Dr. Tarrasque

Regardless, suggesting that there's no such thing as being racist towards whites is no better and only fuels the white supremacist movement which might as well be the enemy of everyone including whites that aren't racists. There's definitely instances where people go too far when they're calling others racists and things like this particular part of Reddit's recent policy changes: This is dumb and needs to be changed. I've seen talk that there's a subreddit requiring photo of a person's dark skin to join and that this particular subreddit spends most of its time just attacking whites. If this is the truth, it should be purged as well or at the very least, cut that shit out. Again, the race issue should be this simple, regardless of color/race/whatever, simply consider if you're ok with the situation being flipped. Personally, I wish folks just realized that's there's the just the human race but this isn't happening in my lifetime. I'm sure the term does suck from your perspective but that disdain is better aimed against white supremacists looking to perpetuate the advantages and disadvantages the folks of the past created and the damage they have done. "Spoiled" and "Elite" are not the words I would use to describe whites (although I've definitely seen instances where I would definitely call some spoiled) in the context of white privilege but the fact is that as divisive as that term can be, it does not exist without merit. No, I'm not suggesting that just because a person is white they're directly responsible but the fact is that it is true that there's many situations in which being white just puts you in a better situation. Efforts being made to change things like this are always being impeded by the right-wing in the country due to their aforementioned overlap with white supremacists. In Alabama, a black pregnant woman who was shot and her unborn baby died faced manslaughter charges while in Ohio a white woman was found "not guilty" despite her effectively killing her baby by burying her in the backyard. Fortunately, the charges against the black woman in Alabama were eventually dropped but that was still bullshit and a contributing factor for those charges being dropped may have been that the case caught national attention. I've seen footage of white women stopped by cops on the road just angrily chewing the cop out while Philando Castile's case exists and his killer got acquitted. If you're from a white majority country like Norway, Trump would love for you to come live in the US while for those that are Chinese are being attacked due to COVID-19 and there's the known issue of whites calling the police on black for no real reason which the younger generation has picked up that such a thing is a potential death sentence. The list goes on. The term itself is not the problem and as Shob said, changing it will just see the same people spouting talking points and pretend it's not a thing (see example #1 specifically in that video) because there's an audience for this and it makes them money. To solve a problem, it needs to be understood and acknowledged.

It's because Republican voters tend to have more affinity for Authoritarianism than they would like to admit. "Small central government" goes out the window when there's attempts at banning abortion for example. In the US, Racism discussion will always contain politics. You should read the stuff below to get a little understanding of why that is. There are many many factors that come into play for why Racism is such a prominent thing in the US and why our politics suck so much when it comes to just implementing changes that give certain folks the rights "normal" people already have. It basically boils down to the right-wing overlapping with white supremacist ideology but to provide some factors, here's 3 things 1. The modern Republican Party is literally the product of pandering to racists. It was already linked earlier but folks should really research the matter of the Southern Strategy and hear Lee Atwater's words on it. The reason why that strategy targeted white voters in the South specifically is because the South sees the history of things like the Civil War, Slavery and Who should be allowed to govern quite differently from folks in the north and so they were basically easy pickings. As a result, the party entrenched itself with racism back when it was more popular but now that they see that they're losing white voters that aren't racists and that they can't really hope to get the support of non-whites, they're hoping to look like they're trying to get rid of the stink to little success because just like Andrew Gillum told Ron DeSantis, "the racists think you're racist" and that is the case as some such groups see the party as their vessel of opportunity to gain power and there was even an actual Nazi, Arthur Jones, winning a recent primary because the party couldn't find someone to oppose him. Even though the Republican party wants to try and get rid of the white supremacist stink, they still need support from such people in conjunction with their cheating in election to maintain the party as they know they're losing. The Republican LORD AND SAVIOR, Ronald Reagan, himself was actually racist but anytime you say that in conversation with a conservative they would deny it or bring up the fact that he signed some particular bill (I forget what it was specifically) while omitting the fact that said bill couldn't be vetoed rendering that defense moot as well as ignoring the fact that when he was governor of California, he took GUN CONTROL action in response to Black Panthers patrolling the streets armed to deal with Police abusing their power... you know, that argument gun nuts make about protection against tyrannical government. Nowadays you have this audio clip and an op-ed from his daughter apologizing and you can still find Republican voters and politicians defending him on this. The Republican party in particular has just had racist leaders and the voters just keep putting in people that doesn't help them drive that stink away. There was a dude literally running for congress vowing to deport Obama to Kenya, he was still in Congress earlier this year and is now Trump's chief of staff. Nowadays the Republican party basically does nothing besides look to pass tax cuts for the rich (because the reality is that yes, our politicians are owned by them), deregulate everything and stoke fear about the "VIOLENT LEFT" to their old voters thanks to the help of... 2. Right-wing media, most prominently Fox News creating an alternate reality and the "liberal" media being soft on Republicans. If you ever wondered how it is possible that Trump was not impeached AND removed when Nixon was, here you go. For Racism specifically, just google "Advertisers flee Tucker Carlson" and you'll find results from different time periods, this usually happens when the dude runs a segment that's far beyond his usual BS. The most recent news about him is that he's the most watched cable news show. If you wonder why, it's because of his populism approach as well as being straight up white supremacist porn because he's a better voice for them than they have been. Then there's other shit like PragerU's videos trying to portray the current Democratic party as racist, their new video calling the BLM movement marxist, comparing BLM to terrorist groups, etc. They do this kind of shit all the time and it's just never gonna end until the audience wakes the fuck up and ditches them completely because when Fox News faced a lawsuit because of their lying about COVID-19, their defense was that the 1st amendment protects their lying and in another lawsuit for libel by Tucker Carlson, literally admit the guy lies to his audience. All of this ends up culminating from misinformation and mental gymnastics done strictly to protect the Republican party and it ends up making it difficult to create unity between the people's understanding of actual cases of racism occurring in the country and dumb instances of fools too recklessly calling others racist (which can often be ignored and isn't resulting in cases where the police is called on them). Then there's the "liberal" mainstream media which is often terrible at covering politics and has a habit prioritizing ratings by being soft on Republicans because the Republican voters in their audience would get mad whenever their politicians were singled out. A good example of this is when Obama spoke out about the BS shutdown in 2013 that was caused by Republicans. Obama spoke the truth here (they demanded ransom for just doing their jobs) but the mainstream media just played their "both sides" card to look neutral as always. Their constant attempts at being neutral and failure to call out Republicans being obstructionists plays to the advantage the worst politicians we have in congress such as... 3. Mitch McConnell. This man is the real winner of the 2016 election and he's capitalized on it. This is a man who loves the Citizens United outcome and believes there should be MORE money in politics even though voters on both sides hate money in politics. This is a man who continues to block vote on any legislation that does not involve benefiting the rich and takes pride in it by calling himself the Grim Reaper This is a man up for reelection this year and has predictably won with ease in his primary and is expected to win reelection. This is a man who said that Obama being president was payment for Slavery. I could go on and you may be wondering what the fuck does he have to do with racism, civil rights issues and the current BLM protests? Well everything currently, he's basically put himself in the middle of every single problem in the country due to his habit of blocking just about anything that reaches the Senate. If police reform, investigations or a bill containing efforts to deal with the issue we're seeing of police constantly killing black folks who have no business dying the way they did and no justice being delivered (as well as cops having free reign to attack non-violent protesters), the man will block it because it would most likely come from the Democrats. If a bill is made to make voting easier or improve the money in politics issue and it passes, the man has already blocked it and called it a "power grab" because the party itself currently believes that if it were easier to vote (anything besides going to a polling place for a long time during a work day), they're done. It may seem like I'm just demonizing him and technically I pretty much am, but the point is, it doesn't matter if there's any good solution passed by the House of Representatives if he's still in power and we saw from the 2 years the Republicans had total control of the government under Trump that their priorities are strictly passing tax cuts, deregulation and destroying social programs that benefit regular folks. Even if this election cycle gets rid of Trump, if this guy maintains the Senate under his control like it currently is, the current unrest and protest won't really amount to more than what has already happened and it'll all just be a cycle where at a random time you may see protests start up again and companies taking the opportunities to just cash in by pandering and little things like renaming bases/removing statues but nothing really substantial. The man CAN be persuaded but it's incredibly difficult and a point of reference to that difficulty is the situation about the benefits for the 9/11 first responders where Jon Stewart had to come into a congressional hearing to shit on congress and publicly pressure McConnell to fucking do something. McConnell is also a factor to consider for folks that don't want to look into politics and want to check out from it (I certainly want to) or put simply, those who see themselves as "apolitical" or "politically neutral". As things are currently, the choice is basically made for you when it comes to any lawmaking that improves things for regular folks/marginalized folks or tries to address things that aren't giving more money to the rich or deregulation, and that choice is "No" so long as the man maintains Senate Majority. I understand the desire to be "politically neutral" but the unfortunate reality voter apathy helps incumbents like him. TL;DR, if you want any change to come in regards to racism or simply for common sense civil rights progress to be made, the Republican party needs to be punished for its use of the Southern Strategy and continued obstruction and money in politics. The issue of race in particular, should be this simple. And for those who have read this far and just think this is me being partisan: I'm a Hispanic male with light skin that's often not thought of as Hispanic by other people (including fellow Hispanics) due to my speech and when it comes to the issues most things have no bearing on me and I would personally benefit more from Republican rule due to their penchant for Tax cuts and yet I consider myself an Independent voter. I have 2 cousins in a similar boat (but it's much much easier to tell that they're Hispanic thanks to their speech) and they both support Trump and will vote for him again. The difference between me and them is simply research of both sides vs Fox News. There's both, people who literally mean to ABOLISH and people who stop at defunding. I don't agree with the former and them being grouped with the crowd that actually means the latter are setting up the whole situation to either blow up and accomplish nothing or far less than it really should.

He's just that stupid but he also surrounds himself with elites that view common folk as "Human Capital Stock" and watches a network with someone who pretends to hate elites.

I'm aware and I wasn't trying to argue that big tech companies should be trusted but instead pointing out that they have a rule set which they're supposed to operate with and when they fuck up, they should get shit for it just like the government and any other company if they deserve it. As Johann just pointed out... It's not about trusting the tech company, it's more about pushing them to be consistent with their rules and supposed values as well as taking out the garbage from Conservatives and crazy far-left morons that deserve it. Again, Conservatives only hate option #1 here because they're being affected and that's partly due to damage they've brought upon themselves... just recall Ben Shapiro's tantrum on BBC that started from Andrew Neil referring to the Abortion policies that Conservatives in the US support as "taking us back to the dark ages", that illustrates just how some folks in the US are so convinced that they're in right that dissent from someone in their own camp but in a different country is immediately seen as the "enemy".

IIRC, the Pope has even publicly shown support for something like Black Lives Matter. I definitely agree that one particular religion isn't the root of the problem, bad actors from within that religion and outside of it have just continuously picked groups to assault and preyed on religious people by making them think they're victims and with bullshit like "Religious Liberty". On the subject of deplatforming folks from Social Media sites, I think it should ultimately be up to the private company in question to decide what they do and the avenue of feedback being their own audience's support/discontent for their actions and lack of it. As it's already been mentioned, the bolded is pretty much in line with how Conservatives typically want things to go but in the context of Social Media, they display opposite behavior and many don't seem to have much of a problem with the Government jumping in to try regulate "anti-conservative bias". That's just their usual hypocrisy and Trump's crusade against Twitter in particular is a more accurate example of the 1st Amendment being attacked than some idiot like Alex Jones being banned or Candace Owens being suspended which is the typical shit you see them cry "MUH 1ST AMENDMENT RIGHTS" for. In such instances, it is often because the Conservatives go into or approach areas like inciting violence or discrimination of specific groups which is often regulated in Terms of Service/Company policies... as I may have said before on this thread, a KFC employee is held to higher standards than our President when it comes to social behavior and the "unfairness" the Conservatives see in such figures being banned isn't exactly helped when politicians on their side just toss vague arguments like "you're attacking our values" in the context of racism/bigotry. In several cases their solution appears to be to just keep saying that something never happened and a good example of this is the use of the Southern Strategy by the Republican party which some in the GOP have publicly apologized for but many would prefer to just make the claim that there is no such thing and follow it up with claims that the Democratic party is basically doing slavery via the social safety nets and programs that assist the poor. "Let the racists speak as they wish and people will see who the racists are" doesn't exactly work because that's just one interpretation as to why someone is seeing some outrageous bullshit post from say, Alex Jones on the platform. I would argue that a more common interpretation is that such behavior is more acceptable than it may have been previously and that's pretty much what we're seeing with the rise in public racist tirades after Trump got into office. That's not just me talking out of my ass here either, white supremacists and far-right nuts celebrated Trump's victory and touted their bigotry and racism (which they portray as the "truth") being validated as his win while downplaying the 3 million vote discrepancy as "Mexifornia votes". "I don't trust anybody to be making the ruling on what is and isn't acceptable" is a strange thing to say because they've already made that decision and publish it on their Terms of Service and you agree to it when you join. It then comes down to enforcing that and If they find that someone violated their ToS and choose to deplatform someone, it is their decision and they should be prepared to defend it and if they fail, reverse it and eat the shit they've received as a result. It's super easy to jump into a conversation like this and interpret things as it being "people wanting to deplatform others because they disagree" but it's more about removing bad actors with a history of lying and arguing in bad faith. A good example of this is Fox News and one their prime-time "Opinion" show hosts, Tucker Carlson. If you watch him on a Politicon debate and compare it with many of the segments in his show, you'll see that on the latter, the dude has a habit of pandering to white fear and attacking people in ways that could lead to libel lawsuits. In that instance as well as a lawsuit related to how their coverage in COVID-19 is essentially a public health risk, they basically argued that the 1st Amendment protects their right to lie and that "it's a commentary show so he doesn't have to check the facts". Fox News and Tucker Carlson are bad actors when it comes to their coverage of politics and they have to be held accountable in some fashion... the government can't and shouldn't, the audience they cultivated won't, Advertisers occasionally do when they pull their ads from shows like Tucker's, Hannity and Laura Ingraham. Twitter can and SHOULD threaten Fox News that they'll be removed off their platform if they're not careful with the shit they put in there because Fox News has made it clear that they have no problem with being a source of disinformation. Deplatforming works and removing users that violate the Terms of Service is something Twitter SHOULD do regardless of who it is, be it the President or Politicians. The US is too fucked up at the moment and a disagreement will put labels on you that you don't even identify with or care about and this is largely in part due to bad actors like Tucker Carlson.

Would it have actually mattered or achieved anything? I'm fairly certain the votes would've been the same and he wouldn't have been removed by the Senate. The politicians will say that it would've changed their vote to try and save face but we all know it's bullshit and the lesson that Trump learned according to Collins is simply that the Republican party is all in with the guy and have no real choice but to fall in line if they want to stay in power. Agreed. Still great because it's just infighting between scumbags who had no business being in power and whatever Swing state votes are flipped from 2016 against Trump in 2020 due to this stuff is certainly a welcome outcome.

"HE'S JUST JOKING WHEN HE TALKS ABOUT BEING PRESIDENT FOR LIFE". That's the first time I've seen this allegation. Any more to share?

Claims from Bolton's book according to a NYT report: 1. The Ukraine Quid Pro Quo was explicit. The book confirms House testimony that Mr. Bolton was wary all along of the president’s actions with regard to Ukraine and that Mr. Trump explicitly linked the security aid to investigations involving Mr. Biden and Hillary Clinton. On Aug. 20, Mr. Bolton writes, Mr. Trump “said he wasn’t in favor of sending them anything until all the Russia-investigation materials related to Clinton and Biden had been turned over.” Mr. Bolton writes that he, Mr. Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper tried eight to 10 times to get Mr. Trump to release the aid. 2. Similar stuff happened with other countries, China and Turkey in particular “The pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn’t accept,” Bolton wrote. ^ Easiest way to sum up Trump right there lol 3. He tried to get China to help him with the reelection. Not exactly new given this but the details below shed some light on a few things Bolton wrote that “the president overtly linked policy to his own political fortunes as he asked [Chinese President] Xi to buy a lot of American agricultural products to help him win farm states in this year’s election. Mr. Trump, he writes, was ‘pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome.’” 4. Our commander-in-chief didn't know Britain is a Nuclear Power 5. Trump asked if Finland is part of Russia. This and the previous one are "whatever" but they're of relevance mostly because of how much his supporters elevate him. 6. Pompeo thought what many folks were thinking regarding North Korea During Mr. Trump’s 2018 meeting with North Korea’s leader, according to the book, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slipped Mr. Bolton a note disparaging the president, saying, “He is so full of shit.” A month later, Mr. Bolton writes, Mr. Pompeo dismissed the president’s North Korea diplomacy, declaring that there was “zero probability of success.” 7. Bolton supposedly reported potential cases of Trump abusing his power to Bill Barr. Lol

Indeed, however, perhaps it's about time they get treated the same way they want to treat minorities so they truly experience it and not just claim "MUH FREE SPEECH RIGHTS ARE BEING VIOLATED WORSE THAN MINORITIES". It gets worse when you think about how douchebags like Shapiro help perpetuate the time people like Mitch McConnell are in power. Trump said the quiet part out loud when he ranted about how the country will never see a Republican elected if people could vote by mail and as long as the politicians on the Republican side continue to function as they do, the extinction/endangerment of the Republican party as it is today becomes that much sweeter.

They probably are in the camp that believes allowing such discrimination falls under "Religious Liberty" and "Free Speech". Conservatives didn't take kindly to this outcome and are pissed off at Gorsuch... some examples: Gotta love that last one, THIS is THE reason to stay home and not vote Trump, completely ignore everything the man's been doing wrong that conservatives claimed they cared about like the deficit and the economy lol. Shit like this makes me lean to think that perhaps certain Conservatives in the US NEED a period of time in which they're disparaged and truly silenced.

It's to own the libs, a supposed feature for the right-wing.

The MAGA rallies are back and registration requires that attendees do not sue: And the following are now being sold by the Trump campaign:

@Shoblongoo For once something good happened in Florida:

It also lines up with a hypothetical that was brought up by lawyers suggesting Trump SHOULD be impeached during that "trial". I swear, there has to be politicians in the GOP that would still let it slide if Trump raped their daughters in front of their faces.

So McConnell proposes a power grab to expand the Patriot Act of all things and then an amendment is suggested to EXCLUDE Internet Browsing History from the scope of this power grab and it doesn't get enough votes to pass lol. All those assholes that voted NAY to this deserve so much shit. Collins must really be banking on McConnell to save her seat to make such a vote given her current situation.