeat the rebels in Syria.
There's this straight up fething crazy notion out there that the only reason relations with Russia have soured is because Obama and America decided to start being belligerent with Russia. The reason relations suffered is because Putin decided to annex the Crimea, then start dicking around in the rest of the Ukraine. And Putin then went on to attack rebel positions in Syria in direct contrast with the agreement made with America, and then acted to collapse the cease fire as soon as it was signed.
The idea that Trump, or any president, might restore that relationship by just ignoring acts of aggression is fething dangerous. You don't achieve world peace by pretending acts of aggression against sovereign countries aren't happening.
1. Right Wing Loonies = Representatives of the entire right side of politics. 2. Left Wing Loonies = Don't actually exist, and are just a boogeyman made up by the right... who are all Right Wing Loonies as established in point 1.
You've written this a couple of pages after trying to put blame on the whole of the left for the protests. Ridiculous.
Prestor Jon wrote: Trump's victory has more to do with Hilary being a terrible candidate than with any favorable attribute that Trump might have. Hillary got about 60 million votes, that's about 10 million fewer votes than Obama got in 2008 and 7 million fewer votes than Obama got in 2012. Where did all those voters go and why didn't they vote for Hillary? Hillary lost states like Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin because of low turnout and that speaks volumes about the inability of Hillary to win over Obama voters and motivate Democrats. I don't see what Trump did that could explain the atrocious turnout for Hillary.
It isn't untrue, but you've missed at least 90% of the story there. For starters, comparing to 2008 Obama is disingenuous, because 2008 Obama had the benefit of coming off the back of the utterly disastrous Bush presidency. 2012 Obama cuoldn't match 2008 Obama, because he no longer had that, and so his vote total dropped 4.5 million votes (also included is Obama's big over-promises in 2008, the zeal of which had started to wear off). Comparing Clinton to 2012 Obama, we see another drop off in Democratic votes, as it turns out a candidate with little ability to inspire around a singular message, and with a lot of media noise about some scandals will cost another 5 million votes.
In contrast, Trump picked up almost the same number of votes as McCain and Romney. Put up a war hero with a long history of service in congress, get 60 million votes. Put up a successful businessman and highly regarded governor with a long record of personal giving, and get 60 million votes. Put up a guy who with a long business record of grafts and con jobs, who spent the campaign alternating between personal attacks, bigotry and showing total ignorance of government... and you get 60 million votes.
There's an old line in politics, Republicans fall in line, Democrats have to fall in love. It seems to have played out here, and was something a lot of people mentioned earlier in the campaign when polls were neck and neck.
End of the day, Democrats could have done more to beat Trump, that's not an unreasonable statement. But Republicans are the people who turned up and voted for him, like they have for any other Republican. That's the real story of this election. What you've posted is like placing all of the blame for Hitler on France. Sure, the French should have beaten Germany, but you can't ignore the role of the Germans in what happened.
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“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
sebster wrote: Except there's the last bit there, "Today, they are the people who are accused of creating every social injustice imaginable; when anything in society fails, they get blamed."
No-one says 'oh those people living small towns are to blame for everything that's gone wrong'. What's being referenced there is the trend towards blaming white people. It's a clear reference to race.
It might seem that way if you're watching us through the media telescope. On the ground, however, it's clear that this isn't as simple as "racial resentment" (fast becoming a buzzword). Explicitly anti-white rhetoric is completely acceptable on social media and even increasingly in mainstream media - but it's also becoming increasingly acceptable in person. And it's certainly not black people or latinos who are becoming more comfortable with using anti-white racist language in person (for obvious reasons) - it's white folks. But crucially not all white folks. Anecdotally, the white people who are esclating this anti-white racist rhetoric tend to be younger, more urban-to-suburban than suburban-to-rural, less sympathetic to traditional values and social institutions, more skeptical of entrepreneurial rhetoric. A big plank in the platform of this demographic is their counterparts - older, living in smaller towns, more likely to go to church on Sundays, etc - are indeed to blame for all social ills. To wit, you will find without looking very hard quite a lot of white people in the clickbaitosphere currently espousing anti-white rhetoric but it is fairly clear that they are not really talking about themselves or their white peers.
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Manchu wrote: It might seem that way if you're watching us through the media telescope. On the ground, however, it's clear that this isn't as simple as "racial resentment" (fast becoming a buzzword).
Might be time to back up, I think you've lost track of the actual argument I made. I didn’t say the whole thing is done to racial resentment. I said the comment in the NY Post that tried to explain Trump’s support was ultimately about racial resentment. That’s all, just that one story that was linked to. Doesn’t mean I don’t think there aren’t lots of other issues at play in why people voted for Trump.
Explicitly anti-white rhetoric is completely acceptable on social media and even increasingly in mainstream media - but it's also becoming increasingly acceptable in person. And it's certainly not black people or latinos who are becoming more comfortable with using anti-white racist language in person (for obvious reasons) - it's white folks.
Heh, what you’ve just posted there is racial resentment (it is becoming a buzzword, I’ll grant you that). And that doesn’t mean your point is wrong, I’ve posted a bunch of times how frustrated I get with the dysfunctional, blame focused approach of many left wing people to racial politics. But even to the extent that such a frustration is true and significant enough to decide a vote in a presidential election, it remains a vote cast because of racial resentment.
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“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
sebster wrote: Except there's the last bit there, "Today, they are the people who are accused of creating every social injustice imaginable; when anything in society fails, they get blamed."
No-one says 'oh those people living small towns are to blame for everything that's gone wrong'. What's being referenced there is the trend towards blaming white people. It's a clear reference to race.
It might seem that way if you're watching us through the media telescope. On the ground, however, it's clear that this isn't as simple as "racial resentment" (fast becoming a buzzword). Explicitly anti-white rhetoric is completely acceptable on social media and even increasingly in mainstream media - but it's also becoming increasinly acceptable in person. And it's certainly not black people or latinos who are becoming more comfortable with using anti-white racist language in person (for obvious reasons) - it's white folks. But crucially not all white folks. Anecdotally, the white people who are esclating this anti-white racist rhetoric tend to be younger, more urban-to-suburban than suburban-to-rural, and less sympathetic to traditional values and social institutions. A big plank in the platform of this demographic is their counterparts - older, living in smaller towns, more likely to go to church on Sundays, etc - are indeed to blame for all social ills. To wit, you will find without looking very hard quite a lot of white people in the clickbaitosphere currently espousing anti-white rhetoric but it is fairly clear that they are not really talking about themselves or their white peers.
It's worth adding that this demographic is increasingly becoming comfortable expressing attitudes that flirt with (and sometimes openly state) anti Jewish animus. According to a 2014 survey of Jewish college students54 percent "reported being subjected to or witness to anti-Semitism on campus during a six-month period."
It would appear that the POTUS-elect has wrested control of his social media accounts back from his handlers.
From an article covering the protests: "Thousands have been gathering in cities across the nation to voice opposition to Trump's election. Trump was on Twitter on Thursday, calling the demonstrators "professional protesters, incited by the media."
Also of note...
From an article covering his DC visit: "But early signs suggest Trump is willing to break protocol when it comes to press access and transparency."
Wow, one whole day after the "let's come together" speech and he's back to blaming and limiting access for the media. There's that dodgey, thin-skinned little...well, you know. How very POTUS-like.
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One interesting thing about this campaign is how money didn't seem to matter that much. Clinton had a bigger warchest, and she also spent it better. Being better organised from the get go she bought TV ads in large packages well ahead of time, which is much cheaper, and on top of that Trump had to accept the standard hefty cut that the Republican machine takes from political advertising. All that added up to Clinton having a lot more TV presence. And on top of that Clinton had a much bigger ground game, which is supposed to give its advantage in swing states specifically. That last bit really didn't happen.
Maybe one lesson to take from might be that money isn't the factor in politics that it was. There's maybe a point of saturation, where once you've put out $100 million in TV ads, another $100 million isn't actually going to reach any more voters.
Given the populist, anti-establishment message of both parties, it seems that this might actually free parties up to reject big money from their politics? If you can raise a few hundred million in small donations, maybe that will be enough to compete in media and ground game, and from there the benefit of saying 'we don't take corporate dollars' will be a much bigger benefit than you'd get from another couple of hundred million in tv ads and door knockers?
This isn't an easy change, of course, because there's an established class of fundraisers and organisers in both political parties who won't just accept a massive scale back in their role and their importance. And there's also a complication with special interests, because it is actually important for government to talk to industries when crafting legislation, legislation shouldn't be written for them, but it should be written with their expertise and understanding taken in to account. So this won't see lobbyists disappear or anything like that, and the revolving door of advisors and lobbyists won't change.
But could it, optimistically, if Trump wasn't just a once-off, freak thing in all regards, could we see a change in the relationship between politicians and special interests?
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Instead of riots in Baltimore and Seattle it would be riots in Dallas and Somme other southern city.
Right now you are seeing the immature elements of the left wing crying their eyes in a public and idiotic fashion. I feel they turn violent, they should be prosecuted and tossed in a cell, much like how they handled the riots here in Vancouver after the game 7.
They fast tracked the rioters here in BC, and made sure every single one of them faced justice for their actions.
warboss wrote: Is there a permanent stickied thread for Chaos players to complain every time someone/anyone gets models or rules besides them? If not, there should be.
sebster wrote: One interesting thing about this campaign is how money didn't seem to matter that much. Clinton had a bigger warchest, and she also spent it better. Being better organised from the get go she bought TV ads in large packages well ahead of time, which is much cheaper, and on top of that Trump had to accept the standard hefty cut that the Republican machine takes from political advertising. All that added up to Clinton having a lot more TV presence. And on top of that Clinton had a much bigger ground game, which is supposed to give its advantage in swing states specifically. That last bit really didn't happen.
Maybe one lesson to take from might be that money isn't the factor in politics that it was. There's maybe a point of saturation, where once you've put out $100 million in TV ads, another $100 million isn't actually going to reach any more voters.
It would be interesting to see how it actually breaks down.... but I literally cannot recall a single positive message TV spot from the Clinton campaign, it was all "look at this bad stuff, and he wants to do worse." Whereas the Trump ads that were run around here were a decent mix of pro-trump positive messages (we've got work to do, make america great again), and "emails, Evil woman!!" type ones.
~16000 Astra Militarum: 
~1200 | Imperial Knights: 
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~5000 | Kruleboyz: 
~3500 | Lumineth Realm-Lords: 
~700
