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Author Topic:   Who's the bigger offender: Conservatives or Liberals?
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 316 of 773 (887693)
08-20-2021 2:40 PM
Reply to: Message 302 by Phat
08-18-2021 1:56 PM


Re: Darker Future For USA
On The Stephanie Miller Show on the Progressive channel on XM Radio, I just heard a quiz for a black guest: at what point were you able to guess the race of yesterday's Capitol wanna-be bomber? When they let him sit there while they negotiated with him for hours? When they listened to his problems and issues and his anti-America ranting calling for the violent overthrow of the US government? When they finally arrested him alive after he surrendered? Answer: she knew before he even pulled up and parked on the sidewalk! (often a capital crime had he been black). How long would he have lasted had he been black? And what would his chances of survival been had he been black, especially after he had surrendered (George Floyd had surrendered and was complying to police orders and yet he was still killed).
Just about every face I have seen among the Capitol insurrectionists was white and MAGAty (sounds like "maggoty") -- and we have seen so much footage of that terrorist attack against our government. Only one of them was shot (as she assaulted the House chamber) as we haven't heard much of them having been injured (compared with over 100 cops having been injured). How many of them walked away that day? All of them except for two (the one who was shot and another who had been trampled to death by the rioters themselves); since then we've rounding them up.
How do you think that would have turned out had they been black? Trump would have immediately mobilized the Guard instead of sitting on both his thumbs all day and he would have yet again tried to mobilize active duty troops as he had tried to against the BLM demonstrators (not insurrectionists nor terrorists) -- not only did Trump try to call out active duty troops multiple times (and Esper had to recall them back to base each time as he tried in vain to explain how damned illegal Trump's actions were), but Trump also tried to issue orders to have the BLM demonstrators shot.
Even domestic terrorists benefit from white privilege. Plain as day.
I think it was Cedric the Entertainer who told the personal story of driving his family in the family minivan down somewhere where it's hot and humid, so he had the windows up and the A/C running. A cop pulled him over and he complied. As he was getting his license and registration ready, he glanced at the rearview mirror and saw the cop in full crouch and clearly extremely agitated with sidearm drawn and ready in a two-hand grip and shouting orders that Cedric couldn't hear (windows up, A/C running).
Have you ever been pulled over by the police? It's a minor inconvenience for us white guys, but we know we have nothing to fear from the police. Black drivers never know whether they're going to come out of it alive regardless of what they do. Hispanic drivers have similar fears, especially in sh*thole states (some Trump-speak there) like Texas where they could suddenly find themselves in ICE custody just because they do not always carry all their citizenship documentation with them everywhere they go -- no, I'm not using "Born in East LA" as my source, but rather a teenager, a native-born American citizen, who was trapped in ICE custody under Trump and not allowed to call his family to tell them where he was (BTW, many do make copies of birth certificates, etc, for their wallets and the cops even ignore that much of the time).
Go back to the Eisenhower Administration and its Operation Wetback in which "illegal immigrant" Mexicans were rounded up off the streets and deported en masse "back" to Mexico. That included many US citizens who didn't happen to have been carrying their full citizenship documentation with them (BTW, from my father's family records, I know that the birth of many US citizens had never been recorded such that in order to get a Social Security number they had to have witnesses to their birth take out sworn affidavits). A similar event from two decades earlier was depicted in the Edward James Olmos movie, Mi Familia (My Family, 1995).
In a similar story, my brother-in-law is Mexican and is the darkest one in the family. At the time, he had a beard and his hair and beard were black. Native-born US citizen and an electrical engineer, he was on a business trip to the UK around the time of that shooting stand-off at the Libyan embassy in London. Customs nearly did not let him into the UK because he looked like he could be Libyan.
 
The point is that we white guys never have to worry about any of that crap happening to us, so much so that the very possibly of such problems for anyone would never occur to us. And yet a very large segment of the population (ie, non-hispanic whites who are now only a little more than half of the US population, which has the GQP fouling themselves and getting busy passing even more racist laws) has to live with that crap every single day of their lives for all of their lives.
My problem with BLM is that they take it upon themselves to rectify moral issues by targeting an entire group--white people.
Good point! Why aren't they targeting other groups like Easter Islanders or Mongolians or the Lakota?
Oh yeah, because none of those groups had done anything to oppress them. Well, what groups did take sustained and systematic action to oppress blacks? Well, there's white people and ... uh ... you know, for the life of me I simply cannot think of any other group. Can you?
And why don't they just sit back and wait patiently for those white people to rectify those moral issues? Could it be because then it will never happen?
If you think that it will happen all on its own solely through the actions of white people, then why hasn't it happened in the past 155 years, during which time almost the only thing that happened along these lines was the establishment and shoring up of abuses leading to those moral issues? And even we non-racist white guys aren't going to be of much help while we are all fat, dumb, and happy in our ignorance of the very idea that such a problem might exist.
From the Pirke Avoth ("Sayings of the Fathers"):
quote:
If I am not for myself, who will be?
If I am only for myself, then what am I?
If not now, when?
Or we could quote Dylan rival Phil Ochs' best known song:
quote:
And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 302 by Phat, posted 08-18-2021 1:56 PM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 317 of 773 (887695)
08-20-2021 3:26 PM
Reply to: Message 316 by dwise1
08-20-2021 2:40 PM


Re: Darker Future For USA
Even domestic terrorists benefit from white privilege. Plain as day.
Yes, this is exactly right.

Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

This message is a reply to:
 Message 316 by dwise1, posted 08-20-2021 2:40 PM dwise1 has not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 318 of 773 (887697)
08-20-2021 3:44 PM
Reply to: Message 316 by dwise1
08-20-2021 2:40 PM


Re: Darker Future For USA
You do present a good point. I'll have to think about the implications. I'm not against helping Black people or any minority. I'm simply against agendas that will negatively affect me. Can't we all just get along?

"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain "
***
“…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox

“The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.”
- Criss Jami, Killo

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
(1894).


This message is a reply to:
 Message 316 by dwise1, posted 08-20-2021 2:40 PM dwise1 has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 321 by Percy, posted 08-21-2021 12:17 PM Phat has replied
 Message 322 by ringo, posted 08-21-2021 12:37 PM Phat has replied

  
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.3


(2)
Message 319 of 773 (887702)
08-20-2021 5:07 PM
Reply to: Message 318 by Phat
08-20-2021 3:44 PM


Re: Darker Future For USA
Can't we all just get along?
Sure. Just stop questioning a perspective you know nothing about.

Eschew obfuscation. Habituate elucidation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 318 by Phat, posted 08-20-2021 3:44 PM Phat has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(4)
Message 320 of 773 (887703)
08-20-2021 7:29 PM
Reply to: Message 318 by Phat
08-20-2021 3:44 PM


Re: Darker Future For USA
Can't we all just get along?
Yes, Rodney King whose brutal beating beating by LAPD police led to them being acquitted which sparked a race riot in 1992. We were watching that unfold right next door in Orange County. All the local TV stations went to live coverage. Except for KCOP which continued to air Star Trek TNG. My team of programmers all agreed that Star Trek saved Orange County (yeah, we were all fans, including the more rabid fundie who would complain about its humanistic messaging even while he still loved to watch it -- eg, "Yeah, that was their gay marriage episode.").
Let's use a conflagration as our metaphor -- this is a case where being "totally involved" is not a good thing (a house that is engulfed in flames is reported by fire fighters as "completely involved"). Let's describe a riot such as in 1992 LA as a big fire, a conflagration. An incident provides the spark to start it. But did that spark alone cause the fire? Or was there a lot of fuel lying about, fuel that should not have been there (eg, lots of dry underbrush in forested or chaparral extending up to houses, which is why you are advised to clear out all of that that you can -- hint: despite what Trump told you, you don't sweep the forest floor with brooms). All that a spark, any spark no matter how small, can do is to ignite kindling and tinder and accelerant that's already there. If there is no kindling or tinder or accelerant, then a spark will not result in a fire. It's the Holy Trinity of firefighting: Fuel, Air, Heat.
Unwrapping that metaphor, long history of oppression and systematic mistreatment builds up all kinds of fuel including accelerants. After all that has been piling up for years and decades, all it takes is just one spark to make the entire structure (eg, the city) completely involved (and not in the good way).
What to do to prevent those conflagrations? Keep any sparks from happening? Yeah, though that can be about as feasible as keeping everything dry in a flood. That would be the "Heat" of the Holy Trinity. But even if you could prevent all sparks, that would still not keep us safe. I'm sure you've heard of spontaneous combustion in which decomposition (AKA "rotting") generates heat which can lead to a fire (commonly happens with bales or stacks of hay where the interior rots and the bale/stack retains the heat which keeps building up such that the moment you disturb it and the air reaches it then you have a hay fire on your hands -- you get the same thing with a couch or mattress fire that you may put out, but the padding is still smoldering and waiting for air to hit it in order to re-ignite). In our conflagration metaphor for a riot, long simmering resentment would build up residual Heat that could ignite all on its own without the benefit of a spark.
Since Heat is virtually impossible to completely eliminate, what about Air? In a society I would interpret Air as being the life of the community. It's like a sci-fi cartoon set in a space ship where a hammer hangs next to a porthole to space and the sign says, "In case of fire, break glass" -- sure that'll snuff out the fire, but also every person in that compartment). So in the metaphor, removing Air would be like locking everything down, or even mass arrests and shipping all malcontents to concentrations camps (which have been given a bad name; more on that elsewhere). We are still seeing what locking everything down does to a community and to individual psychology (right-wingnut idiocy only makes that so much worse and more dangerous). Removing Air from the community makes no sense at all if you want to maintain a viable community -- here's another quote for you albeit paraphrased: "It was necessary to destroy the community in order to save it."
OK, so what about Fuel? What would the Fuel for a riot be? Long simmering resentment, poverty with no way out, systematic oppression, systematic mistreatment including arbitrarily administered summary death sentences or felony convictions for minor offenses (even white cops who looked into it found that black offenders get treated entirely differently than white offenders such that the whites get off easier while the blacks get the book thrown at them), a sense of hopelessness, no way out, everything set against you from the day you were born. If you have nothing, then you have nothing to lose. If you have no skin in the game, then you don't care about the game.
Have you ever read the 13th Amendment? Do you even know what the 13th Amendment is? It abolished slavery, but with a caveat, a very important one. To quote from the text of the Wikipedia article (my emphasis added):
quote:
The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.
So, you can no longer keep blacks as slaves, except through that mechanism of convicting them of a crime. So there we see a motivation (an economic one, which makes it so much stronger) for having higher arrest and conviction rates for blacks than for whites: people can make more money off the sweat of legal slaves.
And the loss of those lives, especially young ones, is sorely felt by the black community. Loss of education, loss of professional skills, loss of fathers resulting in far more single-parent families (resulting in lower family income along with extra child-care expenses which often make staying on welfare a much more viable option -- which you are paying for while you fight trying to solve that problem) as well as the negative impact of the children's development by not having a father, etc.
But the real cash payout for racists (used to be Democrats back in the day, but now predominantly Republicans * is that you could now keep them folk from voting!!!!! When the law says that felons cannot vote and you have Carte Blanche to turn them others into felons, then you can also eliminate them from voting! Dang! Gimme another heapin' helpin' o' that!
 
And don't forget redlining, which has had a devastating effect on the black communities.
I've developed an interest in local Orange County history, mainly on the renaming and rerouting of the streets. Fountain Valley used to be almost entirely agricultural (I personally remember that) before they switched in the late 60's to planting housing tracts. On a Thomas Brothers wall map from the 1940's, I saw in Fountain Valley a number of "colonias", which I interpreted as the communities of the farm workers. ¡Pero no! Even though nowadays my hometown of Santa Ana is predominantly Mexican (you always know you have just entered Santa Ana because the billboards are suddenly all in Spanish -- I live in Santa Ana again y soy orgulloso), in the past Mexicans were legally forbidden from buying any property in Santa Ana -- that is the basic definition of redlining. So an entrepreneurial developer in the 1920's and 30's came up with the idea of the colonias, housing tracts, mainly in Fountain Valley, so that Mexicans could finally buy and own property. To this day as you drive around, you can still spot some of the old colonias by street names (eg, Los Jardines) or by small clusters of streets with houses much older than the newer development around them.
My older sister (8 years my senior) is a fundamentalist. We recently did a lot of driving around together and I tried to tell her about redlining and the colonias, but she kept trying to change the subject. Hmm!
OK, take the TV show, Adam Ruins Everything with a grain or more of salt (if you don't understand "cum grano salis", just ask -- it means to be skeptical of a claim; I am smarter than average (much dulled of late) and have received a liberal education (foreign languages mainly, followed by computer languages, but a foreign language degree is like an English degree but with a much different reading list)), but this part of an episode was the first time that I, wrapped within the sound-dampening cocoon of my own white privilege, had ever even heard of redlining and its effects:
Uff da! (Norwegian exclamation which I learned in eastern North Dakota while I was stationed there, where it means, well, "Uff da!", maybe close to "Ho-boy!").
Before we start this part, let's get one thing straight: family wealth is mainly through inheritance of property. Property always appreciates in value, right? Ehhhhhhh ... . But the basic model, like budgeting a quarter of your monthly income to housing, is still the same.
Basically, most white families have been doing that for decades (also the quasi-whites like the Irish, Italian, Jewish, etc -- do you see my dig there?) and it has for the most part almost always worked well. The basic tenant of The Big Short was that investing in mortgage bonds was sound because, "who doesn't pay their mortgage?"
But, what happens when your property value plummets? Kinchloe Air Force Base, MI (Upper Peninsula), 1977. I am a military veteran, but did not buy until after my active duty days. Civilian families have the luxury of remaining in one place for many years holding onto property which appreciates in value. Military families have be much craftier and much more cunning (in the various Blackadder series in various time periods, his underling, Baldrick, would always have "a cunning plan" which always turned out to be complete bollux and yet usually seemed to always work out in the end; as the centuries rolled by, Blackadder became progressively smarter and Baldrick progressively dumber). Officers were especially vulnerable, since an officer's tenure was usually about two years in order to allow him to apply for a wider array of challenging assignments to make him more promotable. So, an officer's family would sell their home from their last assignment and use the equity to buy a new home at the next Permanent Duty Assignment (PDA).
In 1977, the DoD closed Kinchloe Air Force Base, MI (Upper Peninsula). The local real estate market basically depended on the regular turnover of base personnel, but now there were only out-going personnel and no incoming. That local housing market collapsed. Air Force personnel had a huge part of their family equity tied up in houses that could not sell. Devastating.
So investing in real estate, while normally a good choice, can turn around and ruin you when things turn abnormal. Which you never expect them to do, but which does actually happen now and again. 2008 (timeframe of The Big Short) is when almost everything turned abnormal.
OK, with the redlining of blacks (arguably more widespread nationwide than the redlining of Mexicans in Orange County, Calif -- BTW, one infamous court case involved a local school district with segregated schools for Mexicans which only taught horticulture (gardening/farm workers) for the boys and homemaking for the girls because their only possible futures were as gardeners and housemaids) also came the lenders automatically steering them to sub-prime loans. "Here is Margot Robbie in a bubble bath to explain that to you":
Having a sub-prime loan means (if for no other reason than you couldn't qualify for a better loan even if one had been offered to you) that you are more likely to default or be forced to default (eg, escalating interest rates, balloon payments ... it's amazing what you can agree to when you are so desperate or have no other choice). Which means that you are more likely to lose all the equity that you had clawed and scraped to accumulate, adding to your levels of resentment and hopelessness.
Now as Adam pointed out, most public services are funded through property taxes. And if your property isn't worth much, then the revenues from your property taxes are low. Less money for public services. But more importantly for the future, less money for education. We could make college education free for all who qualify, but that would still only admit those whose lower-level education had prepared them to be able to qualify. Push kids through a substandard school system where they're fed defeatist attitudes and how many would you expect to go on to college? Or even be able to?
One of my all-time favorite movies is Stand and Deliver. Jaime Escalante. The system had written his students off, but those "burros have math in [their] blood". My point: they do have the potential, but the educational system must still enable them to reach that potential. In the absence of visionary teachers like Jaime Escalante, where can they find it within their impoverished school systems where all students are already written off as failures? In the movie, Angel, the one most likely to serve a life sentence in prison, made top scores on the Calculus AP test.
 
Here's another scenario I heard on Progressive Radio (Sirius XM), though I'm immediately adding some historical context.
In the 1992 Los Angeles riots, we saw local store owners on top of their roofs with rifles trying to protect their stores, their property. What race were they? Most of them, as I recall, were Korean.
OK, now step back a bit. This was a predominantly black neighborhood, yet all the storekeepers were Korean? Uhhh ... why weren't they black? Good question!
Within a black neighborhood, how many blacks could afford to open a neighborhood shop? Average black family financial worth is in the pits (I was driving through a Del Taco at the time and was not in a position to jot down notes). Isn't the capitalism mantra "You need money to make money"? Local blacks were in no position to front the capital to open businesses, but immigrants with money were able to. So the local blacks felt that they were being exploited by those Asians.
 
That created a secondary siphon of wealth out of the black communities. OK, metropolitan areas are too complex.
One night on Progressive Radio I heard a discussion of the economics of an isolated community.
There is a small community in New Hampshire. Their primary industry was lumber, but that has now died away so they are struggling. They had shrunk down to a few small businesses including a diner and a local bank. The local diner made use of local farmers' produce, etc, providing those farmers with income. Basically, the local cache of money kept circulating within the community and the community was able to remain viable.
But then a fast-food chain moved in. Not only did that siphon cash out of the local economy (ie, the money flowing up the chain to Corporate) but their food source was shipped in from Corporate which cut out the local farmers. Sure, everybody was now able to eat Whoppers (or whatever chain that was), all while everybody else in the local economy was out of work. Now redo that local economy model with a Walmart.
 

FOOTNOTE *
"Racists used to be Democrats back in the day, but now they are predominantly Republicans."
MAGAt-heads keep bringing up the fact that Southern racists had traditionally been Democrats (AKA "Dixie-crats") as if that were still the case. The only effecive response I have found is to challenge them to go to any KKK rally and start pulling hoods off to find any Democrat. Because a small thing had happened in the meantime that they would never have noticed, called The Twentieth Century.
Here's yet another video (there's another really good one, but I can no longer find it):
So basically, the anti-slavery Party of Lincoln quickly became the party of the super-rich. The South deeply resented Reconstruction which was being imposed on them by the Radical Republicans, so they were predominantly Democrats. It was those Democrats who developed and implemented Jim Crow laws.
But then things changed starting with LBJ's civil rights laws. The Deep South Democrats, AKA "Dixie-crats", rebelled and ended up shifting over to the GOP.
So now the the modern Democrats are entirely different from the racist Democrats of the 19th Century. Duh???
Edited by dwise1, : Mexican students could only ever be gardeners/farm workers or housemaids

Edited by dwise1, : developed the footnote plus minor cleanup

Edited by dwise1, : added or have no other choice


This message is a reply to:
 Message 318 by Phat, posted 08-20-2021 3:44 PM Phat has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 414 by LamarkNewAge, posted 12-03-2021 9:05 PM dwise1 has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(5)
Message 321 of 773 (887735)
08-21-2021 12:17 PM
Reply to: Message 318 by Phat
08-20-2021 3:44 PM


Re: Darker Future For USA
Phat writes:
I'm simply against agendas that will negatively affect me.
You're not against policies that will negatively affect you. You're just against policies that you're *told* will negatively affect you, and the explanation you're provided for why they'll negatively affect you is that the beneficiaries are lazy, immoral, thieves who will rob the public coffers dry and then out-reproduce you to vote into office people who will make your situation even worse.
The reality is that Republicans are preying upon your paranoia and inherent racist biases. Those of other races are people just like you, no better, no worse. Blacks of this country make less money and are locked up and murdered more often because of whites. Central Americans clambering at our southern border are people just like you born into less fortunate circumstances.
You have not the means to be materially generous to these people, but you might at least be politically generous and stop being such a selfish prick. The whole white supremacist movement is just one big "I got mine and you ain't gonna get any" party.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 318 by Phat, posted 08-20-2021 3:44 PM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 324 by Phat, posted 08-21-2021 12:45 PM Percy has replied
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ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(3)
Message 322 of 773 (887736)
08-21-2021 12:37 PM
Reply to: Message 318 by Phat
08-20-2021 3:44 PM


Re: Darker Future For USA
Phat writes:
I'm not against helping Black people or any minority. I'm simply against agendas that will negatively affect me.
And your right-wing handlers are telling you it will: Free the slaves and they'll take all our jobs.

"I've been to Moose Jaw, now I can die." -- John Wing

This message is a reply to:
 Message 318 by Phat, posted 08-20-2021 3:44 PM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 323 by Phat, posted 08-21-2021 12:40 PM ringo has replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 323 of 773 (887737)
08-21-2021 12:40 PM
Reply to: Message 322 by ringo
08-21-2021 12:37 PM


Re: Darker Future For USA
Well if you can convince me that I won't end up closer to being as poor as the ones I am trying to help (as you feel no shame in being) then I'll drop this argument for good.

"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain "
***
“…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox

“The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.”
- Criss Jami, Killo

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
(1894).


This message is a reply to:
 Message 322 by ringo, posted 08-21-2021 12:37 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 325 by ringo, posted 08-21-2021 12:53 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied
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Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 324 of 773 (887738)
08-21-2021 12:45 PM
Reply to: Message 321 by Percy
08-21-2021 12:17 PM


Re: Darker Future For USA
Are you suggesting that the Republican Party is a White Supremacist party? While we could well label some blatant favoritism among them, the label is far from appropriate in general. Just because a man wants the freedom (unhindered by excessive government regulation and taxation) into earning a living in no way paints him/her as a racist.

"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain "
***
“…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox

“The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.”
- Criss Jami, Killo

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
(1894).


This message is a reply to:
 Message 321 by Percy, posted 08-21-2021 12:17 PM Percy has replied

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 Message 326 by nwr, posted 08-21-2021 2:04 PM Phat has not replied
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ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(5)
Message 325 of 773 (887739)
08-21-2021 12:53 PM
Reply to: Message 323 by Phat
08-21-2021 12:40 PM


Re: Darker Future For USA
Phat writes:
Well if you can convince me that I won't end up closer to being as poor as the ones I am trying to help (as you feel no shame in being) then I'll drop this argument for good.
Did you read my post? I mentioned slavery for a reason.
Could I convince you to abolish slavery even if (shudder) it cost you money?
Could I convince you to do the right thing just because it's the right thing?

"I've been to Moose Jaw, now I can die." -- John Wing

This message is a reply to:
 Message 323 by Phat, posted 08-21-2021 12:40 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


(5)
Message 326 of 773 (887742)
08-21-2021 2:04 PM
Reply to: Message 324 by Phat
08-21-2021 12:45 PM


Re: Darker Future For USA
Are you suggesting that the Republican Party is a White Supremacist party?
Yes, it is, though I don't know if that was what Percy was suggesting.
The Republican party wasn't always that way. And there are still a few Republicans who are not white supremacists. But that is the overall direction that the party has been following in recent years.
Just because a man wants the freedom (unhindered by excessive government regulation and taxation) into earning a living in no way paints him/her as a racist.
Most Democrats want those same freedoms. But most Democrats want to share those freedoms with all of their fellow citizens. The Republicans want to be far more exclusive.

Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

This message is a reply to:
 Message 324 by Phat, posted 08-21-2021 12:45 PM Phat has not replied

  
anglagard
Member (Idle past 836 days)
Posts: 2339
From: Socorro, New Mexico USA
Joined: 03-18-2006


(6)
Message 327 of 773 (887743)
08-21-2021 2:22 PM
Reply to: Message 324 by Phat
08-21-2021 12:45 PM


Re: Darker Future For USA
Phat writes:
Are you suggesting that the Republican Party is a White Supremacist party?
Ask me that question, I have an answer. The Republican Party is not only primarily a White Supremacist Party but also an anti-democracy party of traitors and seditionists, murderers of American citizens, pedophiles, and the certifiable.
Should be outlawed as a radical terrorist organization.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 324 by Phat, posted 08-21-2021 12:45 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 328 of 773 (887745)
08-21-2021 2:47 PM
Reply to: Message 323 by Phat
08-21-2021 12:40 PM


Re: Darker Future For USA
Phat writes:
Well if you can convince me that I won't end up closer to being as poor as the ones I am trying to help (as you feel no shame in being) then I'll drop this argument for good.
So it's not about God or morality or what's right to you, it's just about money. You should try reading your Bible sometime:
Mat 5:40 and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well;
Acts 20:35 It is more blessed to give than to receive.
Luke 6:38 Give to others, and God will give to you.
Mark 12:41-44 I tell you that this poor widow put more in the offering box than all the others. For the others put in what they had to spare of their riches; but she, poor as she is, put in all she had—she gave all she had to live on.
Luke 14:12-14 When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors—for they will invite you back, and in this way you will be paid for what you did.When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind; and you will be blessed, because they are not able to pay you back. God will repay you on the day the good people rise from death.
Mat 5:42 When someone asks you for something, give it to him; when someone wants to borrow something, lend it to him.
Sure you could wind up poorer if you follow the dictates of your religion. What does that matter? Your reward will be in heaven.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 323 by Phat, posted 08-21-2021 12:40 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(4)
Message 329 of 773 (887750)
08-21-2021 3:29 PM
Reply to: Message 324 by Phat
08-21-2021 12:45 PM


Re: Darker Future For USA
To echo ringo, did you read my post? You sure didn't respond to anything much I said. I sure wish I knew what happened to the Phat I used to know. Consumed by blood sugar, perhaps.
Are you suggesting that the Republican Party is a White Supremacist party?
No, I wasn't suggesting that, though it's certainly more true than not. When white supremacists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, etc., choose a mainstream political party, it is invariably the Republican Party. What do you think we should conclude from that?
While we could well label some blatant favoritism among them, the label is far from appropriate in general. Just because a man wants the freedom (unhindered by excessive government regulation and taxation) into earning a living in no way paints him/her as a racist.
You know what the south insisted on talking about when the subject of slavery came up? States rights, or in other words, anything but slavery. You know what you want to talk about when the subject of racism comes up? Government or taxes or silver or anything but racism.
Again, since you ignored almost all of it, you've swallowed hook, line and sinker the Republican story that treating other races fairly means that you'll suffer, and besides that other races are lazy, immoral, thieves who will rob the public coffers dry and then out-reproduce you to vote into office people who will make your situation even worse.
The Republicans are preying upon your paranoia and inherent racist biases. Those of other races are people just like you, no better, no worse. Blacks of this country make less money and are locked up and murdered more often because of whites. Central Americans clambering at our southern border are people just like you born into less fortunate circumstances.
You have not the means to be materially generous to these people, but you might at least be politically generous and stop being such a selfish prick. The whole white supremacist movement is just one big "I got mine and you ain't gonna get any" party.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 324 by Phat, posted 08-21-2021 12:45 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(5)
Message 330 of 773 (887792)
08-22-2021 2:57 AM
Reply to: Message 323 by Phat
08-21-2021 12:40 PM


Re: Darker Future For USA
Well if you can convince me that I won't end up closer to being as poor as the ones I am trying to help (as you feel no shame in being) then I'll drop this argument for good.
I'm feeling like the problem is the same as trying to talk with a creationist in that you are drawing your conclusions from faulty assumptions which you are not stating and which blocks us from understanding each other.
Are you assuming that there is only a fixed amount of wealth such that when someone gets more money then that money has to be taken from somebody else? IOW, are you viewing this as a zero sum game wherein one party only wins when the other party loses -- that's the way that Trump and the Trumpists think and how Trump "makes deals" which is why he is such a horrible negotiator. A non-zero sum game is one in which both sides and win. Here is the intro section from that Wikipedia article:
quote:
In game theory and economic theory, a zero-sum game is a mathematical representation of a situation in which an advantage that is won by one of two sides is lost by the other. If the total gains of the participants are added up, and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero. Thus, cutting a cake, where taking a more significant piece reduces the amount of cake available for others as much as it increases the amount available for that taker, is a zero-sum game if all participants value each unit of cake equally. Other examples of zero-sum games in daily life include games like poker, chess, and bridge where one person gains and another person loses, which results in a zero-net benefit for every player. In the markets and financial instruments, futures contracts and options are zero-sum games as well. Nevertheless, the situation like the stock market etc. is not a zero-sum game because investors could gain profit or loss from share price influences by profit forecasts or economic outlooks rather than gain profit from other investors' losses.
In contrast, non-zero-sum describes a situation in which the interacting parties' aggregate gains and losses can be less than or more than zero. A zero-sum game is also called a strictly competitive game, while non-zero-sum games can be either competitive or non-competitive. Zero-sum games are most often solved with the minimax theorem which is closely related to linear programming duality, or with Nash equilibrium. Prisoner's Dilemma is a classical non-zero-sum game.
Many people have a cognitive bias towards seeing situations as zero-sum, known as zero-sum bias.
The real economy (Main Street instead of Wall Street) is non-zero sum. In fact, when others do better, we all do better. Plus there is not a fixed limit on the amount of wealth available, but rather more wealth can be generated.
OK, food stamps are coming back stronger than before after the GOP had chosen to starve the poor. Our tax dollars at work. The figures I heard is that for every dollar we spend on food stamps, the economy grows by $1.70; ie, it very nearly doubles. The program also creates 9000 to 17,000 new jobs. Not only are families now able to feed themselves, but when they go to the grocery stores to buy their food then that's more business for the stores -- the people win and the stores win too. That means that not only can the stores stay in business, but they could even expand by opening more stores. Even if they don't expand, they not only can afford to keep their employees, but they could hire more people -- more jobs. More jobs mean more people getting a paycheck which means that they can go to other stores (ie, non-grocery) and spend some of their money there, which means that those other stores can stay open and keep their employees employed, etc. It's a win-win-win-win-win-win situation. And far better, it would cut down on your red-hot button issue of shoplifters since now they would be able to use food stamps to buy food.
But if you're trapped with zero-sum bias, then you would only see the tax money spent on food stamps as money being taken out of your pocket; you would see yourself as losing even though you would also benefit from that program with job security, possible raises, etc.
So is that your problem? Are you trapped in zero-sum bias? The Wrong Wing keeps feeding you zero-sum nonsense (as well as trying to scare you half to death), so you cannot see how things actually work.
We can do the same thing with affordable housing. By keeping families in their houses, they can go find jobs. If you're homeless, then it is far harder to get a job because you cannot fill out an application form (no address). In addition, it's much more difficult and expensive to move off of the streets. Then there are also the issues of disease and finding food (more shoplifters), etc. Not to mention the effects on the children having to live on the streets. And BTW, in a number of red states, the GOP state gov't has received the federal funds for rent relief but the state is just sitting on all that money and not applying it to its purpose.
One of the local dance teachers describes herself as having been raised by hippies. She fondly remembered how they would go camping a lot, but after she grew up she came to realize that they were actually homeless at those times.
Government funded medical care; eg, Medicaid. Without it, the only medical care many people get is going to the emergency room, which means no preventive medical care. Since they cannot pay the medical bill from their ER visit, the hospital makes up for their losses by charging us that much more; ie, that is one of the causes of the US' ridiculously high cost of medical care.
The ACA (AKA "Obamacare") included Medicaid expansion and had provided the funding for that to the states, but many red state governors have refused to expand Medicaid and so are just sitting on that money. In the meantime, many hospitals in those states have been going out of business and closing, especially the ones in rural areas. And now with the pandemic, that loss is being felt very sharply, especially if their governor is one of those who are trying to get everybody sick. If they had gone with Medicaid expansion then many of those hospitals would have been able to stay in business and the people would have medical care available.
Do you remember when Tony Soprano got shot? The EMTs driving him to the hospital performed a "wallet biopsy", meaning that they looked in his wallet for medical insurance. Based on the results of that biopsy they decided with hospital to take him to.
OK, so what we find is real life is not zero-sum, but rather when others are able to prosper then we all can prosper. But then large segments of the population are poor, starving, homeless, have no medical care, etc, then we all suffer as a result.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 323 by Phat, posted 08-21-2021 12:40 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 331 by xongsmith, posted 08-22-2021 10:28 AM dwise1 has not replied
 Message 332 by Percy, posted 08-22-2021 1:04 PM dwise1 has not replied
 Message 590 by LamarkNewAge, posted 02-05-2022 3:31 PM dwise1 has not replied

  
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