General US Politics

[Noma9]

Again, wasn't Bush villified by the media for NOT going to New Orleans immediately?

If I remember correctly, he was criticized for not returning to D.C after it had happened - it wasn't that the people wanted him in New Orleans, rather, they called on him because his one plan (the levies) didn't work and they were caught flatfooted. The entire government's response was incredibly delayed. This is similar, but not the same situation because this time around there were already procedures in place and people there responding to the crisis right away. It's still devastating, but it's being handled. There's no outrage because unlike with Bush, this situation wasn't made worse due to the President's incompetence or poor management skills. There's no "reason" for him to be there day one, especially when the governor asked him not to be so they could keep up the relief work.

Either way, political hypocrisy is still alive and well, I just don't think this is necessarily that.

[-Cynthia-]

This video, while it hasn't changed my views, has opened my eyes to the flaws that most progressives and liberals have. Being a Christian, I am no stranger to the idea of compassion, as that is what Jesus did when he was executed. And I do believe liberals have lost focus in their goal because so many are either the target of or hate Christians. I would rather be hated and deny myself for doing something good for the poor than inflate my ego by doing something that many think will help, but will only make things worse. In this vein, I see myself as a more conservative liberal, keeping to the changing times, but making sure we still hold our ideals dear and do the right thing at the right time.

I'm not sure I understand the argument here- is it that private donations are more effective than government programs (a debatable point)? Or is that the best way to help people is for everyone to focus on maximizing their own wealth? (I don't see how this makes logical sense)

[Life]

I'm not sure I understand the argument here- is it that private donations are more effective than government programs (a debatable point)? Or is that the best way to help people is for everyone to focus on maximizing their own wealth? (I don't see how this makes logical sense)

Couple of ways to answer this.

1) Welfare makes people dependent on welfare. There's no incentive to escape.

2) Affirmative Action and other programs like it are inherently racist in today's society because they say that even 46 years after the law was signed into effect, blacks still require a lower standard to compete with everyone else.

That's the racism angle. The fiscal angle says that Affirmative Action is actually detrimental both to the black community and society as a whole. It sets up a system where the under-prepared black man fails and it denies someone that spot to succeed since the black man gets first crack due to being a minority.

In FE terms, think of it as unit selection in an efficiency run. Unit X is not as good as Unit Y and will more likely than not cause us to take extra turns. But Unit X should be fielded rather than Unit Y because we are discriminatory against Unit X if we don't.

Those are more specific examples that Conservatives believe but the general idea is that big government should not impose on freedoms (I'm loathe to use the term "god-given" unlike people like Crowder or Dana Loesch because I'm not religious). It's also why there are so many right wingers that wake up wondering if they should vote Trump or stay at home.

I feel like conservatives are fighting a war over possession for our souls. We have the left on one side who want to crucify us and the alt-right on the other who claim that we're traitors to our own kind when they hijacked the party.

Edited August 23, 2016 by Right Wing Nut Job

[tuvarkz]

I feel like conservatives are fighting a war over possession for our souls. We have the left on one side who want to crucify us and the alt-right on the other who claim that we're traitors to our own kind when they hijacked the party.

To be fair, the alt-right's surge was only capable of happening because the traditional right was unable to properly oppose the political correctness culture that popped up and has seemed to largely seize control of the first-world left. And because Trump was instinctually capable of demolishing all the other candidates for the republican nomination. The fact that a populist with little more than a nominal affiliation to the RNC managed to seize the primary from an apparent impossibility to win shows how disconnected the conservatives had become from their voter base.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

This video, while it hasn't changed my views, has opened my eyes to the flaws that most progressives and liberals have. Being a Christian, I am no stranger to the idea of compassion, as that is what Jesus did when he was executed. And I do believe liberals have lost focus in their goal because so many are either the target of or hate Christians. I would rather be hated and deny myself for doing something good for the poor than inflate my ego by doing something that many think will help, but will only make things worse. In this vein, I see myself as a more conservative liberal, keeping to the changing times, but making sure we still hold our ideals dear and do the right thing at the right time.

that was a pretty neat video, i gotta check out the others.

[Life]

To be fair, the alt-right's surge was only capable of happening because the traditional right was unable to properly oppose the political correctness culture that popped up and has seemed to largely seize control of the first-world left. And because Trump was instinctually capable of demolishing all the other candidates for the republican nomination. The fact that a populist with little more than a nominal affiliation to the RNC managed to seize the primary from an apparent impossibility to win shows how disconnected the conservatives had become from their voter base.

Fair point.

Here's my 2020 dream team:

Carly Fiorina/Ben Shapiro for PotUS/VP

Ben Carson for SoS

Milo Yiannopoulos (if he and Ben will even talk again because Ben just accused Milo of taking money from Trump) for Press Secretary

Yep, conservatives are sexist, racist and homophobic.

Edit: I take that back. No chance Ben and Milo ever work together ever again.

Edited August 24, 2016 by Right Wing Nut Job

[Lord Raven]

*snip*

First of all, you mention that No Child Left Behind was not a colossal failure yet you forgot to mention that it was repealed in 2015, 7 years into Obama's presidency. This means that the surge in education and subsequent loss in education (you cite statistics up to 2014 right?) were under the same act. The change was in the president but also congress.

Blaming it squarely on the democrats or republicans is really misleading, because the 103rd Congress was majority Democrat, and the 104th to 107th Congress were majority Republican. the 108th to 109th were also majority Republican, and the 110th and 111th were majority Democrat. 112th/113th has a Democratic Senate and Republican House, which has made them largely unproductive.

What pieces of legislation were signed by said presidencies that could've led to this? Because I highly doubt the President by themselves were responsible for this kind of thing, considering the legislative branch also consists of the House and the Senate. You're just pointing to statistics that coincide with presidencies and implying a correlation, but not speaking anything of causation but their presidencies. And as it stands, I'm making a causation and correlation between the majority party of Congress and the declines of education - and the Republican Congress seems to really reverse your numbers.

In other words, correlation does not imply causation. The causation behind those numbers is quite a bit deeper, and you haven't mentioned those at all.

1) Welfare makes people dependent on welfare. There's no incentive to escape.

[citation needed]

2) Affirmative Action and other programs like it are inherently racist in today's society because they say that even 46 years after the law was signed into effect, blacks still require a lower standard to compete with everyone else.

Why are you complaining about affirmative action when you also just mentioned that black communities are significantly behind white communities? Affirmative action arose precisely because of these gaps, and the fact that segregation is the entire reason why the race gap in education happened in the first place.

That's the racism angle. The fiscal angle says that Affirmative Action is actually detrimental both to the black community and society as a whole. It sets up a system where the under-prepared black man fails and it denies someone that spot to succeed since the black man gets first crack due to being a minority.

This isn't quite how it works; they don't get "first crack," it's "all else equal, the minority gets in provided we fill a certain quota." Unless you can link to the specifics, there is rarely a case where an underqualified black person gets in over a qualified white person.

In FE terms, think of it as unit selection in an efficiency run. Unit X is not as good as Unit Y and will more likely than not cause us to take extra turns. But Unit X should be fielded rather than Unit Y because we are discriminatory against Unit X if we don't.

No, race issues are far more complicated than a video game. This is more like a balancing patch than naively selecting things based on a quota; the difference is that IRL balancing patches take a few generations to fix whereas video game ones are just a few adjustments.

I feel like conservatives are fighting a war over possession for our souls. We have the left on one side who want to crucify us and the alt-right on the other who claim that we're traitors to our own kind when they hijacked the party.

Man the right wants to crucify the left just as much as the reverse. Don't pretend like opposition to right-wing view points is crucification.

And seriously, what the hell is political correctness culture? From my understanding being PC means "don't drop the n bomb and don't be a racist" and replace "n bomb" with any racial slur. WTF do you guys actually think it is? Actually acknowledging that racism is a problem in western culture?

Yep, conservatives are sexist, racist and homophobic.

Well yeah, you chose some of the more homophobic ones in there. You know that Ben Carson thinks that prison is what causes people to turn gay right? Edited August 24, 2016 by Lord Raven

[solrocknroll]

yeah, all of them are either homophobic or transphobic, and those are the only actual issues I care about in society

I'm actually lowkey with any candidate as long as they have rainbow flags attached to their presidency while I would much rather "crucify" any that don't. I also have a problem with racism, but I don't really think that racism is as widespread outside of the Bible Belt and thus wouldn't be that significant an issue.

obviously there's economic issues but those aren't important to me

[Tryhard]

1) Welfare makes people dependent on welfare. There's no incentive to escape.

it's funny that you say this, as you seemed to support Mitt Romney's economics back in the previous election, and yet Romney's father was on welfare as a refugee for some time before he made more of himself.

Of course, Romney himself seemed to not care about how the government helped out his father and his own life either as he trashed welfare.

Edited August 24, 2016 by Tryhard

[Lord Raven]

Carson's another example of someone who (supposedly) grew up on welfare when he was young but trashes the system.

[Moblin Major General]

The problem with PC culture is that you can't call out some groups for being wrong because it sounds (and could quite possibly be) discriminatory, whereas you can do it to another and them be called discriminatory for bringing up valid counterclaims. It also heavily targets WASPs, which I will say somewhat deserve it, but it can turn into racism in that regard rather quickly, to say nothing of the guilt felt by these individuals because they aren't allowed to be offended, lest they fulfill a stereotype. Sometimes, we just need to feel offended, lest we all just shut up and never talk to each other ever again. I watch comedy so I can laugh my ass off at a caricature that resembles my life as a white Protestant male.

[Lord Raven]

I mean, I don't see how PC culture really applies in that sense.

To put things into perspective, people are actually quick to label Islam as a religion of terror and others are quick to say "no it's not that's racist." The PC culture as I understood it aims to seek a middle ground between them, stating that not all Muslims are terrorists but terrorism is a result of a select few Muslims who are fundamentally unsound.

I always understood it as separating the regular people of one ideology from the fundamentalists of said ideology. But apparently doing this is part of PC Culture. In my life I have never even heard someone decry something as politically incorrect unless the other person was using what amounted to a racial slur, so maybe that's why I'm not understanding why this is really an issue. (I also don't go on tumblr, because apparently it can get very rampant there).

[Life]

First of all, you mention that No Child Left Behind was not a colossal failure yet you forgot to mention that it was repealed in 2015, 7 years into Obama's presidency. This means that the surge in education and subsequent loss in education (you cite statistics up to 2014 right?) were under the same act. The change was in the president but also congress.

Blaming it squarely on the democrats or republicans is really misleading, because the 103rd Congress was majority Democrat, and the 104th to 107th Congress were majority Republican. the 108th to 109th were also majority Republican, and the 110th and 111th were majority Democrat. 112th/113th has a Democratic Senate and Republican House, which has made them largely unproductive.

What pieces of legislation were signed by said presidencies that could've led to this? Because I highly doubt the President by themselves were responsible for this kind of thing, considering the legislative branch also consists of the House and the Senate. You're just pointing to statistics that coincide with presidencies and implying a correlation, but not speaking anything of causation but their presidencies. And as it stands, I'm making a causation and correlation between the majority party of Congress and the declines of education - and the Republican Congress seems to really reverse your numbers.In other words, correlation does not imply causation. The causation behind those numbers is quite a bit deeper, and you haven't mentioned those at all.

So let me get this straight.

Bush should also get blamed for any immediate drops in educational standards while Obama was in power because Congress or the Senate prevented Obama from doing anything?

Dude, seriously? The Democrats had a majority in both the Senate and Congress from 2009 to the end of 2010, not to mention a Democrat president.

I just went through the entire list of public acts that were signed in during the 111th Congress. Not a single one had to do with education.

So OK. Was NCLB a steamy pile of crap? Always thought "yes" but things were picking up near the end of Bush's presidency. Unless we're going to also attribute that to Clinton's presidency and so on and so forth (which is stupid).

But whatever the case, even if NCLB sucked, Obama and the Democratic party clearly didn't think so because they didn'tattempt to repeal it during the time when they had completely control.

And as I mentioned, trends were going upwards right through Bush's presidency while stagnating or decreasing during Clinton's. Are you actually implying that even trends that continue through Bush's 8th year are all thanks to Clinton? NCLB was signed in 2002 and trends were climbing.

Correlation: NCLB signed at start of GWB presidency and noticable upwards trends (such as the decrease in attrition rate during elementary schooling and average test scores in mathematics and reading) begin at that time.

Conclusion: NCLB (the first education reform in 40 years) had something to do with rising education scores and falling attrition rates.

Draw your own conclusion. I'll look into it more myself but Obama and the Democrats had 2 full years where they could have done nearly anything they wanted and they didn't even address anything regarding education. Meanwhile, NCLB was drawn up and signed into law in a year.

[citation needed]

http://dailysignal.com/2011/07/09/president-obama-admits-welfare-encourages-dependency/

Why are you complaining about affirmative action when you also just mentioned that black communities are significantly behind white communities? Affirmative action arose precisely because of these gaps, and the fact that segregation is the entire reason why the race gap in education happened in the first place. This isn't quite how it works; they don't get "first crack," it's "all else equal, the minority gets in provided we fill a certain quota." Unless you can link to the specifics, there is rarely a case where an underqualified black person gets in over a qualified white person.

Here's a case study of someone who actually succeeded. You want examples of the opposite, just look at freshman and sophomore attrition rates in the US by race.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-c1-cal-freshmen-20130816-dto-htmlstory.html

No, race issues are far more complicated than a video game.

That analogy is actually a very accurate one. Race is not this deep subject where we need to start delving into hypotheticals and theories. Occam's Razor; The simplest explaination is usually the best.

AA sets a lower standard for black students to get into college. Black students then fail out of college due to not being sufficiently prepared. Hmm, I wonder why.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/the-painful-truth-about-affirmative-action/263122/

The rest of my comments were just jokes and musings but I want to bring up your response to my off-hand "war for my soul".

The issue isn't the left. We can handle you fuckers because facts trump feelings (get the joke?). It's the alt-right that bothers us. We don't just have to fight against our usual enemies but we've also been backstabbed.

I don't see that on the left. Anyone who couldn't stand Hillary in the primaries has now just thrown in the towel and begun to defend her whole-heartedly with regards to her corruption. That doesn't happen with us. We call our candidates out if we don't like their stances (not Fox News or Breitbart but smaller sources).

I always thought the right was better than that. And it hurts that we've sunk to your level.

Quick thing to add: Any criticism of Islam, women, LGBT, any race (aside from whites) or any other minority is considered bigotry in the eyes of PC culture. What's not are:

- Males

- Whites

- Christians

- Jews (because somehow, Israel is evil in the eyes of the left)

If you're any of those four, you're fair game.

Edit: Thanks for mention welfare now, assholes. Now this is an edit.

I posted the article where Obama flat out admitted that welfare is the equivalent of putting a band-aid on an infected limb but let me explain why Romney and Carson don't like welfare.

It's about respecting hard work. If I work hard to make a living, my money shouldn't go to Joe Schmo who lives on government money. That's a socialist idea that says "from each his ability, to each his need" or something like that.

Basically, Joe never has to work to live. Sure, he'll live in poverty but BIG GOVERNMENT is looking out for him on the back of my tax dollar.

As someone who purposely moved from a priviledged lifestyle to one where I am living under the poverty level in Israel, I see Joe as a freeloader.

It's cold and callous but it's also true. If you prefer someone else living off of your dime without doing anything, don't complain if it becomes more difficult for you to provide for your family. You decided that Joe is just as entitled to some of your money as your wife and children are. Obviously it's not a 50/50 split (because I know someone is going to claim that that is what I believe) but I don't think he should see a dime of my taxpayer dollars if he's not willing to work.

Edited August 24, 2016 by Right Wing Nut Job

[Crysta]

There is no PC Culture.

Just people who whine about no longer being able to be openly bigoted without the condemnation of the court of popular opinion, and the people who whine about being victimized all the time because of a perceived (and likely illusionary) trait they have no control of. Hilariously enough, I find plenty of people who seem to jump from one group to the other quite frequently.

But that doesn't sound as cool and edgy as being a culture crusader!

[Life]

There is no PC Culture.

Just people who whine about no longer being able to be openly bigoted without the condemnation of the court of popular opinion, and the people who whine about being victimized all the time because of a perceived (and likely illusionary) trait they have no control of. Hilariously enough, I find plenty of people who seem to jump from one group to the other quite frequently.

But that doesn't sound as cool and edgy as being a culture crusader!

Really? So why am I a racist when I criticise Affirmative Action? How am I Islamophobic when I say that "hey, people are yelling Allahu Akbar before shooting up nightclubs and that's an issue"?

Why am I not allowed to criticize these issues?

[Moblin Major General]

When you can't be right because it's racist to tell a Japanese person their government need to apologize to China, Taiwan, and both Koreas, there's an issue.

[Crysta]

If you express racist views when you're defending Affirmative Action or Islamophobic views when you talk about the nightclub shooting, then you deserve to be confronted and corrected. It's not actually very difficult to determine when someone's basis of believing something is complete bullshit.

You're allowed to BE criticized, too.

[Crysta]

When you can't be right because it's racist to tell a Japanese person their government need to apologize to China, Taiwan, and both Koreas, there's an issue.

It's not racist.

If they don't want to listen to you, then there's really nothing you can do about it. Well other than bitch about it, I guess.

[Life]

If you express racist views when you're defending Affirmative Action or Islamophobic views when you talk about the nightclub shooting, then you deserve to be confronted and corrected. It's not actually very difficult to determine when someone's basis of believing something is complete bullshit.

You're allowed to BE criticized, too.

Of course.

But the arguments are shouted down and stifled. They are quite literally ad hominems.

"How dare you, you racist pig!"

That is the knee-jerk reaction from the left. And it is not acceptable from the perspective of an informed person.

It's not racist.

If they don't want to listen to you, then there's really nothing you can do about it. Well other than bitch about it, I guess.

I really don't think you get it.

These are things that people actually get arrested for in Canada.

http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/18/canada-prepares-nationwide-ban-on-anti-transgender-propaganda/

I mean, never mind THIS study that came out today.

http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/22/journal-transgenderism-not-supported-by-scientific-evidence/

Or never mind that diversity of ideas is now a rarity. How dare I have a different opinion on transexuals! I can be jailed for it in Canada!

Now I have an issue.

And child grooming gangs? Try Google; this shit goes on in refugee canps across Europe, especially in the UK.

http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/3576/full

Edited August 24, 2016 by Right Wing Nut Job

[--------------------]

PC culture certainly exists when the police are too scared of being called racist to arrest child grooming gangs.

[solrocknroll]

When you can't be right because it's racist to tell a Japanese person their government need to apologize to China, Taiwan, and both Koreas, there's an issue.

this is such a ridiculous notion

wwii was literally 70 years ago. there's zero reason to hold onto old things for the sake of holding onto them

should Germany provide financial compensation to all families of Holocaust victims every year? there's no actual reason to dredge up old wounds, especially since Japan is at present one of the most peaceful nations around

[Crysta]

But the arguments are shouted down and stifled. They are quite literally ad hominems.

Maybe on tumblr. Or a YouTube comments section. Which is nothing new from MOST echo chambers, right-wing hotspots included!

PC culture certainly exists when the police are too scared of being called racist to arrest child grooming gangs.

Source? I have a hard time believing that the police REALLY have a hard time doing that ever.

Edited August 24, 2016 by Crysta

[--------------------]

this is such a ridiculous notion

wwii was literally 70 years ago. there's zero reason to hold onto old things for the sake of holding onto them

should Germany provide financial compensation to all families of Holocaust victims every year? there's no actual reason to dredge up old wounds, especially since Japan is at present one of the most peaceful nations around

Especially since Japan has already apologised for it.

[--------------------]

Source? I have a hard time believing that the police REALLY have a hard time doing ever.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/697583/Rotherham-abuse-scandal-child-grooming-gangs-industrial-scale-victims-CSE

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9253250/Rochdale-grooming-trial-Police-accused-of-failing-to-investigate-paedophile-gang-for-fear-of-appearing-racist.html

I also feel it appropriate to note that the latter referred to the gangs as Asian. Which I consider part of this PC culture of avoiding naming specifically the kind of ethnicity the people committing these acts come from.

Since it's definitely not the Chinese, Taiwanese (like myself) or Japanese that are doing these things. Which makes me uncomfortable that my ethinicity is getting smeared along with the rest of asia, when we did nothing wrong. Because for whatever reason saying "Middle eastern and african" that is, the truth, is unacceptable.

There are quite a few articles like this.

I'm happy to be corrected if this info is nonsense.

Edited August 24, 2016 by Autumn

[Life]

They're Pakistani gangs for the most part. We are talking about Rotherham, right?

Edited August 24, 2016 by Right Wing Nut Job