"A Nation Divided, Sports United" ~ The Equality & Other Issues Thread

[Captain_Caveman]

Where were these people when Obama incarcerated more black people than his 4 predecessors combined?

Where were these people when unemployment rate among young black people was at its highest during Obama's tenure?

Where were these people when hundreds of thousands of black families were being kicked out of their homes because they were hooked, lined and sinked by our financial institutions? Yet Obama and Eric Holder - who are both raking in millions right now from Wall Street and their donors - were telling Americans that they (Wall St) were too big to fail or prosecute, essentially telling America to go "F*ck off! We're above the law and you ain't!"?

Where were these pseudo-intellectual jocks then?

Selective outrage here. It's already backfiring on them. Good!

Dude these protests started during the Obama administration. They were one of the most discussed topics during the 2016 primaries. They're not something brand new that started with Trump.

"There were about 760 police shooting incidents this year and NINE of them were of unarmed black people."

"We're in a vortex of stupid."

I'm with this Jew:

Watch on YouTube

This "vortex of stupid" isn't about racism. For white libtards, it's about their hatred of Trump. For blacks, it's about 1) Taking Trump's election as a slap in the face after eight years of Obama and 2) This applies to white libtards as well which is: Shaming blacks who voted for Trump because Trump did receive a lot more blacks and Hospanic votes than they imagined possible. Because you know, white libtards are sooooooo anti-racism lol.

Vortex of stupid indeed.

Look, man. I am a left-leaning moderate who has never spent a day registered to either party. I would vote Romney over Sanders without even blinking, but I have a low tolerance for bull **** falsehoods and you are spewing a lot of them right now. No idea how this Shapiro fool became the flavor of the week for conservatives, but I'm just gonna say that a guy who went to a $30k a year private school doesn't need to be lecturing the black community about how racism doesn't exist and that it's all just a problem of their culture's unwillingness to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Just the takes you have mentioned in this thread are deeply and unequivocally racist to the core, even if I suspect you aren't educated enough to grasp that.

Which brings me to my second point. A good friend is a campaign consultant for the GOP at the highest level. As in, one of the top Trump rivals in the GOP Presidential campaign in 2016. He brags openly about how easy it to manipulate the GOP voting base of uneducated white males. Just zero respect for his own constituents, and even he is in complete shock at how easily Trump can get his supporters to believe incredibly ignorant, easily disprovable falsehoods.

He says nothing loudly, and it speaks to the id of white males who know that they are falling into the ether of a global economy that they are neither educated nor skilled enough to compete in. They are fearful of their loss of status, and they should be. They are increasingly obsolete and believe in an outdated, discredited ideology that is on the wrong side of every major issue of our time. Rather than look within and try to take advantage of the unprecedented opportunity that exists for white American males, they need to blame other people. The government, blacks, immigrants, liberals... pretty much anyone and everyone but the people who are actually screwing them. They live in a zero sum game in their minds where others must lose for them to win.

Their bluster is not strength. It is fear and weakness, and again, easily manipulated. Again, I have no horse in the race and don't care for the nuts and bolts (aka fairly tales) of what hacks like Bernie are out there promoting, but let's be perfectly real about who the snowflakes are right now. For all the tough guy talk about "libtards getting triggered", there's no one in the history of Earth who gets triggered more easily than modern conservatives do.

Kneeling for anthems, protestors, emails, Benghazi, Black Lives Matter, who Obama's pastor is. They live in a constant state of fake outrage at manufactured scandals, false equivalence and non-issues. People like my friend can literally get conservatives to whine and cry about ANYTHING at the drop of a hat. And they do. They really do.

They are, without question, the softest people who have ever lived.

[fallguy]

Spit hot fire.

[truth18]

I was trying to shift the conversation/ignore him but that's a good approach too.

Ethered.

[Captain_Caveman]

Spit hot fire.

A big reason that so many white people feel the compulsive need to deny racism is that admitting that others are at a disadvantage would mean that they themselves have an advantage. Accepting that might logically entail an examination as to why they haven't done more with that advantage. I mean, how can you accept your privilege at the same time you perceive yourself to be losing status?

Another reason is the mythology about America, and especially conservatives' view of it. They are typically a nostalgic and sentimental bunch. It's less about facts than feelings. This is really deep-rooted in ways that take a long time to get into, but they are reinforced by our popular culture at every turn. We are a land of equal opportunity and destiny and exceptionalism, and we are all self-made men.

A cursory look at black history would demonstrate that to be easily disprovable, but people are invested in not accepting that.

Truth comes out in the wash, though. No white parent ever sent their kid to a predominantly black school over a predominantly white one by choice. No white homebuyers are out there hoping to find that dream home in a predominantly black neighborhood.

We all know the truth that racism and social inequality are deeply ingrained in our history and our society.

[Captain_Caveman]

I was trying to shift the conversation/ignore him but that's a good approach too.

Ethered.

I just can't do it anymore. Being an educated moderate, it's pretty inherent to my DNA to listen to all sides and see the strengths and weaknesses of each school of thought, but many, if not most, conservatives are lost in the wilderness right now. There's no other "side" to denying that institutional racism exists systemically or saying Iraqi WMDs are real and climate change is fake, for instance.

There are many challenges that we face that have more than one way to address them, but it does a disservice to the discourse to lend validity to the ideas of "balance" or impartiality when people are saying dumb, hateful things that are 100% wrong.

[ViperGTS]

Dude these protests started during the Obama administration. They were one of the most discussed topics during the 2016 primaries. They're not something brand new that started with Trump.

"There were about 760 police shooting incidents this year and NINE of them were of unarmed black people."

"We're in a vortex of stupid."

I'm with this Jew:

Watch on YouTube

This "vortex of stupid" isn't about racism. For white libtards, it's about their hatred of Trump. For blacks, it's about 1) Taking Trump's election as a slap in the face after eight years of Obama and 2) This applies to white libtards as well which is: Shaming blacks who voted for Trump because Trump did receive a lot more blacks and Hospanic votes than they imagined possible. Because you know, white libtards are sooooooo anti-racism lol.

Vortex of stupid indeed.

Look, man. I am a left-leaning moderate who has never spent a day registered to either party. I would vote Romney over Sanders without even blinking, but I have a low tolerance for bull **** falsehoods and you are spewing a lot of them right now. No idea how this Shapiro fool became the flavor of the week for conservatives, but I'm just gonna say that a guy who went to a $30k a year private school doesn't need to be lecturing the black community about how racism doesn't exist and that it's all just a problem of their culture's unwillingness to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Just the takes you have mentioned in this thread are deeply and unequivocally racist to the core, even if I suspect you aren't educated enough to grasp that.

Which brings me to my second point. A good friend is a campaign consultant for the GOP at the highest level. As in, one of the top Trump rivals in the GOP Presidential campaign in 2016. He brags openly about how easy it to manipulate the GOP voting base of uneducated white males. Just zero respect for his own constituents, and even he is in complete shock at how easily Trump can get his supporters to believe incredibly ignorant, easily disprovable falsehoods.

He says nothing loudly, and it speaks to the id of white males who know that they are falling into the ether of a global economy that they are neither educated nor skilled enough to compete in. They are fearful of their loss of status, and they should be. They are increasingly obsolete and believe in an outdated, discredited ideology that is on the wrong side of every major issue of our time. Rather than look within and try to take advantage of the unprecedented opportunity that exists for white American males, they need to blame other people. The government, blacks, immigrants, liberals... pretty much anyone and everyone but the people who are actually screwing them. They live in a zero sum game in their minds where others must lose for them to win.

Their bluster is not strength. It is fear and weakness, and again, easily manipulated. Again, I have no horse in the race and don't care for the nuts and bolts (aka fairly tales) of what hacks like Bernie are out there promoting, but let's be perfectly real about who the snowflakes are right now. For all the tough guy talk about "libtards getting triggered", there's on one in the history of Earth who gets triggered more easily than modern conservatives do.

Kneeling for anthems, protestors, emails, Benghazi, Black Lives Matter, who Obama's pastor is. They live in a constant state of fake outrage at manufactured scandals, false equivalence and non-issues. People like my friend can literally get conservatives to whine and cry about ANYTHING at the drop of a hat. And they do. They really do.

They are, without question, the softest people who have ever lived.

Don’t even try dismiss the emails and Bengahzi. The rest you sort of have a point on. However, Antifa and BLM (the militant side) are threats to this country. And anyone saying “Goddamn America” from the pulpit is pretty stunning.

Now, to get to the meat of the issue. As someone who held a top secret security clearance, I know what you can and cannot do. I know of people who have had their clearances pulled because they left a classified folder on a desk and forgot about it. Nevermind that the info inside was fairly benign. Others got a reprimand and never did it again. Again, from my time and what I saw it wasn’t the classified OPS plans for certain theaters, but smaller stuff. Still, you can’t have any of it unsecured period. Digital or otherwise.

What HRC did was so criminal, that any active or reserve duty military person would be looking at 20 to whatever in Leavenworth if they did the same. There is no I didn’t know. There is no “I didn’t know” for a Pvt in the Army, there sure as hell isn’t that excuse for a Secretary of State. Every time I handled classified, and I worked in the squadron intel vault for a few years, I handled it with as much care as I possibly could. To have it on an unsecured server in my home? No bleeping chance.

Then to Benghazi. I know some stuff that really pisses me off about the situation. It wasn’t just HRC, but the entire administration. Security was sh*t and don’t believe anything a career CIA station chief says over the operators that were there. They needed backup, had backup available and didn’t get it until it was too late and even then not enough. They asked and asked. No one needed to die had the correct order been given. The CIA annex was much more defendable, and Amb. Stevens and his guys should have been brought there much earlier. Either way, someone either purposefully denied the support or the entire admin was asleep at the wheel.

[Captain_Caveman]

Don’t even try dismiss the emails and Bengahzi. The rest you sort of have a point on. However, Antifa and BLM (the militant side) are threats to this country. And anyone saying “Goddamn America” from the pulpit is pretty stunning.

Now, to get to the meat of the issue. As someone who held a top secret security clearance, I know what you can and cannot do. I know of people who have had their clearances pulled because they left a classified folder on a desk and forgot about it. Nevermind that the info inside was fairly benign. Others got a reprimand and never did it again. Again, from my time and what I saw it want the classified OPS plans for certain theaters, but smaller stuff.

What HRC did was so criminal, that any active or reserve duty military person would be looking at 20 to whatever in Leavenworth if they did the same. There is no I didn’t know. There is no “I didn’t know” for a Pvt in the Army, there sure as hell isn’t that excuse for a Secretary of State. Every time I handled classified, and I worked in the squadron intel vault for a few years, I handled it with as much care as I possibly could. To have it on an unsecured server in my home? No bleeping chance.

Then to Benghazi. I know some stuff that really pisses me off about the situation. It wasn’t just HRC, but the entire administration. Security was sh*t and don’t believe anything a career CIA station chief says over the operators that were there. They needed backup, had backup available and didn’t get it until it was too late and even then not enough. They asked and asked. No one needed to die had the correct order been given. The CIA annex was much more defendable, and Amb. Stevens and his guys should have been brought there much earlier. Either way, someone either purposefully denied the support or the entire admin was asleep at the wheel.

Are you as mad about the report this week that many senior WH people have been using their own emails? Hillary at least has the excuse of following standard practice and *perhaps* not adapting quickly enough to new technology. Trump literally ran 50% of his general campaign about the use of private emails and then his administration escalated that practice once in office. If it was really about the practice of using private emails, conservatives should be twice as mad as they were at Hillary right now, right?

But of course not. It was a manufactured scandal at the time, and even though it's a real scandal now that likely includes conspiring with hostile foreign governments to alter an election in return for favorable policy, most conservatives are not interested in facts, fairness, accountability or any of that.

I dismiss that entire point out of hand, as anyone should.

As to Benghazi, it's equally as disgraceful that conservatives are 100x more mad about that than they are about themselves supporting a preemptive way that was waged in Iraq over WMD capability that everyone knew didn't exist, simply because it was a valuable piece of geopolitical real estate for their asinine, half-baked plan to promote Middle Eastern democracy at gunpoint.

[ViperGTS]

Don’t even try dismiss the emails and Bengahzi. The rest you sort of have a point on. However, Antifa and BLM (the militant side) are threats to this country. And anyone saying “Goddamn America” from the pulpit is pretty stunning.

Now, to get to the meat of the issue. As someone who held a top secret security clearance, I know what you can and cannot do. I know of people who have had their clearances pulled because they left a classified folder on a desk and forgot about it. Nevermind that the info inside was fairly benign. Others got a reprimand and never did it again. Again, from my time and what I saw it want the classified OPS plans for certain theaters, but smaller stuff.

What HRC did was so criminal, that any active or reserve duty military person would be looking at 20 to whatever in Leavenworth if they did the same. There is no I didn’t know. There is no “I didn’t know” for a Pvt in the Army, there sure as hell isn’t that excuse for a Secretary of State. Every time I handled classified, and I worked in the squadron intel vault for a few years, I handled it with as much care as I possibly could. To have it on an unsecured server in my home? No bleeping chance.

Then to Benghazi. I know some stuff that really pisses me off about the situation. It wasn’t just HRC, but the entire administration. Security was sh*t and don’t believe anything a career CIA station chief says over the operators that were there. They needed backup, had backup available and didn’t get it until it was too late and even then not enough. They asked and asked. No one needed to die had the correct order been given. The CIA annex was much more defendable, and Amb. Stevens and his guys should have been brought there much earlier. Either way, someone either purposefully denied the support or the entire admin was asleep at the wheel.

Are you as mad about the report this week that many senior WH people have been using their own emails? Hillary at least has the excuse of following standard practice and *perhaps* not adapting quickly enough to new technology. Trump literally ran 50% of his general campaign about the use of private emails and then his administration escalated that practice once in office. If it was really about the practice of using private emails, conservatives should be twice as mad as they were at Hillary right now, right?

But of course not. It was a manufactured scandal at the time, and even though it's a real scandal now that likely includes conspiring with hostile foreign governments to alter an election in return for favorable policy, most conservatives are not interested in facts, fairness, accountability or any of that.

I dismiss that entire point out of hand, as anyone should.

As to Benghazi, it's equally as disgraceful that conservatives are 100x more mad about that than they are about themselves supporting a preemptive way that was waged in Iraq over WMD capability that everyone knew didn't exist, simply because it was a valuable piece of geopolitical real estate for their asinine, half-baked plan to promote Middle Eastern democracy at gunpoint.

Iraq was a screwjob. However, Saddam had his chance and said f it to the entire world. He wouldn’t just say I don’t have any. Removing Saddam was a huge mistake however, just as I am against any regime change in Syria.

As far as the email problem, I feel that if there was any classified being transferred under Trump they deserve the same punishment HRC deserved. Some of those emails ended up on Humas laptop that Wenier had access to. I’m rooting for it because I loathe Kushner. To dimiss it out of hand, is what someone who has never had a top secret security clearance would say, and never should have had one if they had that attitude. So basically..HRC should be in prison as should anyone else doing the same. We shall see if it was classified info or non secure emails that were shared.

[AlCelticFan]

For the record, I don't know what to believe. I am the kind of person that wants to understand all sides of things.

A big reason that so many white people feel the compulsive need to deny racism is that admitting that others are at a disadvantage would mean that they themselves have an advantage. Accepting that might logically entail an examination as to why they haven't done more with that advantage. I mean, how can you accept your privilege at the same time you perceive yourself to be losing status?

It doesn't help when statistics are not presented usefully to actually demonstrate true bias that can't be accounted for by other factors. Often disparity in results is put forward as proof of inequality of opportunity. (For instance low levels of women in tech are used to imply bias against women, but low levels of women in sanitation is never used to imply bias... this type of thing is not intellectually honest, and it's misusing statistics imho, in order to try to force an agenda) And often statistics don't separate the influence of income level from race. I don't know why they don't just refer to _actual_ studies that look at the phenomenon more directly, like this one, see #8 here: http://inequality.stanford.edu/publications/20-facts-about-us-inequality-everyone-should-know

Racial discrimination continues to be in the labor market. An experiment carried out in Chicago and Boston during 2001 and 2002 shows that resumes with “white-sounding” names, whether male or female, were much more likely to result in call backs for interviews than were those with “black-sounding” names (even though the resumes were otherwise identical).

That said, even here it's hard to know if this is racism in the classic sense or simply the fact the "black" names correlate with poorer people, which then correlates with less educated. So the black name would in that scenario just be a proxy for a lower average education level. Say there were two hats with names in them for people who would lend you money. You get to choose to pull a name from just one hat to find a random person to lend you money. Not knowing anything about the people, only their names, would it be racist to choose to pull from the "white names" hat? Or would it simply be rational opportunism?

Statistics means math. And that means 98%+ of the population don't understand it. But statistics "sound" authoritative, so statistics end up being a very good way to manipulate people to believe what your side wants them to believe. (Economics is like that too. It's extremely concerning to me that their are leftist economists and conservative economists.)

I'm biased. I don't know any overt racists. I'm sure they're out there, but it leaves me naive, thinking that there can't really be a significant amount of people in the US who believe an entire group of people is inferior and deserve to be oppressed. I willingly admit to the possibility of being totally wrong. If so then it should bear itself out in the stats, ones that are done to remove confounding factors. Links are welcome

Truth comes out in the wash, though. No white parent ever sent their kid to a predominantly black school over a predominantly white one by choice. No white homebuyers are out there hoping to find that dream home in a predominantly black neighborhood.

In cases like this, how much of this is actually due to income levels, and how income levels correlate to public school funding?

Iow, more white people have money and their schools have more money, so in general one would want to send your children to schools with more white people (more money).

...

If all of these things were presented academically, I'd hate the whole process of figuring out wtf is going on a lot less Politics (all sides) is draining, because it's all about misleading people with false facts, in order to elicit emotional reactions that cause them to support their party of choice. It's a waste of time (imho) for people who really want to try to understand the world.

[AlCelticFan]

most conservatives are not interested in facts, fairness, accountability or any of that.

My only argument would be that this is for most people, not just most conservatives.

[Captain_Caveman]

Don’t even try dismiss the emails and Bengahzi. The rest you sort of have a point on. However, Antifa and BLM (the militant side) are threats to this country. And anyone saying “Goddamn America” from the pulpit is pretty stunning.

Now, to get to the meat of the issue. As someone who held a top secret security clearance, I know what you can and cannot do. I know of people who have had their clearances pulled because they left a classified folder on a desk and forgot about it. Nevermind that the info inside was fairly benign. Others got a reprimand and never did it again. Again, from my time and what I saw it want the classified OPS plans for certain theaters, but smaller stuff.

What HRC did was so criminal, that any active or reserve duty military person would be looking at 20 to whatever in Leavenworth if they did the same. There is no I didn’t know. There is no “I didn’t know” for a Pvt in the Army, there sure as hell isn’t that excuse for a Secretary of State. Every time I handled classified, and I worked in the squadron intel vault for a few years, I handled it with as much care as I possibly could. To have it on an unsecured server in my home? No bleeping chance.

Then to Benghazi. I know some stuff that really pisses me off about the situation. It wasn’t just HRC, but the entire administration. Security was sh*t and don’t believe anything a career CIA station chief says over the operators that were there. They needed backup, had backup available and didn’t get it until it was too late and even then not enough. They asked and asked. No one needed to die had the correct order been given. The CIA annex was much more defendable, and Amb. Stevens and his guys should have been brought there much earlier. Either way, someone either purposefully denied the support or the entire admin was asleep at the wheel.

Are you as mad about the report this week that many senior WH people have been using their own emails? Hillary at least has the excuse of following standard practice and *perhaps* not adapting quickly enough to new technology. Trump literally ran 50% of his general campaign about the use of private emails and then his administration escalated that practice once in office. If it was really about the practice of using private emails, conservatives should be twice as mad as they were at Hillary right now, right?

But of course not. It was a manufactured scandal at the time, and even though it's a real scandal now that likely includes conspiring with hostile foreign governments to alter an election in return for favorable policy, most conservatives are not interested in facts, fairness, accountability or any of that.

I dismiss that entire point out of hand, as anyone should.

As to Benghazi, it's equally as disgraceful that conservatives are 100x more mad about that than they are about themselves supporting a preemptive way that was waged in Iraq over WMD capability that everyone knew didn't exist, simply because it was a valuable piece of geopolitical real estate for their asinine, half-baked plan to promote Middle Eastern democracy at gunpoint.

Iraq was a screwjob. However, Saddam had his chance and said f it to the entire world. He wouldn’t just say I don’t have any. Removing Saddam was a huge mistake however, just as I am against any regime change in Syria.

As far as the email problem, I feel that if there was any classified being transferred under Trump they deserve the same punishment HRC deserved. Some of those emails ended up on Humas laptop that Wenier had access to. I’m rooting for it because I loathe Kushner. To dimiss it out of hand, is what someone who has never had a top secret security clearance would say, and never should have had one if they had that attitude. So basically..HRC should be in prison as should anyone else doing the same. We shall see if it was classified info or non secure emails that were shared.

Right on. And if and when it comes out that the Trump had an even more pervasive use of private emails for much more nefarious purposes, your level of outrage will be duly noted.

As a footnote, as someone from a law enforcement family, I think there is a chance that Trump will survive this, but even if so, his administration will be completely crippled. This appears even bigger than Watergate and, at the least, some of his closest associates will probably die in prison.

[Captain_Caveman]

most conservatives are not interested in facts, fairness, accountability or any of that.

My only argument would be that this is for most people, not just most conservatives.

OK, but let's be real about the question of scale here. Most progressives are well-intentioned people who are just bad at math. They're not out there promoting complete falsehoods or claiming science is fake.

[AlCelticFan]

most conservatives are not interested in facts, fairness, accountability or any of that.

My only argument would be that this is for most people, not just most conservatives.

OK, but let's be real about the question of scale here. Most progressives are well-intentioned people who are just bad at math. They're not out there promoting complete falsehoods or claiming science is fake.

I think conservatives might make similar arguments about promoting transgender surgeries as perfectly safe, or universal healthcare as having a small financial impact. (Pretty sure Bernie tried to imply it would have a net neutral effect on middle class people, which I'm pretty sure is bogus). I'm sure I could think of more of these if I wasn't watching Minnesota vs the Lakers, and reading a book at the same time

EDIT: but yeah, even then, your examples are more egregious than mine.

[AlCelticFan]

Both Dems and Republicans tend to argue in the form of "Moderate members of my party find your parties extreme radicals to be ridiculous/terrible, which is why my party is clearly saner/better than yours"

[Captain_Caveman]

Both Dems and Republicans tend to argue in the form of "Moderate members of my party find your parties extreme radicals to be ridiculous/terrible, which is why my party is clearly saner/better than yours"

I'd be first in line to draw an equivalence on that if there really were one.

[ViperGTS]

Are you as mad about the report this week that many senior WH people have been using their own emails? Hillary at least has the excuse of following standard practice and *perhaps* not adapting quickly enough to new technology. Trump literally ran 50% of his general campaign about the use of private emails and then his administration escalated that practice once in office. If it was really about the practice of using private emails, conservatives should be twice as mad as they were at Hillary right now, right?

But of course not. It was a manufactured scandal at the time, and even though it's a real scandal now that likely includes conspiring with hostile foreign governments to alter an election in return for favorable policy, most conservatives are not interested in facts, fairness, accountability or any of that.

I dismiss that entire point out of hand, as anyone should.

As to Benghazi, it's equally as disgraceful that conservatives are 100x more mad about that than they are about themselves supporting a preemptive way that was waged in Iraq over WMD capability that everyone knew didn't exist, simply because it was a valuable piece of geopolitical real estate for their asinine, half-baked plan to promote Middle Eastern democracy at gunpoint.

Iraq was a screwjob. However, Saddam had his chance and said f it to the entire world. He wouldn’t just say I don’t have any. Removing Saddam was a huge mistake however, just as I am against any regime change in Syria.

As far as the email problem, I feel that if there was any classified being transferred under Trump they deserve the same punishment HRC deserved. Some of those emails ended up on Humas laptop that Wenier had access to. I’m rooting for it because I loathe Kushner. To dimiss it out of hand, is what someone who has never had a top secret security clearance would say, and never should have had one if they had that attitude. So basically..HRC should be in prison as should anyone else doing the same. We shall see if it was classified info or non secure emails that were shared.

Right on. And if and when it comes out that the Trump had an even more pervasive use of private emails for much more nefarious purposes, your level of outrage will be duly noted.

As a footnote, as someone from a law enforcement family, I think there is a chance that Trump will survive this, but even if so, his administration will be completely crippled. This appears even bigger than Watergate and, at the least, some of his closest associates will probably die in prison.

We shall see where the chips may fall. I’d be highly suprised at any Russian connection. Clapper said they weren’t wiretapping any Presidential campaigns. Then it come out recently there was a FISA warrant signed to do just that. One would assume the info would be out by now. Russia isn’t the problem however.

The real problem is ISIS/L (radical Islam in whichever form) and the drug cartels south of the border. If he was cutting deals with these guys I’d be even more pissed.

[AlCelticFan]

Both Dems and Republicans tend to argue in the form of "Moderate members of my party find your parties extreme radicals to be ridiculous/terrible, which is why my party is clearly saner/better than yours"

I'd be first in line to draw an equivalence on that if there really were one.

Conservatives love to argue about extremes such as:
- extreme feminists who argue that they don't need men, and that it's better to be a single mother
- teaching children that they can choose their genders, and can/should get gender reassignment surgery at a young age.

Two I could think of that I hope we can agree are extreme and don't represent the moderate Democrat's positions, but the moderate Republican might use these as examples as to why Dems are insane socialists running loose to ruin the country.

Whereas your examples cover the more radical Republican thoughts.

[AlCelticFan]

So let me take it back to the social issues this thread is really about.

Assuming that the statistics bear out that there are indeed biases against black people in the US, that cannot be accounted for by other socio-economic factors: what is the solution? what can be done in terms of policy that will help?

[Captain_Caveman]

Both Dems and Republicans tend to argue in the form of "Moderate members of my party find your parties extreme radicals to be ridiculous/terrible, which is why my party is clearly saner/better than yours"

I'd be first in line to draw an equivalence on that if there really were one.

Conservatives love to argue about extremes such as:
- extreme feminists who argue that they don't need men, and that it's better to be a single mother
- teaching children that they can choose their genders, and can/should get gender reassignment surgery at a young age.

Two I could think of that I hope we can agree are extreme and don't represent the moderate Democrat's positions, but the moderate Republican might use these as examples as to why Dems are insane socialists running loose to ruin the country.

Whereas your examples cover the more radical Republican thoughts.

Republicans are much more often on the extremes on issues of much more importance. Denying climate change. Their near universal support for Project for a New American Century foreign policy. Their near universal support for a deregulated free market and trickle down economics. I'm talking about paradigms than have been repudiated even by the people who promoted them, like Greenspan.

Just not equivalent in any way. The entire right-wing view of the world is completely wrong, on all fronts.

More reasonable people like Romney are fully aware of this, btw.

[Captain_Caveman]

So let me take it back tot he social issues this thread is really about.

Assuming that the statistics bear out that there are indeed biases against black people in the US, that cannot be accounted for by other socio-economic factors: what is the solution? what can be done in terms of policy that will help?

Not only do endless statistics definitively prove bias and racism on endless fronts, statistics do not tell the story of un- or under-reported crimes, or many of the thousands of ways in which racism is insidiously embedded on our society and its institutions.

I think anyone in this discussion should make it a point to spend more time in the hood, for lack of a better way to put it. You will very not likely get robbed if you are there in the daytime, acting correctly.

Talk to people about their lives. Chances are, it will all make sense then. When you hear grandmothers talk about how they can't go outside at night, and how 911 doesn't come when they call, and how their 13yo honor student grandson was made to lie spread-eagled on the ground by police with a drawn gun on them.

What happens in these communities is not right. Like, deeply and profoundly so. And denying that is takes place, or being mad at them for being upset about it? 100% inexcusable.

Why do people expect people to salute a flag that represents their exploitation and oppression? No, really?