General US Politics

[Life]

That's not a sentence I hear from the mouths of many liberals these days.

[Tryhard]

most people have expressed derision at what a shitshow this election is unless they like or have some motive for liking hillary as an establishment candidate

if there are liberals/leftists/whatever voting hillary outside of that it's likely that they just dislike trump more

Edited August 24, 2016 by Tryhard

[Phoenix Wright]

That's not a sentence I hear from the mouths of many liberals these days.

thats cause i'm not a liberal.

[-Cynthia-]

So from a strategical standpoint, Trump seems unlikely to win the election based on current polling. He's doing all right in some swing states* (Iowa -1.8, NC -1.5, Nevada -2.3). Ohio(-4.8) and Florida(-3.6) less so but not unreasonably far away. The thing is, even if he were to win all these states (and carry Republican states like Georgia and Arizona which are at about .3 either way), Clinton still gets 272 electoral votes. She's up by 9.2 in Pennsylvania, 12.8 in Virginia which are the 'swing states' Trump was aiming for. It would require a massive shift at this point for him to actually win IMO, though I expect some tight races.

*Polling averages obtained from http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

[tuvarkz]

Aye, situation for Trump is looking far darker than what was going on at the end of July. Although, given how Clinton's advantage seems to be shortening again, seeing the trends on how the difference in polling goes, we might see the two candidates get in a tight polling match soon enough. The first debate is going to likely define how the race is going to end up, though. And it seems Pennsylvania might not be an entirely lost cause for Trump.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

I can't see clinton standing up (no pun intended) to trump in a debate by this point, but i could be wrong.

i think the real question isn't how the debates will go, but how much of an actual impact will the debates make?

[Phoenix Wright]

why? trump behaves like i do in a debate, except this is a nerd den and he's fighting to be president.

[eclipse]

why? trump behaves like i do in a debate, except this is a nerd den and he's fighting to be president.

So you make lots of blanket statements and appeals to emotion with little substance? Give yourself a bit more credit. ;/

[Crysta]

trump's going to get his ass kicked in a debate because he can't stay on message for five minutes without going on a tangent about the media or whatever feud he's in that week lol

he lacks any sort of coherent discipline

(this is an exaggeration, but not by much.)

EDIT: that's not even accounting for how little he actually factchecks his shit and how the moderators are likely going to challenge him

by contrast, hillary lived through the eight-hour ben ghazi committee and managed to make it a fundraiser

Edited August 25, 2016 by Crysta

[-Cynthia-]

I don't estimate much change due to debates- the candidates are both very well known(and disliked). Trump bringing up a Clinton scandal and Clinton bringing up ridiculous things Trump has said isn't anything new. I could see a slight bump for Trump if he manages to make coherent points about policy(he's set the bar low here, let's be real). Clinton doesn't have much room to go up IMO, but she doesn't tend to make big debate errors.

[Moblin Major General]

Trump called Hillary a bigot. Let's go home, ladies and fuckers.

[Life]

Since this is going to be long, I'm spoilering it with regards to certain people placed together.

[spoiler=Pheonix and Raven]

i admire the effort you put into this post but my question was not answered. to start, is education the only criteria on the quality of life from 25 years ago to now? what's more, you haven't argued that things got worse if we compare education from 1991 to now, just that it has increased and stagnated. i would hardly call that worse off. you see what i'm saying?

Ok. Let me revise my premise.

When Democrats are in power, black education stagnates at best. When Republicans are in power, it begins to increase.

Therefore, Denocrats are not good for black education.

Of course, this only deals with education and not other factors like crime or general poverty. But blacks have been voting Democrat for years and there have been no serious measures to curb gang violence in metropolitan areas such as NYC or Chicago by the Democrats. Maybe the Democrats aren't looking out for the blacks but want the blacks to know that they sympathize in order to rack up votes.

it's not clear to me why i should care. what does a projected lower enrollment or higher enrollment mean?

i'm pretty wary of the model anyhow. usually folks in these fields don't have much to work on in the ways of theory...

It's basically saying that if you extrapolate current trends, areas that have high concentration of black communities aren't being enrolled in school.

There are only two ways to eliminate general black poverty: Education and eradication of gang violence. Neither have happened during Obama's term but honestly, the verdict is still out on his educational reform.

in my pdf browser in firefox, pg 79 is about ungraduate education. in the document itself, it's a figure on the victimization of students at and away from school, ages 12-18. please clarify/clear up these issues?

this is due to a multitude of reasons probably having very little to do with the power the presidency has. i blame congress, personally. how do you know obama hasn't made the situation better or worse if there doesn't exist data readily available on the topic? it seems like you're biased walking in the door.

Well, the trend is steady. For someone who claims to be dedicated to the black community, he certainly hasn't made their lives easier.

that's a significant increase. sure, we could and should do better, but i mean come on are you just going to overplay faults and downplay good things the left has done? there's no utility in that.

education in this country is shit in general; we all have the right and very much should be complaining. but, it's nice to know things are getting better.

i'm not sure i trust you personally to know how things should go over a period of 22 years. you aren't an expert by any means in the field of education.

But it isn't a significant increase. It's now barely at 50% rather than 47.5%. Over 22 years. Let's split the difference and blame both sides because there were 8 years of Republican rule there.

I might not be an expert in education but the figures seem pretty straightforward. Feel free to come to your own conclusion but I'm simply pointing out that there has been virtually no change since Clinton was in office.

this is just odd. bush laid the groundwork for our massive debt but i'm willing to bet you blame that on the left.

Why would I do that?

I haven't once said that. Bush is far from blameless. But attrition rates began to fall under Bush from the start of his presidency when they were constant during Clinton's. It may have something to do with NCLB getting signed into law in 2002. That trend continued under Obama who didn't put in a new educational reform until 2015.

I know you think I'm dogpiling on Obama but in the same vein, you're refusing to credit Bush for addressing education. Again, it's time to split the difference.

same problem as described above. what page/figure should i be looking at? i'm just seeing a figure of the total cost of college (document 170), or enrollment in college which has increased across the board (browser pg 170).

this is very much debatable.

indeed, it may not have been as bad as i thought either. however, a significant change to education in this country must start with common core implementation

Good. It SHOULD be debatable.

As I said, I had a negative view of NCLB before I looked into the numbers and now I'm not so sure. Like it or not, Bush had some sort of a positive effect on education if we evaluate the statistics. So let's look into it.

believe it or not people like being self-reliant. i think there should be changes made to welfare but on the whole it is beneficial.

Once upon a time, yes. Now?

By the way, I watched this debate in its entirety. Sure, Ben absolutely destroys any racism argument thrown his way but this woman (Monica Velasquez Trudonowski) was amazing. I urge you to watch it simply for her.

There was another video that I was looking for but this one is much better.

It's not about lower standards, it's about lost opportunity. that said, i would go more for a economically based affirmative action over racially-based. unfortunately most poor people happen to also be minorities. though, it's also very difficult for poor whites. these difficulties to make it to college are for a host of reasons.

I can work with that for now but leaving AA as it is is detrimental.

At this point, there's no lost opportunity. It's about fixing education to make sure that these kids are actually able to succeed. We're not still in post segregation days.

But at the end of the day, if you do not have thr skills adequate for the course, you should not be put into a position where you are doomed to fail.

well, if they try to get something passed because of their faith, that's a problem.

on your point of pandering to the minority, you seem to have forgotten one of the quintessential philosophies of our government: the ability to fight the tyranny of the majority. the senate exists simply so that small states could be equal to big states. indeed, even if 0.0001% of this population had rights that were deserved but not given, they have the power to catalyze change.

First point, I agree entirely.

But when you have a case like Sweet Cakes, that's also an issue because it encroaches on Christian beliefs. The owner should not have to pay $136,000 just because she doesn't want to cater a gay wedding due to it being against her beliefs. The couple could have literally gone to a different bakery.

That is the flaw in your theory, gentlemen, said Rearden gravely, and I will not help you out of it. If you choose to deal with men by means of compulsion, do so. But you will discover that you need the voluntary co-operation of your victims, in many more ways than you can see at present. And your victims should discover that it is their own volition which you cannot force that makes you possible. I choose to be consistent and I will obey you in the manner you demand. Whatever you wish me to do, I will do it at the point of a gun. If you sentence me to jail, you will have to send armed men to carry me there I will not volunteer to move. If you fine me, you will have to seize my property to collect the fine I will not volunteer to pay it. If you believe that you have the right to force me use your guns openly. I will not help you to disguise the nature of your action.

When the government compels me or someone else to do something against their religious beliefs and pretends that we are evil people for saying "hey, I don't sanction it", that is a violation of the right to freedom of religion.

*Education study stuff*

First off, I'm now neither pro or anti-NCLB. I need to re-evaluate. When Bush was President, I was a "dirty dirty liberal" so I thought anything he did was terrible without any fact checking. I was also a teenager and had no idea what I was talking about.

Here's the thing. The argument "well the Senate/Congress were against me" doesn't fly in my book because that's a coward's way of looking at it. You want to pass legislation in a hostile environment? Get them to agree by proving that it is for the benefit for everyone.

Take Obamacare as an example. Obama has largely been inept at doing so because the right believes that public health care is a bad idea. I've only lived in countries with public health care and I will swear by private health care up and down. Public health care is great in theory but taxes and waiting times go up while quality of both health care and doctors go down. Canada has a shortage of doctors because nobody wants to work long hours without serious compensation. We call it the "brain drain".

And yet, he still got it through. Watered down but it passed.

You can't blame Obama's inadequecy on "well the system was rigged against him". That's a silly argument because he still got major legislation through both Congress and Senate.

All this article is saying is that welfare is linked to marriage and more people should get married so welfare decreases. It doesn't really address your point, unless there's something I'm missing, cause it primarily talks about single parent homes.

Covered welfare above.

Yes it is, can you provide proof it's not that simple? What is your argument that it is not that simple? I guarantee you there is a post in this thread that sums it up, and I also guarantee you I've sent many messages concerning how this is not a simple matter and why.

I already explained why AA doesn't work and that it was a simple idea. You actually quoted it next. So why have you reversed my position?

One of the books they cite say this:Which means that while said applicant may have achieved more in their high school relative to their contemporaries at the time, because they are coming from a background that cannot provide them with some of the fundamentals, they don't do too hot. This should ideally be solved by placement tests showing their level of reading/writing/mathematics knowledge, so they're not completely overwhelmed in their introductory classes/semester. But then again, studies only show the bulk statistics, and it's hard to put them in a case-by-case basis. Is the university providing them classes that could work for them? Also, do any of those studies state what metric it uses to gauge whether or not the beneficiary of affirmative action is well achieving?I've seen this pretty often and not just limited to affirmative action cases; people end up taking classes based on some AP class they took in high school, but it doesn't work out for them because the standardized testing from an AP course isn't a good gauge of how much they've actually learned in said class, which leads to them lacking the fundamental knowledge to do the next course in the college sequence. Something like that seems to have been glossed over in some of these arguments, relying on statistics that sort of don't have the extra level of detail or context in them.EDIT: Phillius said it way better than I could have, because the lack of black representation in public schools leads to this issue.

You do know that you're making my argument for me, right? Great.

What I have said is that AA doesn't work because it sets a lower standard for blacks because they are black. Which is inherently racist.

Of course there are reasons why blacks are unprepared for those courses. And what you've listed are valid cases that I don't disagree with. So where's the argument here?

I think Pheonix has a good temporary fix for AA but I still think it should be abolished entirely.

Does rape have to be happening at a high rate for rape culture to be a thing? I don't understand the argument of "well it could be a lot worse."

Yes. It does.

According to FBI statistics, rape is exceedingly rare. If you want to believe a bogus study that claims that more women than the entire population of Canada are raped in their life, then sure. In fact, that number is just about the same number of women in the Congo.

According to that logic, America is no better than a third world country that has seen numerous wars less than 15 years ago.

I had this argument with someone yesterday and I asked her if she knew the legal difference between sexual assault and sexual harrassment. She replied "what does it matter?".

Well, it matters a lot if you consult the US Penal code. If I slap a woman on the ass, that is harrassment, not assault. But that is beginning to be considered sexual assault according to 3rd wave feminists.

So yes. You need a high figure of rapes before there is a rape culture.

[spoiler=Crysta, Tryhard and Enigmar]

First, Enigmar.

As I pointed out, the Pope has apologized. That's what you wanted, correct?

Perfect. Will you allow Christians to now say "hey, you can do what you want but I want no part of it"? Because I get the feeling that you don't want that to happen.

Great, that's out of the way.

Now understand that religious freedom does not say "make laws against homosexuals and transexuals and whateversexuals (too many to count now)". I am on board with you 100% on that. Discrimination is bad. End of story.

But why do you need opinions outlawed too? I have an opinion that is contrary to yours and it's not lovey-dovey.

Let me be honest. If a FtM transexual walked into a public bathroom while I was there, I would feel absolutely uncomfortable. Nothing you say is going to convince me that that is a man. I don't understand why you are forcing me to accepy this as normal.

Ben Shapiro mentioned a case where a school board how now decided to be more inclusive to transexuals. And if a boy who thinks he's a girl wants to sleep in the girl's quarters during an overnight trip, the school's policy is officially now to "not tell the parents". I'll look for an article but it's in the Wed Aug 24th podcast of The Ben Shapiro Show.

I'm sorry. That's not acceptable. If I was a father, I would like to know why I am not being told that a boy is sleeping in close proximinty of my daughter because "he feels like a girl".

Is this a soapbox? No, it's not. These are issues in American politics that you guys bring up and I have a contrary opinion. You're also preaching the virtues of transexuals and why I must like them so if I'm on a soapbox, so are you.

I think I'm good.

[tuvarkz]

Trump called Hillary a bigot. Let's go home, ladies and fuckers.

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37187531

To add context to this:

'Speaking at a Mississippi rally, he said his opponent "sees people of colour only as votes not as human beings worthy of a better future".'

Right Wing Nut Job has already talked about the minimal/lack of improvement of conditions in black communities under Democrats. The claim does skip a few steps in terms of reasoning, but it has some degree of basis.

[Lord Raven]

First off, I'm now neither pro or anti-NCLB. I need to re-evaluate. When Bush was President, I was a "dirty dirty liberal" so I thought anything he did was terrible without any fact checking. I was also a teenager and had no idea what I was talking about.

Stop throwing around this "dirty dirty liberal" tag. It makes no one want to take you seriously, because anyone who is liberal goes "well this dude is not interested in discussing things."

Here's the thing. The argument "well the Senate/Congress were against me" doesn't fly in my book because that's a coward's way of looking at it. You want to pass legislation in a hostile environment? Get them to agree by proving that it is for the benefit for everyone.

That's not the reason it didn't pass as public health care, because it's nothing close to a public healthcare bill. It just changes around some things where it requires certain companies to provide them, gives tax breaks to other companies so they can afford health insurance for their employees, and makes private insurance pass some things to allow for people to stay on their parents' insurance longer. At any rate, that is not for here nor there, the reason why it was so watered down had little to do with "the coward's way out" and more to do with the fact that not every Democrat or Republican is a monolith and not every Democrat believes in universal healthcare. Same with Republicans, but moreso with them. It has little to do with the "coward's way out" and more to do with "well we gotta get something passed because fucking 10-20% of our country doesn't have health insurance because insurance companies are greedy fucks."

Having that said, you should educate yourself on how a bill becomes a law, because it's not like he has forever to pass a bill and forever to convince people. Calling it a "coward's way" is not an argument, it's just a label that attempts to undermine what's actually happening.

Take Obamacare as an example. Obama has largely been inept at doing so because the right believes that public health care is a bad idea. I've only lived in countries with public health care and I will swear by private health care up and down. Public health care is great in theory but taxes and waiting times go up while quality of both health care and doctors go down. Canada has a shortage of doctors because nobody wants to work long hours without serious compensation. We call it the "brain drain".

Source? Because Canada isn't the only country with public healthcare.

You can't blame Obama's inadequecy on "well the system was rigged against him". That's a silly argument because he still got major legislation through both Congress and Senate.

That means that a lot of Congress was behind him in doing so. That does not mean he did a good job convincing Congress. A lot of bills that were passed in Congress only passed because it contained compromises between Democrats and Republicans.

You do know that you're making my argument for me, right? Great.

What I have said is that AA doesn't work because it sets a lower standard for blacks because they are black. Which is inherently racist.

Of course there are reasons why blacks are unprepared for those courses. And what you've listed are valid cases that I don't disagree with. So where's the argument here?

I think Pheonix has a good temporary fix for AA but I still think it should be abolished entirely.

No, because getting into certain colleges is much more about ability and not about "what courses did you take." If they were unprepared, that means that the college needs to put in some effort to actually assess the knowledge of the incoming undergrads; it's an issue with every school in the country regardless of Affirmative Action or not. It's also changing the bar to correct the gap between minorities (non-Asian minorities mind you) and whites due to the fact that at least two generations ago they were actively kept from doing this, and as it stands they are still actively kept from doing this simply because they are still in that impoverished state.

According to FBI statistics, rape is exceedingly rare. If you want to believe a bogus study that claims that more women than the entire population of Canada are raped in their life, then sure. In fact, that number is just about the same number of women in the Congo.

According to that logic, America is no better than a third world country that has seen numerous wars less than 15 years ago.

I had this argument with someone yesterday and I asked her if she knew the legal difference between sexual assault and sexual harrassment. She replied "what does it matter?".

Well, it matters a lot if you consult the US Penal code. If I slap a woman on the ass, that is harrassment, not assault. But that is beginning to be considered sexual assault according to 3rd wave feminists.

So yes. You need a high figure of rapes before there is a rape culture.

You just cited statistics, you did not explain at all why you need a high figure of rapes before there is rape culture. You just said "rape doesn't occur often."

Rape culture doesn't even seem to be a good term, because it implies it's all about rape. I've always known the term to refer to a patriarchal culture rather than it being all about rape.

By the way, I watched this debate in its entirety. Sure, Ben absolutely destroys any racism argument thrown his way but this woman (Monica Velasquez Trudonowski) was amazing. I urge you to watch it simply for her.

There was another video that I was looking for but this one is much better.

This is not an argument, this is an appeal to emotion. What is your argument?

EDIT: let me go into detail as to why that is not an argument. She only stated one piece of anecdotal evidence - meaningless for a system with many people on it. She didn't state her exact situation, she didn't state the exact systems she applied for, and she didn't state how she got out of it. She didn't even state how she was dependent on it because she also said it gave so little and gave her the ability to do so little... Which seems to indicate that there is something else wrong and food stamps are supposed to aid the transition. It was a rant that was incoherent once you analyze it, it was not an argument.

When Democrats are in power, black education stagnates at best. When Republicans are in power, it begins to increase.

Therefore, Denocrats are not good for black education.

Of course, this only deals with education and not other factors like crime or general poverty. But blacks have been voting Democrat for years and there have been no serious measures to curb gang violence in metropolitan areas such as NYC or Chicago by the Democrats. Maybe the Democrats aren't looking out for the blacks but want the blacks to know that they sympathize in order to rack up votes.

I'm not responding to you again until you explain to me every piece of legislation that happened while Obama was in power that would cause this, rather than just saying "Obama was in power therefore blacks have less opportunities." Ditto for Clinton. Ditto for Bush (Sr. and Jr.). Because nothing you provide was an argument, just a statistic; you just showed the "what and when" but you did not at any point explain the "why." And again, you realize a lot of those people have majority Republican Congresses right? The president as a whole is nothing if his congress doesn't do anything, and those two factions of government are largely independent of one another in implementation.

Your argument is poor, and it implies causation from correlation, therefore I instruct you to read up on your logical fallacies because you have been committing one.

Let me be honest. If a FtM transexual walked into a public bathroom while I was there, I would feel absolutely uncomfortable. Nothing you say is going to convince me that that is a man. I don't understand why you are forcing me to accepy this as normal.

Ben Shapiro mentioned a case where a school board how now decided to be more inclusive to transexuals. And if a boy who thinks he's a girl wants to sleep in the girl's quarters during an overnight trip, the school's policy is officially now to "not tell the parents". I'll look for an article but it's in the Wed Aug 24th podcast of The Ben Shapiro Show.

I'm sorry. That's not acceptable. If I was a father, I would like to know why I am not being told that a boy is sleeping in close proximinty of my daughter because "he feels like a girl".

Is this a soapbox? No, it's not. These are issues in American politics that you guys bring up and I have a contrary opinion. You're also preaching the virtues of transexuals and why I must like them so if I'm on a soapbox, so are you.

That is, by definition, a soapbox. Life, stop pretending you are interested in having a discussion, because this was brought up a number of pages back.

Linking Shapiro videos does not count as an argument.

EDIT: if you are going to argue a point you argue on your own merits, not relying on others. I'm not watching a 50 minute soapbox of some ultra conservative that lacks credibility. Just as I will not link you to a 50 or even five minute video of some dude making fun of a conservative or of some liberal show. You formulate a response, you remove all emotion, you show logical steps to a conclusion and you show acknowledgement of other points. In the process you do not commit any logical fallacies or leaps and check for inconsistencies.

You have repeatedly failed to do this so if you respond to this continuing to do the same stuff, know that I will not respond unless you have a fact egregiously out of place. Otherwise, I am not going to bother. You cannot possibly group me with the strawman liberal that apparently witch hunt proud conservatives such as yourself given the fact that I have actually tried my hardest to actually take your points seriously but this is ultimately futile on my part. But I can group you with the strawman conservative quite easily.

Edited August 25, 2016 by Lord Raven

[solrocknroll]

your logic for the field trip goes in a ton of directions

what about a girl who's a lesbian and she wants to stay in the girls room because she is a girl? i guarantee there are some parents who would complain just as hard.

what if this transgendered girl is attracted to guys? as a parent, would you not want them away from your son then? you'd rather they stay with the girls

this isn't something that is exclusive to trans people

[Crysta]

But why do you need opinions outlawed too?

Has anyone here actually suggested this?

You're also preaching the virtues of transexuals and why I must like them

Has anyone actually went on about how awesome transexuals are while insisting Life like them?

I think you're fighting an enemy in your own head.

And personally? Just like you don't care about those silly SJWs being uncomfortable with whatever perceived moral wrongdoing, I honestly don't care if the mere presence of a FtM bothers you. I'm just as likely to tell you to get over it. Your hurted feelings and distress is just as misplaced, imo.

Not going to go to length to convince you to like them or accept them, though. Not my responsibility and I highly doubt there's anything I can say to change that.

I'll just be glad that my former employer (Target) more or less shares the same apathy when it comes to the self-righteous yells of WAT ABOUT TEH CHILDRENS

Edited August 26, 2016 by Crysta

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

So, whats this about Clinton being three hours late to her own event tonight?

[Tryhard]

But why do you need opinions outlawed too? I have an opinion that is contrary to yours and it's not lovey-dovey.

Let me be honest. If a FtM transexual walked into a public bathroom while I was there, I would feel absolutely uncomfortable. Nothing you say is going to convince me that that is a man. I don't understand why you are forcing me to accepy this as normal.

Not the case, but I think your opinion is wrong and uneducated and more or less openly bigoted as you admitted yourself, and I'm not going to be "lovey-dovey" about telling you that it is. Fair, right?

And personally? Just like you don't care about those silly SJWs being uncomfortable with whatever perceived moral wrongdoing, I honestly don't care if the mere presence of a FtM bothers you. I'm just as likely to tell you to get over it. Your hurted feelings and distress is just as misplaced, imo.

lol exactly correct, and better then I could have put it. Edited August 26, 2016 by Tryhard

[Comet]

So, whats this about Clinton being three hours late to her own event tonight?

what's your point? actually, don't answer this question because everyone knows what it is. if you want to say hillary sucks, just say it already. personally (well, of couse it is), i think a lazy president is better than a foolish one. even if lazy isn't what you were going for, she might have had, you know, actual reasons for being late, like life. i don't think there's any excuse for the stuff our friend McDonald has said.

Edited August 26, 2016 by Comet

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

i'm allowed to talk about on topic stuff, i'm just wondering why she was three hours late, if i'm not mistaken, thats later then obama's been to a speech.

[Phoenix Wright]

When Democrats are in power, black education stagnates at best. When Republicans are in power, it begins to increase.

this isn't a political issue; the united states state of education is atrocious on both sides. you're free to think the gop is better, i don't really care, because both are bad. i want to get this out and center early: i care very little about my personal alignment to whatever beliefs you assign politics to. i'm not a liberal, a cons. etc. at most i'm willing to say i'm a progressive. i really want to be clear that first and foremost i am a scientist. and i'm not just saying that because it feels good, though it really does, i say that because your first comment on anything is politically charged one wing or another.

Therefore, Denocrats are not good for black education.

this government is not good for education across the demographic board.

Of course, this only deals with education and not other factors like crime or general poverty. But blacks have been voting Democrat for years and there have been no serious measures to curb gang violence in metropolitan areas such as NYC or Chicago by the Democrats. Maybe the Democrats aren't looking out for the blacks but want the blacks to know that they sympathize in order to rack up votes.

nyc: http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_planning/seven_major_felony_offenses_2000_2015.pdf

chicago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago

generally in the decline. this is true for many individual cities, counties, states, and the nation itself. both during republican and democratic presidencies. the nation is getting safer.

It's basically saying that if you extrapolate current trends, areas that have high concentration of black communities aren't being enrolled in school.

ok what does that mean? why aren't they being enrolled in school? there's no discussion. are there less kids? do moms not enroll kids in elementary? are people just dropping out? as far as the data shows, more kids are getting hs diplomas...so what's going on?

There are only two ways to eliminate general black poverty: Education and eradication of gang violence. Neither have happened during Obama's term but honestly, the verdict is still out on his educational reform.

it hasn't happened during any term in like the last 40 years.

But it isn't a significant increase. It's now barely at 50% rather than 47.5%. Over 22 years. Let's split the difference and blame both sides because there were 8 years of Republican rule there.

again, 2.5% can be huge. trust someone who deals with numbers and statistics all day.

I might not be an expert in education but the figures seem pretty straightforward. Feel free to come to your own conclusion but I'm simply pointing out that there has been virtually no change since Clinton was in office.

the point is your interpretation isn't trustworthy because you have virtually no experience in this field.

you're refusing to credit Bush for addressing education.

you want me to give credit to someone who didn't destroy education further? that's hardly worth admiration.

I can work with that for now but leaving AA as it is is detrimental.

you realize the endgoal is to place minorities and women (in those fields where there is a dearth) in a position where aa isn't needed, right? it's not meant to be permanent.

At this point, there's no lost opportunity. It's about fixing education to make sure that these kids are actually able to succeed. We're not still in post segregation days.

you're triggering me.

i've lived a long time in a predominantly black neighborhood, and i had my high school education in a white suburb. poor schools are atrocious. absolutely, positively atrocious.

there's lost opportunity in nearly every aspect of life between a poor person vs a middle-class vs a wealthy person. it gets worse in this country if you happen to be a minority as well.

your argument is it's not de jure so it doesn't exist anymore??

But when you have a case like Sweet Cakes, that's also an issue because it encroaches on Christian beliefs. The owner should not have to pay $136,000 just because she doesn't want to cater a gay wedding due to it being against her beliefs. The couple could have literally gone to a different bakery.

the owner shouldn't have turned them away for such a stupid reason.

Here's the thing. The argument "well the Senate/Congress were against me" doesn't fly in my book because that's a coward's way of looking at it. You want to pass legislation in a hostile environment? Get them to agree by proving that it is for the benefit for everyone.

literally no world leader worth their salt (ie, no democratically run countries) has been able to do this.

I think Pheonix has a good temporary fix for AA but I still think it should be abolished entirely.

to reiterate, the goal is eventually to not need it.

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37187531

To add context to this:

Right Wing Nut Job has already talked about the minimal/lack of improvement of conditions in black communities under Democrats. The claim does skip a few steps in terms of reasoning, but it has some degree of basis.

are we pretending it was some in-depth analysis full of only factual information that can't be refuted? lol life talked about it, but that's hardly "already talked" about.

[Augestein]

i've lived a long time in a predominantly black neighborhood, and i had my high school education in a white suburb. poor schools are atrocious. absolutely, positively atrocious.

I can definitely vouch for this. My family was military, and sometimes when you'd go to school, you'd be in poor areas of the town while searching for off base houses. My GOD were some of the schools horrible. Broken, outdated equipment, uneducated teachers, filthy facilities... Parents that were too busy working to actually pick up their children -- which would force teachers to watch the children for extra hours with no real pay for it. It's an ongoing struggle for literally everyone in the area.

It's horrible. The children are all defeated at places like this. They'll call themselves dumb, they'll put themselves down, and any child that dares attempt to stand up against the rigged system that's against EVERYONE here will be immediately verbally or physically beaten down. Some don't even bother to try to get an education because they feel things are so wretched that it'll never actually get better.

Calling the schools "atrocious" is almost a compliment, because it almost gives the description of these schools a human rationality to it. There's NO reason for a poor school to be that messed up.

I'm sorry, I know it seems like a bit of a rant, but this cannot be stressed enough. The government has failed people like this. Screw whatever side is in power at the moment. It's irrelevant.

[eclipse]

Out of that entire wall, this is the only thing I wanted to comment on:

the owner shouldn't have turned them away for such a stupid reason.

Stupid to you, not to her or me. I think private businesses should be able to turn people away, unless there's no viable alternative, or it's a matter of life or death. Unless that couple was in the middle of nowhere, and that was the only bakery in town, they had other options.

EDIT: I should hit Preview Post next time. ;/

I can definitely vouch for this. My family was military, and sometimes when you'd go to school, you'd be in poor areas of the town while searching for off base houses. My GOD were some of the schools horrible. Broken, outdated equipment, uneducated teachers, filthy facilities... Parents that were too busy working to actually pick up their children -- which would force teachers to watch the children for extra hours with no real pay for it. It's an ongoing struggle for literally everyone in the area.

It's horrible. The children are all defeated at places like this. They'll call themselves dumb, they'll put themselves down, and any child that dares attempt to stand up against the rigged system that's against EVERYONE here will be immediately verbally or physically beaten down. Some don't even bother to try to get an education because they feel things are so wretched that it'll never actually get better.

Calling the schools "atrocious" is almost a compliment, because it almost gives the description of these schools a human rationality to it. There's NO reason for a poor school to be that messed up.

I'm sorry, I know it seems like a bit of a rant, but this cannot be stressed enough. The government has failed people like this. Screw whatever side is in power at the moment. It's irrelevant.

Can you imagine what NCLB did for those schools? They HAD to get an ever-increasing amount of these kids to pass some test, or measures would be taken against them.

Edited August 26, 2016 by eggclipse

[Phoenix Wright]

and i know personal experience means nothing, but unfortunately the quality of schools in poor neighborhoods is well known to be, as you put it, outside of rationality.

Out of that entire wall, this is the only thing I wanted to comment on:


Stupid to you, not to her or me. I think private businesses should be able to turn people away, unless there's no viable alternative, or it's a matter of life or death. Unless that couple was in the middle of nowhere, and that was the only bakery in town, they had other options.

you wouldn't be saying this if they were black. or asian. or hispanic. a human being has as much choice in their sexuality as they do their race, ethnicity, or nationality. and because of this it is stupid to turn people away for it, and luckily the right to turn folks away in the mentioned cases isn't upheld by the government.

religion i can see. i personally think it's stupid to turn someone away for their religion, but at least religion is a choice at the end of the day.

Edited August 26, 2016 by Phoenix Wright

[Augestein]

Can you imagine what NCLB did for those schools? They HAD to get an ever-increasing amount of these kids to pass some test, or measures would be taken against them.

Yeah, I do know what happened. They cheated. The teachers gave the students the answers to pass the test. Which does nothing but hurt them more in the long run. It's an endless cycle as it stands.