I don't have a problem with black lives matter or feminism bring associated with the left. I don't find either cause evil or mutually exclusive to anything else. Black lives matter, black people would like to stop getting shot by police and arrested disproportionately, that's not so unreasonable is it? With feminism women want equal pay and to be treated with as much respect as men. What's the problem here? Are there some that take things too far, sure maybe. But there's some good points there too if you consider their points.
@smeagolheart The problem is again extremists and what the media likes to portray. When you have actual feminists fighting for equality and feminazis that simply want to be hateful and oppress the other gender as some kind of 'revenge' which do you think gets more attention? Or peaceful black lives matter protesters vs. individuals who murder cops in name of what is a cry for equality. In general people will associate a cause with the factions that make the most noise or the most controversy.
I think that's what happens with any movement. Opponents try to dismiss it by stereotyping it against something bad. With any protest you can forget it, they are paid protesters by George Soros. That's the first thing they say on Fox News.
It's up to individuals to look past stereotypes and stop giving into fear.
Anyone who's fairly educated about the subject can figure out that the psychopath that murdered a cop in the name of Black Lives Matter has in no way shape or form any affiliation with Black Lives Matter. His crime is the very antithesis of what Black Lives Matter stands for. Same goes for terrorist groups. ISIS is to Islam what the KKK is to Christianity--a violent, distorted version of the reality they hide behind.
It's when those people choose to remain uneducated, or choose to continue holding onto fear even after they've been shown the facts, that terror wins. That is how the powerful stay in power, by pitting us against each other and tricking us into thinking a cause for good--such as feminism--is really something bad or extreme. That is what deters progress.
Simply blaming the extremists isn't enough. It's the people who need to be willing to take the next step and stop falling into the trap of "See? This immigrant blew up a store, so all immigrants must be like this!!"
And it's easy to do, using the few bad to paint everyone of a group as the same. I've done it. Several people in this thread have done it, though I won't name names. It's okay to make that mistake. But what needs to come after, if you really want to see change in the world, is you have to be willing to listen. Not only listen, but believe what people from the other side are telling you, especially if it's a group you know nothing about. Millions of people didn't believe women were treated differently in the workforce until some guy decided to sign his female coworker's name at the end of all his emails and share his findings with the internet--even though women have been screaming our heads off that THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS for decades. Who knows more about Black Lives Matter, huh? The volunteer who's spending hours of their time organizing events, talking to people, marching in the streets...or you, some person who saw a nutjob on TV news attack Texas cops at a Black Lives Matter rally?
Always be skeptical. Always be vigilant. But at the end of the day, remember that those "whiny crybaby liberals" or those "redneck Trumphead crazies" are human beings too. They deserve the benefit of the doubt.
And what about left supported groups that do not have moderates such as Antifa? Well for now lets just take a look at the moderates of Black lives Matter...
I don't find either cause evil or mutually exclusive to anything else. Black lives matter, black people would like to stop getting shot by police and arrested disproportionately, that's not so unreasonable is it?
Unfortunately this is not all Black lives matter moderates want, their leaders also demand for racial segregation. BLM might as well be allies with the KKK who have been demanding racial segregation for years.
This is just one of the many insane Black Lives Matter objectives advocated by both moderates and extremists alike (and pandered to by the failed Hillary campaign). Even the peaceful BLM moderates in Tennessee demand the exclusion of white Caucasians from events. Moderates go as far as saying it's racist to not segregate people by race. Thank goodness no public building I can think of has given approval to these "moderates".
Black lives matter goes against everything Martin Luther King stood for. So it is no wonder some of the harshest BLM critics... are black and colored people (like myself).
Unfortunately this is not all Black lives matter moderates want, their leaders also demand for racial segregation. BLM might as well be allies with the KKK who have been demanding racial segregation for years.
This is just one of the many insane Black Lives Matter objectives advocated by both moderates and extremists alike (and pandered to by the failed Hillary campaign). Even the peaceful BLM moderates in Tennessee demand the exclusion of white Caucasians from events. Moderates go as far as saying it's racist to not segregate people by race. Thank goodness no public building I can think of has given approval to these "moderates".
What are you talking about?? What leaders?? What events?? I looked up and saw a story about one woman doing this at one event asking white protesters to move to the back of the crowd in the Daily Mail. And you know what, I'm even pretty inclined to give a pass on that because she could have very easily been trying to demonstrate a salient point: that Black people were LEGALLY REQUIRED to be in the back on everything for 100 years AFTER we got rid of slavery. I suppose it's pretty easy for some people to get riled up about this, but you want to know what it really is?? A ready-made excuse for anyone who brings it up to not have to discuss the the racial past of this country. What's far more outrageous than black students at colleges wanting their own identity groups is ignoring the historical reasons for why that's the case. I find one of the most annoying subtexts of all political discussions is this idea that the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow died after the Civil War and Civil Rights Act.
Hello, just got some pings that people mentioned me (love you guys even though we disagree).
Took a break because of Zelda and some discussions here were just repetitions from before so felt no need to repeat the same talking points of mine.
As to my views on recent events (kind of skimmed some points but didn't read all the back and forth).
Supreme Court Politically this was not a good win for the Democrats, the reality is that to the Republicans they consider Gorsuch a replacement for Scalia and so they would have moved heaven and hell to get Gorsuch through.
The end result of the lowering of the vote ceiling is that at least 2 (possibly 4 lol) Supreme Court Judges will retire in Trump's Presidency and with republicans controlling the majority it will make it easier to push Conservatives Judges creating a massive majority of Judges in the Supreme Court being Conservative.
Politically it would have been better if democrats saved their ammo for the next Judge replacement because Republicans would have got their Scalia replacement and the Democrats could negotiate with Trump to have a more left-centre leaning Judge to maintain balance in the Supreme Court and use the threat of filibuster as added leverage.
Syria This is complicated as hell, and I've been following the Syrian situation closely so bear with me.
There are a couple of points to consider. First in terms of chemical warfare this does indeed have special attention by the international community because chemical warfare has similar problems to Nuclear warfare (hard to clean up) but with the added danger of being potentially subtle (sometimes you have to wait generations to figure out something went on) and easier to deliver (to the point a random terrorist could do it). So just like Nukes, the International Community does not want a proliferation of Chemical Warfare because it will be like 'Letting the Genie out of the Bottle'.
Practically speaking, America does not want it nor would most major nations military want this because it would make it impossible to control and deter destruction. Conventional Warfare has been kind of based on the old model of nation military forces and this allows a modicum of control and deterrence because major destruction is determined by a centralized Force. If Chemical warfare proliferation and Terrorism becomes significant, No one can deter or control or minimize anything.
The real question is Why is Russia getting involves in Syria for so long? Their Economy is not great so expenditure of Military is dangerous, its such a highly volatile foreign territory that they enjoy very few support (Turkey pot-shotted them remember?)
The Reason is because Russia sell's most of their oil & Gas to Europe and they are choking saudi oil sales to Europe which artificially increases the price of Russian oil that Europe buys.
Is Russia and Assad interested in destroying ISIS? The answer is No (Though they don't want ISIS to be a regional power either).
The rationale of combating ISIS is the only reason Russia and Assad can use to legitimate remaining there or remaining in power, if ISIS were to be destroyed then 100% of the attention would be to remove Assad.
I explain all this to address the strangest thing in the entire thing.
Assad's Response to the strike was a promise they would work harder to remove ISIS. What a strange response, How do we explain this?
The external countries (except Iran) all want to remove Assad, Israel does, Egypt does, Jordan does etc. By forcing the attention from ISIS to Assad gassing civilians (ie not much better then ISIS) it scares Assad that he will lose the only excuse he has to remain there and that all these other countries will use the chemical attack as justification to suddenly unite and remove him.
So he says he is focusing on getting rid of ISIS even more.
America is playing a tightrope geopolitical game here, If Assad and Russia, even just as a show they are 'there for the right reasons' intensify their attacks on ISIS then America is essentially getting Russia to do most of the legwork to destroy ISIS.
Politically it would have been better if democrats saved their ammo for the next Judge replacement because Republicans would have got their Scalia replacement and the Democrats could negotiate with Trump to have a more left-centre leaning Judge to maintain balance in the Supreme Court and use the threat of filibuster as added leverage.
Welcome back.....but the Democrats saving their ammo for the next judge assumes the Republicans would have acted any differently if the Democrats had "let" them have this one, and nothing about the last 18 months suggests that is even remotely in the realm of realism. There is also a notion going around that this is "Scalia's Seat" and this it must be filled with someone who is ideologically similar. It's not. It WAS Obama's pick, but it was not "Scalia's Seat". It was one of nine seats Scalia happened to hold for decades.
The Reason is because Russia sell's most of their oil & Gas to Europe and they are choking saudi oil sales to Europe which artificially increases the price of Russian oil that Europe buys.
THIS is true. There is no real economy or national wealth outside of their oil as far as Russia is concerned. And Tillerson being put in as Secretary of State is to facilitate that as much of it gets on the global market as possible.
Welcome back.....but the Democrats saving their ammo for the next judge assumes the Republicans would have acted any differently if the Democrats had "let" them have this one, and nothing about the last 18 months suggests that is even remotely in the realm of realism. There is also a notion going around that this is "Scalia's Seat" and this it must be filled with someone who is ideologically similar. It's not. It WAS Obama's pick, but it was not "Scalia's Seat". It was one of nine seats Scalia happened to hold for decades.
It's true that thing's may not work out much better even under my stated scenario, But i believe there was more possibility of a better outcome then this one. Because the Republicans do consider Gorsuch as the replacement to Scalia (I don't really care about that sort of thinking) so they would have done everything they could to get Gorsuch in. The next Judges to retire will very likely be from the Democrat side and they could at least pose an argument to maintain balance by appointing another Democrat one.
It's a bad hand that the Democrats have been dealt with.
Of course if we lived in a better World Judges wouldn't have such political leanings that we have to have this sort of tug of war.
Welcome back.....but the Democrats saving their ammo for the next judge assumes the Republicans would have acted any differently if the Democrats had "let" them have this one, and nothing about the last 18 months suggests that is even remotely in the realm of realism. There is also a notion going around that this is "Scalia's Seat" and this it must be filled with someone who is ideologically similar. It's not. It WAS Obama's pick, but it was not "Scalia's Seat". It was one of nine seats Scalia happened to hold for decades.
It's true that thing's may not work out much better even under my stated scenario, But i believe there was more possibility of a better outcome then this one. Because the Republicans do consider Gorsuch as the replacement to Scalia (I don't really care about that sort of thinking) so they would have done everything they could to get Gorsuch in. The next Judges to retire will very likely be from the Democrat side and they could at least pose an argument to maintain balance by appointing another Democrat one.
It's a bad hand that the Democrats have been dealt with.
Of course if we lived in a better World Judges wouldn't have such political leanings that we have to have this sort of tug of war.
Republicans seeks out ideological judges. I'm not sure the average judge is a raging ideologue. But then again the average judge does not end up on a list from the Heritage Foundation that will be given to Trump to pick a judge from.
The hope Democrats have is to get a majority in 2018 and be able to simple majority stop any more nutso appointments by Trump. Even though most of the seats up for grabs are Democrats, the Presidents party often does poorly in midterms and the not alternative fact is that Trump's extremely unpopular. Hopefully independents, Democrats, and Republicans do something to put a stop after 2 yrs of this.
I have no personal problems with Gorsuch, as a Judge it seems his conduct has been pretty impeccable as the American Bar Association unanimously voted for him as Well Qualified for the Role.
Perhaps Trump's future choices will be bad, but this choice seems to be a good one.
I have no personal problems with Gorsuch, as a Judge it seems his conduct has been pretty impeccable as the American Bar Association unanimously voted for him as Well Qualified for the Role.
Perhaps Trump's future choices will be bad, but this choice seems to be a good one.
My concerns with Gorsuch are he seems to be a religious zealot. His record reflects a pattern of systematically privileging the rights of religious believers over those of religious minorities and nonbelievers. With Hobby Lobby he supported a company not providing birth control because some man running the place consider it a sin. That is not a good judge pushing his religion on people. I somehow doubt Gorsuch would support a muslim who wanted all the women to wear veils in the workplace because he thought it's a sin. Hypocrites all of them, keep your religion off the bench and make decisions based on the law and on logic please. And I'm also not a fan of his pro-corporate rulings. He was the only judge that ruled against the frozen trucker who was fired for not dying on the job. But this is ground we've already been over.
This is a guy who is going to be deciding cases about businesses that refuse to make cakes for gay couple and LGBTQZFA rights. This isn't a guy who will make those decisions impartially and fairly. I don't care what this organization or that says about him, this guy is not good for people - he's good for white Christians and for corporations. At any rate and to put things nicely, many people don't consider him a moderate by any stretch. So things would be better if Trump, assuming he isn't impeached and doesn't end up resigning in disgrace, were forced to nominate more moderate appointees.
numerous external and well-regarded judicial organization's have determined Gorsuch to be extremely well suited to be a Supreme Court judge.
I defer to their judgement since they would be the ones who analyze his judicial career and rulings.
With respect to your point of Hobby Lobby, It is lacking in context. Gorsuch didn't make the ruling, rather, he concurred with the Courts ruling and it was upheld in Supreme Court as well (So your criticism of Gorsuch would have to be extended to the Supreme Court).
The situation was that Obamacare forced companies to pay for birth control for their employee's, the courts considered this a violation.
I agree with this, no Government law should force companies to pay for someones contraceptive pills, even on basic principle I would oppose this.
That the companies owner was religious has no bearing on this overreach of Government.
Just because a lawful decision was made that happened to validate a religious person's civil complaint, is not proof of religious preference one way or the other.
I'm also leery of your comments that he is good for white Christians.
And that Black people were LEGALLY REQUIRED to be in the back on everything for 100 years AFTER we got rid of slavery. I suppose it's pretty easy for some people to get riled up about this, but you want to know what it really is?? A ready-made excuse for anyone who brings it up to not have to discuss the the racial past of this country.
It's old history though? The fact that leftists (ironically mostly white ones) keep bringing up African slavery as a point discussion is ridiculous. I can think of a hundred reasons why African Americans are "disadvantaged" and old slavery definitely is NOT one of them.
As far as racial history is concerned I find it far more sickening that forms of education including history and ancient history is being altered by PC leftist students, teachers and institutions to fit a false progressive, white-guilt narrative. Australian history for example we are force fed a narrative that aboriginals were all victims mistreated by the evil whites including an entire black generation stolen for cultural genocide.
This clearly isn't even remotely close to the whole truth but apparently the truth just isn't important to these progressive zealots as it just doesn't fit their politically correct agenda...
What are you talking about?? What leaders?? What events?? I looked up and saw a story about one woman doing this at one event asking white protesters to move to the back of the crowd in the Daily Mail.
Is it really that hard for you to find information about Black Lives Matter? Heck no wonder you support them >.>
I can't help but be inundated with Black Lives Matter info and propaganda. My only guess is the black-KKK seem to think I support their insane movement just because I am not white? Maybe members are just reluctant to tell you things according to your race? I honestly don't know... Regardless just look at the google hits in media and you will find hundreds of stories of BLM and information about their movement, history and chapter leaders.
On a side note my coloured cousin who is pro-BlacklivesMatter, pro-Antifa, pro-liberal, cop-hating and white-hating blocked me on facebook for clicking the [like] button to a conservative politician. The crimes he accused me of include "being too white" ...lol.
The real question is Why is Russia getting involves in Syria for so long? Their Economy is not great so expenditure of Military is dangerous, its such a highly volatile foreign territory that they enjoy very few support (Turkey pot-shotted them remember?)
The Reason is because Russia sell's most of their oil & Gas to Europe and they are choking saudi oil sales to Europe which artificially increases the price of Russian oil that Europe buys.
Don't forget that Assad and Putin are working together to destabilize Turkey--this is the real goal here. Turkey is still trying to get into NATO and Putin does not want NATO to become any stronger than it already is (admittedly it really isn't that strong, but any sort of united Europe means that they won't view Putin as some sort of protective older brother who occasionally also abuses you a little just to remind you that he could kick your butt if he wanted to).
Every President going back to Johnson--except Ford--has technically violated the Constitution re: using the military because of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the War Powers Act. The WPA (not the Works Progress Administration--that was an FDR New Deal agency) allows the President to authorize military action but he has to notify Congress within 48 hours and they can't remain in an active zone for more than 60 days unless Congress authorizes it (which they always do these days). That whole "only Congress can declare war, after which the President orders his military advisors to deploy the military etc" was too time-consuming and restrictive...but that is the same line of thought which ultimately gave Rome its Caesars (military dictators).
Now that Trump and Putin are apparently in a heated disagreement over Syria that should *prove* that Trump and Putin have absolutely nothing to gain from one another's Administrations, right? Right? I mean, it isn't like these events are conveniently timed or anything......
The Syrian civil war is an internal matter which needs to be solved internally or it will never be solved. Any outside influence will taint the outcome because whatever government emerges from the aftermath will be viewed a merely a puppet of whomever helped them win.
Finally, even though the news doesn't take the weekend off *I* do and I urge everyone else to do the same.
numerous external and well-regarded judicial organization's have determined Gorsuch to be extremely well suited to be a Supreme Court judge.
I defer to their judgement since they would be the ones who analyze his judicial career and rulings.
With respect to your point of Hobby Lobby, It is lacking in context. Gorsuch didn't make the ruling, rather, he concurred with the Courts ruling and it was upheld in Supreme Court as well (So your criticism of Gorsuch would have to be extended to the Supreme Court).
The situation was that Obamacare forced companies to pay for birth control for their employee's, the courts considered this a violation.
I agree with this, no Government law should force companies to pay for someones contraceptive pills, even on basic principle I would oppose this.
That the companies owner was religious has no bearing on this overreach of Government.
Just because a lawful decision was made that happened to validate a religious person's civil complaint, is not proof of religious preference one way or the other.
I'm also leery of your comments that he is good for white Christians.
The white christians is something of an assumption, admitedly I haven't heard any racist stuff about him, just kind of assuming it based on the "nobody's more racist than me" guy who nominated him. But the Christian part is on, which is exclusionary to those who are not.
Why do you think the government should not pay for birth control pills? I'm guessing you are not a woman, so what are you deciding for the other 50% of the human race? What basic principle is there?
To me, I could see it as a woman's health issue. A woman can have some measure of control of when she will get pregnant or not. I can see the viewpoint in resistance to abortion but birth control is helpful to stopping pregnancy in the first place, so then abortions wouldn't be needed later. So that's a good thing right? Also, I think healthcare should be a universal right so to me this is just part of that. My 2 cents.
On a side note my coloured cousin who is pro-BlacklivesMatter, pro-Antifa, pro-liberal, cop-hating and white-hating blocked me on facebook for clicking the [like] button to a conservative politician. The crimes he accused me of include "being too white" ...lol.
What are you talking about?? What leaders?? What events?? I looked up and saw a story about one woman doing this at one event asking white protesters to move to the back of the crowd in the Daily Mail.
Is it really that hard for you to find information about Black Lives Matter? ... Regardless just look at the google hits in media and you will find hundreds of stories of BLM and information about their movement, history and chapter leaders.
I've heard this sentiment elsewhere. Not about BLM, but about evidence. I've heard a lot of people say "I'm not going to do your homework for you" when people ask them to back up their claims. I think we should establish a basic standard for argumentation in this thread:
If somebody asks you for proof, it's your responsibility to provide your evidence for your argument.
Otherwise we'll end up with conversations like this:
"I think X is bad." "Prove it." "No, you prove I'm right!" "...What?"
And please bear in mind that Google will give different results for different people, because its algorithm tweaks the results to your browser history.
This United Airlines stuff brings up an issue that has long been ignored by the media. Any airline that overbooks flights should be subject to harsh punitive punishment and immediately open to lawsuits from everyone booked on that flight.
This United Airlines stuff brings up an issue that has long been ignored by the media. Any airline that overbooks flights should be subject to harsh punitive punishment and immediately open to lawsuits from everyone booked on that flight.
I just read that. It's like something out of the 1880's, back when corporations would hire "detective agencies" to murder and maim people they didn't like.
This United Airlines stuff brings up an issue that has long been ignored by the media. Any airline that overbooks flights should be subject to harsh punitive punishment and immediately open to lawsuits from everyone booked on that flight.
I just read that. It's like something out of the 1880's, back when corporations would hire "detective agencies" to murder and maim people they didn't like.
It speaks to two things: #1 corporations have become completely devoid of ANY human concerns and simply exist to funnel money into the hands of rich executives and #2 everyone in any sort of security position in this country now thinks they are in a Stallone movie and act like it. This is what you get when you militarize your police force, and it just trickles down from there, til every jackoff with a fake badge is on a powertrip channeling Rambo.
Edit: apparently this guy was a part of the Chicago PD airline police. Which should surprise no one. There isn't a single group of citizens in this country with more power (nearly unlimited) and who have to accept less responsibility for actions (basically none) than police officers.
The sad fact is, Americans have allowed this encroaching police state to fester and grow for one simple reason: they think it will never happen to them, only "those" people. Here's the sad truth: you are far more likely to have your rights violated by a police officer on any given day than to receive any kind of actual assistance. I can almost guarantee it will happen in some form or another to most people one day.
Edit: apparently this guy was a part of the Chicago PD airline police. Which should surprise no one. There isn't a single group of citizens in this country with more power (nearly unlimited) and who have to accept less responsibility for actions (basically none) than police officers.
From Snopes, not that it invalidates your point really:
The Chicago Police Department told us by phone that they were not involved in the incident, and the officers in the video were employees of the airport police department. The Chicago Department of Aviation sent us a brief statement by e-mail, saying one of the officers in the video was suspended:
The incident on United flight 3411 was not in accordance with our standard operating procedure and the actions of the aviation security officer are obviously not condoned by the Department. That officer has been placed on leave effective today pending a thorough review of the situation.
I agree with this, no Government law should force companies to pay for someones contraceptive pills, even on basic principle I would oppose this.
That the companies owner was religious has no bearing on this overreach of Government.
Just because a lawful decision was made that happened to validate a religious person's civil complaint, is not proof of religious preference one way or the other.
1. I have no problem with paying for women's contraceptive pills. Apparently they pay for men's Viagra. BOTH are also used off-label. You see how this "everybody pays in" works? 2. The argument that Hobby Lobby wasn't a religious ruling kind of falls apart when it was, in fact, decided based on a "freedom of religion" law that it was "substantially burdening Hobby Lobby's exercise of religion". Just typing that makes me want to hurl that we've descended this far that corporations now officially have religion. 3. And yet there are plenty of examples of people who want THEIR religion to be protected while OTHER religions are removed. Seriously, there is a SIZABLE percentage of people polling as conservatives/Republicans who are wanting a constitutional amendment to make Christianity the national religion. Hell, I just looked it up, and it's even worse than I remember, 57%. I thought it was ~26% although that was back in 2014. I was actually going to go with Alabama State Amendment 1 to go with "no foreign law will be accepted" back 3 years ago when sharia law was the latest fearmongering. As pointed out by various people at the time, that would include going against the Bible when it violates constitutional rights in their efforts to ensure that "foreign and international law" (Read: sharia law) didn't get a foothold in America.
Hobby Lobby was not about religion in the same way all those people lining up to eat at Chick-fil-A after their controversy didn't have a problem with gay people.
The argument and scare tactics of this Hobby ruling and focusing on Christianity is one of the sadder and clear cut cases where looking at the context clarifies things.
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) which was held higher then Obamacare, was created specifically for the situation of Native American's (Not Christians) and their ability to practice their culture against Government encroachment of their land, the Act expanded to 'All religions are protected' so Native Americans could be covered.
It is one of the few cases where both Leftists and Conservatives banded together and supported this Act against the Government (again dispelling the absurd stereotypes of both sides).
The Supreme Court as a general guideline has ruled that Religious practices cannot be violated by Statutory law unless a Higher law (ie ones falling under Justice) or a very clear, strict and heavy Government Interest is allowable to offset the burden of the claimant.
In their Ruling (prior to this case) the Supreme Court upheld and as precedent that the courts should strive for the 'least damaging ruling' to any conflict between Government interest and civil liberties.
In this case, it was decided (in my view correctly) that the Governments interest of providing health-care was not sufficient in this case of forcing companies to pay for peoples contraceptives against violating civil liberties because contraceptives is often used for recreational purposes and alternative courses of action are completely possible to satisfy both Government and civil liberties (In this case Government should either redo their passage or absorb the cost themselves).
In addedum to this, the Supreme Court noted that Obamacare already allowed non-profit Organizations to exempt themselves on religious grounds, and that there is no compelling reason why this should not be applied to profit-organizations under the rule of equity.
So if you read the rulings and Gorsuch, It had nothing to do with preferencing a religion but clearly upholding prior precedent on how to rule on Civil liberties vs Government Interest.
Comments
Anyone who's fairly educated about the subject can figure out that the psychopath that murdered a cop in the name of Black Lives Matter has in no way shape or form any affiliation with Black Lives Matter. His crime is the very antithesis of what Black Lives Matter stands for. Same goes for terrorist groups. ISIS is to Islam what the KKK is to Christianity--a violent, distorted version of the reality they hide behind.
It's when those people choose to remain uneducated, or choose to continue holding onto fear even after they've been shown the facts, that terror wins. That is how the powerful stay in power, by pitting us against each other and tricking us into thinking a cause for good--such as feminism--is really something bad or extreme. That is what deters progress.
Simply blaming the extremists isn't enough. It's the people who need to be willing to take the next step and stop falling into the trap of "See? This immigrant blew up a store, so all immigrants must be like this!!"
And it's easy to do, using the few bad to paint everyone of a group as the same. I've done it. Several people in this thread have done it, though I won't name names. It's okay to make that mistake. But what needs to come after, if you really want to see change in the world, is you have to be willing to listen. Not only listen, but believe what people from the other side are telling you, especially if it's a group you know nothing about. Millions of people didn't believe women were treated differently in the workforce until some guy decided to sign his female coworker's name at the end of all his emails and share his findings with the internet--even though women have been screaming our heads off that THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS for decades. Who knows more about Black Lives Matter, huh? The volunteer who's spending hours of their time organizing events, talking to people, marching in the streets...or you, some person who saw a nutjob on TV news attack Texas cops at a Black Lives Matter rally?
Always be skeptical. Always be vigilant. But at the end of the day, remember that those "whiny crybaby liberals" or those "redneck Trumphead crazies" are human beings too. They deserve the benefit of the doubt.
(...Except nazis, because f*ck those guys.)
This is just one of the many insane Black Lives Matter objectives advocated by both moderates and extremists alike (and pandered to by the failed Hillary campaign). Even the peaceful BLM moderates in Tennessee demand the exclusion of white Caucasians from events. Moderates go as far as saying it's racist to not segregate people by race. Thank goodness no public building I can think of has given approval to these "moderates".
Black lives matter goes against everything Martin Luther King stood for. So it is no wonder some of the harshest BLM critics... are black and colored people (like myself).
This is just one of the many insane Black Lives Matter objectives advocated by both moderates and extremists alike (and pandered to by the failed Hillary campaign). Even the peaceful BLM moderates in Tennessee demand the exclusion of white Caucasians from events. Moderates go as far as saying it's racist to not segregate people by race. Thank goodness no public building I can think of has given approval to these "moderates".
What are you talking about?? What leaders?? What events?? I looked up and saw a story about one woman doing this at one event asking white protesters to move to the back of the crowd in the Daily Mail. And you know what, I'm even pretty inclined to give a pass on that because she could have very easily been trying to demonstrate a salient point: that Black people were LEGALLY REQUIRED to be in the back on everything for 100 years AFTER we got rid of slavery. I suppose it's pretty easy for some people to get riled up about this, but you want to know what it really is?? A ready-made excuse for anyone who brings it up to not have to discuss the the racial past of this country. What's far more outrageous than black students at colleges wanting their own identity groups is ignoring the historical reasons for why that's the case. I find one of the most annoying subtexts of all political discussions is this idea that the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow died after the Civil War and Civil Rights Act.
Took a break because of Zelda and some discussions here were just repetitions from before so felt no need to repeat the same talking points of mine.
As to my views on recent events (kind of skimmed some points but didn't read all the back and forth).
Supreme Court
Politically this was not a good win for the Democrats, the reality is that to the Republicans they consider Gorsuch a replacement for Scalia and so they would have moved heaven and hell to get Gorsuch through.
The end result of the lowering of the vote ceiling is that at least 2 (possibly 4 lol) Supreme Court Judges will retire in Trump's Presidency and with republicans controlling the majority it will make it easier to push Conservatives Judges creating a massive majority of Judges in the Supreme Court being Conservative.
Politically it would have been better if democrats saved their ammo for the next Judge replacement because Republicans would have got their Scalia replacement and the Democrats could negotiate with Trump to have a more left-centre leaning Judge to maintain balance in the Supreme Court and use the threat of filibuster as added leverage.
This is complicated as hell, and I've been following the Syrian situation closely so bear with me.
There are a couple of points to consider.
First in terms of chemical warfare this does indeed have special attention by the international community because chemical warfare has similar problems to Nuclear warfare (hard to clean up) but with the added danger of being potentially subtle (sometimes you have to wait generations to figure out something went on) and easier to deliver (to the point a random terrorist could do it).
So just like Nukes, the International Community does not want a proliferation of Chemical Warfare because it will be like 'Letting the Genie out of the Bottle'.
Practically speaking, America does not want it nor would most major nations military want this because it would make it impossible to control and deter destruction.
Conventional Warfare has been kind of based on the old model of nation military forces and this allows a modicum of control and deterrence because major destruction is determined by a centralized Force.
If Chemical warfare proliferation and Terrorism becomes significant, No one can deter or control or minimize anything.
The real question is Why is Russia getting involves in Syria for so long? Their Economy is not great so expenditure of Military is dangerous, its such a highly volatile foreign territory that they enjoy very few support (Turkey pot-shotted them remember?)
The Reason is because Russia sell's most of their oil & Gas to Europe and they are choking saudi oil sales to Europe which artificially increases the price of Russian oil that Europe buys.
Is Russia and Assad interested in destroying ISIS? The answer is No (Though they don't want ISIS to be a regional power either).
The rationale of combating ISIS is the only reason Russia and Assad can use to legitimate remaining there or remaining in power, if ISIS were to be destroyed then 100% of the attention would be to remove Assad.
I explain all this to address the strangest thing in the entire thing.
Assad's Response to the strike was a promise they would work harder to remove ISIS.
What a strange response, How do we explain this?
The external countries (except Iran) all want to remove Assad, Israel does, Egypt does, Jordan does etc.
By forcing the attention from ISIS to Assad gassing civilians (ie not much better then ISIS) it scares Assad that he will lose the only excuse he has to remain there and that all these other countries will use the chemical attack as justification to suddenly unite and remove him.
So he says he is focusing on getting rid of ISIS even more.
America is playing a tightrope geopolitical game here, If Assad and Russia, even just as a show they are 'there for the right reasons' intensify their attacks on ISIS then America is essentially getting Russia to do most of the legwork to destroy ISIS.
Welcome back.....but the Democrats saving their ammo for the next judge assumes the Republicans would have acted any differently if the Democrats had "let" them have this one, and nothing about the last 18 months suggests that is even remotely in the realm of realism. There is also a notion going around that this is "Scalia's Seat" and this it must be filled with someone who is ideologically similar. It's not. It WAS Obama's pick, but it was not "Scalia's Seat". It was one of nine seats Scalia happened to hold for decades.
The Reason is because Russia sell's most of their oil & Gas to Europe and they are choking saudi oil sales to Europe which artificially increases the price of Russian oil that Europe buys.
THIS is true. There is no real economy or national wealth outside of their oil as far as Russia is concerned. And Tillerson being put in as Secretary of State is to facilitate that as much of it gets on the global market as possible.
Because the Republicans do consider Gorsuch as the replacement to Scalia (I don't really care about that sort of thinking) so they would have done everything they could to get Gorsuch in.
The next Judges to retire will very likely be from the Democrat side and they could at least pose an argument to maintain balance by appointing another Democrat one.
It's a bad hand that the Democrats have been dealt with.
Of course if we lived in a better World Judges wouldn't have such political leanings that we have to have this sort of tug of war.
The hope Democrats have is to get a majority in 2018 and be able to simple majority stop any more nutso appointments by Trump. Even though most of the seats up for grabs are Democrats, the Presidents party often does poorly in midterms and the not alternative fact is that Trump's extremely unpopular. Hopefully independents, Democrats, and Republicans do something to put a stop after 2 yrs of this.
Perhaps Trump's future choices will be bad, but this choice seems to be a good one.
This is a guy who is going to be deciding cases about businesses that refuse to make cakes for gay couple and LGBTQZFA rights. This isn't a guy who will make those decisions impartially and fairly. I don't care what this organization or that says about him, this guy is not good for people - he's good for white Christians and for corporations. At any rate and to put things nicely, many people don't consider him a moderate by any stretch. So things would be better if Trump, assuming he isn't impeached and doesn't end up resigning in disgrace, were forced to nominate more moderate appointees.
I defer to their judgement since they would be the ones who analyze his judicial career and rulings.
With respect to your point of Hobby Lobby, It is lacking in context.
Gorsuch didn't make the ruling, rather, he concurred with the Courts ruling and it was upheld in Supreme Court as well (So your criticism of Gorsuch would have to be extended to the Supreme Court).
The situation was that Obamacare forced companies to pay for birth control for their employee's, the courts considered this a violation.
I agree with this, no Government law should force companies to pay for someones contraceptive pills, even on basic principle I would oppose this.
That the companies owner was religious has no bearing on this overreach of Government.
Just because a lawful decision was made that happened to validate a religious person's civil complaint, is not proof of religious preference one way or the other.
I'm also leery of your comments that he is good for white Christians.
The fact that leftists (ironically mostly white ones) keep bringing up African slavery as a point discussion is ridiculous. I can think of a hundred reasons why African Americans are "disadvantaged" and old slavery definitely is NOT one of them.
As far as racial history is concerned I find it far more sickening that forms of education including history and ancient history is being altered by PC leftist students, teachers and institutions to fit a false progressive, white-guilt narrative. Australian history for example we are force fed a narrative that aboriginals were all victims mistreated by the evil whites including an entire black generation stolen for cultural genocide.
This clearly isn't even remotely close to the whole truth but apparently the truth just isn't important to these progressive zealots as it just doesn't fit their politically correct agenda...
I can't help but be inundated with Black Lives Matter info and propaganda. My only guess is the black-KKK seem to think I support their insane movement just because I am not white? Maybe members are just reluctant to tell you things according to your race? I honestly don't know... Regardless just look at the google hits in media and you will find hundreds of stories of BLM and information about their movement, history and chapter leaders.
On a side note my coloured cousin who is pro-BlacklivesMatter, pro-Antifa, pro-liberal, cop-hating and white-hating blocked me on facebook for clicking the [like] button to a conservative politician. The crimes he accused me of include "being too white" ...lol.
Every President going back to Johnson--except Ford--has technically violated the Constitution re: using the military because of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the War Powers Act. The WPA (not the Works Progress Administration--that was an FDR New Deal agency) allows the President to authorize military action but he has to notify Congress within 48 hours and they can't remain in an active zone for more than 60 days unless Congress authorizes it (which they always do these days). That whole "only Congress can declare war, after which the President orders his military advisors to deploy the military etc" was too time-consuming and restrictive...but that is the same line of thought which ultimately gave Rome its Caesars (military dictators).
Now that Trump and Putin are apparently in a heated disagreement over Syria that should *prove* that Trump and Putin have absolutely nothing to gain from one another's Administrations, right? Right? I mean, it isn't like these events are conveniently timed or anything......
The Syrian civil war is an internal matter which needs to be solved internally or it will never be solved. Any outside influence will taint the outcome because whatever government emerges from the aftermath will be viewed a merely a puppet of whomever helped them win.
Finally, even though the news doesn't take the weekend off *I* do and I urge everyone else to do the same.
Why do you think the government should not pay for birth control pills? I'm guessing you are not a woman, so what are you deciding for the other 50% of the human race? What basic principle is there?
To me, I could see it as a woman's health issue. A woman can have some measure of control of when she will get pregnant or not. I can see the viewpoint in resistance to abortion but birth control is helpful to stopping pregnancy in the first place, so then abortions wouldn't be needed later. So that's a good thing right? Also, I think healthcare should be a universal right so to me this is just part of that. My 2 cents.
Except for the sunburns. Those kinda suck. I've heard this sentiment elsewhere. Not about BLM, but about evidence. I've heard a lot of people say "I'm not going to do your homework for you" when people ask them to back up their claims. I think we should establish a basic standard for argumentation in this thread:
If somebody asks you for proof, it's your responsibility to provide your evidence for your argument.
Otherwise we'll end up with conversations like this:
"I think X is bad."
"Prove it."
"No, you prove I'm right!"
"...What?"
And please bear in mind that Google will give different results for different people, because its algorithm tweaks the results to your browser history.
It ain't just other people that live in a bubble.
Here's how Delta and most other airlines handle it:
Why Delta Air Lines Paid Me $11,000 Not To Fly To Florida This Weekend
Just raise the offer until you get enough seats.
Edit: apparently this guy was a part of the Chicago PD airline police. Which should surprise no one. There isn't a single group of citizens in this country with more power (nearly unlimited) and who have to accept less responsibility for actions (basically none) than police officers.
The sad fact is, Americans have allowed this encroaching police state to fester and grow for one simple reason: they think it will never happen to them, only "those" people. Here's the sad truth: you are far more likely to have your rights violated by a police officer on any given day than to receive any kind of actual assistance. I can almost guarantee it will happen in some form or another to most people one day.
The incident on United flight 3411 was not in accordance with our standard operating procedure and the actions of the aviation security officer are obviously not condoned by the Department. That officer has been placed on leave effective today pending a thorough review of the situation.
2. The argument that Hobby Lobby wasn't a religious ruling kind of falls apart when it was, in fact, decided based on a "freedom of religion" law that it was "substantially burdening Hobby Lobby's exercise of religion". Just typing that makes me want to hurl that we've descended this far that corporations now officially have religion.
3. And yet there are plenty of examples of people who want THEIR religion to be protected while OTHER religions are removed. Seriously, there is a SIZABLE percentage of people polling as conservatives/Republicans who are wanting a constitutional amendment to make Christianity the national religion. Hell, I just looked it up, and it's even worse than I remember, 57%. I thought it was ~26% although that was back in 2014. I was actually going to go with Alabama State Amendment 1 to go with "no foreign law will be accepted" back 3 years ago when sharia law was the latest fearmongering. As pointed out by various people at the time, that would include going against the Bible when it violates constitutional rights in their efforts to ensure that "foreign and international law" (Read: sharia law) didn't get a foothold in America.
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) which was held higher then Obamacare, was created specifically for the situation of Native American's (Not Christians) and their ability to practice their culture against Government encroachment of their land, the Act expanded to 'All religions are protected' so Native Americans could be covered.
It is one of the few cases where both Leftists and Conservatives banded together and supported this Act against the Government (again dispelling the absurd stereotypes of both sides).
The Supreme Court as a general guideline has ruled that Religious practices cannot be violated by Statutory law unless a Higher law (ie ones falling under Justice) or a very clear, strict and heavy Government Interest is allowable to offset the burden of the claimant.
In their Ruling (prior to this case) the Supreme Court upheld and as precedent that the courts should strive for the 'least damaging ruling' to any conflict between Government interest and civil liberties.
In this case, it was decided (in my view correctly) that the Governments interest of providing health-care was not sufficient in this case of forcing companies to pay for peoples contraceptives against violating civil liberties because contraceptives is often used for recreational purposes and alternative courses of action are completely possible to satisfy both Government and civil liberties (In this case Government should either redo their passage or absorb the cost themselves).
In addedum to this, the Supreme Court noted that Obamacare already allowed non-profit Organizations to exempt themselves on religious grounds, and that there is no compelling reason why this should not be applied to profit-organizations under the rule of equity.
So if you read the rulings and Gorsuch, It had nothing to do with preferencing a religion but clearly upholding prior precedent on how to rule on Civil liberties vs Government Interest.