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The Next President is...


disgruntledemployee

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2 hours ago, drewpey said:

Maybe, maybe not, but just because you have an extremely narrow worldview because "I hired poor people" doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist and enacting laws like this won't make the problem worse.

 

Or perhaps its the hard bigotry of trying to enact laws to increasingly marginalize the poorest of our community?

Again you are all trying to solve a problem you can't even prove exists.  There should be few barriers to voting, particularly for those less fortunate.  Rich peoples' interests are already overrepresented by congress, and the poorest amongst us on either side of the aisle need their voices heard the most.

If you want to solve a problem, lets look into the rules of how states purge voter rolls making people ineligible to vote, or the intentional slowing the delivery of mail in ballots, or the disproportionately few polling stations in poor neighborhoods, or the last minute closing of polling locations, or the fake ballot drop boxes installed, or the robocalls telling voters not to vote, or people electioneering near polling places?  There is ample evidence of all these things happening every election yet you don't care about that...why is that?

I have "an extremely narrow worldview"? How would you know that? That's an actual quote from you versus the false quote from me you posted. 

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24 minutes ago, arg said:

I have "an extremely narrow worldview"? How would you know that? That's an actual quote from you versus the false quote from me you posted. 

Well you demonstrated in your previous comment that you haven't been or known legitimately poor people or their way of life.  Your only way to "relate" to the topic at hand was to tell us a story of how you hired some poor people once to work on your property, and they probably had licenses because they drove a car.  It's an amazingly tone-deaf story.

The fact of the matter is the republican party is dieing and the only way they can remain relevant is to gerrymander and raise barriers to voters to drive down participation.  If you actually cared about securing our elections you would have passed any of the bills sent to McConnell over the last several years to provide funding to secure our systems, or working to get rid of voting machines with no auditable paper trail, etc.  But you don't, you only care about chipping away at the voter base and trying to turn over legitimate votes by dubious lawsuits.

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12 hours ago, brabus said:

Man, you guys are ridiculous. “Because I’ve never personally seen X” is an incredibly stupid way to make a case. This thread (and elsewhere) is full of this bullshit notion; how about you guys acknowledge a shitload of things exist, occur, etc. in ways you haven’t personally experienced because such a thing would be impossible, as you haven’t lived in every square inch of the world, the U.S., etc.

Directly to your specific point on this subject, here’s a decent overview:

https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id.aspx

My personal experience - I’ve voted in three states that don’t require a photo ID. In one of those states there is literally nothing done beyond verifying the name I stated is on the registered voter list (checked at the time by the volunteer sitting at the check in table). Yeah, it happened...in the last 3 elections I’ve voted in (local/state and federal).

Parting shot to emphasize the point - do you disbelieve one of your airman’s claims of rape because you’ve never experienced it or seen it happen first hand? Yeah, that’s exactly how stupid your above comment comes off. And even worse, you’re not the only one in this camp.

 

Here let me translate:
 

“My argument is pretty weak and I’m really quibbing over finding a solution to a problem that only had a small amount of documented verified claims in the past 20 years. Here’s an emotionally charged comment that has nothing to do to support my argument.”

Oh, and before you ask, I went to Georgetown for grad school, since I guess you find that important.

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I agree that it is a weird, mainly unfounded, dem talking point to say that  requiring a voter ID is racist. There just really isn’t data to support that claim. Even Jimmy Carter headed a study back in 2005 that concluded that, while the actual tangible benefits of requiring IDs may be low, it would still be worth it from a “trust in the system” perspective, and it would not likely significantly affect voting turnout.


Just phase in the law over 4 years and be done with it. It would probably help improve society’s perception of election integrity at a minimal cost.

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6 hours ago, Negatory said:

I agree that it is a weird, mainly unfounded, dem talking point to say that  requiring a voter ID is racist. There just really isn’t data to support that claim. Even Jimmy Carter headed a study back in 2005 that concluded that, while the actual tangible benefits of requiring IDs may be low, it would still be worth it from a “trust in the system” perspective, and it would not likely significantly affect voting turnout.


Just phase in the law over 4 years and be done with it. It would probably help improve society’s perception of election integrity at a minimal cost.

So now it's not about actual security, we are going to create more barriers to voting to make fragile voters feel better?

If we want people to feel better about the security of their elections, we should do things that...get this...actually secure our elections.  We can't pander to every fragile voter because they are sad about the way an election went and refuse to accept the evidence laid before them.

Again there is a long list of things that will actually improve security, start with those otherwise people will just assume you are legislating in bad faith and trying to limit the voting pool.

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It turns out that, due to the American court system, conspiracy theory propaganda has a limit. Newsmax and Fox News collapsed at the threat of a lawsuit and clarified that the voting machine conspiracy theories postulated on their programs have no basis in fact. Stop supporting those who would lie and mislead, regardless of political affiliation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/business/media/smartmatic-lawsuit-fox-news-newsmax-oan.html

 

 

Edited by Majestik Møøse
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27 minutes ago, Majestik Møøse said:

It turns out that, due to the American court system, conspiracy theory propaganda has a limit. Newsmax and Fox News collapsed at the threat of a lawsuit and clarified that the voting machine conspiracy theories postulated on their programs have no basis in fact. Stop supporting those who would lie and mislead, regardless of political affiliation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/business/media/smartmatic-lawsuit-fox-news-newsmax-oan.html

 

 

Hence why best to just not trust journalist, politicians, or corporate spokes people of any affiliation. 

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10 minutes ago, drewpey said:

Also important to be able to identify true journalism and not junk entertainment.

Doesn't make a difference to me. It's all junk. You just have to know what that publication is junk for and read between the lines. 

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It goes without saying that Sim would only post extremely biased, out of context, bullshit. But I went through the trouble of figuring out what was manipulated, so I might as well share it.

The context that’s missing is that, immediately before this clip starts, he says “If we can not make significant progress on racial equity, this country is doomed...” He’s saying the country is doomed if the growing minority groups continue to be treated unfairly, and they need to work together if they want to fix it.

If you want to check, watch the whole video. This is at ~1:14:30

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11 hours ago, Negatory said:

The context that’s missing is that, immediately before this clip starts, he says “If we can not make significant progress on racial equity, this country is doomed...” He’s saying the country is doomed if the growing minority groups continue to be treated unfairly, and they need to work together if they want to fix it.

That is not what "equity" means. It has nothing to do with "fair treatment".

Equity means "equality of outcome".

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1 hour ago, Sim said:

Low effort screed.  Why when someone of color is put into a position the assumption becomes that they do not meet the requisites for the job?  Haven't the last 4 years shown that the bar for political offices are embarrassingly low anyways?

Also, I'm glad the right has woken up and started actually examining qualifications of nominations now. We don't want any green judges to get lifetime appointments, or a defense contractor exec the SEFDEF.  That would be pretty embarrassing.

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2 hours ago, Kiloalpha said:

Agreed, links and a sentence don’t do much to foster conversation. Then again, the same people in here keep having the same debate so... maybe he’s onto something.

1) When someone is primarily selected for any reason other than competence (making the cabinet look like America is the goal, not the best qualified cabinet) then they’re automatically under scrutiny. It’s just human nature. If we started sending pilots to Weapons School based on their hair color, I’m pretty sure people would instantly assume they weren’t the brightest cherry in the bunch. This isn’t a race argument, that’s just the metric D’s want to use for screening.

However, this is Biden’s gig. If you think Kamala Harris is the best qualified VP simply due to her being a “female of color” then you’re going to think picking anyone who isn’t white is a great plan.

2) Hate to break it to you... but American history didn’t begin in 2016. There were incompetent appointments in D and R administrations prior, and there will be some moving forward. But this goal of picking an entire cabinet based on their race first is a new one, so it deserves scrutiny.

Btw, you’re getting better at not saying “But Trump!” directly. Glad to see Trump Derangement Syndrome is finally wearing off a bit. 😂

I didn't really disdain Esper. He honestly made a lot of decent changes; and the dude wasn't unqualified. He was an Army officer for over a decade, and took his skills to the worlds largest defense supplier. Given that the US war machine runs on industry, this isn't a terrible perspective to hold.

So many people acted like just because he was a Boeing exec he was going to sell out, but the dude never resigned the rank of Major. Are people on here really so jaded that they believe once an officer separates they can't be professional enough to resume their Hippocratic duties if they ever return to the government fold? 

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On 12/23/2020 at 9:58 AM, slackline said:


https://www.dictionary.com/browse/equity

“the quality of being fair or impartial”

Maybe I’m misunderstanding the point you’re tying to make.

You are.

It isn't about the dictionary definition of equity. 

Just as how the social justice crowd has re-defined "racism" to hinge on power, "equity" has been re-defined to mean equality of outcome, usually with respect to money but also frequently with respect to social power.   So, when the term is used in the context of that video, they are talking about social power, and not fair treatment in front of the law.

It is a loaded codeword that is intended to sound like "equality" to those not paying attention.

This new definition is used commonly in the social science sphere.

Here's what Bret Weinstein, a self-identified progressive university professor says about equity:

Quote

Nobody's going to define the term equity for you. Do you know why? Because it's not a word. Equity to most of us is supposed to be a word. It has a definition and it has a lot to do with equality. But because this is effectively a plan for rapidly gaining power for effectively transferring power and wellbeing from one population to another, the term must never be defined.

What you will get are examples. If we had equity, it would look like X and so you'll be given an example that seems like nobody could oppose it. There's a cartoon you will see circulated with kids looking at a baseball game, and there's a short kid and a medium-height kid and a tall kid. The short kid can't see the game and the medium kid is on his toes looking over the fence and the tall kid can see it. Then, there are some boxes and there's a distribution of the boxes that renders everybody able to see the game. Who could oppose that?

But what is implied is false. What they really want is to turn the tables of oppression, and it's not even the real tables of oppression. They want to turn the imagined tables of oppression so that those who were privileged are now subordinate and those who were, in their own minds, most oppressed, will be the most well resourced and powerful. If they were honest about that, nobody would listen. It's obviously a preposterous plan.

 

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25 minutes ago, Hacker said:

You are.

It isn't about the dictionary definition of equity. 

Just as how the social justice crowd has re-defined "racism" to hinge on power, "equity" has been re-defined to mean equality of outcome, usually with respect to money but also frequently with respect to social power.   So, when the term is used in the context of that video, they are talking about social power, and not fair treatment in front of the law.

It is a loaded codeword that is intended to sound like "equality" to those not paying attention.

This new definition is used commonly in the social science sphere.

Here's what Bret Weinstein, a self-identified progressive university professor says about equity:

 

This seems to be the biggest disconnect in the conversation these days. Well-intentioned liberal voters are unaware of the the doctrine being espoused by the "intellectuals" driving their party. Makes the conversation difficult when the conservatives are more knowledgeable of what the progressives are pushing than the liberal voter engaged in the discussion. 

 

Another common retort is that such terminology and the associated arguments represent the crazy fringe of the party. But I don't think it's fair to argue that Ta'-Nehisi Coates, Robin DiAngelo, or Ibram X. Kendi are "fringe" anymore. They are thought leaders being quoted at the highest levels of power.

 

So when a liberal cites the dictionary, it demonstrates immediately that they don't even know what "their side" is preaching.

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1 hour ago, Lord Ratner said:

This seems to be the biggest disconnect in the conversation these days. Well-intentioned liberal voters are unaware of the the doctrine being espoused by the "intellectuals" driving their party. Makes the conversation difficult when the conservatives are more knowledgeable of what the progressives are pushing than the liberal voter engaged in the discussion. 

 

Another common retort is that such terminology and the associated arguments represent the crazy fringe of the party. But I don't think it's fair to argue that Ta'-Nehisi Coates, Robin DiAngelo, or Ibram X. Kendi are "fringe" anymore. They are thought leaders being quoted at the highest levels of power.

 

So when a liberal cites the dictionary, it demonstrates immediately that they don't even know what "their side" is preaching.

So you argue that this is "mainstream", yet we "don't even know" what our side wants...?  I'm not sure you understand mainstream.  People with a book deal or twitter account does not translate to being the "thought leader".  I'm sure we could drum up some terrifying examples of "thought leaders" for the right, but that doesn't do anyone any good.

People can use whatever terminology they want, but we just want folks to be treated equally.  That actually polls quite well, so the right has to highlight these caricatures of progressivists to terrify conservatives from approaching reasonable and popular ideas.

We like to act like all democrats are super SJWs and want to cancel Christmas, but I have yet to ever meet this caricature.  I'm sure one day I will, but generally they are few and far between and most of us are not the extremists we are made out to be and just feel that the rich and corporations don't pull their weight and the government could adjust the scales a bit to help out the less fortunate, particularly if in the long run it would likely make fiscal sense.

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2 hours ago, drewpey said:

So you argue that this is "mainstream", yet we "don't even know" what our side wants...?  I'm not sure you understand mainstream.  People with a book deal or twitter account does not translate to being the "thought leader".  I'm sure we could drum up some terrifying examples of "thought leaders" for the right, but that doesn't do anyone any good.

People can use whatever terminology they want, but we just want folks to be treated equally.  That actually polls quite well, so the right has to highlight these caricatures of progressivists to terrify conservatives from approaching reasonable and popular ideas.

We like to act like all democrats are super SJWs and want to cancel Christmas, but I have yet to ever meet this caricature.  I'm sure one day I will, but generally they are few and far between and most of us are not the extremists we are made out to be and just feel that the rich and corporations don't pull their weight and the government could adjust the scales a bit to help out the less fortunate, particularly if in the long run it would likely make fiscal sense.

Well, thank you for proving my point.

 

I didn't say mainstream, specifically. And in fact I made it pretty obvious that I don't think all Democrats are SJW lunatics. So, let's stick with what I did say.

 

The ideological engine of the party (not the voters) is being driven by exactly these types of lunatics. That you are unaware of them is irrelevant. They are *everywhere* in academia, politics, media, and especially big tech companies. While you go on with your life, blissfully unaware, they are whispering in the ears off those making the decisions. Critical race theory, anti-racism, equity... There are a ton of pseudo-intellectual theories that are gaining traction. You shrug them off because you're a rational human, but this curriculum is being taught in classrooms and boardrooms across the nation, and many people are buying the dogma. Again, regardless of your ignorance to the philosophy.

 

White Fragility has been a Best Seller for over a year. That's not fringe. Read it and tell me it's not the most insane shit you've ever read. Yet, it's definitely relevant on the institutional left.

 

So, exactly like I said in my post, liberal voters don't know what their own party is espousing. There's no conservative equivalent right now. If Richard Spencer was making huge book deals and having his lectures quoted by sitting senators and presidential candidates, I'd agree with you. But that's not what's happening.

 

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