Actually the stories about that are disinformation in and of themselves. Her proposals were dealing STRICTLY with people spreading lies about how and where people can vote. For instance, the longstanding GOP practice of distributing flyers on cars in urban neighborhoods telling people they will be arrested if they show up to the polls. Or deliberately advertising Election Day as the wrong date to suppress turnout.
Schiff is *still* whining and crying about how it isn't right to have a trial without witnesses. You just don't get it, do you, Adam? The *House* should have called witnesses then waited for the courts to enforce the subpoenas. You lost...and now you are just whining because you lost.
Or perhaps he's just trying to make people understand how odd this decision is - and think for themselves why it's been made.
In traditions based on English law, saying "no witnesses will be heard at this trial" seems very odd - and it is very odd, in the sense of being highly unusual. According to the Senate's potted history of impeachment, there have been 19 impeachment trials prior to this one - and all of those included witness testimony. The rules of the Senate on impeachment were last updated in 1986 and have numerous references to witnesses and hearing testimony. One notable change to those rules, in 1934, was to allow evidence to be presented to a Committee to avoid the entire Senate being disrupted for the period required to hear that evidence. It's true the rules do not say there must be witnesses called, but you wouldn't expect that - it's conceivable there could be cases in which witness testimony is irrelevant.
The argument put by Alexander in Trump's case is in fact that witness testimony is irrelevant, although the reasoning behind that is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the President (Trump's guilt is so obvious it would be a waste of time producing more evidence to confirm that).
This is just like Merrick Garland. Mitch McConnell had every right to have his caucus vote him down, and continue to vote down subsequent Obama picks. But they didn't do that. They wouldn't even entertain the idea that Obama had the right to nominate anyone at all, thus they never even allowed him to face set of hearings to determine his qualifications.
Here, everyone knows they will acquit Trump even if it comes out he bathes in the blood of virigns like Elizabeth Bathory. That's one thing. It's quite another to refuse testimony at what is literally a TRIAL because (obviously) they don't want those soundbites on TV.
They could have accomplished their goals of stopping Garland and keeping Trump in office while still adhering to basic norms. But they deliberately choose not to. And that signals to me one thing. Which is that they intend to destroy everything if necessary to stay in power. The only one with a shred of integrity is Mitt Romney (they've all but admitted Susan Collins was given a hall pass, and everyone in Maine will see through it). He is being excommunicated as we speak. Not for voting to convict Trump mind you, but for voting to even LISTEN to a witness.
Americans may not be the sharpest tools in the shed, but most of them have seen an episode or two of Law and Order. They've watched real crime shows on A&E their entire lives. Nancy Grace was a popular personality for over a decade. They know at a very base level what the game is when someone wants to block witnesses. It isn't rocket science. It's seen as a move a sleazy defense lawyer makes. Which is fitting, since the man advocating yesterday that Trump basically has unlimited power is literally one of the members of OJ Simpson's legal team.
One can talk all they want about the intricacies of the House vs. the Senate and who should have done what. The reason the polling is the way it is is because what people know is that it's an impeachment TRIAL. And every trial they have ever seen, either in real-life, on TV, or in a movie theater has had witnesses. Good luck breaking through that shield. As far as convincing a country whose been swimming in courtroom drama their entire lives that witnesses have no place at a trial, you might as well be a Level 1 Mage trying to penetrate a Protection Against Magic Scroll. The witness vote hurts these half a dozen or so vulnerable Senators 100x more than an acquittal vote will.
This is just like Merrick Garland. Mitch McConnell had every right to have his caucus vote him down, and continue to vote down subsequent Obama picks. But they didn't do that. They wouldn't even entertain the idea that Obama had the right to nominate anyone at all, thus they never even allowed him to face set of hearings to determine his qualifications.
Here, everyone knows they will acquit Trump even if it comes out he bathes in the blood of virigns like Elizabeth Bathory. That's one thing. It's quite another to refuse testimony at what is literally a TRIAL because (obviously) they don't want those soundbites on TV.
They could have accomplished their goals of stopping Garland and keeping Trump in office while still adhering to basic norms. But they deliberately choose not to. And that signals to me one thing. Which is that they intend to destroy everything if necessary to stay in power. The only one with a shred of integrity is Mitt Romney (they've all but admitted Susan Collins was given a hall pass, and everyone in Maine will see through it). He is being excommunicated as we speak. Not for voting to convict Trump mind you, but for voting to even LISTEN to a witness.
Americans may not be the sharpest tools in the shed, but most of them have seen an episode or two of Law and Order. They've watched real crime shows on A&E their entire lives. Nancy Grace was a popular personality for over a decade. They know at a very base level what the game is when someone wants to block witnesses. It isn't rocket science. It's seen as a move a sleazy defense lawyer makes. Which is fitting, since the man advocating yesterday that Trump basically has unlimited power is literally one of the members of OJ Simpson's legal team.
One can talk all they want about the intricacies of the House vs. the Senate and who should have done what. The reason the polling is the way it is is because what people know is that it's an impeachment TRIAL. And every trial they have ever seen, either in real-life, on TV, or in a movie theater has had witnesses. Good luck breaking through that shield. The witness vote hurts these half a dozen or so vulnerable Senators 100x more than an acquittal vote will.
Well its the same thing with Justin Amash.
They literally kicked him out of the party so they could say that no republicans voted for impeachment and it was a partisan hit job the dems have been planning since 2016.
It's silly and laughable, and from a far its "they're all idiots." Oh well, your democracy. No longer the beacon it claims to be. Never was IMO.
BTW, in other news, Brexit is now official. Another laughable from a distance muck up that makes me glad I am Canadian and our biggest scandals involve single holiday vacations and guys pretending to be Jean Poutine.
I love how liberals claim that not only is everybody that voted for Trump a flaming idiot Bubba who doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground, but apparently, a good proportion of the folks who would vote for them are too stupid to find their polling station or fill out an absentee ballot. The sheer arrogance of the left is why they don't appeal to me...
I love how liberals claim that not only is everybody that voted for Trump a flaming idiot Bubba who doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground, but apparently, a good proportion of the folks who would vote for them are too stupid to find their polling station or fill out an absentee ballot. The sheer arrogance of the left is why they don't appeal to me...
The guy that said that isn't a liberal. Also, he's not even an American but an outsider who sees what is happening.
Consider the scenario of the people who were nazis in the 1930s. People back then said nazis were bad. Some people back then heard that decided they didn't want to hear it and were going to be even more nazi out of spite. Obviously, that wasn't the right decision in hindsight. People told them then, hey stop being a Nazi you are a cult being led around by a conman. They didn't listen then. And there's people who aren't listening now to the Cult of Trump. It's not exactly Nazism, but there are a lot of similarities - nationalism, hatred of others, authoritarianism. People now don't want to hear any challenges to their dear leader either. Sure we get it, it's easier for people to get mad at others who point out the problem and not challenge your own values.
So back from that scenario to Trump's anti-American Republicans. Look, Trump's a totally corrupt goon. Whenever he speaks it's a waterfall of lies. Most are easily provable lies usually and often the opposite of what he said 15 seconds ago. And this guy, who was a New York liberal elite for decades, is a Conservative hero because his fans are gullible and want to believe the lies he's telling them. So that's him. The rest of the remaining Republican party is filled with liars and con-men who either joyously back him or are too cowardly to do anything about him. To outside neutral observers, these facts are as obvious as the sun and moon.
The fact that some conservatives are cheering on as the Republican party craps all over the Constitution proves the old saying that Democracy dies to thunderous applause. How is the Republican party crapping all over the Constitution? Look, the President was impeached for trying to rig American elections. He had his personal lawyer, not a government official, trying to bribe a foreign country into smearing his political opponent. He did this to personally help himself in the upcoming election. And Republicans are like so what proving they don't care about America or elections so screw them.
I love how liberals claim that not only is everybody that voted for Trump a flaming idiot Bubba who doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground, but apparently, a good proportion of the folks who would vote for them are too stupid to find their polling station or fill out an absentee ballot. The sheer arrogance of the left is why they don't appeal to me...
If there were purposeful disinformation campaigns AIMED at voters that typically vote Republican, they'd fall for the same tricks. Just reference the NYT article. A Republican mayor declaring Republicans vote on election day, and Democrats vote the day after. Pamphlets on college campuses DELIBERATELY saying a polling station has moved. You can't find examples of this on the left. Nor can you find them passing laws trying to stop their demographic opponents from voting. Because no matter how dumb we may think you are (figuratively speaking), we still believe in your right to vote. The right clearly DOES NOT feel this way. You've as much admitted so yourself on several occasions.
I also don't think the perceived gap in intelligence is very large on a meta level. Sure, half of self-identified Republicans may think Obama was born in Kenya, but at least 10-15% of Democrats would show up that way in polls as well. We had 9/11 Truthers. Who I denounced at the time and today as wack-a-loons. I think there is LESS overall ignorance and outright stupidity, but it's not by a 60% margin or anything. I'd argue more like 15%. Which isn't all that large.
The issue is, we basically have a binary choice in elections. As long as I've been following politics (which is CLOSELY for 20 years now) Republicans have been on a direct path leading them to this moment, where I am convinced they will throw away everything to maintain power. Many of us warned for a LONG time where they were heading, and Trump is end-game. Or, more frighteningly, maybe he isn't. If he wins in 2020, Don Jr. and Ivanka are probably going to be odds on favorites in 2024. If not them, someone like Tom Cotton or Josh Hawley, who share Trump's vision but aren't nearly as self-destructive.
I love how liberals claim that not only is everybody that voted for Trump a flaming idiot Bubba who doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground, but apparently, a good proportion of the folks who would vote for them are too stupid to find their polling station or fill out an absentee ballot. The sheer arrogance of the left is why they don't appeal to me...
When I say, you're all idiots, I mean every single last one of you. Not just the left, not just the right, not the ones standing in the centre, or the ones in the back. Not the ones clinging to their guns, or the ones hiring or protecting illegal immigrants. The whole lot of you.
You all need to find common ground, stop the stupid bickering, take a nice long look at how you want your country to be run and stop clinging to a centuries old tattered piece of paper for guidance.
It's not to question anyone's intelligence, more a collective question of a countries ambition to be better. In politics it should never be us vs them. It should always be I have an idea, but I have a better an idea and let the actual ideas decide who should be in power.
It's about holding people accountable. Justin Trudeau had a holiday vacation with his family and some MPs on a private island owned by Aga Khan - an alleged family friend. Well everyone lost their head about it, because he wasn't a family friend but a lobbyist with amazing goals in mind, but a lobbyist none-the-less. Trudeau was investigated immediately, the RCMP was investigated immediately and there is no way Trudeau would ever attempt to go on a similar family vacation again after the fallout that happened. Trump spends over 245 days golfing at his own resorts and it's a collective shrug. Your all idiots for not holding him accountable. Your all idiots for allowing the safety nets to prevent this type of behaviour being ripped away. Your all idiots by allowing your politicians be party over people because the parties sold you the Us vs Them.
I love how liberals claim that not only is everybody that voted for Trump a flaming idiot Bubba who doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground, but apparently, a good proportion of the folks who would vote for them are too stupid to find their polling station or fill out an absentee ballot. The sheer arrogance of the left is why they don't appeal to me...
When I say, you're all idiots, I mean every single last one of you. Not just the left, not just the right, not the ones standing in the centre, or the ones in the back. Not the ones clinging to their guns, or the ones hiring or protecting illegal immigrants. The whole lot of you.
You all need to find common ground, stop the stupid bickering, take a nice long look at how you want your country to be run and stop clinging to a centuries old tattered piece of paper for guidance.
It's not to question anyone's intelligence, more a collective question of a countries ambition to be better. In politics it should never be us vs them. It should always be I have an idea, but I have a better an idea and let the actual ideas decide who should be in power.
It's about holding people accountable. Justin Trudeau had a holiday vacation with his family and some MPs on a private island owned by Aga Khan - an alleged family friend. Well everyone lost their head about it, because he wasn't a family friend but a lobbyist with amazing goals in mind, but a lobbyist none-the-less. Trudeau was investigated immediately, the RCMP was investigated immediately and there is no way Trudeau would ever attempt to go on a similar family vacation again after the fallout that happened. Trump spends over 245 days golfing at his own resorts and it's a collective shrug. Your all idiots for not holding him accountable. Your all idiots for allowing the safety nets to prevent this type of behaviour being ripped away. Your all idiots by allowing your politicians be party over people because the parties sold you the Us vs Them.
I can get down with that. Too bad there's only two parties to choose from here and they're both full of shit...
When I say, you're all idiots, I mean every single last one of you. Not just the left, not just the right, not the ones standing in the centre, or the ones in the back. Not the ones clinging to their guns, or the ones hiring or protecting illegal immigrants. The whole lot of you.
I'm not the guy you were directing this too but anyway, I'd slightly agree. More below..
You all need to find common ground, stop the stupid bickering, take a nice long look at how you want your country to be run and stop clinging to a centuries old tattered piece of paper for guidance.
The problem is one party uses the bickering to further their own power. And we have a two party system. The liberals in America (the Republican party) are known as the GOP. Which stands for the grand old party but more appropriately it's (G)aslight (O)bstruct and (P)roject. They claim Democrats are partisan, then use that as an excuse to be partisan. They claim democrats are corrupt then use that as an excuse to be totally corrupt. They claim all your problems are caused by immigrants or democrats or whatever. Their whole schtick is dividing us - pitting us against each other. It works far too easily. We've got a terrible education system and a lot of morons.
The GOP are invested in the stupid bickering because it gives them power and money. They won't stop. They direct us away from them while they are totally corrupt.
It's not to question anyone's intelligence, more a collective question of a countries ambition to be better. In politics it should never be us vs them. It should always be I have an idea, but I have a better an idea and let the actual ideas decide who should be in power.
We (the country) don't want to be better. We want to be like we used to be. Make America Great Again is not looking to make the country better. It's looking to undo progress and make things worse. We (the country) want to be worse and we're succeeding.
The problem is one party uses the bickering to further their own power. And we have a two party system. The liberals in America (the Republican party) are known as the GOP. Which stands for the grand old party but more appropriately it's (G)aslight (O)bstruct and (P)roject. They claim Democrats are partisan, then use that as an excuse to be partisan. They claim democrats are corrupt then use that as an excuse to be totally corrupt. They claim all your problems are caused by immigrants or democrats or whatever. Their whole schtick is dividing us - pitting us against each other. It works far too easily. We've got a terrible education system and a lot of morons.
I don't agree with this at all. This is the us vs them mentality I was talking about.
The entire GOP isn't corrupt, just like not every liberal is corrupt here. There are many amazing liberal MPs that represent their ridings well. The same can be said for the NDP and Green and even the Bloc here. They have ideas, I can respect their ideas and still disagree with them. It's about communication, and communicating to the public the ideas that are being brought forward.
And more parties don't really make a better system. The Liberal party is right in the middle, and its why they tend to stay in power longer. People who like NDP/socialist causes (such as free daycare) will never vote Conservative and a conservative (1 billion to pay for free day care, you got to be kidding me) will never vote NDP. So were stuck with Liberals.
I love how liberals claim that not only is everybody that voted for Trump a flaming idiot Bubba who doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground, but apparently, a good proportion of the folks who would vote for them are too stupid to find their polling station or fill out an absentee ballot. The sheer arrogance of the left is why they don't appeal to me...
This has always been the case, it's nothing new. It's the rural/urban divide cranked up to 11.
The people who voted Trump are the rural, non college educated white men and women; same people whose life expectancy has been plummeting, mostly by suicide and depression, as their community has been hollowed out by free trade, unchecked migration, doctors pushing opiods at the behest of the Sacklers. What does the Democrat party offer them? Condemnations of their very being, relegation to second class status, told their opinions on all matters are irrelevant, to sit down, shut up, and die quietly.
You have to think they are alot more than just dumb to treat them like the Democrats to.
But they also don't have to listen to these people or treat them as human, because they have taken all power away from them. The massive demographic changes, now irreversible, that they have been engineering for over 50 years have made it so those annoying people will never have political representation again. When you've stolen an entire country, what more can you take from them?
Fact is, it's not going to get better. Expect dissent to be increasingly criminalized, not just treated with scorn.
Andrew Yang is the only Democrat who has condemned the callous disregard of the Democrat party to poor white people (on Rogans podcast) and mass demographic shifts (his book), basically most of my own criticisms. Trump was the logical choice for them in 2016, now it might be Yang.
But they also don't have to listen to these people or treat them as human, because they have taken all power away from them. The massive demographic changes, now irreversible, that they have been engineering for over 50 years have made it so those annoying people will never have political representation again. When you've stolen an entire country, what more can you take from them?
Fact is, it's not going to get better. Expect dissent to be increasingly criminalized, not just treated with scorn.
The largest political disenfranchisement of poor white voters was what? Citizens United. Who wanted that? Conservatives.
The biggest proponents of Free Trade in US history were who? Conservatives.
The US is still majority white. It still is infinitely better to be white than any other ethnicity in the USA. A poor black man's life expectancy is worse than a poor white man's. A rich white man's life expectancy is also better than a rich black man's. A native american woman is far more likely to sexually abused or attacked or murdered than a white woman.
White people still have much (much, much, much) more political agency than PoC do. You'll have to forgive me for not crying for poor white rural voters that support the suppression of poor black rural voters.
The problem is one party uses the bickering to further their own power. And we have a two party system. The liberals in America (the Republican party) are known as the GOP. Which stands for the grand old party but more appropriately it's (G)aslight (O)bstruct and (P)roject. They claim Democrats are partisan, then use that as an excuse to be partisan. They claim democrats are corrupt then use that as an excuse to be totally corrupt. They claim all your problems are caused by immigrants or democrats or whatever. Their whole schtick is dividing us - pitting us against each other. It works far too easily. We've got a terrible education system and a lot of morons.
I don't agree with this at all. This is the us vs them mentality I was talking about.
The entire GOP isn't corrupt, just like not every liberal is corrupt here. There..
Here they are. The Senate is supposed to be filled with the best and most serious ones and they just voted to have a trial without witnesses.
The 'good ones' are forced out. The good ones are dead or retired or gone and we're left with 'loyal ones'.
These ones aren't loyal to America, the flag, the Constitution.
They are loyal to one man Donald Trump. I stand by my observation: THE ENTIRE GOP IS CORRUPT. Ok fine sure nothing is 100% so 99.9% whatever it makes no difference in practice. None remaining are willing to make a difference and stand up and do the right thing EVER so yeah they are a lost cause.
The largest political disenfranchisement of poor white voters was what? Citizens United. Who wanted that? Conservatives.
Wrong on every possible level, and this is merely a deflection tactic anyway. Money doesn't change vote totals, and does not have nearly the same scale of effects as mass demographic displacement.
White people still have much (much, much, much) more political agency than PoC do. You'll have to forgive me for not crying for poor white rural voters that support the suppression of poor black rural voters.
Let me be clear here- I'm not expecting you to care. My entire point was that I know you don't, if they were being tortured alive, you would find a way to find compassion for someone else.
But your points are wrong anyways, and the fallback to POC worship- and the myth of the universally privileged white person- is very predictable at this point.
A poor black man's life expectancy is worse than a poor white man's
Nope. Not with this demographic. They die earlier, and the cause of their deaths are overdoses and suicides, deaths of despair. Now that you know they are dying more and it's mostly because they are miserable, do you care? Nah, of course not. The actual numbers aren't the issue, it's that the victims aren't worth sympathy.
It's also worth noting that they alone are seeing a decline in life expectancy, while everyone else is improving. So not only are they among the lowest, they are the only ones getting worse, and they don't matter? Only in a world where they are less valued, or perhaps not valued at all, which is basically my point.
"Princeton economists Anne Case and Nobel laureate Angus Deaton first highlighted the issue in 2015 with their research on how white, less-educated Americans had veered off track. In 1999, the mortality rate for this demographic was about 30% lower than those of African-Americans. But by 2015, their mortality rate had eclipsed that of blacks by 30%, the economists found. The reason? A spike in death rates due to alcohol and drug poisoning, suicide, and alcoholic liver disease and cirrhosis."
You know, I'm not advocating jail for anyone suffering from the opioid epidemic. But it's REALLY interesting that as soon as a drug addiction problem hits rural white America, the answer immediately becomes compassion, when for 50 years the default answer to the same issues in black urban areas was to jail as many people as possible. Often advocated MOST VOCALLY by the same people you are talking about. You can trace the level of understanding and tolerance in regards drug addiction and systemic poverty directly to the color of the skin of who is being affected by them. For black people, their "culture" was to blame. Yet oddly, that doesn't apply to rural white people. Nor should it. But the change in narrative is as plain as day. It's almost as if when you are forced to walk in someone else's shoes, THEN you understand.
Give them all the help they need. Throw as much money as humanly possible at the opioid problem. Let Trump pretend that the factories are coming back. But let's not pretend there was ever any sympathy for others suffering the same circumstances for decades. It just so happens this capitalistic hell-hole's vortex finally reached them. They're joining a large club.
And Democrats try DESPERATELY to sell job training in these areas, every election cycle. It always goes over like a lead balloon. It never works, because they don't want to hear it. Even if they did want to hear it, they'd vote for people who don't want to pay for it. They want the factories back. So yeah, when Trump waltzes into town and LIES and says that coal plants are going to make a comeback, I'm sure it SOUNDS really good. That is, quite frankly, not what should be being communicated to these areas. Because it's BS. American manufacturing was a dead man walking the moment Reagan got into office. And it is true that no one in either party did anything to stem the tide in the intervening years. But 1980 is year zero of that new reality. John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen weren't singing about farms and ghost towns by happenstance. The most highly regarded right-wing Presidency of the last century was where almost all the damage took place, and the response was for those areas to continue to overwhelmingly support his successors.
And for the record, Bill Clinton basically capitulated to the paradigm Reagan created. And yet, here again, Clinton was the LAST Democratic President to get any measure of meaningful support in these areas. By basically giving in and saying "Ronald Reagan won the argument, the Democrats have to move towards his position". And they've been stuck in his "third way" ever since. The problem was, Clinton was wildly successful. His economy, at least when he was in office, was gangbusters compared to anything we've seen since. His one foreign intervention not only resulted in no American casualties, it legitimately stopped a genocide. He was carrying a 60% plus approval rating for the last two years of his term, which is UNTHINKABLE today. And because of his success, Democrats have mistakenly believed it's been the path forward ever since. But much of it, like anything, was circumstance. The story of the modern Democratic Party is how Ronald Reagan caused them to be afraid of their own shadow. The tragedy is, most of Reagan's success was myth-making. In reality he was an early-onset dementia patient for a large part of his Presidency, and some of the worst human beings imaginable were running the country.
Let me be clear here- I'm not expecting you to care. My entire point was that I know you don't, if they were being tortured alive, you would find a way to find compassion for someone else.
But your points are wrong anyways, and the fallback to POC worship- and the myth of the universally privileged white person- is very predictable at this point.
Might want to watch it with the (absurd) projections of intent there.
It's also worth noting that they alone are seeing a decline in life expectancy, while everyone else is improving. So not only are they among the lowest, they are the only ones getting worse, and they don't matter? Only in a world where they are less valued, or perhaps not valued at all, which is basically my point.
"Princeton economists Anne Case and Nobel laureate Angus Deaton first highlighted the issue in 2015 with their research on how white, less-educated Americans had veered off track. In 1999, the mortality rate for this demographic was about 30% lower than those of African-Americans. But by 2015, their mortality rate had eclipsed that of blacks by 30%, the economists found. The reason? A spike in death rates due to alcohol and drug poisoning, suicide, and alcoholic liver disease and cirrhosis."
The reason the quote "lies, damn lies and statistics" exists is not because of the falsity of statistics, but the disingenuous ways they can be used.
For instance, let's say, if one were comparing the mortality of "less-educated" white americans to all black americans, instead of the more obvious comparisons of all whites to all blacks or less educated whites to less-educated blacks.
It turns out whites have a higher life expectancy than blacks if you do like-to-like comparisons instead of comparing the very worst off whites to all blacks!
Why did CBS do this misleading comparison? Because it's more dramatic to say "whites are now worse off than blacks!" instead of saying the truth: "whites are still better off than blacks, but not as much as they used to be".
So, if you're going to be intellectually consistent, you will now presumably care more about poor POC than poor whites, because the latter are better off (in health, income, life expectency, chance of dying in pregnancy, infant mortality, etc.). Worshipping them is optional (and, frankly, pretty odd).
The largest political disenfranchisement of poor white voters was what? Citizens United. Who wanted that? Conservatives.
Wrong on every possible level, and this is merely a deflection tactic anyway. Money doesn't change vote totals, and does not have nearly the same scale of effects as mass demographic displacement.
White people still have much (much, much, much) more political agency than PoC do. You'll have to forgive me for not crying for poor white rural voters that support the suppression of poor black rural voters.
Let me be clear here- I'm not expecting you to care. My entire point was that I know you don't, if they were being tortured alive, you would find a way to find compassion for someone else.
But your points are wrong anyways, and the fallback to POC worship- and the myth of the universally privileged white person- is very predictable at this point.
A poor black man's life expectancy is worse than a poor white man's
Nope. Not with this demographic. They die earlier, and the cause of their deaths are overdoses and suicides, deaths of despair. Now that you know they are dying more and it's mostly because they are miserable, do you care? Nah, of course not. The actual numbers aren't the issue, it's that the victims aren't worth sympathy.
It's also worth noting that they alone are seeing a decline in life expectancy, while everyone else is improving. So not only are they among the lowest, they are the only ones getting worse, and they don't matter? Only in a world where they are less valued, or perhaps not valued at all, which is basically my point.
"Princeton economists Anne Case and Nobel laureate Angus Deaton first highlighted the issue in 2015 with their research on how white, less-educated Americans had veered off track. In 1999, the mortality rate for this demographic was about 30% lower than those of African-Americans. But by 2015, their mortality rate had eclipsed that of blacks by 30%, the economists found. The reason? A spike in death rates due to alcohol and drug poisoning, suicide, and alcoholic liver disease and cirrhosis."
I'm sorry - I cant argue with someone in good faith that is obnoxious to the point of assuming I wouldnt care if another person was being tortured. You mischaracterize me. You put words in my mouth. You dissemble and want to paint everyone who isnt of your ideology as some kind of white genocidalists. We're not. Sorry you're so mired in it that you cannot see that.
Your link only speaks of non college educated. Buried in citations are links to articles that confirm the basic fact that Whites still do have much higher life expectancy than African Americans.
Money doesn't change vote totals, and does not have nearly the same scale of effects as mass demographic displacement.
I'm not sure what you mean by vote totals, but there's good evidence that advertising does affect voting intentions - which is why so many billions are spent on this.
Nope. Not with this demographic. They die earlier, and the cause of their deaths are overdoses and suicides, deaths of despair. Now that you know they are dying more and it's mostly because they are miserable, do you care? Nah, of course not. The actual numbers aren't the issue, it's that the victims aren't worth sympathy.
It's also worth noting that they alone are seeing a decline in life expectancy, while everyone else is improving. So not only are they among the lowest, they are the only ones getting worse, and they don't matter? Only in a world where they are less valued, or perhaps not valued at all, which is basically my point.
Can't we agree that all groups that are marginalized, with poor economic prospects and prone to drug and alcohol problems deserve sympathy? I certainly agree that there are white demographic groups that have moved into this category in relatively recent years, but there are native american and black demographic groups that have been in that category for generations. I don't understand why it should be seen as more appropriate to help people who have been affected by these problems in the last generation, than those who have been suffering for much longer - nor do I think it's appropriate that those who point out that there are historic problems should be ridiculed.
There are a whole range of policies that have resulted in the gap between life expectancy of different demographic groups increasing over time - those could include access to health care, promotion of some drugs and demonization of others, allowing water pollution in less well-off areas, lack of public policy initiatives in areas such as smoking and failure to adjust for the impacts of de-industrialization (but lots of others could be pointed at as well).
We've talked about it a lot before, but it still seems to me that reversing at least to some extent the rapid growth of income and wealth inequality in the US would help with these policy areas (and causation works both ways, so responding in these policy areas would help with inequality as well).
@Balrog99 "Too bad there's only two parties to choose from here and they're both full of shit..."
You've been saying this for years. Do you have any data to back it up? Anything, that shows equivalence with the asylum that is the Trump administration?
@Balrog99 "Too bad there's only two parties to choose from here and they're both full of shit..."
You've been saying this for years. Do you have any data to back it up? Anything, that shows equivalence with the asylum that is the Trump administration?
Since 1969, Republican presidential administrations have had 121 criminal indictments and 89 convictions, while Democrats have had 4 and 2, respectively
You know, I'm not advocating jail for anyone suffering from the opioid epidemic. But it's REALLY interesting that as soon as a drug addiction problem hits rural white America, the answer immediately becomes compassion, when for 50 years the default answer to the same issues in black urban areas was to jail as many people as possible. Often advocated MOST VOCALLY by the same people you are talking about. You can trace the level of understanding and tolerance in regards drug addiction and systemic poverty directly to the color of the skin of who is being affected by them. For black people, their "culture" was to blame. Yet oddly, that doesn't apply to rural white people. Nor should it. But the change in narrative is as plain as day. It's almost as if when you are forced to walk in someone else's shoes, THEN you understand.
This is basically the attitude I expect when talking about the suffering of poor white folks. Reflexive, thoughtless accusations, stated as broadly as possible, guilt by association because of your race and economic class, claims about their mindset that you can't possibly substantiate, and that by their very nature wrongfully condemn thousands of people.
As I said, it's not the numbers that are the issue, it's that so many of you hold such cartoonish, childish stereotypes of rural white americans that you can't bring yourself to have even a shred of the humanity that you seem to be so proud of, and that you so strongly and freely condemn in others who you claim to lack it. The hypocrisy is so obnoxious it's painful. Never talk about how badly people are treated again until you can take a look in the mirror.
And don't even get me started on comparing the social mores of 50 years ago against the moral standards of today, doubly so because illicit drug addictions were not something we understood nearly as well as today, if there was ever a desperate reach to justify a sociopathic disregard for millions of people, that would be it. People adopt what is in their environment, it doesn't make them less than human.
The largest political disenfranchisement of poor white voters was what? Citizens United. Who wanted that? Conservatives.
Wrong on every possible level, and this is merely a deflection tactic anyway. Money doesn't change vote totals, and does not have nearly the same scale of effects as mass demographic displacement.
White people still have much (much, much, much) more political agency than PoC do. You'll have to forgive me for not crying for poor white rural voters that support the suppression of poor black rural voters.
Let me be clear here- I'm not expecting you to care. My entire point was that I know you don't, if they were being tortured alive, you would find a way to find compassion for someone else.
But your points are wrong anyways, and the fallback to POC worship- and the myth of the universally privileged white person- is very predictable at this point.
A poor black man's life expectancy is worse than a poor white man's
Nope. Not with this demographic. They die earlier, and the cause of their deaths are overdoses and suicides, deaths of despair. Now that you know they are dying more and it's mostly because they are miserable, do you care? Nah, of course not. The actual numbers aren't the issue, it's that the victims aren't worth sympathy.
It's also worth noting that they alone are seeing a decline in life expectancy, while everyone else is improving. So not only are they among the lowest, they are the only ones getting worse, and they don't matter? Only in a world where they are less valued, or perhaps not valued at all, which is basically my point.
"Princeton economists Anne Case and Nobel laureate Angus Deaton first highlighted the issue in 2015 with their research on how white, less-educated Americans had veered off track. In 1999, the mortality rate for this demographic was about 30% lower than those of African-Americans. But by 2015, their mortality rate had eclipsed that of blacks by 30%, the economists found. The reason? A spike in death rates due to alcohol and drug poisoning, suicide, and alcoholic liver disease and cirrhosis."
I'm sorry - I cant argue with someone in good faith that is obnoxious to the point of assuming I wouldnt care if another person was being tortured. You mischaracterize me. You put words in my mouth. You dissemble and want to paint everyone who isnt of your ideology as some kind of white genocidalists. We're not. Sorry you're so mired in it that you cannot see that.
Your link only speaks of non college educated. Buried in citations are links to articles that confirm the basic fact that Whites still do have much higher life expectancy than African Americans.
My link speaks of the non college educated because that is who I was speaking about. My first post specifically mentions non college educated white americans That is also why I said "not this demographic", and not all white people.
Whites having a higher life expectancy, in general, is meaningless deflection. The high death rates of the non college educated are offset by the long life expectancies of the middle class and college educated. These are not the same group of people, in more ways than one.
I didn't call you a genocidalist, just said that you don't care, and you more or less said it yourself. Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but "You'll have to forgive me for not crying for poor white rural voters that support the suppression of poor black rural voters." sounds a lot to me like "I don't care because I hold stereotypical views".
This clip keeps becoming more and more relevant lately. When you are from a white, low class background, your suffering is irrelevant, if not quietly celebrated, based on a whole list of assumptions about you. I don't see how this makes someone any morally different from a chest-beating white supremacist, but that's just me.
I didn't call you a genocidalist, just said that you don't care, and you more or less said it yourself. Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but "You'll have to forgive me for not crying for poor white rural voters that support the suppression of poor black rural voters." sounds a lot to me like "I don't care because I hold stereotypical views".
Misinterpretation. Again. You're decided its fair game to ascribe sinister notions to things I've said, and make broad mischaracterizations and generalizations.
My quote speaks exactly for itself: I do not feel a great deal of sympathy for the fact that white people who are upset because they think being called out for marginalizing other races is a marginalization in and of itself.
To be explicitly clear, because I'm tired of my words being twisted: Does that mean I dont feel bad that (any) white people are currently dealing with serious socio-economic factors that harm their quality of life: NOPE. It doesnt mean that. AT ALL. However, when you consume my statement through your ideological lens, you end up assuming I do. That's *you*, not me. You decided that means "I think it would be fine if white people were tortured", or that I "Dont care at all about them". These two statements could not and do not mean the same thing.
Next time you decide you want to interpret one of my comments for me: Dont. Especially dont when it ascribes sinister intent (which you might remember - is against the rules in post 1)
My link speaks of the non college educated because that is who I was speaking about. My first post specifically mentions non college educated white americans That is also why I said "not this demographic", and not all white people.
You offered it as a rebuttal to my comment, which wasnt even about uneducated whites. I was talking about poor whites and poor blacks. Which arent the same thing.
Imagine you rob a bank. During the investigation, several witnesses testify and it was you who did it. Nobody says it wasn't you. You have no alibi (because you did it). You brag on TV that you did it.
When the trial starts, you don't call any witnesses in your defense. Then your lawyers, some of whom may be involved with the crime, argue that because no one testified in your defense you must be innocent. They say because "Both sides" didn't give witnesses you should be acquitted.
You are offered the chance at the trial to call whoever you want but you don't. It looks like the jury, made up mostly of your fellow criminals, are going to let you off the hook.
Comments
Have you seen our Republicans? Trump? It's the wild west down here. Disgusting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/us/politics/debunk-fake-news-election-day.html
Or perhaps he's just trying to make people understand how odd this decision is - and think for themselves why it's been made.
In traditions based on English law, saying "no witnesses will be heard at this trial" seems very odd - and it is very odd, in the sense of being highly unusual. According to the Senate's potted history of impeachment, there have been 19 impeachment trials prior to this one - and all of those included witness testimony. The rules of the Senate on impeachment were last updated in 1986 and have numerous references to witnesses and hearing testimony. One notable change to those rules, in 1934, was to allow evidence to be presented to a Committee to avoid the entire Senate being disrupted for the period required to hear that evidence. It's true the rules do not say there must be witnesses called, but you wouldn't expect that - it's conceivable there could be cases in which witness testimony is irrelevant.
The argument put by Alexander in Trump's case is in fact that witness testimony is irrelevant, although the reasoning behind that is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the President (Trump's guilt is so obvious it would be a waste of time producing more evidence to confirm that).
Here, everyone knows they will acquit Trump even if it comes out he bathes in the blood of virigns like Elizabeth Bathory. That's one thing. It's quite another to refuse testimony at what is literally a TRIAL because (obviously) they don't want those soundbites on TV.
They could have accomplished their goals of stopping Garland and keeping Trump in office while still adhering to basic norms. But they deliberately choose not to. And that signals to me one thing. Which is that they intend to destroy everything if necessary to stay in power. The only one with a shred of integrity is Mitt Romney (they've all but admitted Susan Collins was given a hall pass, and everyone in Maine will see through it). He is being excommunicated as we speak. Not for voting to convict Trump mind you, but for voting to even LISTEN to a witness.
Americans may not be the sharpest tools in the shed, but most of them have seen an episode or two of Law and Order. They've watched real crime shows on A&E their entire lives. Nancy Grace was a popular personality for over a decade. They know at a very base level what the game is when someone wants to block witnesses. It isn't rocket science. It's seen as a move a sleazy defense lawyer makes. Which is fitting, since the man advocating yesterday that Trump basically has unlimited power is literally one of the members of OJ Simpson's legal team.
One can talk all they want about the intricacies of the House vs. the Senate and who should have done what. The reason the polling is the way it is is because what people know is that it's an impeachment TRIAL. And every trial they have ever seen, either in real-life, on TV, or in a movie theater has had witnesses. Good luck breaking through that shield. As far as convincing a country whose been swimming in courtroom drama their entire lives that witnesses have no place at a trial, you might as well be a Level 1 Mage trying to penetrate a Protection Against Magic Scroll. The witness vote hurts these half a dozen or so vulnerable Senators 100x more than an acquittal vote will.
Well its the same thing with Justin Amash.
They literally kicked him out of the party so they could say that no republicans voted for impeachment and it was a partisan hit job the dems have been planning since 2016.
It's silly and laughable, and from a far its "they're all idiots." Oh well, your democracy. No longer the beacon it claims to be. Never was IMO.
oh and there is this: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/us/2020/01/31/charities-steered-65m-to-trump-lawyer-sekulow-and-family.html which isn't surprising in the slightest. Just another blip in the long line of obvious in the open corruption happening with this administration. Enjoy it America, you deserve it.
~
BTW, in other news, Brexit is now official. Another laughable from a distance muck up that makes me glad I am Canadian and our biggest scandals involve single holiday vacations and guys pretending to be Jean Poutine.
The guy that said that isn't a liberal. Also, he's not even an American but an outsider who sees what is happening.
Consider the scenario of the people who were nazis in the 1930s. People back then said nazis were bad. Some people back then heard that decided they didn't want to hear it and were going to be even more nazi out of spite. Obviously, that wasn't the right decision in hindsight. People told them then, hey stop being a Nazi you are a cult being led around by a conman. They didn't listen then. And there's people who aren't listening now to the Cult of Trump. It's not exactly Nazism, but there are a lot of similarities - nationalism, hatred of others, authoritarianism. People now don't want to hear any challenges to their dear leader either. Sure we get it, it's easier for people to get mad at others who point out the problem and not challenge your own values.
So back from that scenario to Trump's anti-American Republicans. Look, Trump's a totally corrupt goon. Whenever he speaks it's a waterfall of lies. Most are easily provable lies usually and often the opposite of what he said 15 seconds ago. And this guy, who was a New York liberal elite for decades, is a Conservative hero because his fans are gullible and want to believe the lies he's telling them. So that's him. The rest of the remaining Republican party is filled with liars and con-men who either joyously back him or are too cowardly to do anything about him. To outside neutral observers, these facts are as obvious as the sun and moon.
The fact that some conservatives are cheering on as the Republican party craps all over the Constitution proves the old saying that Democracy dies to thunderous applause. How is the Republican party crapping all over the Constitution? Look, the President was impeached for trying to rig American elections. He had his personal lawyer, not a government official, trying to bribe a foreign country into smearing his political opponent. He did this to personally help himself in the upcoming election. And Republicans are like so what proving they don't care about America or elections so screw them.
If there were purposeful disinformation campaigns AIMED at voters that typically vote Republican, they'd fall for the same tricks. Just reference the NYT article. A Republican mayor declaring Republicans vote on election day, and Democrats vote the day after. Pamphlets on college campuses DELIBERATELY saying a polling station has moved. You can't find examples of this on the left. Nor can you find them passing laws trying to stop their demographic opponents from voting. Because no matter how dumb we may think you are (figuratively speaking), we still believe in your right to vote. The right clearly DOES NOT feel this way. You've as much admitted so yourself on several occasions.
I also don't think the perceived gap in intelligence is very large on a meta level. Sure, half of self-identified Republicans may think Obama was born in Kenya, but at least 10-15% of Democrats would show up that way in polls as well. We had 9/11 Truthers. Who I denounced at the time and today as wack-a-loons. I think there is LESS overall ignorance and outright stupidity, but it's not by a 60% margin or anything. I'd argue more like 15%. Which isn't all that large.
The issue is, we basically have a binary choice in elections. As long as I've been following politics (which is CLOSELY for 20 years now) Republicans have been on a direct path leading them to this moment, where I am convinced they will throw away everything to maintain power. Many of us warned for a LONG time where they were heading, and Trump is end-game. Or, more frighteningly, maybe he isn't. If he wins in 2020, Don Jr. and Ivanka are probably going to be odds on favorites in 2024. If not them, someone like Tom Cotton or Josh Hawley, who share Trump's vision but aren't nearly as self-destructive.
When I say, you're all idiots, I mean every single last one of you. Not just the left, not just the right, not the ones standing in the centre, or the ones in the back. Not the ones clinging to their guns, or the ones hiring or protecting illegal immigrants. The whole lot of you.
You all need to find common ground, stop the stupid bickering, take a nice long look at how you want your country to be run and stop clinging to a centuries old tattered piece of paper for guidance.
It's not to question anyone's intelligence, more a collective question of a countries ambition to be better. In politics it should never be us vs them. It should always be I have an idea, but I have a better an idea and let the actual ideas decide who should be in power.
It's about holding people accountable. Justin Trudeau had a holiday vacation with his family and some MPs on a private island owned by Aga Khan - an alleged family friend. Well everyone lost their head about it, because he wasn't a family friend but a lobbyist with amazing goals in mind, but a lobbyist none-the-less. Trudeau was investigated immediately, the RCMP was investigated immediately and there is no way Trudeau would ever attempt to go on a similar family vacation again after the fallout that happened. Trump spends over 245 days golfing at his own resorts and it's a collective shrug. Your all idiots for not holding him accountable. Your all idiots for allowing the safety nets to prevent this type of behaviour being ripped away. Your all idiots by allowing your politicians be party over people because the parties sold you the Us vs Them.
I can get down with that. Too bad there's only two parties to choose from here and they're both full of shit...
I'm not the guy you were directing this too but anyway, I'd slightly agree. More below..
The problem is one party uses the bickering to further their own power. And we have a two party system. The liberals in America (the Republican party) are known as the GOP. Which stands for the grand old party but more appropriately it's (G)aslight (O)bstruct and (P)roject. They claim Democrats are partisan, then use that as an excuse to be partisan. They claim democrats are corrupt then use that as an excuse to be totally corrupt. They claim all your problems are caused by immigrants or democrats or whatever. Their whole schtick is dividing us - pitting us against each other. It works far too easily. We've got a terrible education system and a lot of morons.
The GOP are invested in the stupid bickering because it gives them power and money. They won't stop. They direct us away from them while they are totally corrupt.
We (the country) don't want to be better. We want to be like we used to be. Make America Great Again is not looking to make the country better. It's looking to undo progress and make things worse. We (the country) want to be worse and we're succeeding.
I don't agree with this at all. This is the us vs them mentality I was talking about.
The entire GOP isn't corrupt, just like not every liberal is corrupt here. There are many amazing liberal MPs that represent their ridings well. The same can be said for the NDP and Green and even the Bloc here. They have ideas, I can respect their ideas and still disagree with them. It's about communication, and communicating to the public the ideas that are being brought forward.
And more parties don't really make a better system. The Liberal party is right in the middle, and its why they tend to stay in power longer. People who like NDP/socialist causes (such as free daycare) will never vote Conservative and a conservative (1 billion to pay for free day care, you got to be kidding me) will never vote NDP. So were stuck with Liberals.
This has always been the case, it's nothing new. It's the rural/urban divide cranked up to 11.
The people who voted Trump are the rural, non college educated white men and women; same people whose life expectancy has been plummeting, mostly by suicide and depression, as their community has been hollowed out by free trade, unchecked migration, doctors pushing opiods at the behest of the Sacklers. What does the Democrat party offer them? Condemnations of their very being, relegation to second class status, told their opinions on all matters are irrelevant, to sit down, shut up, and die quietly.
You have to think they are alot more than just dumb to treat them like the Democrats to.
But they also don't have to listen to these people or treat them as human, because they have taken all power away from them. The massive demographic changes, now irreversible, that they have been engineering for over 50 years have made it so those annoying people will never have political representation again. When you've stolen an entire country, what more can you take from them?
Fact is, it's not going to get better. Expect dissent to be increasingly criminalized, not just treated with scorn.
The largest political disenfranchisement of poor white voters was what? Citizens United. Who wanted that? Conservatives.
The biggest proponents of Free Trade in US history were who? Conservatives.
The US is still majority white. It still is infinitely better to be white than any other ethnicity in the USA. A poor black man's life expectancy is worse than a poor white man's. A rich white man's life expectancy is also better than a rich black man's. A native american woman is far more likely to sexually abused or attacked or murdered than a white woman.
White people still have much (much, much, much) more political agency than PoC do. You'll have to forgive me for not crying for poor white rural voters that support the suppression of poor black rural voters.
Here they are. The Senate is supposed to be filled with the best and most serious ones and they just voted to have a trial without witnesses.
The 'good ones' are forced out. The good ones are dead or retired or gone and we're left with 'loyal ones'.
These ones aren't loyal to America, the flag, the Constitution.
They are loyal to one man Donald Trump. I stand by my observation: THE ENTIRE GOP IS CORRUPT. Ok fine sure nothing is 100% so 99.9% whatever it makes no difference in practice. None remaining are willing to make a difference and stand up and do the right thing EVER so yeah they are a lost cause.
Wrong on every possible level, and this is merely a deflection tactic anyway. Money doesn't change vote totals, and does not have nearly the same scale of effects as mass demographic displacement.
Let me be clear here- I'm not expecting you to care. My entire point was that I know you don't, if they were being tortured alive, you would find a way to find compassion for someone else.
But your points are wrong anyways, and the fallback to POC worship- and the myth of the universally privileged white person- is very predictable at this point.
Nope. Not with this demographic. They die earlier, and the cause of their deaths are overdoses and suicides, deaths of despair. Now that you know they are dying more and it's mostly because they are miserable, do you care? Nah, of course not. The actual numbers aren't the issue, it's that the victims aren't worth sympathy.
It's also worth noting that they alone are seeing a decline in life expectancy, while everyone else is improving. So not only are they among the lowest, they are the only ones getting worse, and they don't matter? Only in a world where they are less valued, or perhaps not valued at all, which is basically my point.
"Princeton economists Anne Case and Nobel laureate Angus Deaton first highlighted the issue in 2015 with their research on how white, less-educated Americans had veered off track. In 1999, the mortality rate for this demographic was about 30% lower than those of African-Americans. But by 2015, their mortality rate had eclipsed that of blacks by 30%, the economists found. The reason? A spike in death rates due to alcohol and drug poisoning, suicide, and alcoholic liver disease and cirrhosis."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/life-expectancy-for-american-men-drops-for-a-third-year/
Give them all the help they need. Throw as much money as humanly possible at the opioid problem. Let Trump pretend that the factories are coming back. But let's not pretend there was ever any sympathy for others suffering the same circumstances for decades. It just so happens this capitalistic hell-hole's vortex finally reached them. They're joining a large club.
And Democrats try DESPERATELY to sell job training in these areas, every election cycle. It always goes over like a lead balloon. It never works, because they don't want to hear it. Even if they did want to hear it, they'd vote for people who don't want to pay for it. They want the factories back. So yeah, when Trump waltzes into town and LIES and says that coal plants are going to make a comeback, I'm sure it SOUNDS really good. That is, quite frankly, not what should be being communicated to these areas. Because it's BS. American manufacturing was a dead man walking the moment Reagan got into office. And it is true that no one in either party did anything to stem the tide in the intervening years. But 1980 is year zero of that new reality. John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen weren't singing about farms and ghost towns by happenstance. The most highly regarded right-wing Presidency of the last century was where almost all the damage took place, and the response was for those areas to continue to overwhelmingly support his successors.
And for the record, Bill Clinton basically capitulated to the paradigm Reagan created. And yet, here again, Clinton was the LAST Democratic President to get any measure of meaningful support in these areas. By basically giving in and saying "Ronald Reagan won the argument, the Democrats have to move towards his position". And they've been stuck in his "third way" ever since. The problem was, Clinton was wildly successful. His economy, at least when he was in office, was gangbusters compared to anything we've seen since. His one foreign intervention not only resulted in no American casualties, it legitimately stopped a genocide. He was carrying a 60% plus approval rating for the last two years of his term, which is UNTHINKABLE today. And because of his success, Democrats have mistakenly believed it's been the path forward ever since. But much of it, like anything, was circumstance. The story of the modern Democratic Party is how Ronald Reagan caused them to be afraid of their own shadow. The tragedy is, most of Reagan's success was myth-making. In reality he was an early-onset dementia patient for a large part of his Presidency, and some of the worst human beings imaginable were running the country.
Might want to watch it with the (absurd) projections of intent there.
The reason the quote "lies, damn lies and statistics" exists is not because of the falsity of statistics, but the disingenuous ways they can be used.
For instance, let's say, if one were comparing the mortality of "less-educated" white americans to all black americans, instead of the more obvious comparisons of all whites to all blacks or less educated whites to less-educated blacks.
It turns out whites have a higher life expectancy than blacks if you do like-to-like comparisons instead of comparing the very worst off whites to all blacks!
Why did CBS do this misleading comparison? Because it's more dramatic to say "whites are now worse off than blacks!" instead of saying the truth: "whites are still better off than blacks, but not as much as they used to be".
So, if you're going to be intellectually consistent, you will now presumably care more about poor POC than poor whites, because the latter are better off (in health, income, life expectency, chance of dying in pregnancy, infant mortality, etc.). Worshipping them is optional (and, frankly, pretty odd).
I'm sorry - I cant argue with someone in good faith that is obnoxious to the point of assuming I wouldnt care if another person was being tortured. You mischaracterize me. You put words in my mouth. You dissemble and want to paint everyone who isnt of your ideology as some kind of white genocidalists. We're not. Sorry you're so mired in it that you cannot see that.
Your link only speaks of non college educated. Buried in citations are links to articles that confirm the basic fact that Whites still do have much higher life expectancy than African Americans.
Can't we agree that all groups that are marginalized, with poor economic prospects and prone to drug and alcohol problems deserve sympathy? I certainly agree that there are white demographic groups that have moved into this category in relatively recent years, but there are native american and black demographic groups that have been in that category for generations. I don't understand why it should be seen as more appropriate to help people who have been affected by these problems in the last generation, than those who have been suffering for much longer - nor do I think it's appropriate that those who point out that there are historic problems should be ridiculed.
There are a whole range of policies that have resulted in the gap between life expectancy of different demographic groups increasing over time - those could include access to health care, promotion of some drugs and demonization of others, allowing water pollution in less well-off areas, lack of public policy initiatives in areas such as smoking and failure to adjust for the impacts of de-industrialization (but lots of others could be pointed at as well).
We've talked about it a lot before, but it still seems to me that reversing at least to some extent the rapid growth of income and wealth inequality in the US would help with these policy areas (and causation works both ways, so responding in these policy areas would help with inequality as well).
You've been saying this for years. Do you have any data to back it up? Anything, that shows equivalence with the asylum that is the Trump administration?
Since 1969, Republican presidential administrations have had 121 criminal indictments and 89 convictions, while Democrats have had 4 and 2, respectively
But "BotH ParTieS ArE tHe SaMe" right.
This is basically the attitude I expect when talking about the suffering of poor white folks. Reflexive, thoughtless accusations, stated as broadly as possible, guilt by association because of your race and economic class, claims about their mindset that you can't possibly substantiate, and that by their very nature wrongfully condemn thousands of people.
As I said, it's not the numbers that are the issue, it's that so many of you hold such cartoonish, childish stereotypes of rural white americans that you can't bring yourself to have even a shred of the humanity that you seem to be so proud of, and that you so strongly and freely condemn in others who you claim to lack it. The hypocrisy is so obnoxious it's painful. Never talk about how badly people are treated again until you can take a look in the mirror.
And don't even get me started on comparing the social mores of 50 years ago against the moral standards of today, doubly so because illicit drug addictions were not something we understood nearly as well as today, if there was ever a desperate reach to justify a sociopathic disregard for millions of people, that would be it. People adopt what is in their environment, it doesn't make them less than human.
My link speaks of the non college educated because that is who I was speaking about. My first post specifically mentions non college educated white americans That is also why I said "not this demographic", and not all white people.
Whites having a higher life expectancy, in general, is meaningless deflection. The high death rates of the non college educated are offset by the long life expectancies of the middle class and college educated. These are not the same group of people, in more ways than one.
I didn't call you a genocidalist, just said that you don't care, and you more or less said it yourself. Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but "You'll have to forgive me for not crying for poor white rural voters that support the suppression of poor black rural voters." sounds a lot to me like "I don't care because I hold stereotypical views".
Misinterpretation. Again. You're decided its fair game to ascribe sinister notions to things I've said, and make broad mischaracterizations and generalizations.
My quote speaks exactly for itself: I do not feel a great deal of sympathy for the fact that white people who are upset because they think being called out for marginalizing other races is a marginalization in and of itself.
To be explicitly clear, because I'm tired of my words being twisted: Does that mean I dont feel bad that (any) white people are currently dealing with serious socio-economic factors that harm their quality of life: NOPE. It doesnt mean that. AT ALL. However, when you consume my statement through your ideological lens, you end up assuming I do. That's *you*, not me. You decided that means "I think it would be fine if white people were tortured", or that I "Dont care at all about them". These two statements could not and do not mean the same thing.
Next time you decide you want to interpret one of my comments for me: Dont. Especially dont when it ascribes sinister intent (which you might remember - is against the rules in post 1)
You offered it as a rebuttal to my comment, which wasnt even about uneducated whites. I was talking about poor whites and poor blacks. Which arent the same thing.
When the trial starts, you don't call any witnesses in your defense. Then your lawyers, some of whom may be involved with the crime, argue that because no one testified in your defense you must be innocent. They say because "Both sides" didn't give witnesses you should be acquitted.
You are offered the chance at the trial to call whoever you want but you don't. It looks like the jury, made up mostly of your fellow criminals, are going to let you off the hook.
Was justice done?