General US Politics

[Lushen]

30 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Holy crap, this is one of the most tone-deaf things I've seen posted on SF. If it were very easy to not be poor, we wouldn't have so many poor people. I dunno if you're intending this but it comes off as extreme victim-blaming, like the reason that people are poor is because they're stupid and/or lazy.

Look I get what you're saying about minorities in poverty to some extent; in particular, the single biggest predictor of poverty is the poverty of one's parents, and as you say that's basically because chldren tend to take after their parents in terms of behaviour. No argument there. (Although I do think this is one of the best arguments to be made for why we need a strong education system to try to narrow these gaps to better provide equal opportunity, and one of the plethora of reasons the current Republicans suck is they don't share this view.)

Can you honestly tell me that these three rules are hard to follow?  Because there aren't "so many poor people" in the US who follow these rules and end up poor.  Only 2%!  That's a very small amount.  75% of them end up in the middle class which gives you a fairly luxurious life style.  Again, trying to tell people that they're poor because of racial injustice and there's nothing they can do solves nothing.  Having people graduate high school and not get pregnant before 21 clearly does do something.

I don't think Republicans or Democrats have the solution.  I think Democrats tend to want to spend millions of dollars into failed school systems and Republicans want a hands off approach.  I think the best solution is to get kids out of the inner cities so they can learn from people outside of inner city culture how to get out of poverty.  That's why I say its easy.  It is easy, the reason there are so many poor people is because they don't know how easy it is or they've already screwed up by the time they figure it out.

30 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Is this a joke? Please tell me this is a joke.

Sex education = telling teenagers about birth control = they use birth control more shold they have sex = they get pregnant less. The logic could scarcely be clearer. Places that don't have sex education (or have "abstinence-only" sex education, which fails utterly at education and doesn't even succeed in increasing abstinence) have higher teen pregnancy rates. There are lots of studies which show this but here's one of the more indisputable proofs:

The issue with sex education statistics is they're very hard to prove. You could see a statistic that schools who teach sex ed end up with less pregnancies but those schools are generally in areas where pregnancies would be low anyways. The kind of statistic I would need is one comparing schools in the inner cities that teach sex ed to schools in the same inner city that doesn't.  Otherwise it's hard to determine exactly why pregnancy is down/up in that particular area.  I think most people know what a condom is by the time they're ready to have sex and I would argue in areas where pregnancies are more common children are probably taught more about what a condom does than areas where pregnancies are less common. 

Edited October 1, 2017 by Lushen

[Time the Crestfallen]

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

It's hard to stop being poor if you've violated one of thee rules I mentioned in my last post.  But the rules aren't hard to follow.

1) I have successfully graduated high school  - Which as I mentioned above that the increase difficulty for African Americans is not large enough to explain racial inequality in income
2) I have successfully not got a woman pregnant - This particular step  is actually easier to do and requires less effort than the alternative.
3) I have had a full time job. - Now I understand that it can be hard to find a full time job, but if you honestly couldn't find a job in your entire adult life and you have graduated high school you're doing something seriously wrong or you aren't really trying to get a job. 

Right. Can you tell me that the difficulty you had with these rules would be exactly the same as an African-American kid born to a single teen mom in a shitty, rundown neighborhood where the only schools are under-funded and offer a shitty standard of education?

This is classic victim-blaming. 'There are no systemic issues despite all evidence to the contrary, the only reason these people live in poverty is because they're too stupid/lazy to pull themselves up by the boot-straps'.

[Lushen]

8 minutes ago, Magus of Flowers said:

Right. Can you tell me that the difficulty you had with these rules would be exactly the same as an African-American kid born to a single teen mom in a shitty, rundown neighborhood where the only schools are under-funded and offer a shitty standard of education?

This is classic victim-blaming. 'There are no systemic issues despite all evidence to the contrary, the only reason these people live in poverty is because they're too stupid/lazy to pull themselves up by the boot-straps'.

I don't think "hard" is the appropriate word.  If I knew better, there would be no sense of struggle to complete high school and not get someone pregnant early on.  I think where I would run into trouble is that i wouldn't know better.  That's the only point I'm making - that the income inequality in America has little to do with race as it has to do with culture and I think propositions that treat it as a racial issue like affirimative action are destined to fail and have failed in the past.

As for the term victim-blaming I'm not really sure that's what I'm doing.  As I said above, I don't think they're stupid or lazy but rather ignorant on the issue.  Even if I am, I don't really see the issue.  I'd much rather tell people to 'buckle up' and work harder than everyone else, whether it's right or wrong, than I would tell them to "sit tight" and wait for their income inequality to get washed away by activists and legislature.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Lushen

[The Geek]

So you're gonna tell us that it's perfectly fine that African Americans are at a disadvantage and that trying to help them would be nothing but eeeeeevil socialism?

[Lushen]

6 minutes ago, The Geek said:

So you're gonna tell us that it's perfectly fine that African Americans are at a disadvantage and that trying to help them would be nothing but eeeeeevil socialism?

No.  I'm saying the government sucks at helping people and the issue is a little more complicated than redistribution of wealth.  Redistribution of wealth would actually be the absolute worst thing for them because people in the inner cities have a tendency to spend more on drugs for entertainment and an influx in cash would correspond to an influx in drug use.  Even if you regulated said money so that it could only be spent on basic necessities this just means they have to pay less for basic necessities which means more of their income outside of the redistributed wealth would be available for them as entertainment or spending money.  That would be the short term effect.  Long term effect?  Companies in the local area would have a direct response to the inflated economy in the inner cities and raise prices for their goods and services because people have more money.  Additionally, work ethic would be in decline because that's like socialism 101. 

[The Geek]

Wow, that's a whole lot of assumptions.  You think black people in inner cities would spend all their money on drugs?  You think people would just sit on their asses if they weren't in poverty?  I think I'm done here.  

[eclipse]

10 minutes ago, Lushen said:

No.  I'm saying the government sucks at helping people and the issue is a little more complicated than redistribution of wealth.  Redistribution of wealth would actually be the absolute worst thing for them because people in the inner cities have a tendency to spend more on drugs for entertainment and an influx in cash would correspond to an influx in drug use.  Even if you regulated said money so that it could only be spent on basic necessities this just means they have to pay less for basic necessities which means more of their income outside of the redistributed wealth would be available for them as entertainment or spending money.  That would be the short term effect.  Long term effect?  Companies in the local area would have a direct response to the inflated economy in the inner cities and raise prices for their goods and services because people have more money.  Additionally, work ethic would be in decline because that's like socialism 101. 

Source this.  Please.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I think the best solution is to get kids out of the inner cities so they can learn from people outside of inner city culture how to get out of poverty.

Or... y'know... how about improving the conditions in those inner cities, rather than giving them up as cesspits we need to rescue poor black children from? (Actually some cities have done a pretty good job of this over our lifetimes, New York for one.)

Most other first-world countries don't have nearly the same income inequality / inner city problems as the US does. Maybe you should think about why that is. (Hint: it's because in America, it's much more politically trendy to blame poor people and think just telling them to work harder will solve their problems.) I'm not even proposing straight wealth distribution here (the economic arguments are interesting to be sure but let's try to stay on topic); I am proposing that we should work to improve the conditions, both social and economic, that give rise to this "poverty culture".

The kind of statistic I would need is one comparing schools in the inner cities that teach sex ed to schools in the same inner city that doesn't.  Otherwise it's hard to determine exactly why pregnancy is down/up in that particular area.  I think most people know what a condom is by the time they're ready to have sex and I would argue in areas where pregnancies are more common children are probably taught more about what a condom does than areas where pregnancies are less common. 

You seem very focused on inner cities for some reason; perhaps you should see check again to see that list I posted? The states with the highest teen pregnancy rates are... not urban states. In fact, teen pregancy rates are highest in rural areas. Which... as it happens, is where sex education is also worse.

And, re the last sentence... You'd seriously be surprised at what some people believe when it comes to birth control in the absence of being told otherwise. A lot of people with little sex education believe that pulling out is effective birth control. Or that virgins can't get pregnant the first time. I've even heard "you don't need to use a condom if you're having sex for the second time in one night". Sad but true. I can't blame people, though; when kids can't ask their parents (who will just tell them not to have sex) and educators don't tell them, they will instead get their info from friends with similarly poor knowledge, at which point all sorts of hearsay is possible.

[Lord Raven]

lushen i'm not responding to your trainwreck of a response to me because everyone else covered it more directly, but i am curious, did you grow up in a middle class family or naw? in the suburbs? like, your parents aren't immigrants? what race are the people you tend to hang out with or talk to regularly? you don't need to answer this, but it helps me figure out where you're actually coming from

because i'll have you know that my dad, like many other immigrant fathers, worked something like 60-80 hours a week and we were still pretty poor. no teenage pregnancy or any of that crap. graduated high school, graduated college, had two jobs at once. to think that people who are poor are people who don't follow your three simple steps is completely absurd and it shows me a huge degree of actually being sheltered

finally, what do you think socialism actually is? and are you pro-union?

[blah the Prussian]

Lusher, I can tell you quite decisively that Socialism is not what you think it is. It is not giving people free stuff, it is not affirmative action, it is the workers controlling the means of production.

[Sias]

9 hours ago, Lushen said:

I think most of what people have been saying is about racial inequality.  Let me provide some statistics as to why the left is misunderstanding the racial inequality of African Americans.

The Brookings Institution developed three rules to stay out of poverty.  Wait till you get married to have kids, graduate high school, and have a full time job.  In all ethnic groups, people who follow these three rules have a 2% chance to become poor.  75% will join the middle class.  On the other hand, failure to follow all three rules will give you a 76% chance to end up in poverty and only a 7% chance to join the middle class. [https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/]. 

The poverty rate of unmarried white woman was 22% in 2008 while the rate of married black couples was 7%.  Being single is worse than being black, and it's not surprising that an ethnic group where 73% of children are born out of wedlock happens to be the poorest.  [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_01.pdf].

Finally, the people with the biggest ethnic group by income in America are the Asian Americans.  They aren't white males, they're Asian families.  This is not by a small margin.  Asians have a medium household income 14K higher than white families acc't to data from 2015.    If America was rigged in such a way that only the white male could succeed, how is it that Asian Americans have surpassed them in terms of income?  And before you cite the idea that Blacks are poor because of slavery, I'd like to point out a more recent epidemic, Japanese concentration camps.  These would have been just as, if not more, damaging to the income today.  Yet, Japanese American families make 10K more than White American families.  [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income]. 
All it takes is a half a generation to get a family out of poverty.

 

All of these statistics, and many more suggest that America does not have a problem with racial inequality and social justice.  It is very easy to not be poor.  Race doesn't make you poor, life decisions make you poor.  The reason there are a lot of minorities in poverty is because of culture, not race.  Minorities are more likely to grow up with a 17 year old mother who never graduated from college and they do the same because they don't know better.  Attributing poverty to race encourages people in these situations that there's nothing they can do but wait for protests to change legislature providing reverse racism to them.

I'd seriously appreciate if you would stop using Asian Americans as some kind of "model minority" to support your idea that Blacks could easily move out of poverty if they just made better life decisions. This is a myth which has been debunked for quite some time.

I recommend you to actually read the full article, but the gist of it is pretty much the following:

Quote

"Sullivan's comments showcase a classic and tenacious conservative strategy," Janelle Wong, the director of Asian American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, said in an email. This strategy, she said, involves "1) ignoring the role that selective recruitment of highly educated Asian immigrants has played in Asian American success followed by 2) making a flawed comparison between Asian Americans and other groups, particularly Black Americans, to argue that racism, including more than two centuries of black enslavement, can be overcome by hard work and strong family values."

[...] As the writer Frank Chin said of Asian-Americans in 1974: "Whites love us because we're not black."

 

[Tryhard]

1 hour ago, blah the Prussian said:

Lusher, I can tell you quite decisively that Socialism is not what you think it is. It is not giving people free stuff, it is not affirmative action, it is the workers controlling the means of production.

This is an incredibly common misconception though, especially in the United States. But there is something I struggle with myself: is it correct to call things like universal healthcare "socialist policies" - perhaps more in line with social democracy more than anything else? Many first world countries have policies like this and take great importance in the concept of the welfare state but few could be described as socialist in any capacity. Is almost everything the government does for the public "socialist policies", including free public schooling, and is it just a matter of how many of these policies there are and how far they are willing to go?

Edited October 1, 2017 by Tryhard

[ping]

Fun fact: In Germany, both universal health insurance and accident insurance were introduced by Otto von Bismarck (who most assuredly was not a socialist), with the explicit goal to weaken the growing socialist/social democratic movement in Germany in the late 19th century. To my knowledge, that was even the first universal insurance in history, making it anti-socialist in nature.

Edited October 1, 2017 by ping

[Lushen]

8 hours ago, eclipse said:

Source this.  Please.

Source what?  

The fact that inner city drug use is out of control?  The entire drug trade is based in the inner cities [https://hbr.org/1995/05/the-competitive-advantage-of-the-inner-city].  Sure drugs are being abused all over but it's a lot easier to get them in the inner cities.

As for redistribution of wealth causing more drug use, that's just common sense.  If I had more money in college, I would have went to the bars more.  

As for the long term effects, this is basic economics - economics is not about money.  Money is just a number.  If you redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor in a starving country, this does not generate more food.  It does cause the price of food to go up because more people are able to buy food in the short term.  If you redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor in inner cities, this does not suddenly create more affordable places to live outside the inner cities.

As for what socialism is, the textbook definition of socialism is redistribution of wealth.  I realize that after Bernie Sanders ran, people became very confused (as he was) about what socialism is.  But I was taught in High School correctly that socialism is  - a redistribution of goods and services by the government [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism ].  As I said, economics is not about money, money is just a number.  Redistribution of goods and services is the same thing as redistribution of wealth.  There are many proposals of integrating socialism into a capitalistic economy, but this is textbook socialism. 

3 hours ago, blah the Prussian said:

Lusher, I can tell you quite decisively that Socialism is not what you think it is. It is not giving people free stuff, it is not affirmative action, it is the workers controlling the means of production.

Affirmative action - giving free points in SAT test scores aka 'stuff' to people who may or may not deserve it.  The reason it is failing is, as above, a redistribution of test scores does not suddenly let more people go to college.  It just redistributes who gets to go to college based on the color of their skin which is about as racist as you can get.  

8 hours ago, The Geek said:

Wow, that's a whole lot of assumptions.  You think black people in inner cities would spend all their money on drugs?  You think people would just sit on their asses if they weren't in poverty?  I think I'm done here.  

No, I think ALL people in inner cities who grow up with 16 year old high school dropout mothers and never had a dime are not going to suddenly be experts on how to spend money and make good life decisions.  I think an influx of wealth in inner city families is not suddenly going to give kids in high school new hope and make them stop trading drugs to focus on their future.  This is why neither Republicans nor Democrats in the past have been extremely heavy on redistribution of wealth.  Even the democrat solution which I'm opposed to of government spending to clean up the inner cities works better.  I don't think it's pessimism to predict that the majority of people with horrible influences aren't going to know what to do with newfound wealth.  I think the opposite is lunacy.  

 

@Lord RavenNot that my personal background is relevant, but I come from a fairly wealthy family.  And if you say that discredits my views, then you have no argument.  As for unions, it depends on the particular union.

And I'll agree with Tryhard, it is very difficult to determine what exactly socialism is today.  I tend to go with the dictionary definition of a redistribution of goods and services.  Any policy that does this, by definition, is a socialistic policy.  I don't have time to redefine the definition everytime a new candidate runs and wants in or out of the umbrella term.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Lushen

[Res]

Race is intertwined with culture, though. Black culture in the U.S. has been shaped by slavery and discrimination, from names to language (AAVE) to food to mental health and that in turn affects how white people see and treat black people. 

And in other news:

A lawyer from the DOJ has argued that it be allowed to fire someone for being gay.

This is particularly disturbing to me: DHS is planning to collect social media information on all immigrants; this includes naturalized citizens and green card holders. I hope I don't have to explain why this is unconstitutional and plain scary. 

Speaking of national health services I was in the U.K. last month and had to avail myself of them (again) and it was another reminder of how much I really wish everyone had a chance to live in at least two countries; there's so much perspective you can gain from living in two different places (even if the governments are not entirely dissimilar).

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

@Lord RavenNot that my personal background is relevant, but I come from a fairly wealthy family. 

Well, that much is obvious.

 

[Lord Raven]

i'm about to watch football so i'm not going to respond to much (but its okay because lushen ignores like 90% of the stuff in this thread anyway)

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

I realize that after Bernie Sanders ran, people became very confused (as he was) about what socialism is.  But I was taught in High School correctly that socialism is  - a redistribution of goods and services by the government [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism ].

the dictionary definition is not what economists refer to as socialism. bernie sanders is also not a socialist, he's a social democrat, which means he believes in some welfare but generally has faith in the free market

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

Not that my personal background is relevant, but I come from a fairly wealthy family.  And if you say that discredits my views, then you have no argument.  As for unions, it depends on the particular union.

i was also asking about who you hang out with

because it seriously sounds like you know very few minorities or poor people or even people who are both! a lot of the stuff you say is anecdotal and based upon your own personal experiences, which if you're of a wealthy background then it indicates to me that you're saying "well in my experience, it's not hard to graduate high school, get to college, then get a job, even though I'm a trademark privileged white dude"

Edited October 1, 2017 by Lord Raven

[blah the Prussian]

Somewhat inconveniently for you, @Lushen, Merriam Webster correctly identifies Socialism as the government or collective ownership of the means of production, and the abolition of private property. So, once again, no, affirmative action, free healthcare, public works projects, etc. are not Socialism.

[Lushen]

33 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

the dictionary definition is not what economists refer to as socialism. bernie sanders is also not a socialist, he's a social democrat, which means he believes in some welfare but generally has faith in the free market

Which is why I said people have become more confused when Bernie ran because he considers himself a socialist and he went pretty far in the race which would suggest that a lot of people don't understand what socialism is.

28 minutes ago, blah the Prussian said:

Somewhat inconveniently for you, @Lushen, Merriam Webster correctly identifies Socialism as the government or collective ownership of the means of production, and the abolition of private property. So, once again, no, affirmative action, free healthcare, public works projects, etc. are not Socialism.

"any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods"

College can be seen as a "Good" and the government ownership and distribution of it is socialistic in nature.  By this definition, it doesn't matter that the government is choosing to distribute it based on race, it is still choosing how to distribute it.  I'll agree that other socialist countries don't distribute based on race but everything is distributed based on however their government choses.

48 minutes ago, Res said:

Well, that much is obvious.

:p

33 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

[paraphrase : You don't have Black Friends, this is relevant]

They gave you a political science degree?  You're in kind of a risky situation by insinuating that I am not a member of at least one minority and in this case you would be mistaken.

 

48 minutes ago, Res said:

Race is intertwined with culture, though. Black culture in the U.S. has been shaped by slavery and discrimination, from names to language (AAVE) to food to mental health and that in turn affects how white people see and treat black people.

I agree but I think there should be more effort to intertwine culture before there are attempts at redistribution of wealth and reverse-racist legislature.  Blacks still commit statistically higher crime and move drugs around more often.  I think we can all agree that the color of your skin doesn't insight you to commit more crime, but culture can definitely do so.

 

48 minutes ago, Res said:

A lawyer from the DOJ has argued that it be allowed to fire someone for being gay.

Yea...last time I was in Kansas which was not long ago it was perfectly legal to refuse to hire someone for being Gay.   I seriously question the morals and logic of bringing your hatred of a sexuality into the workplace. 

Edited October 1, 2017 by Lushen

[Lord Raven]

5 minutes ago, Lushen said:

They gave you a political science degree?  You're in kind of a risky situation by insinuating that I am not a member of at least one minority and in this case you would be mistaken.

I don't know why you didn't answer the questions, then, because I'm pretty sure I asked about this. It still sounds like you've never had any friends of a minority group or friends that are poor or friends that are both. So you're dodging the question or just denying an insinuation (which I did not intend to make), because I really have no idea how someone thinks that it's that easy to not be poor.

So wealthy family, minority, from Missouri, presumably lives in suburbs, presumably might be at least half white. If you're offended by the insinuation, then directly correct me.

Also, I have a Masters in Physics going for a PhD. I don't know where I've ever given the impression I'm studying Political Science or taken a political science class.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Lord Raven

[Lushen]

8 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

I don't know why you didn't answer the questions.

Also, I have a Masters in Physics going for a PhD. I don't know where I've ever given the impression I'm studying Political Science.

Because my personal life is none of your business and is entirely incapable of discrediting logic and therefore completely irrelevant to anything.  It's not that I am offended by being called an at least half white male, it's that I don't think it's an intelligent conversation.

Shows how little we know about each other :)

 

BTW hysterically this showed up in my recommended box in youtube and is literally my situation right now.

 

Edited October 1, 2017 by Lushen

[Lord Raven]

re-read my post with my edit and don't act snide about it

i'm not trying to discredit you. I legitimately have no idea how someone can think it's that easy to not be poor. I'm not even sure the kind of person I'm trying to argue with, because you make assumptions that make absolutely zero sense or exist in an environment of privilege. Which is basically an environment that you appear to be accustomed to, given your status as wealthy.

I think you know by now I'm capable of refuting you in great detail, and at this point it's pointless because you say stuff like

16 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Blacks still commit statistically higher crime and move drugs around more often.  I think we can all agree that the color of your skin doesn't insight you to commit more crime, but culture can definitely do so.

and insist that there's just a culture problem and not a disenfranchisement problem. then you insist that they reform it on their own with no indication of how. just that they could do it, as if it was so easy and as if people are aware of possibility or opportunity.

inner city graduation rates are in like the 30s and 40s too, and it doesn't take "a generation and a half" for culture to move forward. it takes 2-3 generations assuming the issues being brought to the public eye and things actually get done, which in this case it's really not. it's being framed as "those lazy blacks," which is basically what you're doing.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Lord Raven

[blah the Prussian]

7 hours ago, Lushen said:

"any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods"

College can be seen as a "Good" and the government ownership and distribution of it is socialistic in nature.  By this definition, it doesn't matter that the government is choosing to distribute it based on race, it is still choosing how to distribute it.  I'll agree that other socialist countries don't distribute based on race but everything is distributed based on however their government choses.

No, not control of the goods themselves, of the MEANS OF PRODUCTION-industry and agriculture. It also isn't just the government run universities that are practicing affirmative action, you know.

[Lushen]

4 minutes ago, blah the Prussian said:

No, not control of the goods themselves, of the MEANS OF PRODUCTION-industry and agriculture. It also isn't just the government run universities that are practicing affirmative action, you know.

MEANS OF PRODUCTION "and distribution".  The distribution of people in colleges.  You cut off the word distribution which is half of socialism.

 

[blah the Prussian]

27 minutes ago, Lushen said:

MEANS OF PRODUCTION "and distribution".  The distribution of people in colleges.  You cut off the word distribution which is half of socialism.

 

The means of distribution means infrastructure, and even if it didn't, if private universities are enforcing AA as much as government ones, which is what you originally took issue with, how is that the government controlling the distribution of education?

[Lushen]

10 minutes ago, blah the Prussian said:

The means of distribution means infrastructure, and even if it didn't, if private universities are enforcing AA as much as government ones, which is what you originally took issue with, how is that the government controlling the distribution of education?

Private universities receive more money from the government per pupil than public universities so the notion that private universities are somehow disconnected from the government in any way is incorrect. 

While they're still technically private and they can do whatever they want as it should be, the government can choose whether they want to subsidize or provide tax deductions.  In a truly capitalistic society, government would not subsidize or allow tax deductions for those donating to universities that value the color of your skin over your academic performance because it has a negative impact on society and we typically don't subsidize things that do so.