The ultimate COVID thread

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One of these days i'll be lucky enough to have my own eponyms.

I got jealous of all the Trumpisms, Trumpian, Trumpianism, Trump Doctrine, Trump's law, Trump card, anti-Trump protests, anti-Trumpian, Trumponomics, neo-Trumpianism, post-Trump politics etc.

One Trump has more eponyms than a lot of his predecessors.
He'll be the laughingstock of history. Another mad king (and he doesn't even have the excuse of inbreeding).
 
I kinda wish Buttigieg was the nominee. Or Klobuchar.
I am kind of happy with Biden's responses. His moderation and inertia are stabilizing. He's populist enough for the mob, and controlled enough for those of us who don't think in absolute terms.

Unfortunately, people tend to forget that every action breeds reaction, and the demonstrations are galvanizing not only young democrats, but also Trump's base. That 40% has never been more solid. It's the undecided who will swing this election, like most recent others. If the radical left is allowed to take control of the streets in many cities, Trump has a guaranteed reelection. Most voters are still above 40, and most don't want marxism in the USA, which is the only thing this postmodernist zoomer generation would accept. "I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it NOW!"



Occupy Wall Street peacefully and unarmed is one thing. A mob that brandishes firearms and fights police is a totally different one. People who are so excited about "social justice" demonstrations had better remember the history of Germany in the 30's. All it takes for a democracy to die is that the People have no choice except between the radical left and the radical right.
 
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I am kind of happy with Biden's responses. His moderation and inertia are stabilizing. He's populist enough for the mob, and controlled enough for those of us who don't think in absolute terms.

Unfortunately, people tend to forget that every action breeds reaction, and the demonstrations are galvanizing not only young democrats, but also Trump's base. That 40% has never been more solid. It's the undecided who will swing this election, like most recent others. If the radical left is allowed to take control of the streets in many cities, Trump has a guaranteed reelection. Most voters are still above 40, and most don't want marxism in the USA, which is the only thing this postmodernist zoomer generation would accept. "I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it NOW!"



Occupy Wall Street peacefully and unarmed is one thing. A mob that brandishes firearms and fights police is a totally different one. People who are so excited about "social justice" demonstrations had better remember the history of Germany in the 30's. All it takes for a democracy to die is that the People have no choice except between the radical left and the radical right.


It's amazing to me that there are people preoccupied with making quite stretched and flawed comparisons between the modern left and 1930s Germany....WHEN THERE ARE LITERAL NAZIS MARCHING IN GEORGIA AS WE SPEAK

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Yes....I think when white people are abused by police white people should absolutely march in the streets.
I think marching in the streets should be down on the list, in a civilized society. Otherwise, we would be out all the time. There is always something seriously worth reforming. Plus the mob's IQ is the lowest IQ of its constituents.

As highly-educated individuals, we should all analyze our thoughts and wonder whether we are not getting tribal, too. There are a lot of biases that work hard at turning off our higher cortical centers. Getting back to tribalism erases thousands of years of human civilization (We should fight for Our rights and They should fight for Their rights, versus All decent human beings should fight for Everybody's equal human rights). It's exactly the kind of thing that produces a tribal visceral reaction in other tribes.

Until the world understands that abusing one person's rights is the same as abusing everybody's rights, nothing major will change. Same tribal POS human species.
 
It's amazing to me that there are people preoccupied with making quite stretched and flawed comparisons between the modern left and 1930s Germany....WHEN THERE ARE LITERAL NAZIS MARCHING IN GEORGIA AS WE SPEAK

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The neonazis are marching in Georgia, and the marxist-anarchists are occupying a piece of Seattle. Any intelligent person would be highly concerned because of BOTH. Groups of armed *****s have never raised the level of human intelligence, civilization and progress. I wouldn't want either group in my state.

Why is one kind of extremism better than the other? The marxists (AKA The Red Plague) have exterminated many more people than the nazis.

There isn't one thing in the world that's good in excessive amounts. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

WTH is so hard to read Animal Farm? It takes less than an hour, and it's 100% applicable to marxism (or any other revolutionary ideas).
 
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The neonazis are marching in Georgia, and the marxist-anarchists are occupying a piece of Seattle. Any intelligent person would be highly concerned because of BOTH. Groups of armed *****s have never raised the level of human intelligence, civilization and progress. I wouldn't want either group in my state.

Why is one kind of extremism better than the other? The marxists (AKA The Red Plague) have exterminated many more people than the nazis.

There isn't one thing in the world that's good in excessive amounts.

The attempt to make a serious comparison of Bernie or the squad or modern progressives to actual violent revolutionary stalinists is nonsensical and hilarious.
 
The neonazis are marching in Georgia, and the marxist-anarchists are occupying a piece of Seattle. Any intelligent person would be highly concerned because of BOTH. Groups of armed *****s have never raised the level of human intelligence, civilization and progress. I wouldn't want either group in my state.

My concern didn't rise until I saw armed men walk into state capitols and get treated as they were peaceful protestors. That told me A LOT. It really answered the question of why statistically I'm more likely to encounter police brutality than one of my white colleagues. I'm sorry, when police pull you over, they don't ask "what's the highest degree you've obtained?"
 
The attempt to make a serious comparison of Bernie or the squad or modern progressives to actual violent revolutionary stalinists is nonsensical and hilarious.
The difference between you and me is that you talk based on utopic stories, while I have see the Red Plague. I know EXACTLY how brainwash looks, or people who use that shampoo. At the height of communist atrocities during the Cold War, the West was full of "modern progressives" and "intellectuals" who were singing marxism's praises. What's "hilarious" for you is deja vu for me.

There is ZERO difference between nazism and marxism. ZERO, zilch, nada. Both are corrosive inhumane collectivist societies, that destroy the individual and his soul. It's completely unsurprising that both have lead to genocides. That's why, while George Orwell wrote about stalinism, everything he said is perfectly applicable to any extremism. Any people who don't respect democracy and its institutions, who have disregard for the law, will become extremists, sooner or later.; the side doesn't matter.

You are very biased about the left, and its realities and history. And I'm saying that will a lot of sympathy. I have a family member like you, and we stopped talking politics decades ago, because we care too much about each other. Marxism is NEVER democratic. There hasn't been ONE democratic Marxist country in the history of the world.
 
My concern didn't rise until I saw armed men walk into state capitols and get treated as they were peaceful protestors. That told me A LOT.
And then you saw armed men occupying entire blocks in Seattle, and getting treated like peaceful protestors. What does THAT tell you?

Btw, the thing in Michigan told me that the governor (and/or those guarding her) was a coward, at least politically. As much as I am for peaceful conversations, nobody should negotiate with terrorists and law-breakers. I doubt that it's legal to carry a gun in Michigan governmental buildings.

And paramilitaries invading a city and fighting law enforcement are terrorists, period. If one unlawfully threatens another human being while wearing a gun, especially a LEO, one had better be ready for a few extra grams of lead between one's eyes. Anyone pulling that **** in another country would have been met with a massacre, regardless of skin color, absolutely no questions asked.
 
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And then you saw armed men occupying entire blocks in Seattle, and getting treated like peaceful protestors. What does THAT tell you?

Btw, the thing in Michigan told me that the governor (and/or those guarding her) was a coward. As much as I am for peaceful conversations, nobody should negotiate with terrorists and law-breakers.

Paramilitaries invading a city are terrorists, period.
Yeah, but law enforcements doesn't treat them that way. As I said earlier, now imagine those guys in Michigan are black. Hell, imagine the "marxist" in Seattle are black. You talk about being tribal. Well, yeah, I'm absolutely concerned about my "tribe" because in this country we get treated different in a land that is supposed to be "equal".

Minneapolis Police Use Force Against Black People at 7 Times the Rate of Whites

If militias invading cities are terrorist then treat them ALL the same. If aggressive police tactics are answer the then be aggressive with everyone instead of the black people who are 7x more likely to experience use of force in Minneapolis.

You're basically "AllLivesMatter - ing" which is a dismissive response to an actual problem.
 
The difference between you and me is that you talk based on utopic stories, while I have see the Red Plague. I know EXACTLY how brainwash looks, or people who use that shampoo. At the height of communist atrocities during the Cold War, the West was full of "modern progressives" and "intellectuals" who were singing marxism's praises. What's "hilarious" for you is deja vu for me.

There is ZERO difference between nazism and marxism. ZERO, zilch, nada. Both are corrosive inhumane collectivist societies, that destroy the individual and his soul. It's completely unsurprising that both have lead to genocides. That's why, while George Orwell wrote about stalinism, everything he said is perfectly applicable to any extremism. Any people who don't respect democracy and its institutions, who have disregard for the law, will become extremists, sooner or later.; the side doesn't matter.

You are very biased about the left, and its realities and history. And I'm saying that will a lot of sympathy. I have a family member like you, and we stopped talking politics decades ago, because we care too much about each other. Marxism is NEVER democratic. There hasn't been ONE democratic Marxist country in the history of the world.

I've heard your spiel before and like before we will continue to agree on disagreeing. I've also pointed out to you before that Orwell was an ardent democratic socialist, and yet you keep trying to use him to argue against other democratic socialists.

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You accuse everyone else of being tribal, but as far as I can tell your tribe is the Jordan Peterson obsessed with protecting white males, shouting at millenials, and doing away with affirmative action tribe. Your lens is also incredibly biased, and you're unable to get over your previous experiences with a specific brand of Eastern European postwar communism, so much so that you are trying to generalize or paint every other kind of leftism you disagree with using the same brush. It's a fear-based, not a fact based approach, devoid of nuance, and it doesn't work.
 
Yeah, but law enforcements doesn't treat them that way. As I said earlier, now imagine those guys in Michigan are black. Hell, imagine the "marxist" in Seattle are black. You talk about being tribal. Well, yeah, I'm absolutely concerned about my "tribe" because in this country we get treated different in a land that is supposed to be "equal".

Minneapolis Police Use Force Against Black People at 7 Times the Rate of Whites

If militias invading cities are terrorist then treat them ALL the same. If aggressive police tactics are answer the then be aggressive with everyone instead of the black people who are 7x more likely to experience use of force in Minneapolis.

You're basically "AllLivesMatter - ing" which is a dismissive response to an actual problem.
I am not dismissive of anything and anybody, @Twiggidy. If anything, I would love to see change in law enforcement and the prison system, more money for the education of the poor etc.

I have been All Lives Matter my entire life (as in every life counts, nobody should be discarded like some replaceable consumer product or cog). Becoming an intensivist (or getting older) has made me respect life even more. An hour ago, I took an exhausted fly, that could barely move after having been trapped in my home, and gently moved it outside with a piece of paper. I was raised colorblind in a racist society. I don't dis/like people based on skin color; it's the culture and traditions and the individual that matters to me. I love Western European culture and civilization (the good parts), that's my bias. I think people who try to destroy its remnants in the US are absolute ****ing *****s. I think we all stand on the shoulders of great humans in history, starting from thousands and thousands of years ago; it's just that the West has been the light in the dark for the last few centuries, until others will take over (maybe Asia).

I am close to what this country calls a libertarian; I believe that everybody has the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, as long as his/her rights don't infringe on others'. So, I don't believe in special rights, and special treatments, and affirmative action, but in TRUE equality and meritocracy.

And I have been much more sensitized to the HISTORIC plight of blacks (and native Americans) in the US than the average American native, because I learnt about it in school, and not in a romanticized way. Where I grew up, America was the "imperialist enemy", and mistreating blacks was another proof, so no punches were pulled.

One can't fix a wrong with another wrong. Blacks should have no more (or less) rights in this country than whites. Everybody should be equal before the law. There's my bias, @vector2.
 
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I am not dismissive of anything and anybody, @Twiggidy. If anything, I would love to see change in law enforcement and the prison system, more money for the education of the poor etc.

I have been All Lives Matter my entire life (as in every life counts, nobody should be discarded like some replaceable consumer product or cog). Becoming an intensivist (or getting older) has made me respect life even more. An hour ago, I took an exhausted fly, that could barely move after haveing been trapped in my home, and gently moved it outside with a piece of paper. I was raised colorblind in a racist society. I don't dis/like people based on skin color; it's the culture and traditions and the individual that matters to me. I love Western European culture and civilization (the good parts), that's my bias. I think people who try to destroy its remnants in the US are absolute ****ing *****s.

I am close to what this country calls a libertarian; I believe that everybody has the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, as long as his/her rights don't infringe on others'. So, I don't believe in special rights, and special treatments, and affirmative action, but in TRUE equality and meritocracy.

And I have been much more sensitized to the HISTORIC plight of blacks (and native Americans) in the US than the average American native, because I learnt about it in school, and not in a romanticized way. Where I grew up, America was the "imperialist enemy", so no punches were pulled.

One can't fix a wrong with another wrong. Blacks should have no more (or less) rights in this country than whites. Everybody should be equal before the law. There's my bias, @vector2.

But see, I'm speaking about black people being treated different by law enforcement and you throw affirmative action in the mix. I never even mentioned affirmative action but that's obviously a trigger for you. What does affirmative action have to do with police brutality? Seriously asking.
 
But see, I'm speaking about black people being treated different by law enforcement and you throw affirmative action in the mix. I never even mentioned affirmative action but that's obviously a trigger for you. What does affirmative action have to do with police brutality? Seriously asking.
It seems to be a trigger for you, too, since you noticed those two words in the middle of a long post about something else. 🙂

But yes, I do believe positive discrimination to be as bad as the negative one. In all zero sum-games, one can't win if somebody else doesn't lose.

Wealth redistribution by government is theft. Legal, but technically still theft, and it won't generate good feelings. We should strive more towards meritocracy and an egalitarian (as in equal opportunity, NOT outcome) society, and not towards a society in which the group at power abuses those which aren't (although the latter is human nature).
 
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My concern didn't rise until I saw armed men walk into state capitols and get treated as they were peaceful protestors. That told me A LOT. It really answered the question of why statistically I'm more likely to encounter police brutality than one of my white colleagues. I'm sorry, when police pull you over, they don't ask "what's the highest degree you've obtained?"

Interestingly, the armed men in MI were not breaking the law...for the most part.


Michigan law actually allows open carry in public places - including the Capitol. I disagree with that and would vote to change long gun open carry in most places (lawful concealed is no problem for me). However, the MI governor was powerless to stop them based on the laws of the state.

Now, I added “for the most part” to my opening sentence because the are reports of some armed individuals communicating threats while armed. Assuming those reports are true (a BIG assumption given the media outlets), I would have arrested their ass in a heart beat if I were a MI trooper.
 
Interestingly, the armed men in MI were not breaking the law...for the most part.


Michigan law actually allows open carry in public places - including the Capitol. I disagree with that and would vote to change long gun open carry in most places (lawful concealed is no problem for me). However, the MI governor was powerless to stop them based on the laws of the state.

Now, I added “for the most part” to my opening sentence because the are reports of some armed individuals communicating threats while armed. Assuming those reports are true (a BIG assumption given the media outlets), I would have arrested their ass in a heart beat if I were a MI trooper.

I support the Constitution as much as the next man. My point has always been, if that was a group of Black Lives Matters protestors walking LAWFULLY into the state capitol with guns the scene of the movie has an alternate ending. Maybe it doesn't but think about the fact that black protestors aren't even willing to take that chance while the white protestors walked in chest out and brave. That's really the brief synopsis of any Black Lives Matter protest. "If I'm doing something the next guy is doing, whether legal or illegal, treat us the same." That's really all there is to it. I don't care about Nazi marches or Antifa marches or anything else. If I'm pulled over for running a stop sign, treat me the same as the next guy.

All black folks have EVER wanted was to be treated the same. I honestly think that would solve a lot of problems.
 
oh by the way.....

White women benefit most from affirmative action — and are among its fiercest opponents

So maybe your angst is directed at the wrong group
I tease my wife all the time about her meetings with the women's club in her line of work.

And yes, there is a good amount of affirmative action for women, too, regardless of skin color. "Diversity in the workplace" is just another form of affirmative action (I am talking about employers being criticized for not having a certain percentage of every minority, as if every minority, sex and culture has the same talents and interests, as if there are as many African American programmers as Asian ones etc.).

Anyway, this is the kind of problem that smarter people have not been able to fix, so we can argue till we're blue...
 
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I support the Constitution as much as the next man. My point has always been, if that was a group of Black Lives Matters protestors walking LAWFULLY into the state capitol with guns the scene of the movie has an alternate ending. Maybe it doesn't but think about the fact that black protestors aren't even willing to take that chance while the white protestors walked in chest out and brave. That's really the brief synopsis of any Black Lives Matter protest. "If I'm doing something the next guy is doing, whether legal or illegal, treat us the same." That's really all there is to it. I don't care about Nazi marches or Antifa marches or anything else. If I'm pulled over for running a stop sign, treat me the same as the next guy.

All black folks have EVER wanted was to be treated the same. I honestly think that would solve a lot of problems.

This is what the folks who think we can just magically jump to an "everything is colorblind, everyone will now be treated equally, black people stop complaining it's 2020" society just don't get. There always has been a systematic and widespread implicit bias against black people in America going back as far as 1619, and it makes a lot of people very uncomfortable to acknowledge that that bias didn't just disappear the day the Emancipation Proclamation or the Civil Rights Act were signed. It's so baked into so many individual psyches and the system at large that without "affirmatively" acting to ensure black people and other underrepresented minorities are getting a fair shot, it's just not going to happen.

For example:

"

In criminal sentencing, medium to dark-skinned African Americans are likely to receive sentences 2.6 years longer than those of whites or light-skinned African Americans. When a white victim is involved, those with more "black" features are likely to receive a much more severe punishment.[123] A 2018 National Bureau of Economic Research experiment found that law students, economics students and practicing lawyers who watched 3D Virtual Reality videos of court trials (where the researchers altered the race of the defendants) showed a racial bias against minorities.[124]

According to a 2011 ProPublica analysis, "whites are nearly four times as likely as minorities to win a [presidential] pardon, even when the type of crime and severity of sentence are taken into account."[125]

A 2014 study on the application of the death penalty in Connecticut over the period 1973–2007 found "that minority defendants who kill white victims are capitally charged at substantially higher rates than minority defendants who kill minorities... There is also strong and statistically significant evidence that minority defendants who kill whites are more likely to end up with capital sentences than comparable cases with white defendants."[126]

A 2016 analysis by The New York Times "of tens of thousands of disciplinary cases against inmates in 2015, hundreds of pages of internal reports and three years of parole decisions found that racial disparities were embedded in the prison experience in New York."[127] Blacks and Latinos were sent more frequently to solitary and held there for longer durations than whites.[127] The New York Times analysis found that the disparities were the greatest for violations where the prison guards had lots of discretion, such as disobeying orders, but smaller for violations that required physical evidence, such as possessing contraband.[127]

A 2016 report by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune found that Florida judges sentence black defendants to far longer prison sentences than whites with the same background.[128] For the same drug possession crimes, blacks were sentenced to double the time of whites.[128] Blacks were given longer sentences in 60 percent of felony cases, 68 percent of the most serious first-degree crimes, 45 percent of burglary cases and 30 percent of battery cases.[128] For third-degree felonies (the least serious types of felonies in Florida), white judges sentenced blacks to twenty percent more time than whites, whereas black judges gave more balanced sentences.[128]

A 2017 report by the Marshall Project found that killings of black men by white civilians were far more likely to be deemed "justifiable" than killings by any other combination of races, although it cautioned that the disparity may be warranted by differing circumstances and not the result of racial prejudice.[129]

A 2017 report by the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) found, "after controlling for a wide variety of sentencing factors" (such as age, education, citizenship, weapon possession and prior criminal history), that "black male offenders received sentences on average 19.1 percent longer than similarly situated White male offenders."[13][130]

A 2018 study in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics found that judges gave longer sentences, in particular to black defendants, after their favorite team lost a home game.[131]

A 2019 audit study found that lawyers are less likely to take on clients with black-sounding names than white-sounding names.
[132]

"

Just look at the absurdity of some of those last ones, and then consider that those studies aren't even a few years old. And yet, some are delusional enough to think we can just skip ahead to a post-racial society. Unfortunately these kinds of biases and disparities apply to everything from finances to schools to employment to policing to criminal justice, and on and on. I wish it were as easy as just snapping my fingers and proclaiming that everyone in America must now treat everyone equally and we are now a perfect meritocracy etc etc. But that's just not a realistic take to simply proclaim de jure equality when America has gone out of its way (and continues to in some places) to make some people de facto second-class citizens.


FFP said:
If this society really cared about equality, all job interviews would be anonymized and written, for example.
Indeed, that would be nice. But in the meantime, what does one do about the hordes of overtly or even unwittingly racist employers who discriminate based on having a black name?
 
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Indeed, that would be nice. But in the meantime, what does one do about the hordes of overtly or even unwittingly racist employers who discriminate based on having a black name?
No idea. My name doesn't sound WASP either.

I was too old and too far ahead in my career to change it upon becoming a citizen (plus that would have required to change it in my native country, too - a royal pain), but I wouldn't be surprised if that choice will cost me serious money in lost income.

Since you bring it up, I have always wondered why some parents are so dumb and proud to give their kids minority names, when that's among the first sources of bias for any person.
 
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No idea. My name doesn't sound WASP either.

I was too old and too far ahead in my career to change it upon becoming a citizen (plus that would have required to change it in my native country, too - a royal pain), but I wouldn't be surprised if that choice will cost me serious money in lost income.

Since you bring it up, I have always wondered why some parents are so dumb and proud to give their kids minority names, when that's among the first sources of bias for any person.

Even though I have a foreign name, I won't lie in that I'm thankful it's short and relatively easy to pronounce. But I think it's antithetical to the values of a nation founded by immigrants that people should change their names or have to give their kids "easy" names just in the name of sheep-minded, homogeneous conformity or merely to appease bigoted employers who think WASPiness is the gold standard. It was wrong when Ellis Island staff turned Giuseppes into Joes and it's still wrong today.
 
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It seems to be a trigger for you, too, since you noticed those two words in the middle of a long post about something else. 🙂

But yes, I do believe positive discrimination to be as bad as the negative one. In all zero sum-games, one can't win if somebody else doesn't lose.

Wealth redistribution by government is theft. Legal, but technically still theft, and it won't generate good feelings. We should strive more towards meritocracy and an egalitarian (as in equal opportunity, NOT outcome) society, and not towards a society in which the group at power abuses those which aren't (although the latter is human nature).

It's ironic that you so despise affirmative action because you'd prefer a meritocracy. Yet any advantages black people or minorities get from affirmative action pales in comparison to the 'advantages' they'd have in a true meritocracy.

It's been clearly established that blacks aren't treated equally in this country. So what's your solution if programs like affirmative action aren't the solution?

You say you want an equal, egalitarian society. That's literally the point of BLM.

You're either racist or anti-racist. There's no in between. By denouncing a group for demanding equal rights, all you're doing is upholding the status quo and supporting the systemic racism and oppression that continues to plague our country.
 
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Since you bring it up, I have always wondered why some parents are so dumb and proud to give their kids minority names, when that's among the first sources of bias for any person.
Because we embrace and love our cultures. Something that shouldn't cost anyone an opportunity.
 
It's ironic that you so despise affirmative action because you'd prefer a meritocracy. Yet any advantages black people or minorities get from affirmative action pales in comparison to the 'advantages' they'd have in a true meritocracy.

It's been clearly established that blacks aren't treated equally in this country. So what's your solution if programs like affirmative action aren't the solution?

You say you want an equal, egalitarian society. That's literally the point of BLM.

You're either racist or anti-racist. There's no in between. By denouncing a group for demanding equal rights, all you're doing is upholding the status quo and supporting the systemic racism and oppression that continues to plague our country.

Good luck getting buy-in for an equal society. That has never existed. The social Darwinist in me wonders if it’s even desirable.

About the closest to equality that you will see in US is the concept of equal justice under the law (14th Amendment). However and as others have alluded to, that can be hard to quantify. For example, our society has decided to disproportionately punish certain drug crimes as being somehow “dirtier.” That is to say, get caught in a park with some oxy in a Viagra bottle like Rush Limbaugh and you’ll go to camp cupcake rehab center; get caught with a gun and a couple of cracks rocks and you got at least 5 years for just the gun if a felon (crack is also disproportionately punished compared to opiates).

Bottomline, if you goal is to eliminate all disparity in America, it’s a long haul with buy-in from less than 1/3 of America.
 
Good luck getting buy-in for an equal society. That has never existed. The social Darwinist in me wonders if it’s even desirable.

About the closest to equality that you will see in US is the concept of equal justice under the law (14th Amendment). However and as others have alluded to, that can be hard to quantify. For example, our society has decided to disproportionately punish certain drug crimes as being somehow “dirtier.” That is to say, get caught in a park with some oxy in a Viagra bottle like Rush Limbaugh and you’ll go to camp cupcake rehab center; get caught with a gun and a couple of cracks rocks and you got at least 5 years for just the gun if a felon (crack is also disproportionately punished compared to opiates).

Bottomline, if you goal is to eliminate all disparity in America, it’s a long haul with buy-in from less than 1/3 of America.

Thanks for proving my point
 
I think marching in the streets should be down on the list, in a civilized society. Otherwise, we would be out all the time. There is always something seriously worth reforming. Plus the mob's IQ is the lowest IQ of its constituents.

As highly-educated individuals, we should all analyze our thoughts and wonder whether we are not getting tribal, too. There are a lot of biases that work hard at turning off our higher cortical centers. Getting back to tribalism erases thousands of years of human civilization (We should fight for Our rights and They should fight for Their rights, versus All decent human beings should fight for Everybody's equal human rights). It's exactly the kind of thing that produces a tribal visceral reaction in other tribes.

Until the world understands that abusing one person's rights is the same as abusing everybody's rights, nothing major will change. Same tribal POS human species.

There are marches for Black lives matter all around the world. If it’s tribal, it’s a big f***ing tribe.
 
For all the geniuses who support these protests unconditionally:





Seattle should have never allowed paramilitaries to occupy even a yard of the city. That's anarchy. So is toppling statues etc. in other parts of the country. No, there is no excuse for that (it doesn't matter if they are "morally" right); the moment a group of people turn into a mob, and start destroying property and threatening others, they should suffer the consequences. This is still a democratic country with democratic institutions and elections; that's how change is inflicted. People who break the law belong in prison, regardless of "intersectionality". What's next? We'll abolish the Constitution, because its writers were white, and some of them owned slaves? Peaceful protests with electoral and political consequences; that's how a democracy works.

The left and their SJWs remind me more and more of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet Union. Marxism is very nice on paper, and attracts a lot of naive (chronically unsuccessful angry) people, even on this forum. It's at the IQ level of white supremacy (so is defunding law enforcement, instead of reforming it). "Four feet good, two feet bad!". Please do read Animal Farm, about revolutions, instead of White Fragility and other racist BS the extremists on the right or left are brainwashing people with. If you were afraid of Trump's authoritarianism, wait till you see the SJWs at power.


Police reform is one thing. Anarchy is something totally different. I am worried by the various governmental organizations behaving as if we were in the middle of the French Revolution, instead of protecting cities, citizens and property. Trump is off his rocker, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a point and that we are not a society of laws anymore.

Another Conch Rebellion in Seattle . They wont be there long. Maybe as an independent state, they can apply for federal aid to rebuild? Just like the Conch Rebellion.
 
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Because we embrace and love our cultures. Something that shouldn't cost anyone an opportunity.
Yeah, good luck with that, anywhere in the world, but especially in a country where both the majority and the minorities feel threatened. Hence people become tribal.

I'm sorry, but, even in the 21st century, the name is just another tribal label, like a car registration plate. The same way one may be harassed for having a plate from the wrong state, a person will be discriminated based on their name. By everybody, not just the majority. "Where are you from? What kind of name is that?" Curiosity, my behind.
 
Thanks for proving my point

Japan and Korea (especially the North) are the most racially homogenous countries in the world. Both have plenty of inequality. Not all inequality is due to racism, and I certainly don’t trust the government to recognize when we reach your utopia and stop trying to level the play field in the name of racism.

If your plan is to wage an endless war on inequality, have fun with that.
 
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Japan and Korea (especially the North) are the most racially homogenous countries in the world. Both have plenty of inequality. Not all inequality is due to racism, and I certainly don’t trust the government to recognize when we reach your utopia and stop trying to level the play field in the name of racism.

If your plan is to wage an endless war on inequality, have fun with that.

I'm sure that's easy to say being a white male...
 
Japan and Korea (especially the North) are the most racially homogenous countries in the world. Both have plenty of inequality. Not all inequality is due to racism, and I certainly don’t trust the government to recognize when we reach your utopia and stop trying to level the play field in the name of racism.

If your plan is to wage an endless war on inequality, have fun with that.


So what’s the alternative? Just accept racism and inequality?
 
It's ironic that you so despise affirmative action because you'd prefer a meritocracy. Yet any advantages black people or minorities get from affirmative action pales in comparison to the 'advantages' they'd have in a true meritocracy.

It's been clearly established that blacks aren't treated equally in this country. So what's your solution if programs like affirmative action aren't the solution?

You say you want an equal, egalitarian society. That's literally the point of BLM.

You're either racist or anti-racist. There's no in between. By denouncing a group for demanding equal rights, all you're doing is upholding the status quo and supporting the systemic racism and oppression that continues to plague our country.

I agree with FFP.

The problem with AA is that it morally wrong. I have no stake in opposing AA being a non-white minority but oppose it on principle.

You want to fix the systemic inequality against blacks? Pour money into programs that keep black families together, early education + childcare, promotes marriage and gives more opportunities to stay out of gangs.

The sad thing is that AA actually hurts the black population because it leads to positive reinforcement that individuals are getting “bumped ahead based on skin color” to take other individual jobs/spots.
 
I agree with FFP.

The problem with AA is that it morally wrong. I have no stake in opposing AA being a non-white minority but oppose it on principle.

You want to fix the systemic inequality against blacks? Pour money into programs that keep black families together, early education + childcare, promotes marriage and gives more opportunities to stay out of gangs.

The sad thing is that AA actually hurts the black population because it leads to positive reinforcement that individuals are getting “bumped ahead based on skin color” to take other individual jobs/spots.

Actually, you're missing the point. African Americans are less likely to be considered for jobs even if they have the credentials BECAUSE OF systemic racism in our society. Passing over somebody because someone is consciously or subconsciously biased is morally wrong. Affirmative action only works to give them back some of the spots and opportunities they didn't get because they were black and not white.

The irony runs so deep in these arguments its crazy.

Lol this is essentially what you said:

'AA is bad because it gives blacks jobs they wouldn't have gotten because our society is racist, because they would have likely been rejected based on their name and skin color.'
 
The esteemed residents of Orange County used threats to force out 2 of their chief public health officers and then forced a change in policy. It'll be interesting to see how these decisions worked out for them at the end of the year. Not trusting experts and science and basic math is why we are in this debacle and it's why it's only gonna get worse.

 
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I'm sure that's easy to say being a white male...

If so, does my skin color or gender change the value of my argument?

So what’s the alternative? Just accept racism and inequality?

Racism, no.

Inequality, yes.

Racism and inequality are distinct concepts. Stop treating them in the same sentence like synonyms.
 
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