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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Political polarization among Americans has grown rapidly in the last 40 years—more than in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia or Germany—a phenomenon possibly due to increased racial division, the rise of partisan cable news and changes in the composition of the Democratic and Republican parties.
That's according to new research co-authored by Jesse Shapiro, a professor of political economy at Brown University. The study, conducted alongside Stanford University economists Levi Boxell and Matthew Gentzkow, was released on Monday, Jan. 20, as a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper.
In the study, Shapiro and colleagues present the first ever multi-nation evidence on long-term trends in "affective polarization"—a phenomenon in which citizens feel more negatively toward other political parties than toward their own. They found that in the U.S., affective polarization has increased more dramatically since the late 1970s than in the eight other countries they examined—the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and Sweden.
"A lot of analysis on polarization is focused on the U.S., so we thought it could be interesting to put the U.S. in context and see whether it is part of a global trend or whether it looks more exceptional," Shapiro said. "We found that the trend in the U.S. is indeed exceptional."
Using data from four decades of public opinion surveys conducted in the nine countries, the researchers used a so-called "feeling thermometer" to rate attitudes on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 reflected no negative feelings toward other parties. They found that in 1978, the average American rated the members of their own political party 27 points higher than members of the other major party. By 2016, Americans were rating their own party 45.9 points higher than the other party, on average. In other words, negative feelings toward members of the other party compared to one's own party increased by an average of 4.8 points per decade.
The researchers found that polarization had also risen in Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland in the last 40 years, but to a lesser extent. In the U.K., Australia, Germany, Norway and Sweden, polarization decreased.
More information: Levi Boxell et al, Cross-Country Trends in Affective Polarization, (2020). DOI: 10.3386/w26669
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday January 27 2020, @06:05PM (58 children)
What we need is a well educated electorate.
Maybe in high school people should be taught to be less gullible. More skeptical. To pick up on "con man" or "used car salesman" talk no matter who says it or what party they represent.
Maybe people should understand basic addition and subtraction. If you increase spending then you MUST either (or both) increase taxes, or increase the deficit. Every politician wants to promise voters things that cost the government money, yet at the same time want to claim they will magically decrease taxes AND the deficit.
I saw an info graphic recently (sorry don't have it) but it represented to sheer vast magnitude of how much the top 1% through the top 10% own. It was breathtaking. (My own opinion was that the people with this much didn't need any tax cuts, and would still be vastly fabulously wealthy, more than a lifetime worth. But that's just IMO.)
If you don't like grocery prices now, wait until Trump deports the 'lazy' people who pick it, process it and package it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @06:24PM (13 children)
Since I've been alive, Canada went from a mandated balanced budget to a spend like crazy atmosphere (starting with the first Trudeau dick).
The spend like crazy is still going on, but now is used to buy shit like a pipeline no one wants from an American company that didn't want it....and Canadians seem to be going "What me worry".
Yeah: better education is needed, but won't happen because the rich need stupid people to steam-roll over, so they don't want to pay into the education tax system.
Sigh...and it's working.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @06:55PM (12 children)
Public school is a sick joke. Try not to be so sad about your precious "education taxes".
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday January 27 2020, @07:18PM (3 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @08:42PM (2 children)
Yup: you have to be VERY active in your kids education: fortunately, my wife is an EA in the system, with an educational background in Behavioural Science. She knows how to get the worst kids in the system to get the work done (kids who in other Schools were TRASHING the classes and hitting kids and teachers). Unfortunately, she often has 9 of the worst kids that the teachers making $100,000 don't know how to deal with.
She SHOULD be earning a teacher's salary, but....
Our daughter was dyslexic and hated reading: we bought her the Betty and Veronica books...LOTS of them and she learned to love reading.
But she's made the biggest difference with our son: because she knows how the system works from the inside, she knew when to push for what he needed (moderately to severly autistic) and when things were the best we could expect and she taught the rest at home.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @11:47PM (1 child)
One of my firends is a literacy consultant for a regional education unit and repeatedly has the same conversation. "These kids can't/hate to read. Fix them." "Have you tried giving them books about topics they are interested in." "That would be a waste of time because they wouldn't read them." "Try that while I get the RTI paperwork drawn up, then we can see if they need an 504 or IEP."
It is almost magical how often she gets the email saying the problem is no longer a problem. Or that the students they claimed needed a level 3 LRE modification in an IEP can get away with a 504 due to their improvement.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:02AM
Everyone, no matter their age, read the Archie digests.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @08:05PM (7 children)
If the public system was as funded as the private system, it COULD be better: instead, it is a unionized and an underfunded joke.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 27 2020, @08:51PM (6 children)
The public system could be (made) better in many different ways**. Why the fuck do you feel the compulsion to push a dichotomy here?
** Use your fav search engine and search 'Finland education successful'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @09:16PM (5 children)
I hate that 'unionized' teachers, basically, cannot be fired: there are a LOT of teachers that should be fired. I had some in high school. I had a teacher that spent the entire class helping the girls with boobs. Eventually he was sent off to another schooled instead of being fired.
My wifes' school has a janitor who does nothing all day, but because he is unionized, he is allowed to do nothing.
BUT: there are a lot of teachers who are doing a good job: to me, unions SHOULD support people doing their jobs: if they aren't, they should be fired, someone is promoted into their position and someone else is hired to replace the missing person. You wind up with a union that is efficient and productive, and yet supports people who need union support instead of people who aren't doing the job.
My wife goes out of her way to support the kids: she is one of the reasons that the education system is as successful as it is (one of her kids just looked her up so he could thank her for the help she gave him: he has his own business and rebuilds classic cars as he gets the money.
All because she gave a damn.
It looks like she'd do well in something like the Finland system.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 27 2020, @10:00PM (4 children)
Ok, I understand how you acquired the compulsion, you didn't have large enough boobs at the time. (large grin)
Like how unions are an effective negotiation partner [thehill.com] in Germany [hbr.org]?
Or the way the Japan trade unions are more fiscally responsible than a conservative prime-minister [ft.com]?
(my point: it's not the trade unions as such that is detrimental, it's how certain trade unions choose to behave. Instead of nailing down "trade unions are bad" in one's mind, one would better look why the trade unions in US choose to behave destructively during negotiation; as a hypothesis, perhaps the "everything is competition; if one doesn't win then it's a loser" ethos has something to do with it? That may explain the extreme political polarization in US too)
Please do send my respects to her, I understand what it takes and I do have all the admiration for people who can do it, especially in education
(I do give a damn about education and this is the very reasons I don't teach. Took me 2 terms working as a substitute teacher during my Uni time and I decided that I'm a sub-mediocre it. I didn't and don't want to ruin the potential of the kids for a subject because I don't have the vocation for teaching)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @11:08PM (3 children)
"Instead of nailing down "trade unions are bad"
NO! It seems that unions are just as important now as ever (maybe). It just seems that SOME unions protect the wrong people..
I knew a guy in BEAUTIFUL DOWNTOWN KESWICK who was a delivery guy (Mowat delivery: i think it got bought out by someone else...probably to get rid of the union): he would stop halfway through his day to do a little schtupping with his girlfriend on company time, then finish his deliveries late so he could get overtime. The company had him followed and fired him, but he cried discrimination (he was Jamaican) and the union supported him.
I'm sorry, but his ass should have been let go:BUT, promote someone into his position and hire to fill the gap. THAT'S productive.
You're right: unions CAN be good...but they can also be bad.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 27 2020, @11:49PM
Any tool that is effective can be used for good and bad. Sometimes you don't even need to intend a bad end when using an effective tool, yet bad things may happen (accidents).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @10:52AM (1 child)
How about people that hate unions, first try try to get rid of the police union and leave the trade unions be. Let's see how that will work out for you, mkay?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @12:07PM
What about them?
The continuation doesn't even follow.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Monday January 27 2020, @06:31PM (1 child)
What we need is a well educated electorate.
That has long been thought to be one of the main reasons that certain groups of politicians have been continuing to hollow out what's left of the public school system in the US. The more useless they make mainstream education become the more politically maleable and immune to logic and facts the resulting graduates become. And just look at most of the politicians themselves, few to none would pass an old-fashioned civics test about government roles and operations.
As mentioned in another article thread, the four decades of hollowing out public education results in a multi-generational tsunami of illiterates which actively prevent the US from retaning any form of lead in science or technology. But in the case of politics, the topic in this thread, it means that everything becomes an opinion to the graduates (victims really) of such schooling. With everything being an opinion, facts no longer matter, and they instead make their decisions at the ballot box based on emotion. Such emotions are then easy to manipulate via social control media or propaganda television from the two or three remaining channels [billmoyers.com].
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @06:59PM
Modded you insightful 100 times, but it only stuck once.
If the rich had to pay into the public school system as much as they pay into the private school system, you'd see a better educational system: instead, they pay almost nothing in taxes and all their money goes to buying politicians instead.
All because they want people to say "OMG! Kobe Bryant is dead? OMG!!!!!" instead of "The rich pay almost nothing in taxes in comparison to me?!?!?"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Touché) by Coward, Anonymous on Monday January 27 2020, @06:47PM (10 children)
Skepticism is called denial now. Try to keep up.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday January 27 2020, @10:32PM (9 children)
When there is literally zero proof that could possibly change your mind then what you're doing is denial, not skepticism.
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Monday January 27 2020, @10:53PM (4 children)
I could say the same thing about you, but don't pull out dismissive labels.
(Score: 2) by Aegis on Tuesday January 28 2020, @12:08AM (3 children)
Bullshit! It would be very easy to get the scientists to change their minds. The only tricky bit is figuring out how to get the planet to start cooling down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:28AM
Or make the funding and promotion climate more productive on the other side.
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:54AM
That contradicts the famous quote by Upton Sinclair:
Or do you think there would be as many climate research jobs if people were unconcerned about global warming?
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:06AM
Scientists are at least as bad. Hence the problems with replicability of studies, the faked data, and of course the infighting, because academics are the absolute nastiest at infighting, because the stakes are so low.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @11:00PM (3 children)
"Here is Trump confessing to withholding aid in return for investgations of his political opponent."
HEARSAY!!!!!
"Ok, here is a heavily redacted transcript that shows the same thing."
HE DIDN'T MEAN TO EXTORT FAVORS, MISINTERPRETING WITCH HUNT! READ THE TRANSCRIPTS!
"Umm, we did read the not-a-transcript and would really like to see the unredacted version."
NO READ THE TRANSCRIPTS WITCH COUPHUNT! DEMON DEMOCRATS!!!
"Ok bub, see your asses in court."
NO WITNESS TESTIMONY ALLOWED WITCH HUNT!!!
"Gee, you're such reasonable skeptics!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @04:07AM (2 children)
Four Legs Good, Two Legs Good,
Four Legs Good, Two Legs Good,
but what about ...
FOUR LEGS GOOD TWO LEGS BAD
FOUR LEGS GOOD TWO LEGS BAD
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @04:59AM (1 child)
Sounds like cannibal vs. vegan
Got something more interesting, or is that just some weird dog whistle?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @06:28AM
It's a quote from Animal Farm, a more insightful novel than his more famous 1984.
It's what the sheep are trained to chant to drown out any attempt at discussion.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday January 27 2020, @07:01PM (26 children)
We're getting more of that than we used to. As in, more Americans under age 40 have a college degree of some kind than ever before in the country's history. And at least some of those degrees involved some sort of encounter with the concept of critical thinking, data synthesis, or in general not just believing what somebody tells you.
Yeah, but if you do that, then it's harder for the boss to fool their employees with talk about company loyalty or future rewards if you just put up with a lousy situation now.
That's part of a very specific con that's been going on for approximately 40 years. A problem what we now call "movement conservatives" were running into was that they wanted to eliminate Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, because after reading Ayn Rand they decided the government giving people money and/or services was bad unless the people in question were themselves, but those programs were and still are extremely popular. So they hatched the following plan:
1. Cut taxes relentlessly, because tax cuts are popular. Do not cut spending significantly, or even increase it, to cause massive deficits.
2. Wait until the federal budget becomes completely insolvent.
3. When a Democrat is president, use that budget crisis to argue that the Only Possible Solution (tm) is making cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, and that to do anything else is irresponsible spending.
4. Go to the voters and complain about how the Evil Democrats made cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare.
Step 1 started early in the Reagan administration, and Newt Gingrich's GOP thought they were going to make step 3 finally happen in the mid-1990's, but then the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke and they put the plan on hold. They did a second round starting at the beginning of the George W Bush administration, and then Paul Ryan's GOP tried and failed to force the Obama administration into step 3 using self-created budget crises and government shutdowns. And guess what was one of the first things the Trump administration did? If you guessed "massive unfunded tax cut", you were right. And I can guarantee you that the next Democratic president will be subject to exactly the same effort by the GOP regardless of who it is in office.
If you want to see this kind of pattern in a microcosm, look at what's been going on with the US Postal Service. It was operating just fine for decades, then the Republicans mandated that they start funding the retirement plan far more than any other organization ever has had to (75 years into the future, so funding the retirements of employees that are 5 years from being born), and now they're going around saying "the US Postal Service is insolvent, we have to privatize it".
It's the same strategy as one half of a couple wanting to replace something, the other half doesn't, so the half that wants a replacement breaks the item in question to force the other half to agree to replace it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @07:20PM (18 children)
Don't worry, George Soros intends to fix that real soon. [bloomberg.com] At last courses such as "Gendered Memories of the Holocaust", "Ethnic Quotas and Affirmative Action in Higher Education" and "Communism and Gender: Historical and Global Perspectives" will get the financial backing to launch a million barristas into the workforce.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Monday January 27 2020, @09:30PM (17 children)
Thanks. Confirmed the assertion in the title very well.
Unironically linking to a article from Bloomberg, of all places. The billionaire running for office because he is concerned not enough billionaires are in the race.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @12:08AM (16 children)
Social Justice courses are built around discredited ideas and churn out dogma spewing activists. If you think it's more acceptable when it comes from the left as opposed the right (eg: creationism) then it is you who are polarized.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday January 28 2020, @12:33AM (15 children)
I have no views about Social Justice courses because they will never affect me in any way.
Now tell me about how "the Jews" are taking over.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:03AM (13 children)
I'm a Jew and I think your juxtaposition there is unfair. One can be skeptical of what might be termed the "SJW curriculum" for good intellectual reasons and also for valid economic ones. For example, the Seattle school district is going to do away with its middle school gifted and talented program because it has too many whites and asians. This is is the concept of equity (as distinct from equality) in action -- it is the Harrison Bergeroning of public education -- rather than help kids learn, they will depress the learning opportunities of smart kids because not enough black kids make it (and some of the most vocal opponents are the black parents of smart kids). Equity of outcome means pushing people down and grade inflating others up. You need to be concerned whenever you hear the word "equity" in a place you used to hear "equality" because it is incredibly costly, both socially and financially. Worse, all it does is cement race stereotypes and plants the seeds for discord.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:38AM (1 child)
I made the "Jew" crack because almost every time someone complains about social justice of some kind on this site, they then go off on some kind of "The Jews are taking over" rant.
I meant no offence, my sister is actually Jewish too.
Anyway, I'm sorry your local schools are so poorly run, but that indicates far worse problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:00AM
It starts with the colleges https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRdayXEOwuMG9DG66Bvx6YbUnhw-buS5K [youtube.com] and spreads to government https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKDWTwQ41Wk [youtube.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:53AM (10 children)
I'm in the thick of this in the bluest part of blue, blue Brooklyn. Some are trying to get rid of gifted & talented because of equity concerns, but it's just a dodge. Wealthy white parents have built what amount to private schools inside the public education system, using public dollars. Those schools are overwhelmingly white and wealthy. If you are not from a wealthy white family, but instead are black or Latino, then the gifted & talented program is one of very, very few avenues you have to get out of your zoned school.
So what those white liberal crusaders are doing (and well they know it) is not helping the black and brown kids at all, but fucking them over twice as hard while patting themselves on the back about how virtuous they are.
We're trying to change the school zones now, because it is the educational equivalent of the redlining banks did in the 60's to deny home and business loans to minority folks, and you should watch the wealthy white parents show up and flip the fuck out: "I fully support more diversity and educational opportunity, but...my kids might have to walk two blocks further to school and their. Little. Legs. Can't. Go. That. Far. (sad, sad, sad expression and tears of concern dripping down Penelope's nose)."
The polarization is by design, and the white liberal woke are the absolute worst.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:07AM (2 children)
A microcosm of the meritocracy mindset.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @11:13PM (1 child)
Not sure what to make of that comment. Merit is a vast system with multiple avenues for achievement and reward So what if the majority of scientists and entrepreneurs are Jewish, asian and white while the majority of basketball players and footballers are black? Equal opportunity and equal outcome are very different things and the latter can only be enforced via oppression.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @01:07AM
Your racist observations aside, the point was to point out the fallacy of "meritocracy." It quite often just means letting the privileged continue being privileged.
Academic outcomes are strongly tied to socio-economic status and parental education. So perhaps it isn't the races so much as families passing on good practices. Have a child genius raised by monkeys and don't expect much beyond them being good at remembering where the berries are.
The concept of meritocracy is broken and results in massive inequality. Should the person with a 1380 on their SAT be allowed to have a job while 1250 puts them below the cutoff and they must live in poverty forever? Even though the same menial job they're competing for would be capably handled by either candidate?
The problem with you racists (sorry but you're need to put forth racial stats for various fields makes that seem inevitable) is that you take the easy explanation. You look at first order correlations and come away with eugenics and white power movements.
If you're just being a troll, or you're simply race-curious, then good. Please don't continue down that road.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday February 01 2020, @12:11AM (6 children)
> The polarization is by design, and the white liberal woke are the absolute worst.
No they aren't. They're annoying and ineffectual, but they are far from "the absolute worst." You have to believe they are worse than people outright calling for genocide to believe that, and if you do, I have some bad news for you...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 01 2020, @04:53AM (5 children)
Are you talking about the Bernie Sanders campaign workers promising re-education camps and guillotines [youtube.com] for Trump voters? Or maybe you're thinking of the Bernie supporter that tried to assassinate Republican Congressmen [wikipedia.org] at a baseball practice? I don't think they or Antifa are representative of Bernie supporters and are in fact a radical minority on the left. But white supremacists are equally rare on the right.
I say the white liberal woke are the worst because they are virulently racist but are too cowardly to come out and say it. They exercise their racism with subtle, invisible, structural means; those tactics have been incredibly successful at destroying black and latino advancement for 70 years. All the while they make kewpie doll eyes and swear up and down how caring they are. It's sickening, and it keeps racism from being faced honestly and resolved.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday February 01 2020, @03:05PM (4 children)
No, Phoenix. I am speaking of the people who goose-step in the streets throwing the Heil and celebrating Hitler's birthday. I am speaking of the Stormfronters and worse.
If you actually think affirmative action is equivalent to calling for a white ethnostate or ethnic cleansing, you are worse than delusional, you're willfully ignorant. Then again, aren't you also the whining little manchild who thinks Christians are "persecuted" in the US? Take your self-serving "butbutbut LIBRULZ'R THUH REAL RAYSISZ HURR!" bullshit and shove it up your lying ass so hard you choke on it. You're so full of it you're leaking at the seams.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 01 2020, @08:50PM (3 children)
Have you ever read Stormfront? Those people are so pitifully anemic they couldn't organize a march out of a wet paper bag. I grew up next to the Idaho panhandle, the supposed epicenter of white supremacy in the United States, and have never seen so much as a swastika or other white supremacist symbol there much less a march with people throwing the Nazi salute. And this was back in their heyday, before they got broken up and taken down by the FBI, ATF, IRS, and other government agencies.
This supposed "rise in white supremacy" is a figment of your imagination.
I didn't say anything about affirmative action. I never have. I did ask why "shooting up synagogues" proves "rising anti-Semitism" when shooting up churches does not also prove rising anti-Christian hatred. Because to me those two things signify that people in the United States are being killed for their religious beliefs. Or does it not matter if people you (presumably) hate, Christians, are dying also?
A person who was not blinded by tribal hatred and rank hypocrisy could consider that point without shrieking, Azuma.
Further, I pointed out that through the lens of my experience with trying to de-segregate elementary and middle schools in Brooklyn, NY, that white liberal "woke" people are incredibly racist and two-faced about it, such that black and latino kids don't get even a minimally adequate education while the rich white kids get to choose between more than one style of opera after-school enrichment classes to take. The white liberal woke people don't even have the integrity or balls to come out and declare that's what they're doing, so I find them especially despicable. I mean, hey, something's at work if blue, blue New York City has the most segregated school system in the US (per the Washington Post, June 2017).
But what do I know? Azuma, a woman who doesn't volunteer many hours every week as a civic leader to de-segregate schools in New York City surely knows more about it than I do. Surely you are a vastly superior moral being who is so more upright than lesser beings like myself who, pshaw, actually get off their ass and go places to help others. Indeed I cannot hold a candle to a supreme avatar of virtue such as you.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday February 01 2020, @10:46PM (2 children)
Okay, first of all, I don't hate Christians (or Jews, or Muslims); what I hate is the ideology. You may know this concept under the thought-terminating cliche "hate the sin, love the sinner." If you are so wedded to your belief system that you believe someone pointing out the internal and external problems with it--chief among them being that if your God exists, it's some species of demon--that is a problem with you, not me. From this vantage point, it's like a man with tuberculosis claiming that he, himself, *is* tuberculosis.
Second, cram the fake moral outrage. I grew up in that city, spent the first 27 years of my life in it, and am very well familiar with 1) the amount of de-facto segregation that goes on and 2) the failures of middle-class and rich self-appointed "liberals" to do anything about it. Class is the final determining factor. I remember being one of three white kids in my grade for a couple of years, and no one seemed to have a problem with me for it. It sucked that I couldn't speak Cantonese or Spanish but that was my "fault" if anyone's. Why was I practically the only white kid in the school? Simple: poverty. As you were talking about. We *should* be on the same side here, but you have a permanent persecution complex.
Christians, again, are the furthest thing from persecuted it is possible to be in the US. You want to be persecuted as a Christian? Staple a flag to your ass and airmail yourself to Iran. We've had 44 Christian presidents in a row (I seriously doubt 45's claims...), senior staff like Mike Pompeo are making foreign policy explicitly predicated on Christian eschatology, and Christian ideologues are stuffing the judiciaries nationwide to get their culture-war bills passed. You are the exact opposite of persecuted.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 05 2020, @02:59AM (1 child)
Yeah, that sounds rather like saying, "Oh, no, no, I don't hate you. I just hate the fact that you live in sin because you're a homosexual."
I submit that you are a bigot, with the only difference from the Nazi kind being that the target of your hatred is a (currently) more socially acceptable one among the Left. Ask yourself if you would call a Jew lamenting attacks on synagogues a "whining man-child." I bet you wouldn't. Ask yourself if you would call a gay man who survived the attack on the club in Florida a "whining man-child" for talking about it. I bet you wouldn't. But you call me that for daring, having the gall, to mention attacks on churches in the same thread in which attacks on synagogues were discussed.
No, I don't. I have never been persecuted in a meaningful way for factors I can't control. But my gender, race, religion, and culture have been disparaged constantly in the national discourse since I was a small child, and even my sexual orientation has been added to the list in the last half decade. I'm tired of it. I have lived overseas, speak several languages, have a world-class education, and have been intimately involved in politics and civic life in NYC for the last twenty years; I know exactly how full of shit the people peddling that nonsense are, and how mercenary it all is. I know full well what a stinking bunch of hypocrites the people pushing those memes are.
There was a citation of recent attacks on synagogues as "proof of rising white supremacy!!!", except the guy that attacked the orthodox in Rockland County was black and could hardly be called a champion of white supremacy. Further, I know that area well because we started house-hunting in the area just to the west of there two months ago; Orthodox dominate it so thoroughly that it could almost be considered a Jewish ethno-state. There is a lot of tension between the black community and the Orthodox community there, just like there is in Crown Heights in Brooklyn (where they had race riots a couple decades ago).
So the facts be damned, the narrative must be served. And it must be served because it's so darn lucrative.
Finally, you're just fucking dense to suppose that a Protestant man married to a Korean Catholic, who has two beautiful children with her, and who lives in the bluest, most progressive, most diverse part of Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY, is in fact a closet white supremacist. I have given my adult life to working for the environment through the Sierra Club and Green Peace. The last seven years I have spent all my free time working on de-segregating schools in Brooklyn. Whatever life choices a white supremacist might make, they look like the total opposite of those I have made.
Honestly, I don't know if you have lost your mind because the DNC is cheating Bernie (and all the other non-establishment candidates) again or what, but you have lost your mind.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 05 2020, @03:46AM
Read the reply to your other post, and thank your lucky stars I saw *that* one first, because this one does nothing but prove all the worst things I said about you and a number of others I didn't even think of before reading it. This is beyond insulting. You have no idea who or what you are dealing with here, and if *anyone* has lost their mind it's you!
Where the fuck did I ever call you a white supremacist, closet or otherwise?! What the actual hell?!
If you really think your gender, race, religion, culture, and sexual orientation are under threat, you're beyond reasoning with. You, yes you, personally, you, Phoenix666, are the normative barometer in ALL of those in the US! You are male, white, Christian, middle-class and educated, and (presumably) straight. You are playing this horrible game of the Sims on the easiest difficulty it is possible to play ON without being incredibly wealthy! Your biggest complaint is *disparagement* for fuck's sake, not discrimination or persistent economic injustice or even fucking *genocide!* So people spout off and *say things about you you don't like,* boo-stupid-hoo! Ignore it! Grow a thicker skin! If nothing else, laugh as it all bounces off the impregnable fortress of economic and social security you have as, again, a representative member of *the* social and cultural norm in this country!
I get it, all us uppity queers and non-Christians and feeeeeeeeeeee~males demanding equal treatment *feels* like your world is getting turned upside down. You are such a zero-sum thinker! You see someone rising and think it means you're sinking, like there's only so much "human rights juice" to go around, is that it? You think every single person who isn't like you and is rightfully pointing out how skewed and unjust this world is wants you personally to suffer and die? You really think people like me want to use your head as a springboard on the way up?
I have some bad news for you: if you do, *you are one short step away from Runaway and others of his ilk.* Yes, even with all your precious Sierra Club activism and your Greenpeace membership and your Korean Catholic wife and your two beautiful interracial babies and allllll the other virtue-signalling you've been doing. If this is the real you, if this is what you truly believe, if you are honestly this zero-sum and panicked and shortsighted, *you are just a politer version of Runaway.* Or at least have the potential to become like him.
I know, the truth hurts. You need to take a good look at yourself, even if it's some mouthy dyke on the Internet who's holding up the mirror to you. You are now at a crossroads: you can take this post as the final confirming piece of evidence for your feelz-based persecution complex and follow the road Runaway and his kind have, or you can reflect on it and do some soul-searching.
Keep this in mind: I would not be going off on you and wasting my time typing this up if I thought you were irreedeemable or a bad seed. No, I think you have the makings of a very good person in you indeed. But you're at a dangerous crossroads now, and if you do the easy, lazy, feels-good-in-the-moment thing, you'll lose your soul.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @11:39PM
They will.
What is this crap? Criticizing George Soros for his character is not anti-Semitic. Note one of the courses I named attempted to shoehorn gender based ideology into studies on the execution of 6 million people. If you had a passing familiarity with "Social Justice" texts, you'd understand that diversity is division and will be achieved by "naming the jew". [twitter.com] I'd suggest verifying the content and tone of these texts for yourself, I suspect you may be horrified.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Monday January 27 2020, @08:03PM (3 children)
Unfortunately that paid their tribute to the academic system, not that they've actually learned anything worthwhile.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @08:13PM (2 children)
Yup: a college degree in being a YES MAN (which I see too often) does not make an educated person.
If you can't think AND change your thinking WHEN (not if) you are wrong, you are useless.
You CAN'T lead when your lips are attached to an asshole.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday January 28 2020, @12:00AM (1 child)
But one can pose as a leader, by the metric of how many others are attaching (willingly or not) their lips to one's ass (incidentally, this is the vision of career bureaucrats).
For (far too) many, posing is just enough - don't tell me this surprises you.
(note: bureaucracy is not inherent to public institutions. One will find such persons inside the mid-management in companies, usually those that will show you an MBA paper)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:09AM
How so very true. The most memorable illustration of this was an interesting text called: "The Peter Principle" [1] I encountered in my youth.
I thought it '+1 Insightful" then, and still do many decades later. :-)
*note: I find the parallel between 'The Peter Principle" and 'Idiocracy' disturbing: both intended as satires, that became somewhat seemingly predictive.
{1}https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle/ [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 27 2020, @10:51PM (2 children)
Confusion between "schooling" and "education" detected.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 28 2020, @02:14AM (1 child)
I didn't confuse schooling and education, I said specifically that over the course of their schooling there's a good chance they at some point learned a specific skill that was being taught. Critical thinking and healthy skepticism are a big part of those liberal arts degrees that a lot of STEM types like to hate.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 28 2020, @02:45AM
I'm afraid this takes a bit more time than a single term elective with an exam at the end.
I have this nagging feeling that some 4-5 years of apprenticeship is barely cutting it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday January 27 2020, @07:59PM
There's a bit of a gotcha with that one, not all deficits are equal.
You'd want your population to be able to tell the difference between expanding the deficit owed to a privately-run group of banks, and upon which the government as a debtor ought to pay interest, yet rarely can thus getting further into debt at an exponential rate, and expanding the deficit owed to a state-run central bank, which is just a number on a piece of paper. The two are very different beasts.
And nope, I'm not saying that MMT's right in that you can just create money out of nothing for ever, but I'm saying you should be aware of the difference between actual MMT and the fake mafia-run MMT that the US would indulge in.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday January 27 2020, @08:01PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 27 2020, @09:03PM
That would start by reforming public education, which doesn't seem likely to happen as long as we have idiots selecting the leaders...
It would also take roughly 40 years for the "well educated" electorate to gain significant majority in elections.
Then you can start worrying about whether "well educated" is the same as "properly educated" to vote in their own best interests...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by gznork26 on Tuesday January 28 2020, @12:16AM
As it happens, the University of Washington have a very popular course in identifying bullshit. The instructors set up a domain for the course materials, including lecture videos.
Go have a look...
https://callingbullshit.org [callingbullshit.org]
Khipu were Turing complete.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday January 27 2020, @06:15PM (39 children)
I'll just pick on one issue: guns
People who live in densely populated areas don't want (1) crazy people to get guns, and (2) to die in a mass shooting. (imagine that!)
People who live in sparsely populated areas would like to be able to defend themselves when police services are thin and with long response time. I can very much understand that. And also firearms used for hunting porpoises.
I can't be sure, but I suspect that people who want to have guns for rural areas, might also not want crazy people to have guns.
Two reasonable sounding points of view, but we can't find any solution. And heaven forbid we spend any public money on mental health services. But I digress.
If you don't like grocery prices now, wait until Trump deports the 'lazy' people who pick it, process it and package it.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @06:26PM (5 children)
GODS! They're hunting porpoises!
Shit...what won't you Americans shoot at? ;)
Yeah...you make good points!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday January 27 2020, @09:34PM (3 children)
Of course they're hunting porpoises. Have you seen the damage wild herds of porpoises do to the plains of Kansas and Nebraska?
Or was that a dream I had?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @09:42PM (2 children)
In my dreams, Kansas and Nebraska girls are climbing on top of MY porpoise.... wild herds of Kansas and Nebraska girls...... OHhhhhh YEAHHHHH! :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday January 27 2020, @09:55PM (1 child)
In my dreams, Kansas and Nebraska girls are fixing my truck (if you know what I mean).
No, really, it has been running poorly lately, and needs a tune up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @11:02PM
I'd give you some advice but I don't want to be spam modded by the antipha Buzztard.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:06AM
Oh hush -- it's the Japanese hunting cetaceans and their gun control is insane, thus gun control is insane.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @06:58PM (5 children)
The 2A is about the ability to protect yourself from oppresive government. Hunting and self protection from robbers, etc was a given during the time it was written. Read the federalist papers for references.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday January 27 2020, @07:23PM (3 children)
The 2A was about, in no small part, reducing or even eliminating the need for a standing army by having a citizen militia that would defend the country if attacked. That would also make the cost of government a lot lower, as well as reduce the risk of a tyranny forming.
The theory proved wrong in relatively short order, in 2 ways:
1. George Washington put down the Whiskey Rebellion by force of arms, demonstrating that the armed populace could not in fact resist the armed government.
2. The professional British Canadian army thoroughly kicked the butts of the US forces during the War of 1812, and it was a minor miracle that the US even survived that mess. So much so that the memory of that lingers on in the national anthem to this day.
So now the US has a large, highly technologically advanced, and extremely expensive standing military. And if a bunch of citizens decided to try to stand up to that force using nothing but civilian small arms, they'd have about as much chance as the Second Spanish Republic did in the 1930's. A lot of guys are out there vastly overestimating their chances in the "AR-15 versus Abrams tank" scenario.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @07:44PM (1 child)
Remind us again, how did the US military fare in Vietnam and Afghanistan?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @07:58PM
You mean (Vietnam, Afghanistan) as a military deployed to a foreign country to put down an enemy a lot of Americans didn't care about vs. a military fighting on its own soil for the existence of the country that commands them (a civil war on American soil)?
These two things are not alike.
I notice you left out the last time we had a civil war: the establishment (US govt) won that one.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:18AM
This is a decent read on the topic from the opposite perspective: http://monsterhunternation.com/2018/11/19/the-2nd-amendment-is-obsolete-says-congressman-who-wants-to-nuke-omaha/ [monsterhunternation.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @10:55PM
Harboring delusion, I see.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @07:03PM (3 children)
Actual crazy people (not BS like ADHD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder) and career criminals (not fake crimes like drug felonies) are already excluded from the right to bear arms by The Constitution. What the seditious scum and their useful idiots want, is to be able to deny people fairness, and due process in the stripping of their 2a protected, natural born right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @08:04PM
Drug felons usually ARE hardened criminals who have murdered or been involved in serious, non-victimless crimes.
Don't fall for that friendly pot head myth. They are not present in the prison system in large numbers. It's gang members and murders instead, not simple possession. Except for poor Tommy Chong. They shit on that dude.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @09:49PM (1 child)
Until they are legally declared 'crazy', they can have as many guns as they have money to buy: pistols, rifles, AR-FuckYous, grenade launchers, anti-tank weapons, even tanks themselves....
...but yeah, ONCE they are DECLARED 'CRAZY' after killing as many people as they can, yeah...take their weapons away. Sure... makes sense.....
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:47AM
You wish. Many states and counties don't report their mental illness findings to the national database. Plus, there is no universal background check law. Together means that you can be considered so dangerous as to be involuntarily committed, and legally buy a gun the day you are released, despite being disqualified under federal law due to mental illness.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday January 27 2020, @08:06PM (21 children)
"shall not be infringed" is quite clear. If you're pro-2A, you've gotta support even the worst scoundrels' rights, criminals included. Darkies included - heaven forfend! Or be illogical and inconsistent.
Or support a rewriting of the constitution in more modern and less ambiguous language and with the benefit of hundreds of years of hindsight.
Shock, horror, heresy!
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 27 2020, @09:11PM (1 child)
Laws are one thing, practical implementation is something else entirely. Darkies with guns have essentially painted a "shoot me and get away with it" target on themselves, and they're quite able to obtain weapons with or without proper licensing.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday January 27 2020, @10:36PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 27 2020, @09:51PM (17 children)
Just curious. How extreme to you take that? Should guns not even be licensed?
If you don't like grocery prices now, wait until Trump deports the 'lazy' people who pick it, process it and package it.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @10:06PM (1 child)
Licensing is sometimes denied for arbitrary reasons. For example, in Massachusetts the chief of police sometimes makes a policy of saying "NO" to everybody.
If a person can't be trusted with a gun, then he simply can't be trusted. (with a chainsaw, hammer, crossbow, spear, 5 iron, baseball bat, steak knife...) He simply needs to be in some form of custody, possibly prison or a mental health institution.
The standard driver's license is reasonable as a gun license. It provides no indication that the owner might or might not have guns, avoiding the risk of easy confiscation. It indicates that the person can see well enough to aim at something and that the person probably isn't a drunk or otherwise a mental case.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:20PM
I think a bit more than a driver license should be required. Some minimal marksmanship and safety requirements. It should not be allowed to arbitrarily deny everyone licenses. When firing a weapon at a firing range, the objective is to be able to hit the sheet of paper.
If you don't like grocery prices now, wait until Trump deports the 'lazy' people who pick it, process it and package it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Monday January 27 2020, @10:54PM (13 children)
If the matter of licenses is important, then it should be explicitly mentioned in the right, no?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @11:46PM (11 children)
Well regulated implies state level controls, the whole point of the 2nd was to maintain states' right to form their own militias. An efficient and well run militia would of course regulate who gets to have guns. The 2008 ruling now makes individual protection a right, but that does not extend to all weapon variants and does not imply that states can't regulate. If someone feels their constitutional rights are violated by state law then the case should go to the supreme court for review.
This is how a nation of laws is run, and arm-chair constitutionalists (not you necessarily) don't get to interpret the constitution however they'd like. State's have repeatedly been upheld as having the power to regulate firearms, and the die hards can wake me up if the feds try and pass something more draconian.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 28 2020, @12:05AM (9 children)
Why?
Because the federal cannot do "well" in regards with regulation or what?
How about county/parish administration (or whatever lower-than-state form of local governance may be called)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:17AM (5 children)
The Constitution of the United States does not care about how the states decide to form what are known as "political subdivisions" or separation of powers within the states, beyond certain general rules. And the Bill of Rights were designed to protect people from the federal government. It doesn't seem to big of a stretch to combine the two into implying the regulation occurring at the state level in some form of another, even if just in the form of explicit delegation to a political subdivision.
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:26AM (4 children)
I asked "Why is it good to be so?" and I got an answer "Because Constitution and the founding fathers".
I wonder now when "sticking to the rules" is still a rational choice and when it becomes "worshiping a book"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @05:16AM (3 children)
Nope, that might have been your intention, but the words on the page were:
Now to address your apparently original question why is it good to have the 2nd amendment? Well here in the US there are a variety of reasons. Personal protection is quite a real need for even mildly rural locations. I've had bears go through my yard, aggressive dogs kill livestock, and once a police helicopter was tracking a murder suspect. People living in high crime areas might want protection against being robbed and beaten/raped. Minorities are 100% safer from hate crimes if they can carry a gun, few bullies want to pick on someone if it involves a real chance of death.
Then there is the more nebulous ability to fight government oppression. At the very least it keeps politicians on their toes because to pull off mass dictatorship they'd have to confiscate the guns before some group manages to take them out.
You can disagree with all of those, say they are unneeded, or they are only needed because of the culture of guns. I understand those arguments, but I think in the age of technology no one should be restricted from owning personal protection unless they have proven themselves a danger to themselves or others. That is my opinion, but then again the US has pretty horrifying gun stats.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 28 2020, @05:45AM (2 children)
Fair enough. But nothing to do with the 2A (and not necessarily the only solution available).
Mate, I think the politiheads biggest fear is not being re-elected because their corruptions catches up with them in the news.
Dictatorship in US? Healthy levels of competition in the corruption arena makes sure the wannabe dictator gets bankrupt before s/he even tries to obtain monopoly by a military coup. Put shortly, "MAD in the corruption arena"
Unneeded? I abstain from saying it.
I'll say, though, that the Americans would be lucky if they'd get to look into the problem with a cool head, make an inventory of the problems the guns are suppose to solve and list the possible alternative solutions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @05:58AM
"I'll say, though, that the Americans would be lucky if they'd get to look into the problem with a cool head, make an inventory of the problems the guns are suppose to solve and list the possible alternative solutions."
True enough, I try for my part but as you point out rarely find cool heads to discuss it with. All I got from The Winged Sociopath was fanaticism about the holy writ, and Ruminaway is ready to murder anyone who says he can't own whatever unlicensed penis pumps he owns.
Ok, that was definitely not a cool headed response, but to be fair it wasn't the gun issue that got me lashing out.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:38PM
Eevan moar guuuuns!!!1!yksitoista!!
I got some swift knee-jerk mass downmodding when I drew a "worshiping a book" parallel a couple of months back, so I'm glad to see someone else (you) make that point upthread.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:14AM (2 children)
AC you responded to here.
Because that was the debate during the creation of the 2nd amendment. It was to prevent a standing federal army that states could not fight. Of course we got the standing army eventually anyway. They were for good reason wary of a tyrannical federal government.
I am a supporter of the 2nd amendment 100%, but I also think we need sane regulations. For the most part these have been accomplished in most places, but things like inheritance and gun show loopholes make it quite simple for someone to obtain massive firepower with little to no oversight.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:31AM (1 child)
Assuming you a right (alas, I have no time to check it), the 2A in the form it is now is useless for the intended purpose (the sought after benefit), but caries all the disadvantages (remember TANSTAAFL?)
The rational approach would be to examine if the need still exists and, if so, try and bring 2A in sync with the modern era (if possible, that is. If not, find other ways to guarantee whatever 2A was supposed to guarantee).
All I see is the heated squabble between those who don't want to pay the price for it anymore and those who look at it as the holly scripture - deprecated and negated by reality, but untouchable because it's like of "divine origin".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @05:21AM
Well most of the AC comments in this thread were from me and I'm a gun-lacking liberal. I think regulation should be heavy handed and it should be harder to get a gun than a driver's license. I've floated the idea of local armories to store more assault-style weaponry while letting individuals store 1-2 guns on their own property.
I fully agree with you and greatly dislike the way the 2nd amendment is treated as scripture. We managed to limit freedom of speech without the world imploding, I think it
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @12:15AM
Oh, so the govt of Virginia is in its rights to regulate the gun ownership the way they see fit, those die hards are trying to wake you up for nothing [bbc.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:22PM
I was also going to bring up "well regulated", but I see others already have. I think I have a very goodly command of English and understand "well regulated". And I don't mean overly regulated or some arbitrary way to deny people their right to have firearms. But there is some balance. I wish people didn't see things in polarized extremes. We license fishing and driving.
If you don't like grocery prices now, wait until Trump deports the 'lazy' people who pick it, process it and package it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @05:49AM
Yep. Unlicensed and uncontrolled. And every other weapon up to and including nukes.
Is that a sane position? Probably not, but that's what the 2A says.
And before you start on it, well-regulated means in good working order and is only in an explanatory clause anyway.
Shall not be infringed means what it says. Licenses and tax stamps and gun registrations and concealed carry permits and gun-free zones are all in violation of the Constitution.
If you don't like it, work to amend the Constitution, not undermine it. Ignoring what the law says is a quick way to the very tyranny the 2A was meant to discourage. (The quickest way to get it amended would probably be to enforce it as written.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @10:37PM
The Second Amendment comes from far more than the few hundred years of our experience in the U.S.
Rather than adding new data, the U.S. is devolving into what the founders were concerned about.
James Madison: "If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
Our personal rights are under attack. Specifically, the right to be generally secure in our persons and the right to self defense.
Members of "The Base" will not be turning in their weapons.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/inside-neo-nazi-hate-group-base-center-fbi/story?id=68459758 [go.com]
Those intent on robbery, murder, will not be turning in their weapons.
The idea of "crazy gun owners" comes from those ignorant of the habits of the vast majority of gun owners. The 99% are not presented in the media, just the few idiots or the evil. The good have the right to defend themselves from those.
California provides a visual aid, the TV show S.W.A.T. In a state bent on disarming its residents, the TV show presents well armed, militarized police busting down doors.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 27 2020, @09:09PM
You missed one: people who come from sparsely populated areas and grew up hunting and otherwise responsibly using guns often are economically forced to move into or at least work in the densely populated areas, and they are fucking scared to death of the homeless and otherwise unsettling urban dwellers that they have been forced to come into contact with in their later years - so their reaction is to hold tight to their guns as a form of "self defense" against the scary people. I am, of course, loosely describing a gentleman I know who, in his later years, backed off from packing a pistol because it was so damn heavy and even though he was still afraid of the creepy people, he had never actually had to use his pistol in 30 years of being in the big bad city, so in later years he assuaged his fears with a big pocket knife for defense instead. Said individual is also alcoholic, infirm and heading for dementia in a hurry; bear this in mind when dealing with the elderly: many of them still pack heat long after they should be allowed to.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @06:20PM (14 children)
What I see is slightly less racial division between Americans, a news landscape that has aligned to a position within a feedback loop of media, Facebook, members of a filter bubble and the professionally outraged on Twitter. All while the Democratic party has staked its future on importing future voters from south of the border and ignoring the needs of American workers while celebrating ever more outrageous manifestations of mental illness. And the Republicans have completely lost their connection but are coasting on because a former Democrat bought the presidency while identifying as Republican.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @06:57PM
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @07:05PM (10 children)
Missing the gender division too [economist.com] Women vote for the party that'll provide for them. Men vote for the party that enables them to be the provider.
(Score: 3, Informative) by barbara hudson on Monday January 27 2020, @07:27PM (1 child)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @07:59PM
Why do you think it's educational / employment factors influencing the political split? The innate, evolutionary behaviour of men and women has not changed. Neither am I convinced that dying alone with a cat is going to be a successful, long term marketing strategy for career women.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday January 27 2020, @07:55PM (7 children)
Let's see: The Democratic Party explicitly believes that women should be equal to men socially, legally and professionally, and want strong government protection against rape and sexual assault. The Republican Party is led by a guy who by all appearances believes that women exist to provide sexual pleasure, baby-making, and unpaid domestic labor for men, and has committed a couple dozen rapes and sexual assaults that we know of.
I'm not convinced that the gender divide is about women wanting the government to provide for them, or men wanting to be "the provider".
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @08:10PM (1 child)
You forgot to add that anyone who votes Republican is a LITERAL Nazi.
That would complete the post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @12:10AM
I can only assume that the irony was made too subtly for half the readers in the parent post. I'll try better next time!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday January 27 2020, @08:16PM
The allegations don't even need to be true for this statement to be true.
If the PERCEPTION is that they're true it can very well lead to the voting behavior you suggest.
And the dramatic shift we're seeing where women are fleeing the party [thehill.com], and that started right after Trump got elected, lends this hypothesis credence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @08:18PM (3 children)
After all the whinging from conservstice shit posters about being modded troll and they do it to you. Some true grit they have /s
(Score: 3, Touché) by Thexalon on Monday January 27 2020, @08:59PM (2 children)
Meh: Not the first time I've seen it in the last week. They must think it means they're right or something.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @09:50PM (1 child)
I am correct. [moneyweek.com] Statistically men support tax cuts while women support welfare spending. This is neither controversial or unexpected.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @11:05PM
The discussion moved off your point and was only about the troll mod.
There is likely truth to both of your points, rarely is there any single issue/reason behind choices.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @07:11PM (1 child)
yes, the Jew media and schools, along with the Jew (and other international capitalists) supported uncontrolled immigration are having their desired effect of White Genocide via interracial breeding and out competition by sheer numbers. Just like no European country is now allowed to continue existing as a homogeneous society or maintain it's racial integrity. While politicians allow the Jew NGOs to bring in the invaders, whites from western countries virtue signal about how nonracist they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @09:07PM
Gee, it must really torque your nuts that all the hot single white women in your life prefer someone else over you. If you want to attract female attention I suggest not being a shitty person.