Unless Obama is a brony it seems as though this discussion has wandered off topic.
Sounds like we need to start a petition.
Geez, I looked at that White House petition website and it seemed to consist mostly of crazy racists who were petitioning to have White History Month and crap and people who wanted their very, very tiny and specific pet interest (like cigars) catered to. Maybe 10% of it was actual useful relevant stuff. You could start a petition with a goal to get more signatures than the guy with the eighteen petitions to get Obama impeached because he's holding down the white race.
I thought about making a petition about reforming federal flood insurance (especially the subsidies for homes and businesses in particularly hurricane-prone areas, like the entire Gulf coast), but it turns out that was actually done in 2012. Congress actually managed to pass a bill (which Obama signed) to overhaul the program, including things like phasing out flood insurance subsidies for areas that get damaged frequently and jacking up rates for risky areas while keeping it for communities that actually do something to protect themselves for the future. I don't remember this getting any coverage at all even though it was a good and useful thing.
and liberals certainly don't sitting around talking like that...
*stifled laughter*
And actually, yeah, good point. This forum is itself a kind of ivory tower, not just from, say, the denizens of the numerous far right communities, but from the more base people on the left and various subcultures in between.
I tend to assume that this community is itself a community of mouthbreathers in some sense, but being somewhat of a fellow mouthbreather in whatever that sense is, I don't know what it would be.
I would dare say that 25% of "liberals" are as ridiculous as the 25% of conservatives that still think Obama is a secret Muslim from Kenya. Or the 80% that think that poor women shouldn't have access to health resources. Or any number of the horrible shit that conservatives believe in huge numbers. There's no left-leaning analogue for Glenn Beck getting on TV and calling the president a Nazi. There's no analogue for Sarah Palin using the term "lamestream media" over and over while she proudly supports the right to be a horrible bigot or to get as much diabetes as you want.
Yes, every group large enough is going to have its token dumbass collective. The trick is that the Left doesn't vote them into office and let them dictate policy at the forefront of the party.
I don't know enough about the demographics to ballpark percentages, but I try to be suspicious of policy-related allies in general.
I agree with you on the structural/idiots-in-office difference. I think that, these days at least, that has to do with the demographic makeup corresponding to different aesthetic sensibilities, social gathering styles, and media consumption habits. A talk radio/Fox News/after church lunch kind of organization works for making one kind of over-community with its problems and benefits, and the people that sort of thing doesn't appeal to have a different set of things to hold them loosely together in their own kind of tribe.
That paragraph is too short and too narrow in scope to really touch on how complex that sort of thing really is, I think, but /shrug
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
True, but it's still an evasion--you were talking about the culture at large, not the elected officials and pundits. The left has its share of hippies, Communists, OWSers, ecoterrorists, and people way too for the ethical treatment of animals; they just don't get a lot of play in this country, arguably because the extreme of the left is further from the center than the extreme of the right is (that's nothing new though).
They don't exist in the number or uniformity that their analogues on the Right do, nor do they generally talk with pointed politicism.
The Left, as a culture, is fairly centrist. The fringe is further from the center, and the center is overwhelmingly the most populous (though admittedly, it skews things to realize that the Left strives to continually redefine the center under more and more progressive terms). The Right unfortunately is split strongly into social and economic divides, and the social fringe has become the point of aggregation; regardless of what a right-wing politician's views on the economy are, they MUST conform to the social agenda or face ostracization from the 40%+ of their electorate that demands adherence to the social platform.
The party bloc is far more coalesced around the fringe than it is anywhere else, and the party (vis a vis its voters) has little tolerance for anything less.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
There are limits to the freedoms and degree of equality that you can expect the government to guarantee. Things like racism, homophobia, and religion require government action because the government actually has (or had) laws that applied differently to the groups. If you want bronies (or even trans people) to be accepted though, you need to work on people's attitudes. You need to work on attitudes just as much with race, homosexuality and religion, but without government action those groups would have always been treated differently under the law, regardless of attitudes.
I think a lot of people forget that society and its norms can be oppressive in a way that's similar in degree and scope - perhaps even moreso than - government regulation.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I think a lot of people forget that society and its norms can be oppressive in a way that's similar in degree and scope - perhaps even moreso than - government regulation.
Yes, but you change norms by changing hearts and minds, not by legislation, in most cases.
and liberals certainly don't sitting around talking like that...
*stifled laughter*
And actually, yeah, good point. This forum is itself a kind of ivory tower, not just from, say, the denizens of the numerous far right communities, but from the more base people on the left and various subcultures in between.
I tend to assume that this community is itself a community of mouthbreathers in some sense, but being somewhat of a fellow mouthbreather in whatever that sense is, I don't know what it would be.
I would dare say that 25% of "liberals" are as ridiculous as the 25% of conservatives that still think Obama is a secret Muslim from Kenya. Or the 80% that think that poor women shouldn't have access to health resources. Or any number of the horrible shit that conservatives believe in huge numbers. There's no left-leaning analogue for Glenn Beck getting on TV and calling the president a Nazi. There's no analogue for Sarah Palin using the term "lamestream media" over and over while she proudly supports the right to be a horrible bigot or to get as much diabetes as you want.
Yes, every group large enough is going to have its token dumbass collective. The trick is that the Left doesn't vote them into office and let them dictate policy at the forefront of the party.
So... What you're saying is that no true liberal says that conservatives are dumb?
V1m on
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
There are limits to the freedoms and degree of equality that you can expect the government to guarantee. Things like racism, homophobia, and religion require government action because the government actually has (or had) laws that applied differently to the groups. If you want bronies (or even trans people) to be accepted though, you need to work on people's attitudes. You need to work on attitudes just as much with race, homosexuality and religion, but without government action those groups would have always been treated differently under the law, regardless of attitudes.
Bronies are a cultural issue only (at least as far as I know). Trans people do suffer from legal discrimination, though, including court cases where transgenderism is cited as a reason not to award custody or visitation rights, difficulties in getting official paperwork and statuses changed (name, gender, etc), difficulties for inmates trying to transition, even old laws against cross-dressing still on the books (and so available for police harassment). Trans people were only added to hate crime legislation federally in 2009, signed by Obama. (Look, Ma, I'm on topic!) Nearly 50% of surveyed transgendered people claim to have experienced serious discrimination in the workplace (being fired, passed over for a raise or promotion, etc), and ENDA, which has been proposed since 1994 and included gender identity as a protected class since 2009, still hasn't passed.
And don't even get me started on my third "it's okay to hate on them, apparently" group, pedophiles. Now that's a legal nightmare.
The fact is, though, that legal remedies shape social realities. As long as the law keeps minorities segregated, gives them no recourse, or forces them to remain hidden, people never get a chance to put the lie to their prejudices. I'm convinced that without Brown v. Board, the civil rights movement of the '60s doesn't happen, or doesn't happen as early as it did. Sometimes you can talk your way to fixing society, and sometimes you need to force people to be polite to each other at the barrel of a gun. Ending legal discrimination is absolutely one path to ending social discrimination.
Legislation is a good stopgap to reduce discrimination while we work on making people be less assholish.
It certainly is, but ultimately legislation can only do so much. I mean slavery is explicitly outlawed by the Constitution itself. You literally can't get more illegal than that. And yet we still have human trafficking because some people are horrible. That's not an excuse, and it's no reason to ignore the importance of good government, good legislation, and expanding minority rights protection further to historically ignored groups. It's just acknowledging that at some point the legislative route gets diminishing returns and you need to start hitting reality from a different angle no matter how broad your support manages to get. Either legislatively or even culturally.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Legislation is a good stopgap to reduce discrimination while we work on making people be less assholish.
When you have a discriminatory law on the books, changing it makes sense. But when the problem is attitudes, there isn't much you can do through the law.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
and liberals certainly don't sitting around talking like that...
*stifled laughter*
And actually, yeah, good point. This forum is itself a kind of ivory tower, not just from, say, the denizens of the numerous far right communities, but from the more base people on the left and various subcultures in between.
I tend to assume that this community is itself a community of mouthbreathers in some sense, but being somewhat of a fellow mouthbreather in whatever that sense is, I don't know what it would be.
I would dare say that 25% of "liberals" are as ridiculous as the 25% of conservatives that still think Obama is a secret Muslim from Kenya. Or the 80% that think that poor women shouldn't have access to health resources. Or any number of the horrible shit that conservatives believe in huge numbers. There's no left-leaning analogue for Glenn Beck getting on TV and calling the president a Nazi. There's no analogue for Sarah Palin using the term "lamestream media" over and over while she proudly supports the right to be a horrible bigot or to get as much diabetes as you want.
Yes, every group large enough is going to have its token dumbass collective. The trick is that the Left doesn't vote them into office and let them dictate policy at the forefront of the party.
So... What you're saying is that no true liberal says that conservatives are dumb?
No, and don't be like that.
I will say that the overwhelming amount of discourse coming from liberals in public opinion, the media, and the elected representation is exponentially less aggressively dismissive and showing of animus towards conservatives than vice verse, despite liberals having infinite more reason to invert the phenomenon.
There's no circuit of left-wing media that hides under the guise of "entertainment" that does nothing put spout hate-speech and gross falsehoods. There's no convention like CPAC that invites people like Wayne LaPierre and Michelle Bachmann to foment bigotry and ignorance.
Both sides aren't the same. Don't vote Republican.
Legislation is a good stopgap to reduce discrimination while we work on making people be less assholish.
When you have a discriminatory law on the books, changing it makes sense. But when the problem is attitudes, there isn't much you can do through the law.
Are you positing that public accommodation laws have no effect?
It would seem even recent news stories would undermine this argument.
Legislation is a good stopgap to reduce discrimination while we work on making people be less assholish.
When you have a discriminatory law on the books, changing it makes sense. But when the problem is attitudes, there isn't much you can do through the law.
You can also enact proactive legislation in order to hamstring the impact that now defunct discriminatory laws enabled as well as discriminatory acts that should be prohibited on a discriminatory basis. Equal Housing and Equal Opportunity Employment being moderately good examples of each, though certainly not perfect. Again, this can only go so far on its own but it is better than simply stopping redlining in the first place and leaving everything else to the whims of chance.
The worst thing is that it is hard as hell to help minority groups due solely to the fact that they are a minority and help is contingent on the will of the majority not getting bored or prioritizing other things later on. The fact that majorities were assisted by past racist acts don't really help get you over that hump. I can trace being a middle class dude to the racist nature of the New Deal. Without the CCC and WPA my grandpa may never have become a carpenter, and then never become a foreman, &c. leading to my parents also not having a pretty good starting point and my building off of those successes solely due to being born. If we were black instead of mostly Italian all of that would never have happened and who knows where I'd be.
Legislation is a good stopgap to reduce discrimination while we work on making people be less assholish.
When you have a discriminatory law on the books, changing it makes sense. But when the problem is attitudes, there isn't much you can do through the law.
Yes there is. If you ask people to refrain from certain behavior, you end up changing attitudes because people just aren't that good at faking it. Some advice I got for interviewing once on the phone was simply "remember to smile" - because the act of putting it on changes your demeanor.
When people can't be openly discriminatory and abusive, the vast majority wind up actually being less discriminatory and abusive. Very few people can manage to sit there and smolder. That small change, builds up over time.
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SerukoFerocious Kittenof The Farthest NorthRegistered Userregular
Legislation is a good stopgap to reduce discrimination while we work on making people be less assholish.
When you have a discriminatory law on the books, changing it makes sense. But when the problem is attitudes, there isn't much you can do through the law.
Yes there is. If you ask people to refrain from certain behavior, you end up changing attitudes because people just aren't that good at faking it. Some advice I got for interviewing once on the phone was simply "remember to smile" - because the act of putting it on changes your demeanor.
When people can't be openly discriminatory and abusive, the vast majority wind up actually being less discriminatory and abusive. Very few people can manage to sit there and smolder. That small change, builds up over time.
Witness sexual harassment protection. It took about 5 years for the US to go from "but he is your boss so what can you do?" To taking down bikini posters because no one wants to lose their job. Once the incentive flipped date raping secretaries stopped being a perk of management.
Seruko on
"How are you going to play Dota if your fingers and bitten off? You can't. That's how" -> Carnarvon
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Legislation is a good stopgap to reduce discrimination while we work on making people be less assholish.
When you have a discriminatory law on the books, changing it makes sense. But when the problem is attitudes, there isn't much you can do through the law.
Yes there is. If you ask people to refrain from certain behavior, you end up changing attitudes because people just aren't that good at faking it. Some advice I got for interviewing once on the phone was simply "remember to smile" - because the act of putting it on changes your demeanor.
When people can't be openly discriminatory and abusive, the vast majority wind up actually being less discriminatory and abusive. Very few people can manage to sit there and smolder. That small change, builds up over time.
You can make something a protected class, and you can broaden the ambit of anti discrimination laws to be sure, but you can't accord these classes the same level of protection that race or religion receive (the supreme court won't extend strict scrutiny to new classes), and more importantly, you just can't legislate attitude changes. Maybe better anti discrimination in hiring laws could help, but I'm not sure what else you can do.
and liberals certainly don't sitting around talking like that...
*stifled laughter*
And actually, yeah, good point. This forum is itself a kind of ivory tower, not just from, say, the denizens of the numerous far right communities, but from the more base people on the left and various subcultures in between.
I tend to assume that this community is itself a community of mouthbreathers in some sense, but being somewhat of a fellow mouthbreather in whatever that sense is, I don't know what it would be.
I would dare say that 25% of "liberals" are as ridiculous as the 25% of conservatives that still think Obama is a secret Muslim from Kenya. Or the 80% that think that poor women shouldn't have access to health resources. Or any number of the horrible shit that conservatives believe in huge numbers. There's no left-leaning analogue for Glenn Beck getting on TV and calling the president a Nazi. There's no analogue for Sarah Palin using the term "lamestream media" over and over while she proudly supports the right to be a horrible bigot or to get as much diabetes as you want.
Yes, every group large enough is going to have its token dumbass collective. The trick is that the Left doesn't vote them into office and let them dictate policy at the forefront of the party.
So... What you're saying is that no true liberal says that conservatives are dumb?
No, and don't be like that.
I will say that the overwhelming amount of discourse coming from liberals in public opinion, the media, and the elected representation is exponentially less aggressively dismissive and showing of animus towards conservatives than vice verse, despite liberals having infinite more reason to invert the phenomenon.
There's no circuit of left-wing media that hides under the guise of "entertainment" that does nothing put spout hate-speech and gross falsehoods. There's no convention like CPAC that invites people like Wayne LaPierre and Michelle Bachmann to foment bigotry and ignorance.
Both sides aren't the same. Don't vote Republican.
You are conflating assertion A with axiom B
I'm looking at buying a 27" monitor to replace my current 24", and if you were to give me a quarter for every post in this forum alone that disproves your axiom I could link disproving your original assertion, I could easily pay for it, even at UK prices. (It's just under £460 excl. VAT)
Personally, I think you should have the courage of your convictions: liberals say that conservatives are stupid because, statistically, politically speaking, conservatives are overwhelmingly politically stupid. They act against their own best interests, they ignore empirical evidence, they act counter to their stated goals, they vote for people who do the exact opposite of what those conservative people say they want, they drank the kool-aid, they took the wooden nickel and so on. Stupid. Dumb. Thick as two short planks. There: I said it. I'm not sorry and I'd do it again. My flag: nailed to a mast.
But don't go around saying that liberals or progressives or whatever term you want to use don't go around remarking on this phenomenon because it's simply, evidently, obviously not true.
and liberals certainly don't sitting around talking like that...
*stifled laughter*
And actually, yeah, good point. This forum is itself a kind of ivory tower, not just from, say, the denizens of the numerous far right communities, but from the more base people on the left and various subcultures in between.
I tend to assume that this community is itself a community of mouthbreathers in some sense, but being somewhat of a fellow mouthbreather in whatever that sense is, I don't know what it would be.
I would dare say that 25% of "liberals" are as ridiculous as the 25% of conservatives that still think Obama is a secret Muslim from Kenya. Or the 80% that think that poor women shouldn't have access to health resources. Or any number of the horrible shit that conservatives believe in huge numbers. There's no left-leaning analogue for Glenn Beck getting on TV and calling the president a Nazi. There's no analogue for Sarah Palin using the term "lamestream media" over and over while she proudly supports the right to be a horrible bigot or to get as much diabetes as you want.
Yes, every group large enough is going to have its token dumbass collective. The trick is that the Left doesn't vote them into office and let them dictate policy at the forefront of the party.
So... What you're saying is that no true liberal says that conservatives are dumb?
No, and don't be like that.
I will say that the overwhelming amount of discourse coming from liberals in public opinion, the media, and the elected representation is exponentially less aggressively dismissive and showing of animus towards conservatives than vice verse, despite liberals having infinite more reason to invert the phenomenon.
There's no circuit of left-wing media that hides under the guise of "entertainment" that does nothing put spout hate-speech and gross falsehoods. There's no convention like CPAC that invites people like Wayne LaPierre and Michelle Bachmann to foment bigotry and ignorance.
Both sides aren't the same. Don't vote Republican.
You are conflating assertion A with axiom B
I'm looking at buying a 27" monitor to replace my current 24", and if you were to give me a quarter for every post in this forum alone that disproves your axiom I could link disproving your original assertion, I could easily pay for it, even at UK prices. (It's just under £460 excl. VAT)
Personally, I think you should have the courage of your convictions: liberals say that conservatives are stupid because, statistically, politically speaking, conservatives are overwhelmingly politically stupid. They act against their own best interests, they ignore empirical evidence, they act counter to their stated goals, they vote for people who do the exact opposite of what those conservative people say they want, they drank the kool-aid, they took the wooden nickel and so on. Stupid. Dumb. Thick as two short planks. There: I said it. I'm not sorry and I'd do it again. My flag: nailed to a mast.
But don't go around saying that liberals or progressives or whatever term you want to use don't go around remarking on this phenomenon because it's simply, evidently, obviously not true.
I don't think you read what he wrote.
The point being made was "but liberals have ecoterrorists and communists and their other brands of wacko too" and the counterpoint is that those ideas/people do not get mainstream play unlike the conservative equivalent (e.g. gold standard end the fed, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, etc.).
and liberals certainly don't sitting around talking like that...
*stifled laughter*
And actually, yeah, good point. This forum is itself a kind of ivory tower, not just from, say, the denizens of the numerous far right communities, but from the more base people on the left and various subcultures in between.
I tend to assume that this community is itself a community of mouthbreathers in some sense, but being somewhat of a fellow mouthbreather in whatever that sense is, I don't know what it would be.
I would dare say that 25% of "liberals" are as ridiculous as the 25% of conservatives that still think Obama is a secret Muslim from Kenya. Or the 80% that think that poor women shouldn't have access to health resources. Or any number of the horrible shit that conservatives believe in huge numbers. There's no left-leaning analogue for Glenn Beck getting on TV and calling the president a Nazi. There's no analogue for Sarah Palin using the term "lamestream media" over and over while she proudly supports the right to be a horrible bigot or to get as much diabetes as you want.
Yes, every group large enough is going to have its token dumbass collective. The trick is that the Left doesn't vote them into office and let them dictate policy at the forefront of the party.
So... What you're saying is that no true liberal says that conservatives are dumb?
No, and don't be like that.
I will say that the overwhelming amount of discourse coming from liberals in public opinion, the media, and the elected representation is exponentially less aggressively dismissive and showing of animus towards conservatives than vice verse, despite liberals having infinite more reason to invert the phenomenon.
There's no circuit of left-wing media that hides under the guise of "entertainment" that does nothing put spout hate-speech and gross falsehoods. There's no convention like CPAC that invites people like Wayne LaPierre and Michelle Bachmann to foment bigotry and ignorance.
Both sides aren't the same. Don't vote Republican.
You are conflating assertion A with axiom B
I'm looking at buying a 27" monitor to replace my current 24", and if you were to give me a quarter for every post in this forum alone that disproves your axiom I could link disproving your original assertion, I could easily pay for it, even at UK prices. (It's just under £460 excl. VAT)
Personally, I think you should have the courage of your convictions: liberals say that conservatives are stupid because, statistically, politically speaking, conservatives are overwhelmingly politically stupid. They act against their own best interests, they ignore empirical evidence, they act counter to their stated goals, they vote for people who do the exact opposite of what those conservative people say they want, they drank the kool-aid, they took the wooden nickel and so on. Stupid. Dumb. Thick as two short planks. There: I said it. I'm not sorry and I'd do it again. My flag: nailed to a mast.
But don't go around saying that liberals or progressives or whatever term you want to use don't go around remarking on this phenomenon because it's simply, evidently, obviously not true.
I don't think you read what he wrote.
The point being made was "but liberals have ecoterrorists and communists and their other brands of wacko too" and the counterpoint is that those ideas/people do not get mainstream play unlike the conservative equivalent (e.g. gold standard end the fed, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, etc.).
So you're saying that of any of the examples I could produce from this forum alone, all could be categorised as "ecoterrorists and communists and their other brands of wacko"?
I probably should have phrase as "we'll just have to wait for enough of the stupid to die off to make certain repulsive views politically irrelevant." I think once it becomes political suicide to fight for discrimination against LGBT individuals, use racist dog whistles and a few other things (like viewing certain technology as luxuries instead of required tools). That frees up time and resources for other things.
Eventually, it'll become harder for the right to weasel out of having debates on their policies, but spewing out bigoted views and policies to waste time. It's why I'm so happy to see the right losing so badly in the culture war currently because eventually we'll get the debate on certain policies and they will lose those debates. This is also right they are probably trying the "because shut up" route that Ross has commented on.
I probably should have phrase as "we'll just have to wait for enough of the stupid to die off to make certain repulsive views politically irrelevant." I think once it becomes political suicide to fight for discrimination against LGBT individuals, use racist dog whistles and a few other things (like viewing certain technology as luxuries instead of required tools). That frees up time and resources for other things.
Eventually, it'll become harder for the right to weasel out of having debates on their policies, but spewing out bigoted views and policies to waste time. It's why I'm so happy to see the right losing so badly in the culture war currently because eventually we'll get the debate on certain policies and they will lose those debates. This is also right they are probably trying the "because shut up" route that Ross has commented on.
It is good (though in a bad way) that the Right is staying beholden to their ideology in the face of losing the culture war. It's given the Dems a hard edge in political contests, because it doesn't matter about any of their opposition's platform outside social issues, because no one cares about that stuff if you take the stage and proudly profess your bigotry.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I probably should have phrase as "we'll just have to wait for enough of the stupid to die off to make certain repulsive views politically irrelevant." I think once it becomes political suicide to fight for discrimination against LGBT individuals, use racist dog whistles and a few other things (like viewing certain technology as luxuries instead of required tools). That frees up time and resources for other things.
Eventually, it'll become harder for the right to weasel out of having debates on their policies, but spewing out bigoted views and policies to waste time. It's why I'm so happy to see the right losing so badly in the culture war currently because eventually we'll get the debate on certain policies and they will lose those debates. This is also right they are probably trying the "because shut up" route that Ross has commented on.
It is good (though in a bad way) that the Right is staying beholden to their ideology in the face of losing the culture war. It's given the Dems a hard edge in political contests, because it doesn't matter about any of their opposition's platform outside social issues, because no one cares about that stuff if you take the stage and proudly profess your bigotry.
I don't know. I think there is still a whole class of voter that votes based on economics and attitude towards business/regulation completely. I also think that there are still many people out there who wouldn't consider anything outside of a direct statement about not liking a specific group as bigotry. "I don't have a problem with black people, but they should stop being lazy welfare queens" seems to be a pretty broadly held viewpoint right now. Forget about having people like that call someone who backs policies that result in disparate impacts, like drug sentencing laws, a bigot.
I probably should have phrase as "we'll just have to wait for enough of the stupid to die off to make certain repulsive views politically irrelevant." I think once it becomes political suicide to fight for discrimination against LGBT individuals, use racist dog whistles and a few other things (like viewing certain technology as luxuries instead of required tools). That frees up time and resources for other things.
Eventually, it'll become harder for the right to weasel out of having debates on their policies, but spewing out bigoted views and policies to waste time. It's why I'm so happy to see the right losing so badly in the culture war currently because eventually we'll get the debate on certain policies and they will lose those debates. This is also right they are probably trying the "because shut up" route that Ross has commented on.
It is good (though in a bad way) that the Right is staying beholden to their ideology in the face of losing the culture war. It's given the Dems a hard edge in political contests, because it doesn't matter about any of their opposition's platform outside social issues, because no one cares about that stuff if you take the stage and proudly profess your bigotry.
I don't know. I think there is still a whole class of voter that votes based on economics and attitude towards business/regulation completely.
You mean Republicans?
I also think that there are still many people out there who wouldn't consider anything outside of a direct statement about not liking a specific group as bigotry. "I don't have a problem with black people, but they should stop being lazy welfare queens" seems to be a pretty broadly held viewpoint right now. Forget about having people like that call someone who backs policies that result in disparate impacts, like drug sentencing laws, a bigot.
There's a simpler question you can ask yourself: What's an example of a failed Democrat policy?
Not having any answer is telling.
Why do I have the strange feeling that any Democratic promoted legislation I take the effort to list (like, say, DMCA) will simply get dismissed as not being a trueScotsman Democratic policy proposal for one reason or another?
About as telling as using the noun instead of the adjective as is proper. Meanwhile, how about Carter's starting the deregulation process.
Wait, are you seriously shitting on the foundation of craft beer?
I thought I knew you, bum. I just... I don't know what to say.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
A side effect of having two parties is that there are different constituencies in each party. I have no doubt that there are many people who are at least tolerant of minorities but who still vote straight R because even though they disagree with the GOP on the social issues, they agree with them on taxes or regulation, and care about those issues more. That doesn't make them bad people or bigots, just people who have different priorities than you.
A side effect of having two parties is that there are different constituencies in each party. I have no doubt that there are many people who are at least tolerant of minorities but who still vote straight R because even though they disagree with the GOP on the social issues, they agree with them on taxes or regulation, and care about those issues more. That doesn't make them bad people or bigots, just people who have different priorities than you.
No, not really. You can't look at GOP fiscal proposals and not see the blatant bigotry and classism that are the foundation of the policies. Now, you might not care, but that doesn't make you a good person.
Yes, every group large enough is going to have its token dumbass collective. The trick is that the Left doesn't vote them into office and let them dictate policy at the forefront of the party.
Kucinich
I mean, not at the forefront of the party, but he got voted into office repeatedly
Yes, every group large enough is going to have its token dumbass collective. The trick is that the Left doesn't vote them into office and let them dictate policy at the forefront of the party.
Kucinich
I mean, not at the forefront of the party, but he got voted into office repeatedly
Yeah, but it was to Congress, not anywhere important.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
A side effect of having two parties is that there are different constituencies in each party. I have no doubt that there are many people who are at least tolerant of minorities but who still vote straight R because even though they disagree with the GOP on the social issues, they agree with them on taxes or regulation, and care about those issues more. That doesn't make them bad people or bigots, just people who have different priorities than you.
Are those one issue voters? People who aren't taken seriously here? In some respects they're worse than fanatical voters, who at least pretend to care about all the issues the GOP believes in and implements into policy. Single issue voters might have some good reason for standing up for said issues but they forget they're not voting in a vacuum. When they vote for a person they're not only voting on that issue, its everything that person believes in and every good and bad decision they want to impose through the government.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
A side effect of having two parties is that there are different constituencies in each party. I have no doubt that there are many people who are at least tolerant of minorities but who still vote straight R because even though they disagree with the GOP on the social issues, they agree with them on taxes or regulation, and care about those issues more. That doesn't make them bad people or bigots, just people who have different priorities than you.
No, not really. You can't look at GOP fiscal proposals and not see the blatant bigotry and classism that are the foundation of the policies. Now, you might not care, but that doesn't make you a good person.
Voting based on the direct impact that government has on you (i.e., taxes you will pay or regulations on your business) doesn't make you a bad person. I don't think there is anything wrong with saying "I want other groups to be protected, but I'm using my vote to benefit myself."
A side effect of having two parties is that there are different constituencies in each party. I have no doubt that there are many people who are at least tolerant of minorities but who still vote straight R because even though they disagree with the GOP on the social issues, they agree with them on taxes or regulation, and care about those issues more. That doesn't make them bad people or bigots, just people who have different priorities than you.
Are those one issue voters? People who aren't taken seriously here? In some respects they're worse than fanatical voters, who at least pretend to care about all the issues the GOP believes in and implements into policy. Single issue voters might have some good reason for standing up for said issues but they forget they're not voting in a vacuum. When they vote for a person they're not only voting on that issue, its everything that person believes in and every good and bad decision they want to impose through the government.
I don't really understand this argument against single issue voters. It seems like your saying that single issue voters are bad because they only care about the single issue, but it's really no different for any other person since most if not all voters won't agree with all the time with either party so instead you weight issues that are important to you and vote for the party and person that believes in those. If a single issue is extremely important to you then it doesn't seem surprising that you vote based on it and I would be pretty surprised if most people considered more than 3-4 broad issues when voting for a party.
A side effect of having two parties is that there are different constituencies in each party. I have no doubt that there are many people who are at least tolerant of minorities but who still vote straight R because even though they disagree with the GOP on the social issues, they agree with them on taxes or regulation, and care about those issues more. That doesn't make them bad people or bigots, just people who have different priorities than you.
No, not really. You can't look at GOP fiscal proposals and not see the blatant bigotry and classism that are the foundation of the policies. Now, you might not care, but that doesn't make you a good person.
Voting based on the direct impact that government has on you (i.e., taxes you will pay or regulations on your business) doesn't make you a bad person. I don't think there is anything wrong with saying "I want other groups to be protected, but I'm using my vote to benefit myself."
As someone who would probably personally benefit the most from more Republicans in office I assure you it's myopically selfish.
A side effect of having two parties is that there are different constituencies in each party. I have no doubt that there are many people who are at least tolerant of minorities but who still vote straight R because even though they disagree with the GOP on the social issues, they agree with them on taxes or regulation, and care about those issues more. That doesn't make them bad people or bigots, just people who have different priorities than you.
Are those one issue voters? People who aren't taken seriously here? In some respects they're worse than fanatical voters, who at least pretend to care about all the issues the GOP believes in and implements into policy. Single issue voters might have some good reason for standing up for said issues but they forget they're not voting in a vacuum. When they vote for a person they're not only voting on that issue, its everything that person believes in and every good and bad decision they want to impose through the government.
I don't really understand this argument against single issue voters. It seems like your saying that single issue voters are bad because they only care about the single issue, but it's really no different for any other person since most if not all voters won't agree with all the time with either party so instead you weight issues that are important to you and vote for the party and person that believes in those. If a single issue is extremely important to you then it doesn't seem surprising that you vote based on it and I would be pretty surprised if most people considered more than 3-4 broad issues when voting for a party.
Its one of those things that sound great in theory but fall on its face in reality. You can't vote for single issues in politics, you vote for candidates and if they win elections they'll implement everything they care about or that their party wants them to toe the line on. That's why its important to know as much as possible when voting on candidates and considering all their decisions before casting a vote, not only caring about one issue.
Posts
Geez, I looked at that White House petition website and it seemed to consist mostly of crazy racists who were petitioning to have White History Month and crap and people who wanted their very, very tiny and specific pet interest (like cigars) catered to. Maybe 10% of it was actual useful relevant stuff. You could start a petition with a goal to get more signatures than the guy with the eighteen petitions to get Obama impeached because he's holding down the white race.
I thought about making a petition about reforming federal flood insurance (especially the subsidies for homes and businesses in particularly hurricane-prone areas, like the entire Gulf coast), but it turns out that was actually done in 2012. Congress actually managed to pass a bill (which Obama signed) to overhaul the program, including things like phasing out flood insurance subsidies for areas that get damaged frequently and jacking up rates for risky areas while keeping it for communities that actually do something to protect themselves for the future. I don't remember this getting any coverage at all even though it was a good and useful thing.
I don't know enough about the demographics to ballpark percentages, but I try to be suspicious of policy-related allies in general.
I agree with you on the structural/idiots-in-office difference. I think that, these days at least, that has to do with the demographic makeup corresponding to different aesthetic sensibilities, social gathering styles, and media consumption habits. A talk radio/Fox News/after church lunch kind of organization works for making one kind of over-community with its problems and benefits, and the people that sort of thing doesn't appeal to have a different set of things to hold them loosely together in their own kind of tribe.
That paragraph is too short and too narrow in scope to really touch on how complex that sort of thing really is, I think, but /shrug
They don't exist in the number or uniformity that their analogues on the Right do, nor do they generally talk with pointed politicism.
The Left, as a culture, is fairly centrist. The fringe is further from the center, and the center is overwhelmingly the most populous (though admittedly, it skews things to realize that the Left strives to continually redefine the center under more and more progressive terms). The Right unfortunately is split strongly into social and economic divides, and the social fringe has become the point of aggregation; regardless of what a right-wing politician's views on the economy are, they MUST conform to the social agenda or face ostracization from the 40%+ of their electorate that demands adherence to the social platform.
The party bloc is far more coalesced around the fringe than it is anywhere else, and the party (vis a vis its voters) has little tolerance for anything less.
Yes, but you change norms by changing hearts and minds, not by legislation, in most cases.
So... What you're saying is that no true liberal says that conservatives are dumb?
Bronies are a cultural issue only (at least as far as I know). Trans people do suffer from legal discrimination, though, including court cases where transgenderism is cited as a reason not to award custody or visitation rights, difficulties in getting official paperwork and statuses changed (name, gender, etc), difficulties for inmates trying to transition, even old laws against cross-dressing still on the books (and so available for police harassment). Trans people were only added to hate crime legislation federally in 2009, signed by Obama. (Look, Ma, I'm on topic!) Nearly 50% of surveyed transgendered people claim to have experienced serious discrimination in the workplace (being fired, passed over for a raise or promotion, etc), and ENDA, which has been proposed since 1994 and included gender identity as a protected class since 2009, still hasn't passed.
And don't even get me started on my third "it's okay to hate on them, apparently" group, pedophiles. Now that's a legal nightmare.
The fact is, though, that legal remedies shape social realities. As long as the law keeps minorities segregated, gives them no recourse, or forces them to remain hidden, people never get a chance to put the lie to their prejudices. I'm convinced that without Brown v. Board, the civil rights movement of the '60s doesn't happen, or doesn't happen as early as it did. Sometimes you can talk your way to fixing society, and sometimes you need to force people to be polite to each other at the barrel of a gun. Ending legal discrimination is absolutely one path to ending social discrimination.
It certainly is, but ultimately legislation can only do so much. I mean slavery is explicitly outlawed by the Constitution itself. You literally can't get more illegal than that. And yet we still have human trafficking because some people are horrible. That's not an excuse, and it's no reason to ignore the importance of good government, good legislation, and expanding minority rights protection further to historically ignored groups. It's just acknowledging that at some point the legislative route gets diminishing returns and you need to start hitting reality from a different angle no matter how broad your support manages to get. Either legislatively or even culturally.
When you have a discriminatory law on the books, changing it makes sense. But when the problem is attitudes, there isn't much you can do through the law.
No, and don't be like that.
I will say that the overwhelming amount of discourse coming from liberals in public opinion, the media, and the elected representation is exponentially less aggressively dismissive and showing of animus towards conservatives than vice verse, despite liberals having infinite more reason to invert the phenomenon.
There's no circuit of left-wing media that hides under the guise of "entertainment" that does nothing put spout hate-speech and gross falsehoods. There's no convention like CPAC that invites people like Wayne LaPierre and Michelle Bachmann to foment bigotry and ignorance.
Both sides aren't the same. Don't vote Republican.
Are you positing that public accommodation laws have no effect?
It would seem even recent news stories would undermine this argument.
You can also enact proactive legislation in order to hamstring the impact that now defunct discriminatory laws enabled as well as discriminatory acts that should be prohibited on a discriminatory basis. Equal Housing and Equal Opportunity Employment being moderately good examples of each, though certainly not perfect. Again, this can only go so far on its own but it is better than simply stopping redlining in the first place and leaving everything else to the whims of chance.
The worst thing is that it is hard as hell to help minority groups due solely to the fact that they are a minority and help is contingent on the will of the majority not getting bored or prioritizing other things later on. The fact that majorities were assisted by past racist acts don't really help get you over that hump. I can trace being a middle class dude to the racist nature of the New Deal. Without the CCC and WPA my grandpa may never have become a carpenter, and then never become a foreman, &c. leading to my parents also not having a pretty good starting point and my building off of those successes solely due to being born. If we were black instead of mostly Italian all of that would never have happened and who knows where I'd be.
Yes there is. If you ask people to refrain from certain behavior, you end up changing attitudes because people just aren't that good at faking it. Some advice I got for interviewing once on the phone was simply "remember to smile" - because the act of putting it on changes your demeanor.
When people can't be openly discriminatory and abusive, the vast majority wind up actually being less discriminatory and abusive. Very few people can manage to sit there and smolder. That small change, builds up over time.
Witness sexual harassment protection. It took about 5 years for the US to go from "but he is your boss so what can you do?" To taking down bikini posters because no one wants to lose their job. Once the incentive flipped date raping secretaries stopped being a perk of management.
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
You can make something a protected class, and you can broaden the ambit of anti discrimination laws to be sure, but you can't accord these classes the same level of protection that race or religion receive (the supreme court won't extend strict scrutiny to new classes), and more importantly, you just can't legislate attitude changes. Maybe better anti discrimination in hiring laws could help, but I'm not sure what else you can do.
You are conflating assertion A with axiom B
I'm looking at buying a 27" monitor to replace my current 24", and if you were to give me a quarter for every post in this forum alone that disproves your axiom I could link disproving your original assertion, I could easily pay for it, even at UK prices. (It's just under £460 excl. VAT)
Personally, I think you should have the courage of your convictions: liberals say that conservatives are stupid because, statistically, politically speaking, conservatives are overwhelmingly politically stupid. They act against their own best interests, they ignore empirical evidence, they act counter to their stated goals, they vote for people who do the exact opposite of what those conservative people say they want, they drank the kool-aid, they took the wooden nickel and so on. Stupid. Dumb. Thick as two short planks. There: I said it. I'm not sorry and I'd do it again. My flag: nailed to a mast.
But don't go around saying that liberals or progressives or whatever term you want to use don't go around remarking on this phenomenon because it's simply, evidently, obviously not true.
I don't think you read what he wrote.
The point being made was "but liberals have ecoterrorists and communists and their other brands of wacko too" and the counterpoint is that those ideas/people do not get mainstream play unlike the conservative equivalent (e.g. gold standard end the fed, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, etc.).
So you're saying that of any of the examples I could produce from this forum alone, all could be categorised as "ecoterrorists and communists and their other brands of wacko"?
Or we all forgot to congratulate him on his election to Congress.
Eventually, it'll become harder for the right to weasel out of having debates on their policies, but spewing out bigoted views and policies to waste time. It's why I'm so happy to see the right losing so badly in the culture war currently because eventually we'll get the debate on certain policies and they will lose those debates. This is also right they are probably trying the "because shut up" route that Ross has commented on.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
It is good (though in a bad way) that the Right is staying beholden to their ideology in the face of losing the culture war. It's given the Dems a hard edge in political contests, because it doesn't matter about any of their opposition's platform outside social issues, because no one cares about that stuff if you take the stage and proudly profess your bigotry.
I don't know. I think there is still a whole class of voter that votes based on economics and attitude towards business/regulation completely. I also think that there are still many people out there who wouldn't consider anything outside of a direct statement about not liking a specific group as bigotry. "I don't have a problem with black people, but they should stop being lazy welfare queens" seems to be a pretty broadly held viewpoint right now. Forget about having people like that call someone who backs policies that result in disparate impacts, like drug sentencing laws, a bigot.
You mean Republicans?
Those people are bigots.
Not having any answer is telling.
Why do I have the strange feeling that any Democratic promoted legislation I take the effort to list (like, say, DMCA) will simply get dismissed as not being a true Scotsman Democratic policy proposal for one reason or another?
Wait, are you seriously shitting on the foundation of craft beer?
I thought I knew you, bum. I just... I don't know what to say.
No, not really. You can't look at GOP fiscal proposals and not see the blatant bigotry and classism that are the foundation of the policies. Now, you might not care, but that doesn't make you a good person.
Kucinich
I mean, not at the forefront of the party, but he got voted into office repeatedly
Yeah, but it was to Congress, not anywhere important.
Are those one issue voters? People who aren't taken seriously here? In some respects they're worse than fanatical voters, who at least pretend to care about all the issues the GOP believes in and implements into policy. Single issue voters might have some good reason for standing up for said issues but they forget they're not voting in a vacuum. When they vote for a person they're not only voting on that issue, its everything that person believes in and every good and bad decision they want to impose through the government.
Voting based on the direct impact that government has on you (i.e., taxes you will pay or regulations on your business) doesn't make you a bad person. I don't think there is anything wrong with saying "I want other groups to be protected, but I'm using my vote to benefit myself."
I don't really understand this argument against single issue voters. It seems like your saying that single issue voters are bad because they only care about the single issue, but it's really no different for any other person since most if not all voters won't agree with all the time with either party so instead you weight issues that are important to you and vote for the party and person that believes in those. If a single issue is extremely important to you then it doesn't seem surprising that you vote based on it and I would be pretty surprised if most people considered more than 3-4 broad issues when voting for a party.
As someone who would probably personally benefit the most from more Republicans in office I assure you it's myopically selfish.
Its one of those things that sound great in theory but fall on its face in reality. You can't vote for single issues in politics, you vote for candidates and if they win elections they'll implement everything they care about or that their party wants them to toe the line on. That's why its important to know as much as possible when voting on candidates and considering all their decisions before casting a vote, not only caring about one issue.