US Politics: Make Thread Titles Great Again

[Week]

18 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

No one ever said the 21st century was as bad as the 20s, so fuck off with that bullshit and your trolling for sport.

Here, I confess, that I claimed that the 21st century is worse than the 20s for minorities ... but then I was reminded of (not exhaustive .... obviously):

• 1920: 19th Amendment
• Note -- 1921: Dyer Anti-Lynching bill NOT passed -- (only in 2018 was a more limited anti-lynching bill finally passed)
• 1954: Brown v Board
• 1962: Bailey v Patterson
• 1964: Civil Rights Act ('57 and '60 as well)
• 1965: Voting Rights Act
• 1967: Loving v Virginia
• 1971: Equal Rights Amendment
• 1978: Regents of the University of Califronia v Bakke
• 1991: Civil Rights Act
• 2003/2015: Rights of Same-sex Couples

...and yet, here we all still are. Fighting for basic rights against people that would prefer to undo all -- or most -- of the above.

3 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

No one on this thread has ever, to my recollection, expressed anything but the most mild of "conservative" opinions, always presented respectfully, and always, always met with the exact same overwhelming hostility, and then attack. 

Forgive me if I don't trust recollection. Based on your comments above, it ain't worth much. Particularly, considering that you came in here -- by your own admission "sport" -- to troll. So, you behaved poorly, you were made fun of, and now you have a little pity-party by yourself. What did I miss?

[Rippounet]

52 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Seems like a dangerous false equivalence to suggest that the left's scorn for religion is akin to racism or bigotry.   There's also a substantial difference in the objective body count of these two tendencies. 

Sure. But I personally am thinking in terms of perceptions and their impact on politics. If a deeply religious member of a minority perceives that Democrats are far more hostile to religion than Republicans are racist, then it matters little whether it's a false equivalence or not, or what the body count of these two tendencies are.
Let's bear in mind this was originally a minor point about Latinos tending to be socially conservative in the US.
And the minor point I was trying to make was that the perception that the left despises religion isn't actually erroneous ; even if comparing it to racism is indeed an exageration, the fact remains that the left does tend to hold views on society that will easily conflict with the belief systems stemming from religion.
A very simple way to put it: if *I* were running for office, my personal views on religion would probably prevent me from getting the vote of any deeply religious person, regardless of *any other* issues.
So I guess I was only expressing my lack of surprise at the fact that a significant number of Latinos will vote Republican. For religious folk, matters of heaven and hell may matter a great deal more than walls.

[DanteGabriel]

WHY WON'T PEOPLE BE RESPECTFUL TO ME WHEN I SPORT-POST ARTICLES ABOUT FALSE FLAG HATE CRIMES

[DMC]

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Where does it end though?

 

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

And who is more likely to push it to the extremes?

The Republicans aren't more likely to push it to the extremes, they are certainly going to continue to push it to the extremes - no likelihood about it.  This is the whole problem with your ham-fisted "don't wanna push it too far" strategy.  When the GOP was blocking Obama's appointees, there was a bunch of hand-wringing about eliminating the filibuster for lower court nominees.  It took nearly five years for Harry Reid to realize that McConnell was going to do the same thing once he got the chance anyway (i.e. next time there was a GOP Senate and president) and finally do it, and all that delay earned the Dems is only a year to enjoy its benefits.  

The conservative movement has been on a razor-focused mission to absolutely take the courts over about since I've been alive.  They are not going to stop doing whatever it takes, like completely eliminating the judicial filibuster or refusing to vote on Garland.  If and when they have both the motive and opportunity to expand the court, they undoubtedly will.  Not doing it when your side can benefit in the hopes that will somehow prevent them from stopping this escalation is straight up Chamberlain-level appeasement.

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I’m genuinely surprised you’re taking the side that you are because you have to foresee how this ends, and news alert, our side will take a massive L.

First of all, let's clarify that all this is almost certainly hypothetical.  Either party would not only need unified government, they'd probably need a filibuster proof majority in the Senate (there are arguments that you could use reconciliation or, more likely, other Senate rules to circumvent a cloture vote, but I don't want to get bogged down in that), and that's bloody unlikely for either party.  Second of all, there's absolutely no reason to say the Dems will "ultimately" lose - and not just because no one ultimately loses until climate change kills us all.  I don't know who will have the partisan advantage to exploit court packing "better" in the future and, news alert, you don't either.

Third of all, I hate these types of objections, "you're an institutionalist, how could possibly want this done when it could destroy an institution?"  Because, yeah, I'm an institutionalist and I understand that's not what court packing would do.  There are rather compelling institutional design arguments for raising the number of SC justices to 27.  More importantly, this objection seems to be based on this absurd notion that we don't want to "politicize" the court too much.  The courts are a political institution filled with political actors.  This idea that justices decide "based on the law" instead of due to their political preferences is entirely imagined bullshit made up by lawyers because they think they're better than everybody.  And since it's a political institution, it's high time we recognized that nine justices is simply too small to be proper political representation of society in the first place.

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

So remember when I painted a picture of Russian interference in elections and it didn't occur, and y'all thought 'oh that crazy Kalbear, always worrying about things'

Maybe I'm missing something, but who in the hell would call you crazy for worrying about Russian interference in the midterms?

[DanteGabriel]

1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

Oh I’ve seen this pattern before. Same people too. Don’t feel too sad, just brush it off.

And posting up a link by the Southern Poverty Law Centre too.. pffft

What's wrong with the SPLC?

[Heartofice]

12 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

What's wrong with the SPLC?

It has a pretty rep for mis-characterising groups and people as hate groups, for instance they have had to pay out millions to Majid Nawaas and the Quillium foundation for its slurs. 

[DanteGabriel]

8 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It has a pretty rep for mid characterising groups and people as hate groups, for instance has had to pay out millions to Majid Nawaas and the Quillium foundation for its slurs. 

They admitted they erred in that case. What other mistakes is their rep based on?

Oh wait, I forgot you're the British person who said Americans couldn't comment on British things but are an expert on the reputation of a decades-old American civil rights group. The same person who tried to sell the wild claim that there's a rash of celebrities having their careers ended by poorly founded accusations of racism, and your "people are going to jail for jokes on Twitter!" scare ended up being that one comedian got fined. 

So you're accusing the SPLC of... acting like you?

[Ser Reptitious]

44 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I read this thread very frequently, and my recollection is that while all conservative posters are called trolls, very few if any were actually trolling.  I complain about discourse because it is literally not possible here.  In order to get into a substantive discussion about the idea of a culture where victimhood is the coin of the realm, and whether or why fake hate crimes are on the rise, it would start with whether or not the Southern Poverty Law Center is the same institution it was in the 60s and 70s, whether it deserves the same level of deference, whether it is still credible or not...but this is a discussion that can't be had here. So, there is no where to go with it.  

Ser Scot and Mudguard are conservative posters that seem to manage just fine in engaging in serious conversations in this thread, to name two examples off the top of my head.

[DanteGabriel]

9 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Yes not surprising you would agree with their rulings. Do you agree with Ayaan Hirsi Alli being on their too? Majid?

 

 

Did I say I agree with all their rulings? Every organization makes mistakes, and they admitted one with Maajid Nawaz. I think that's an important thing to recognize. As far as I know, the Family Research Council hasn't stopped shopping hateful lies about LGBTQ people.

I do notice that you were ready to dismiss the SPLC article that Week posted sight unseen, even though it just makes a sensible warning that hoaxes should not distract from the real danger of increased hate crimes.

[Zorral]

This is why their ilks, up in arms about what? war on Christmas? (um, what war on Xmas, which -- until this year in which the cancerous orange wart and amazilla reigned supreme, was always generating enormous sums annually) are regarded as less valuable hooman beans by those who believe in facts, rationality, tolerance, a sense of humor and the absurd, and just plain common sense.  

Signed, one who regrets the death of the high street retail

[Heartofice]

7 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Did I say I agree with all their rulings? Every organization makes mistakes, and they admitted one with Maajid Nawaz. I think that's an important thing to recognize. As far as I know, the Family Research Council hasn't stopped shopping hateful lies about LGBTQ people.

I do notice that you were ready to dismiss the SPLC article that Week posted sight unseen, even though it just makes a sensible warning that hoaxes should not distract from the real danger of increased hate crimes.

They apologised after years of refusing to back down and threats of being sued. Im using it at as an example of their rather poor reputation, something you were clearly pretty unaware of in your little bubble

[Varysblackfyre321]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I don't expect anyone on here to ever let go of the narrative that the 21st century is just like the 1920's-1950s for marginalized groups, which is exactly how this thread comes off, but every once in a while I choose to post a few facts, here and there, just for sport, I don't expect the ever growing list of hate crimes that were perpetrated by the victims to change anyone's mind and get them to agree with McWhorter.

Do you acknowledge the actual times hate crimes have been faked is extremely rare? You said there's a growing list of Hoax hate crimes. Do you think they pose a significant number of the cases of hate crimes actually reported? You say false hate crimes are on the rise. Where is the actual evidence of this other than a few dozen stories out of literally hundreds of thousands of reports.  You didn't actually try to argue against the specific case the SPLC was making,  instead you opted merely to just flat-out question the virtue of organization. What exactly do you disagree with in this specific report if anything? 

[DanteGabriel]

11 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

They apologised after years of refusing to back down and threats of being sued. Im using it at as an example of their rather poor reputation, something you were clearly pretty unaware of in your little bubble

I asked you what's wrong with the SPLC to get you to actually say something instead of "SPLC, pfft" and you responded with one case where the SPLC corrected themselves and apologized nineteen months after they put the guy's name on a list (list came out in November 2016, apology came out June 2018). Doesn't seem like "years" of refusing to back down. Seriously, can you make an honest argument without turning every minnow into a Leviathan?

[DMC]

Has anyone posted this yet?  Sorry if so, I can't recall due to...some reason.

NC-9 GOP Candidate Won't Run in New Election

Quote

North Carolina Republican Mark Harris will not run in the new election for the 9th Congressional District following November's disputed result caused by absentee ballot irregularities, his campaign announced Tuesday.

Harris' decision follows his support for a second election to fill the seat after a contentious investigation into the irregularities. Red flags had been raised regarding potentially compromised absentee ballots stemming from the work of a political consultant hired by Harris' campaign.

Well, gotta assume the Dems are very likely to pick up another seat then.

[Varysblackfyre321]

18 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

They apologised after years of refusing to back down and threats of being sued. Im using it at as an example of their rather poor reputation, something you were clearly pretty unaware of in your little bubble

Do you actually disagree with what the SPLC Article Weeks cited? Because just going "SPLC pff" doesn't mean everything they ever say is automatically wrong.  Actually make an argument for why they're wrong here.

[Jace, Extat]

4 minutes ago, DMC said:

Has anyone posted this yet?  Sorry if so, I can't recall due to...some reason.

NC-9 GOP Candidate Won't Run in New Election

Well, gotta assume the Dems are very likely to pick up another seat then.

Why do you prime yourself for disappointment?

[Maithanet]

6 minutes ago, DMC said:

Well, gotta assume the Dems are very likely to pick up another seat then.

It seems like a good shot, but i wouldn't assume anything.  In addition, I'd give a generic republican (even one with virtually no name recognition) a better chance than Harris.  So him dropping out is probably good news for the GOP holding the seat. 

[Ormond]

17 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

They apologised after years of refusing to back down and threats of being sued. Im using it at as an example of their rather poor reputation, something you were clearly pretty unaware of in your little bubble

According to the Wikipedia article on Maajid Nawaz, the SPLC accused him of being an anti-Muslim extremist on October 2016 and formally apologized on June 2018. That's no more than 19 months, which isn't "years" (and to me the phrase "after years" implies more than two years). So I don't think you are being very careful with your own critique here (unless you can give evidence showing Wikipedia is wrong on this issue.)

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Why do you prime yourself for disappointment?

3 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

In addition, I'd give a generic republican (even one with virtually no name recognition) a better chance than Harris.

I agree name ID probably isn't going to be important because the race will be nationalized, but I think it's going to be very hard to find a quality candidate willing to do it.

[Ormond]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

I agree name ID probably isn't going to be important because the race will be nationalized, but I think it's going to be very hard to find a quality candidate willing to do it.

Harris didn't defeat Robert Pittenger, the Republic incumbent in that district, by very much in the primary. Is Pittenger not willing to run again?