The Politics Thread (PLAY NICELY!)

For those who haven't seen it. The tests went so well that they were verified for use in combat almost immediately, which is unheard of. The ability to blow up ammo accurately from afar with almost no travel time is insane.

@mered4, a wall is dumb. It won't work and is both financially and legally infeasible. Drones can do the job of monitoring the border easier, cheaper, and more effectively. It won't stop the immigrants who come through checkpoints in trucks, which I believe is the more common method of getting into the country.

I'm personally fine with anybody being in the country as long as they pays taxes and don't commit nonviolent crimes, but I agree that border regulation is important. A wall is just... a really ****ing stupid way to do it.

When I said wall, I was referring to border security as a whole. You are correct, a wall isn't a great option when others are on the table. Honestly, though, I'll take anything at this point that helps keep our borders secure.

I am also perfectly fine with people coming into the country so long as they do so through the established process. That process has its own issues, but it isn't so broken that it should be disregarded.

Tatsu, every single source I've looked at from both independent and state websites has said UNANIMOUSLY that Mexicans make up the majority of illegal immigrants. I presented that one as an example, not gospel. Look this up, stop acting like a child. Google exists, use it. And I swear, if you come back with a fringe website that says 49.8 percent or something, I will laugh my head off at your desperation.

There were no logical reasons back in the day to segregate blacks and whites. They were all based in an innate bias against colored folk. Saying it was logical is like saying Hitler's extermination of the Jews was logical to the officers under his command. Bull. ****. They knew what they were doing, they just liked it.

racism according to Google:
"the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races."

I believe no such thing about anyone. I don't profile people based on their color or race - I profile based on the way they act and their attitude. Now that I've debunked everything you've said for the past week, how about you drop the politically correct bullshit and actually try to use logic for once?

The vast majority of Illegal Immigration would be stopped by securing our southern border against such action. Drones, more agents, a wall, whatever.

The vast majority of illegals would also be found and deported in the US by forcing all employers to use E-Verify and by increasing the penalties for harboring illegals. Regular check-ups for the first year wouldn't be a bad idea either. I probably wouldn't support that if it went to Congress, but I'm here talking about solving the problem.

Notice that, in NONE of that, did I mention that we would be deporting illegals because they are Mexican or because they are Muslim. They are being deported because they are illegally residing in our country or because they pose a potential threat to our citizens. Sometimes both. Saying you will deport 'the Mexicans' as Trump did is a crass and rude way to put it. It's still talking about illegals, not the demographic in general. If you don't understand that, you should just stop participating in these discussions. You've missed the basics and need to go back to political 101.

First lesson free!
Lesson One: All politicians use terms and phrases and supposed facts to blow the situation way out of proportion in order to gain supporters. They usually don't directly mean what they say.

Were they ever succesful with anti-icbm's? I believe the laser project was cancelled and missile-based Anti missiles were not particularly effective

that is exactly the type of ignorance that leads us to the situation of today. for one the bulk of nazis did really believe they were a higher born race that had been treated unfairly giving them reason and logic in their actions even when it slowly spun out into more and more madness over the years (the policing of jews and seisure of their property devolving into them being herded to their death) was logical to them every step of the way especially for himmler who was much more radical than hitler and who hitler probably thought was taking it a bit too far towards the end but was in to deep and wanted to save face.

so just be aware that it makes no difference to me that you think it's "logical". so did the slave owners. so did the nazis.
and you denying it doesn't help your case it just means you have the necessary elements to self-sustain this mentality. without these elements (the belief it's logical, it all makes sence) it would necessarily break down over time.

you have no idea how rich that is coming from the guy who's own arguments crumble before logic.

so you believe that members of a race possess characteristics specific to that race......

Okay. I'm done. I'd like someone to explain to me how the actual **** anyone could infer that from the sentences quoted. It's literally the exact opposite of what I said. I need a third party to prove I'm not crazy (or maybe I am o.0).

Tatsu, no logic can justify the genocide of an entire race. No reasoning in Western society can draw the conclusion that one race is superior to another. Hitler believed it because he rationalized it. His followers believed him because they were either just as disillusioned as he was or they were even more desperate.

The same is true of the whites who oppressed blacks before the CR movement. It wasn't logical. They did it because they wanted to and had rationalized it for generations. Rationalizing is a facade - logic is not.

good. you're half of the way there now. now I know it's difficult enough for you to grapple with one concept at a time, now if you could just manage two, say as a second concept...

...yes ... but mostly they were endoctrined. And the two can coexist.

at this point I think it's just safer to let you assume rationalizing and logic are the same word.

if you do then you'll understand.

yes I'm sad to have to be the one to tell you this, but yes, you've been rationalizing all along. no your personal logic is not superior to what nazis or slave owners called "logical" back then. yes general consensuses change over time.

it's hard to picture because we can not time travel and when we recount history we generally view it through the prism of modern-day morality and we justify it to ourselves by romaticising around it "oh surely there were ten percent or so in the lot of the slaveoners who thought exactly like we do today but were just going along with the movement because they wanted the money or were simply morally outnumbered" but that just simply isn't how it works. you grow up in a universe were certain information circulates. Your whole life the whole of that information that is accessible to you are going to be the only building blocks out of which you construct your opinion. the other universes and their lots of information simply do not exist to you.

back in the day the scientific evidence that black man's skull (and other anatomy bits) are no different than a white mans simply did not exist. and conversly the scientific community agreed at large that a great numbers of elements prooved the black mans phisiological and mental inferiority as well as the church having established that they were one of the many consiousless animals meant to make men happy on earth.

so even IF you wanted slaves freed you did so still believing there were physical differences between you and a black man, even if you DID believe (in a way comparable to religious faith because there was no scientific proof) that a back man had equal brain power (but this is an unlikely event).


and PLEASE remember that education was far, FAR less accessible and widespread than it is today so you may not even have been going off of beliefs but just following a movement.

it took even more progress after liberating slaves to change general morality bit by bit. As the segregation chapter in our history will have prooved.

So it was way worse off than movies depaint it where they romanticise everything and most are pro liberating blacks and there's only a handfull of people who believes in slavery.

Germans are more accurate about their history because they just had not choice and fucked up way worse. after the war the whole new generation of kids spat on their parents because they were taught by the allies the truth and they knew that not ONE of their ancesstors was innocent.

you get the idea one person in a million having stood out for their open mindedness doesn't get to be the one to represent that whole generation and paint them as actually not that bad and conversely the rasists as even crazier (or even just senselessly evil as you depainted them) because it makes no sence to us when we imagine them actually doing their wrongdoings despite being face to face with just as many or more people with today's metallity :

OF COURSE it wouldn't have been even a third as bad as it really was if that had been the case! of course they were a crushing CRUSHING majority with a mentality tainted with what we call racism today and back then the term was constrained to a much less broad meaning.

the whole generation was endoctrined.

and in fact a very reccuring thought that I have is that my entire generation is endoctrined in some way and people a thousand years into the future (if humanity prevails) will look back at us and go : "boy they were ##### (whatever their term will be) back then!"

but of course I can't tell you right now what it is that I'm doing that morally or in some other abstract concept is wrong : I couldn't think it up because everyone on this forum and living today agrees with me on a certain ethic (mostly, obviously we differ on some points).

it's easier to realise this when you go and look at old ads or movies or other form of media from the 18-19 century where there's never ever any exception to it being a truth and common proven knowledge that women were the extention of man there to complete the circle of life for humans but otherwise an inferior, less inteligent being, not capable of doing most things man do and most definitely only acceptable when in it's role of the subbordinate (the law was also used to ensure that). And again this was backed by bogus science and the church and ALL of the media so how COULD anyone think othewise? it did happen. but it was a notably rare event as the extreme lenghts of time it took to turn that around (and is still in the process of) can attest.

Racism is not inevitable - it is not logical - it is a choice. You cannot claim that the environment was the entirety of the reasoning behind the massive Nazi movement in Germany. Nor can you claim that those in the USA after the Reconstruction were forced to be prejudiced against the former slaves.

At some point in their lives, those people were given a choice where the difference between right and wrong was clear to them - and they chose the easy path. This is evidenced by the few people on both sides who took the hard road of rebellion against that system. Germans who fled their homeland or resisted with force. People who stood with MLK in the 60s. There is always a choice.

I chose to not be racist. I choose every day to judge people by their character and not their appearance. You telling me that I am an oblivious nutjob who is, at the end of the day, a confused racist? That's pure ignorance. Grow up. I am who I am because I chose it, not because I am a product of my environment. The same is true of every person on this planet.

Your strong believe that people have a real choice and are more than just victims of their own surroundings is cute

I take responsibility for my actions and I expect everyone else to do the same. It's a fairly low standard. Certain mental illnesses excuse this, but they are few and far between.

I'm of the mind that everything is the result of direct cause and effect. Brains are electrochemical bags that respond to stimulus.

While that means that any result is inevitable in my eyes, responsibility in a functional sense falls on people as though they had choice. Bad choices need to be filtered out and prevented, it doesn't matter where the core blame lies.

So I agree with @mered4 functionally, and @cola_colin at a core, doesn't actually apply to anything level.

We're delving into quasi-religious territory here though. Let's keep this focused on politics.

Like how New York is throwing it's weight at other states by banning non-essential government work related travel to states that make laws they don't like. So far it's been used for discrimination laws, but the implications of any state using it other ways are scary.

True for the individual that makes the decision, even if basically impossible for some poor individuals.
The point is that the authorities that try to push individuals into the right behavior (whatever that may be) shouldn't try to massively punish wrong behavior and always ask the (often a lot more annoying to resolve) question of what circumstances let to the wrong behavior and put resources into fixing that. It's easy to demand to bomb Islamists out of this world and very hard to answer why people out of our own society leave us to come back as terrorists, but only answering that question is gonna actually improve things.


The view of pushing every decision onto the individual without considering the circumstances of the individual, is dangerous because:
a) It means you easily overlook that you yourself are also locked inside your circumstances, controlled by them. If worst comes to worst your "circumstances" happen to be "you're an average person in Germany around 1940" or similar. The tendency of people to just go with the flow let to a lot of bad things back then.
b) If you push the whole blame on bad choices by individuals you easily make the jump to putting all the blame on the character of wrong-doers. This leads to a justice system that doesn't fix the actual cause of crimes at all.

On a positive note, its nice to hear opinions on certain topics from other countries. Part of the amusement of this forum for me is the perspective outside the USA the you people present. Truely interesting.

Granted, this discussion of determinism and free will in context to human perception is interesting with the discussion of racism. Evidently what is considered racism has two different perspectives. In general, racism can take its traditional interpretation like what we think of as slavery and the study of phrenology, particularly in the 19th century, but it can also take a smaller form that I can describe as "microracism". Granted, they are both categorized as the same!e thing, but they take different forms.

In this day and age, nobody will dare claim they are a racist. Seriously, society views racism as bad and anyone holding this perspective is ostracized. So now, " microracism" is still present. A few examples that come to mind are:

-pickaninny dolls for children
-redlining.
-usage of "thug"

The last one is an example that recently unfolded. Especially when in the context of law enforcement, cleaning the "thugs" off the streets has a racial undertone that many people don't realize.

So while people have a choice to not be racist, many people don't have a choice of being "microracists". Thus, if we consider "microracism" racism, the environment can in fact disenfranchise a person's choice.

With respect to politics, trumps claim to "build a wall" DOES have a racial/discriminatory undertone. Keeping illegal "aliens", rather than immigrants, out of this country is discrimination.

The majority of you on this forum recognize this and that's good. The question now comes down to tolerance and where to draw the line (politics!). Many present a zero tolerance approach to any form of discrimination, which is good. Im not convinced though.

This delves into more of a philosophical notion, but when is discrimination allowed? This may seem vague but hopefully people can understand the context.

When trump flaunts the idea of building a wall, he is discriminating. From what I perceive, this symbolic notion seems justified. Illegal immigration is a problem that many areas in the USA have trouble with, particularly at the border. The wall would evidently come with increased border security which I perceive as good since it would add to the increase in security.

I know Europe has an immigration " problem" with all the turmoil in the middle east. To some extent, I am surprised that many are with open arms despite their burden on various parts of the State. What makes a "European" immigration policy better than a "trump" immigration policy? In otherwords, what is nondiscriminatory immigration policy that is fiscally & socially sound?

TL;DR - microracism eliminates choice to not be racist. What is considered a nondiscriminatory immigration policy for illegal immigrants?

I'm sorry, what? You either are or aren't illegally in the country.

There might be discrimination in the process of entering, but keeping people from illegally entering the country and allowing people who go through the process to stay isn't discrimination in itself.

@mered4:

There is more than one kind of racism, just like there is more than one kind of racist. Believing there is only one kind of racist is the kind of self-taught exercise that excuses you of your own racial bias.

Much like when people have a go at "left wingers" (left wing folks are not the only folks capable of having a baseline of human empathy and / or calling out racist behaviour) because the left winger in question defined racism incorrectly as per the dictionary. Apparently. According to the dictionary definition of the word racism.

Which, as anyone who's actually read up on the subject, knows falls far short of the actual impact of racism. The impact of racism is power plus privilege; do you think an angry man in the middle of nowhere shouting at the sky has a larger impact than a city-wide organisation with selective racial bias? Of course not. That angry man might be able to commit localised racist actions that could harm a lot of people around him, but the scale is completely different. By selectively reinforcing hiring stereotypes, by rejecting "affirmative action", by refusing to believe the wage gap is a problem . . . you create a racist system in that it discriminates by race. Or a sexist system, and so on, and so forth.

You can also indulge in racist or sexist behaviour by accident - this might not make you racist in of itself, but the consequences of that are that you should look inwards and work out the source of that racist comment / thought / action. If you double down and claim it wasn't really racist, then you make yourself a part of the greater problem.

I got mugged a year or two back by a group of young black men. I consider myself pretty progressive, left-wing, I would not call myself "libertarian" (don't get me started) or "egalitarian". But I started reacting badly to black folk in general, often unconsciously. I was aware of the reaction, and I hated it. Worked it out of my system in the end. But my reactions were rooted in a selective bias that only black folks could therefore mug me in the future. Which, as everyone knows, is rather wrong

Recognise when you make mistakes. Don't read subject material that conforms to your worldview. Don't make stupid statements like "nobody in this thread has ever met a racist".

I absolutely hate the privilege + power = ___ism trend. It allows for prejudices and advantages to be held by the generally accepted disadvantaged population, and doesn't move to benefit equality as a whole in the long term. Whether that was the intent doesn't matter, that's what it has become. I have met too many people who believed they were "immune" to being sexist or racist when they actively spread male or white hate to think deviating from the dictionary definition was a good move.

You can argue that's a misconception, but it's a direct result of moving to quantify something that should be purely descriptive. Less power != Less racist. Make a new word, don't hijack one that has significant power already in order to shift the power spectrum. Racism is prejudice with a racial bent. End of story.

I do not like most forms of affirmative action. It doesn't go to the root of the problem, it just creates an infrastructure to reverse it in the future. Policies can be created to reduce or eliminate bias in job selection instead of just patching the issue by trying to force accounting for it. The orchestral music industry has it easy in that they just need to not be allowed to see people that apply. They ended up with a lot more women and a boatload more asians once that became the norm.

Underlying causes of inequality need to be found and addressed in order to prevent future inequalities. Patching symptoms just causes different issues. Support research and education that go to improving areas that don't do well. Develop systems that reduce the possibility for certain types of bias. Don't bump up the effective hirability of a black person because they're black. It doesn't help anybody.

If you seriously think that the prejudices held by those that are disadvantaged is a problem compared to the extent and impact of the prejudices held by those that are advantaged, then I don't know what to say.

Affirmative action is something of a compromise, and does encourage other issues in hiring. But the fact that affirmative action is required in the first place to actually do something to rectify hiring bias is problematic, no? Affirmative action is not perfect. But having it in most cases actually improves on the default selection bias.

Not that affirmative action was the core of my post, nor should you reduce the points I made down simply to one arguable point. I've taken to simply not mentioning the phrase because of replies that this that go precisely like yours did. But it's an important thing to mention, and I gave it a shot. Bleh.

Words have power. You can't just "make new words". Not easily. Words shift in meaning over time. That's why we have the study of language as a profession. That's why dictionaries are updated yearly, and not always with new words. That's why we have popular "urban" dictionaries. That's why we have slang, ideolect, and generally the whole idea of localised language forms. The net result of the complex phenomenon that results in unfair treatment of minorities in the West trends to racism. And I'm sure there are other equivalences elsewhere in the world in case you think white folk have it rough somewhere. Nobody denies that. But we're focusing on the West, here. Normally people end up debating the USA, and I try to inject UK and the EU as a greater whole where I can.

Racism is a word with a vast variety of connotations. The specific example I worded my post around showed the impact of racism with a relative lack of power, and racism with an abundance of power. It's still all racism. Stop relying on the single-word dictionary reference devoid of context to describe a contextualised issue. It doesn't make sense, at best. At worst, you're debating in bad faith.

EDIT:

Fun anecdote / fact on inventing new words. The description of "cis" people as an opposite to "trans" has been met with incredible disdain, outright outrage and in some cases violence from cis folk. Despite it being nothing more than a Latin correlary (most used in chemistry) as a linguistic opposite to "trans".

Where do you come down on that side of "invent new words" debate? I'd presume based on your posting style you'd object to being called "cis" because you're being "labelled" for something you shouldn't be "labelled" for, or similar. I could be completely wrong, but I like being honest on my presumptions so people can call me out for them.

You brought up a pet peeve of mine, textwalls were bound to happen.

I think trying to fix a problem by introducing a new problem is a terrible way to do things. What is a tiny problem now becomes a big problem down the line. You need to recognize all the current problems and their potential futures, not just the immediate big ones.

And I said generally accepted oppressed population, not actually oppressed. Setting up a standard that diminished accountability on one side reverses the balance of power, it doesn't evenly distribute it. What's more, it ignores the advantages of the side that's perceived as oppressed whether they are currently or not.

Young women out-earn young men. (EDIT: Young women without children) Women on the whole earn less because the remnants of the older system haven't retired out yet, both the prejudiced men and under-earning women. There is evidence that going forward the problem will naturally diminish, and certain types of pushes on the part of women will lead to a flipped situation down the line. Right now they're disadvantaged, but the situation is visibly progressing and set up in a way that it can progress without further adjustment. Actions should be made to smooth the transition, not accelerate past the mark.

Demonizing the advantaged by taking two elements(power and privilege) that cannot be controlled increases tension and actively works against reaching a balance. It pushes both groups further away instead of what should be the goal, bringing them together.

I'm for lasting solutions, not knee-jerk responses to unevenness.

I'm generally of the idea that words mean what you want them to and intent trumps semantics. Semantics, used properly, are a tool to make future communication easier and nothing else. However, the forced shifting of the definition of ___ism by certain groups is something that seriously pisses me off. It's creating problems and solving absolutely nothing.

Labeling as a descriptive tool is fine as long as it doesn't carry prejudices. The inherent danger of labeling is that people can form false associations, but without them we wouldn't be able to describe things as accurately. It's a mixed bag. I'm more against the misuse of labels than labels themselves.

I despise the prejudice + power idea. All it seems to have done by now is promote racism and sexism. I have personally only seen it used as an excuse to hate another race/gender. Pretending as if it's okay. :/

Racism is racism. This "privilege" idea has formed reverse racism. In giving away things to well off people particularly because of their race or gender and not because they earned it like anyone else would have to.

I'm not arguing against helping people actually in trouble, like people who live in poorer areas of the US or other countries. I just disagree with helping people because they are a particular race or gender.

Jus' mah thots.

Reverse racism does not exist and isn't a thing. If you dislike that absolute, then study the absolute of "all prejudice + power does is cause racism". "reverse racism" is a calling card used by people who seem to think all applications of racism have equal import and carry equal consequences.

Racism is racism. I even said this myself in a post on this page. Sure. Something having less of an impact does not make the action any less racist, by definition.

The impact is different, and the impact needs to be studied to be properly countered. Your ability to cause an impact with your racist ideologies is directly related to the amount of power you hold. This is a very simple concept. A madman with nukes can do a lot more damage than a madman with a spoon.

Can we agree on that basic principle? Because if we don't, I'm not sure there's much point carrying this on.

I don't want "i've seen people use it to do this" because people use decent ideals to commit terrible acts all the time. That is a flaw of the person, not necessarily the ideal. Worth debating? Sure! Worth generalising about to dismiss the ideal out of hand? Not even once.

And you don't agree with helping people just because they're a particular race or gender. Which is weird, because a lot of the "civilised" world is very happy with absolutely destroying these people for being a specific race or gender. Being poor is not the only thing people should have help with.

@arseface:

You say young women out-earn men. Given that young folk tend to occupy the same job space and tend to have similar positions (entry level) I fail to see this have as much of an impact as older employees in more senior positions having a %-based discrepancy at higher wage ranges that accounts for more of an actual impact. Women making X% less at management roles is going to have more of a net impact than young women / adolescents / whomever making less than men in lower-paid roles.

Again, it comes down to impact. You're generalising here to make a point, as am I, don't worry, I'm not going to call you out on that. Though it should be noted that country of origin really makes a difference here.

The wage gap for established people in an established industry of a similar age is real. The tech sector is a fantastic example of this. If you want a ludicrously over-the-top example, Hollywood also does this. Check out the average opportunities for men (job roles increase as they age) compared to women (decrease as they age) as well as the typical salary for especially entry-level actors vs. actresses (a good use case here is Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Daisy Ridley vs. rest of cast).

What you're doing here is the same argument you're making for racism. "other things exist that can be called racist or a wage gap ergo all of it is a problem". All of it is a problem. However, each problem has a different severity and thus priority when evaluating how fast each one needs addressing.

And sure, sometimes the solutions put forward aren't perfect. But they're better than no solutions at all. People pass the laws they can, not the laws they ideally want to have in-place. If the latter were true Medicare wouldn't have been gutted by the Republicans and then held up ironically as a Democratic failure despite the Republican impact on the final form of the Act. A specifically-American example, I could give English ones if people were interested (funnily enough, also around healthcare).

There comes a time when you have to stop being idealist about the world, and start accepting that each countermeasure put in place to help prevent sexism and / or racism might have to be flawed in order to be allowed to exist in the first place. You think the people in power want these laws to pass? Have you seen the bathroom laws in American states being passed recently? Have you seen the Republican states hate-passing anti-LGBTQ laws after federal law passed protection on minority groups?

Is anyone following the events of what is happening out there in the world? Why are we so willing to accept "oh but this black person got something I didn't and that's unfair, racism", but also willing to handwave away systematic bullying of minorities (especially based on class, yes, class and wealth distribution is a real problem but it also ties into race and gender). It's like we're justifying our defense of the status quo because "some people" can "misuse" these new laws to "get advantages we don't have".

Doesn't anybody see the irony in that stance? We can't protect minorities because they might get something we don't have even though most of them live their lives having less than us?

You are making an INCREDIBLE amount of assumptions about me. I am completely of the belief that what the Republican agenda is pushing against the LGBT community is stupid. The ability to kick people for their sexual identity? That's just the same as what we've had in the past. I don't see how it's forming again.

However. I don't believe because these bad things are happening to minority groups they deserve more. They don't deserve what is happening. We should stop focusing on giving extras and instead focus on removing policies that take away. I want equality.

Saying this as a Trans individual it's rather important to me.

And yes, reverse racism does exist. At least in the definition I've always seen. Being overly nice to a certain race simply because of their race is racist. Reverse racism really is just plain racism. The only reason reverse is in the name is because instead of being negative to a race rather than on character it's being positive to a race rather than on character. I recognize reverse racism is technically just racism, but it's more a thing to show it kind of goes against what most people perceive as "racist" Why the pedantry?

None of this applying to preferances in what you're into and all that of course. I also hate the idea that having a preferance of atractiveness is wrong.