General US Politics

[Lord Raven]

Because the fringe right-wing wasn't taken seriously until Trump actually won the presidency.

Also, to further onto TheDanMan's point, there's a user on this forum that actively listens to Milo Yiannopoulos as some bastion of intellectualism!

[Radiant head]

1 hour ago, Lord Raven said:

 People also took Stephen Colbert seriously. It was the most baffling thing.

this is a little less baffling in hindsight because now we have a president who is literally impossible to satirize and already embodies everything cartoonish about right wingers.  

[The DanMan]

1 hour ago, Res said:

One of the points I took away from the article, which you're exemplifying here, is that it literally doesn't matter what some conservatives do - no one cares about the hypocrisy. Instead of focus being on the conservatives who *do* demonstrate bigotry and hatred, the focus is always on the people decrying the bigotry and hatred (if they don't do it in a nice, passive enough manner). 

Here's the problem with 'agreeing to disagree' - some people's views impact people more than other people's views do. The only people who can agree to disagree are in a position of privilege where laws being made are not going to affect their lives in any way. 

You've been silent on this thread for a while and haven't spoken up once against anything Trump's done, but you felt the need to reply and say 'not all conservatives' to Radiant Head - why? 

Also, trolls like Milo are absolutely being taken seriously! He's been on multiple TV segments, he's been granted lecture space, he was given a $250,000 book deal - and he's only been dropped, finally, because his views on pedophilia came to light. 

I was never an active part of the thread, only occasionally browsing and making the odd comment. Work and school generally kept me away from the forum during December/January, and I preferred to take part in stuff more directly related to SF's main purpose. It was random "luck" that I happened to stumble upon the article. I myself don't identify as anything politically (with what views I do have leaning towards liberal), and I don't like most of what Trump's done.

A large part of my extended family is Conservative, and in general I've had much more exposure to those who identify as Conservative/Moderate than Liberal. To see an article that implies that they lack humanity at one point and in general reads like the ramblings of a profane 20-something year old definitely wasn't a fun read. That said, I do agree with a large part of the article-- it's pointless to talk with those who have fully made up their minds. But I've also seen first hand what it does to opinions and attitudes if you broadly condemn people based on the words and deeds of the part.

I never denied some views impact people more than others; I was more broadly talking about the vitriol on both sides and general condemnation (which, admittedly, was only tangentially related). It's the general trend to undermine and try to dehumanize those who disagree with you.

I'd never really heard of Milo prior to today-- I took those who you dubbed as trolls to be standard internet trolls on the likes of Reddit and Twitter.

1 hour ago, Lord Raven said:

Because the fringe right-wing wasn't taken seriously until Trump actually won the presidency.

Also, to further onto TheDanMan's point, there's a user on this forum that actively listens to Milo Yiannopoulos as some bastion of intellectualism!

I'm very well aware of that user. I'm also aware of a user who acts, in many ways, like their polar opposite.

Which exemplifies things nicely: we have the fringe left and fringe right yapping at eachother, causing the more mainstream of those broad groups to condemn the opposites instead of trying to decry both fringes. I'd imagine unity against the extremes would be better than pushing people towards them.

Honestly, it seems I have very little to add to this discussion.

Edited February 21, 2017 by The DanMan

[Flee Fleet!]

4 hours ago, The Blind Idiot God said:

"27% think vaccines cause autism"

Offtopic but, is this seriously true or is this just another ridiculous "theory"? 

4 hours ago, The Blind Idiot God said:

"In fact, 31% would support a ban on homosexuals entering the United States as well"

This is sort of surprising for me- I never thought that there were some people who also wanted homosexuals banned in America.

[Tryhard]

Do you know how many conservatives disparage the left as libtards and go on about how leftists have mental disorders? Most of the ones I see online if it's any indication of how muddy in the ground things are. I'm not interested in being a "tolerant" leftist if that's the strawman if it means extending the olive branch to people who will never take it because I might be in favor of some more of the spooky socialism they can't be bothered to inform themselves about as if social security and such aren't already widely popular socialist policies. Actually, it's not that, because things that would be considered "socialist" policies are actually quite popular with people like average Republicans, provided you don't describe them in a way that makes them think it's a leftist thing. Like singlepayer healthcare. It's not really surprising that left-minded individuals would find arguing with conservatives to be somewhat a waste of time if they disregard most of what you think. Because as much as I find authoritarianism to be far more dangerous, right or left, there is little the right and left can parley on, aside from some social issues.

The far left are awful in their own regard but let's not forget that the far right in power has had a history of religious theocracy and homophobia among other revolting policies. They've tried to step away from some of the more socially conservative ideas recently, but only because they were losing that fight. 

[Radiant head]

lol @ the "both sides" argument 

guys we need to find the common ground between giving poor people healthcare and being racist 

 

Edited February 21, 2017 by Radiant head

[The DanMan]

17 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

Do you know how many conservatives disparage the left as libtards and go on about how leftists have mental disorders? Most of the ones I see online if it's any indication of how muddy in the ground things are. I'm not interested in being a "tolerant" leftist if that's the strawman if it means extending the olive branch to people who will never take it because I might be in favor of some more of the spooky socialism they can't be bothered to inform themselves about as if social security and such aren't already widely popular socialist policies. Actually, it's not that, because things that would be considered "socialist" policies are actually quite popular with people like average Republicans, provided you don't describe them in a way that makes them think it's a leftist thing. Like singlepayer healthcare. It's not really surprising that left-minded individuals would find arguing with conservatives to be somewhat a waste of time if they disregard most of what you think. Because as much as I find authoritarianism to be far more dangerous, right or left, there is little the right and left can parley on, aside from some social issues.

The far left are awful in their own regard but let's not forget that the far right in power has had a history of religious theocracy and homophobia among other revolting policies. They've tried to step away from some of the more socially conservative ideas recently, but only because they were losing that fight. 

I'm well aware of all that-- I'm a primarily left-leaning individual in a family that's predominantly right.

10 minutes ago, Radiant head said:

lol @ the "both sides" argument 

guys we need to find the common ground between giving poor people healthcare and being racist 

That's not what I said or meant. Instead of taking time to try and clear themselves of extremism, the less radical parts of both sides (in examples of firm partisan bias) just take shots at the other and make things worse.

[Radiant head]

how does it make things worse and worse for who? politics is a struggle for power, not a friendly competition. "moderate centrism" isn't any less ideological than your idea of the far right or far left.  

Edited February 21, 2017 by Radiant head

[The DanMan]

13 minutes ago, Radiant head said:

worse for who? politics is a struggle for power, not a friendly competition. "moderate centrism" isn't any less ideological than your idea of the far right or far left.  

Worse for pretty much everybody involved by pushing more people towards those extremes.

And I never denied anything about ideologies-- but people of different ideologies should be able to at least extend some tolerance towards each other.

Edited February 21, 2017 by The DanMan

[Radiant head]

why on earth should people tolerate what they perceive to be toxic and dangerous views, ie trumpism 

 

 

[Res]

1 hour ago, The DanMan said:

That said, I do agree with a large part of the article-- it's pointless to talk with those who have fully made up their minds. But I've also seen first hand what it does to opinions and attitudes if you broadly condemn people based on the words and deeds of the part.

For what it's worth, I do have a considerable amount of privilege myself, so I'll always try to discuss politely with people so long as they appear open to discussion. It's worth bearing in mind though that the anger coming from marginalized people is justified and is born out of years of frustration. 

1 hour ago, Flee Fleet! said:

Offtopic but, is this seriously true or is this just another ridiculous "theory"? 

No, not true. There are dozens of studies disproving the link between autism and vaccines and no medical scientist of any worth considers there to be a link.

1 hour ago, Radiant head said:

lol @ the "both sides" argument 

guys we need to find the common ground between giving poor people healthcare and being racist 

Speaking of healthcare I read the GOP ACA replacement as detailed in the NY Times the other day, it sounds as expected (not for certain, of course, but quite likely). 

[Raumata]

So... Sarah Silverman has yet to apologize for her jokes involving dressing up in blackface, dressing up as Hitler, and child molestation. 

[The DanMan]

Responses aren't showing up for me-- I'm getting quote notifications, but nothing's showing up beyond my last post.

Anyways, I'll just say that I could definitely have expressed myself better and there seems to have been some misunderstandings brought about by some of my more emotional responses. I'm clearly not well researched enough to carry a conversation in this thread; back to lurking for the time being.

[Time the Crestfallen]

5 hours ago, The DanMan said:

While poll numbers are poll numbers, I think it's also important to mention that there were a fair few Conservatives who didn't support Trump. But as the original linked article demonstrated, people aren't saying "Hardline Trump supporters are beyond reasoning with"; they're going out of their way to vilify and alienate those who disagree with them instead of focusing on those who actually might be the issue. It's one extreme to another-- the far left and far right feed eachother and get more and more vocal about it.

When the starting point of a candidate's support is either active advocation or passive acceptance of blatant bigotry and hypocrisy, then you're going to have to forgive me if I feel like I'm wasting my time, especially when I've seen the kind of shit that goes on in r/the_dickhead and /pol/. If I wanted to stop the vilification, It'd be good to start by actually finding reasonable Trump supporters to debate with, of which I've met a grand total of 1 (being Tuvarkz or however you spell it, since he actually cited his sources and gave proper response). Everyone else has been an Alt-Reicher/Neo-Nazis who blatantly support fascism and white supremacy, the (barely) slightly less racist/sexist gamergate types who don't care what he does as long as he strikes back against 'SJWs' and 'PC culture' and people who didn't care how abominably shit he was going to be so long as he 'shook up the establishment'.

[Raumata]

1 minute ago, The DanMan said:

Responses aren't showing up for me-- I'm getting quote notifications, but nothing's showing up beyond my last post.

Anyways, I'll just say that I could definitely have expressed myself better and there seems to have been some misunderstandings brought about by some of my more emotional responses. I'm clearly not well researched enough to carry a conversation in this thread; back to lurking for the time being.

That problem occurs on my end as well.

[Radiant head]

41 minutes ago, Res said:

Speaking of healthcare I read the GOP ACA replacement as detailed in the NY Times the other day, it sounds as expected (not for certain, of course, but quite likely). 

getting a paywall but at this rate I'm guessing the gop wants to replace Obamacare with dave and busters coupons 

[Res]

7 minutes ago, Raumata said:

So... Sarah Silverman has yet to apologize for her jokes involving dressing up in blackface, dressing up as Hitler, and child molestation. 

I know she's pretty awful. Never seen anything by her (other than she did a voice in Wreck-It Ralph).

1 minute ago, Radiant head said:

getting a paywall but at this rate I'm guessing the gop wants to replace Obamacare with dave and busters coupons 

Basically:

- decrease Medicare
- encourage use of HSAs
- give a flat tax credit according to age, not income (this is the big one: If you're poor, the tax credits are useless. If you're young and have a chronic illness/disability, you don't benefit. If you're old and rich, you benefit). 

 

[Time the Crestfallen]

EDIT: Ninja'd by Res

Basically, fuck the poor.

 

Edited February 21, 2017 by The Blind Idiot God

[Yojinbo]

3 hours ago, The DanMan said:

[...] people of different ideologies should be able to at least extend some tolerance towards each other.

How is that supposed to happen when a considerable part of the people that call themselves "conservative" or "alt-right" can't even tolerate people that have different skin color? You expect people that insist on things that are evidently false [Obama being muslim or not born in the USA, anti-evolution theories or creationism, anti-vaccination, Jews controlling most of what's happening "behind the scenes", among many other things] to be able to show "tolerance" to the so-called "leftists" [which in their views is pretty much everything that doesn't share their ultra-right point of view anyways] ...?

Sure, left wing extremists exist too but you would not find even a single percent of people among supporters of Bernie Sanders that support the abolishment of private property. Yet somehow the "left" is supposed to show tolerance towards the ~25%+ of the "rightwing" people that are just blatantly racist, sexist, homophobe or support other degenerate ideologies. You can say what you want about ideologies being able to extend tolerance to one another, I don't even disagree with that, but it's clear that has nothing to do with the reality of US politics - those are just skewed towards the right wing by a collosal amount. Even a moderate left-wing politician like Sanders has to have his election rigged to be prevented to get anywhere near a position of power. Meanwhile the Congress, the Senate, the majority of states, the SCOTUS and all the key ministries are controlled entirely by far-right hardliners.

Edited February 22, 2017 by Yojinbo

[CyborgZeta]

Like I've said, US politics is just representative of the larger cultural war going on.

Liberal/Hillary America and Conservative/Trump America are basically two different countries. Different demographics, cultures, and values (sometimes different laws too).

Both sides view each other as a threat to their existence and very way of life. You can't have a reasonable discussion under those terms. That's why I roll my eyes whenever someone talks about "Bringing our country together" or "healing the divide", or anything like that; nobody wants to "heal" anything. My way or the highway, that's how the game works now.

Honestly, I'm more concerned that these hardening divisions are going to lead to some large-scale civil conflict. You might think a modern civil war would never happen in the US, but who knows.

There's a quote I found recently; "History is littered with wars which everybody knew would never happen." Don't know who said it, but it's not entirely wrong.

Edited February 22, 2017 by CyborgZeta

[Lord Raven]

54 minutes ago, CyborgZeta said:

Like I've said, US politics is just representative of the larger cultural war going on.

Liberal/Hillary America and Conservative/Trump America are basically two different countries. Different demographics, cultures, and values (sometimes different laws too).

Both sides view each other as a threat to their existence and very way of life. You can't have a reasonable discussion under those terms. That's why I roll my eyes whenever someone talks about "Bringing our country together" or "healing the divide", or anything like that; nobody wants to "heal" anything. My way or the highway, that's how the game works now.

Honestly, I'm more concerned that these hardening divisions are going to lead to some large-scale civil conflict. You might think a modern civil war would never happen in the US, but who knows.

There's a quote I found recently; "History is littered with wars which everybody knew would never happen." Don't know who said it, but it's not entirely wrong.

The difference is that one is legitimately a threat and one is not a threat. Are you actually fucking serious with this false equivalency?

You have not given one reason as to why you voted Trump aside from "I live in a rural area and I like it here, and I prefer a more conservative America." When it comes to social rights, what is the middle ground between gays getting married and not? Between needing an abortion and not? Between needing healthcare and not?

The point is that you seem to be someone who Trumpism has gotten hook, line, and sinker with the false equivalency bullshit. The poor, white, rural Americans are actively voting for people who want to destroy their healthcare and any chance of getting healthcare, destroy their economic mobility, and destroy any future for their children and grandchildren just because they don't want shit like the gays getting married or abortions, because they were convinced that, despite being on welfare themselves, everyone else is a welfare queen that is gaming the system.

I am willing to bet that minorities and people who are of the class of people who are persecuted are much more likely to be sympathetic to a rural American who is struggling despite differing views on things than the other way around; because the politicians have convinced the latter that the former are evil. Look at the Vice President (and contrary to popular belief the President is not LGBT friendly, sorry!) and don't pretend that there's a "perceived" sense of harm.

You're missing the big picture if you think there's a culture war that the politics resembles. The party in power right now wants to undo all the environment and business regulations that basically kept the economy from completely collapsing onto itself for no reason other than wanting their cronies to have more power. This is not cultural; this is convincing people that there is a cultural war happening so that they can stay in power and get their cronies richer. What cultural war is this? Rural/urban divide? No, you can spin it into anything; rural/urban, education/uneducated, white/colored, gay/straight. There is a divide between all of those things, yet plenty of places have shown that you can take these demographics together and have them interact in a healthy way.

All of these people want the same exact thing, which is to live, work, and raise their children and make sure their children live a better life than them. It's just that one party tries to convince some of these people that they want something that ultimately will not affect them in the slightest. One side thinks they want gay marriage illegal, abortions illegal, etc but in reality the legality of those things will not affect their every day life. They don't actually want that. But they're propagandized into thinking they like that and there's a culture war.

and fyi Trump played one side against the other, and it was extremely blatant. He continues to do that.

@Raumata @The DanMan basically the first two responses of a new page to this thread don't show up until someone replies. They're looking into it.

Edited February 22, 2017 by Lord Raven

[Res]

To add to Lord Raven's post, pitting poor/disenfranchised white people against other minority groups (or, against each other) is something the rich elites have been doing since colonial times. And every time things improve for a while, they find a way to create a divide again (decades prior to the Tulsa Race Riots, for example, the city was far less segregated and white and black people lived more harmoniously). 

[Time the Crestfallen]

I thought this was pretty good.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-ways-alt-right-turns-perfectly-sane-people-into-nazis/

[eclipse]

30 minutes ago, The Blind Idiot God said:

I thought this was pretty good.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-ways-alt-right-turns-perfectly-sane-people-into-nazis/

Replace "alt-right" with any extreme ideology, and it holds true.  The comments are somewhat decent, with this taking the cake:

Mildew Cyanhippopotamus

[Raumata]

I wonder why there aren't many cringe or "rekt" compilations of the alt-right, conservatives, etc on YouTube?