Things we'd be talking about if the forum wasn't deadFollow

Because the alternative is to vote for the party that actively hates you? Lesser of two evils, man.


And before you write a War-and-Peace length denial of the far right's bigotry, just don't. When they define "freedom" as the right to treat select people like shit, your argument fails.

I would think that if you (or any "Conservative") wanted to improve the image of your party, you'd get rid the racists/douchebags among you. Y'know...if you cared.

ETA: "douchebag"

Edited, Apr 2nd 2015 6:54pm by Bijou

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Gbaji wrote:

No.

So please explain the concept of the term RINO. Remember "Appeal to Popularity" and "fear of reprisal" aren't based on race.

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Gbaji wrote:

Huh? No, it doesn't. Our entire discussion is about disparate impact, which rests, not on total numbers, but on relative numbers

Your claim was that welfare was designed to hold blacks back, but there are more whites on it than blacks. The disparate impact was in reference to stop and frisk, which has nothing to do with poverty.

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Gbaji wrote:

Sigh. I've explained this several times now. There's a difference between group A saying "black people should all do what we say because we're good for black people!" and group B pointing out that group A is doing this *and* that what they are doing might not actually be good for black people either.

I'm not referring to the argument of "welfare isn't good for black people", but "welfare was designed as an extension of the Jim Crow era". There is distinct difference between the two.

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Gbaji wrote:

I do understand that what you just said isn't true. Your statement is counter to the very concept of "opportunity cost". There's no such thing as an absolute desire to do anything. There is always a cost calculation. The concept of opportunity cost is the idea that you can influence that decision by changing the cost's involved. If I provide you a benefit that goes away as your income increases, that loss of benefits is a "cost" to upward mobility. Period. We can argue how much effect it has, but it will have an effect on anyone it's applied to. Whether you desire something isn't the point. You might desire that awesome new game. But if it costs a million dollars, you probably wont buy it. Cost always plays a role.

It's not a cost if you never had it to begin with or it wasn't designed to be yours in the beginning. That's like saying that turning in your rental car is a cost for having your car fixed. That's stupid.

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Gbaji wrote:

And yet, pretty much any time anyone suggests reducing some social program, the response is that it'll hurt "the poor and minorities". Just think about how often those two are used together. It's almost as though there's a need to remind people that minorities (and lets be honest here, we're talking "black and latino") are disproportionately poor. Why not just say "poor people" if it's really not about playing to race?

I never denied that they aren't playing the race card, but you know just as well as I know that Democrats fundamentally believe that the government should provide certain services. The fact that they want to attach race or s3x to any particular service doesn't negate the fact that they think the service should be provided regardless.

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Gbaji wrote:

I don't agree that those things cause poverty. First off, what you call "white flight" is another labeling of an economic action by race. It wasn't "white flight", but "flight by everyone who could afford to flee". When the inner cities were being filled up with poor black people, in many cases actually bussed in by the black power movement advocates in the 60s and 70s, the property values in those areas plummeted, not because of the skin color of those who were moving in, but because of the poverty levels created by a movement that cared more about concentrated pockets of black voters than about the conditions those people would have to endure. The welfare system was the promised means to offset this. See, they'd be poor and living in an inner city area with few job opportunities, but don't worry because we'll use that new found political power to push through economic benefits to reward those who signed up.

What is commonly called "white flight" was not a cause of anything. It was at best a side effect of a larger and far more problematic situation. Ironically, gentrification is a process that could actually help things a bit. Again, my argument is that it's not the total amount of poverty in the population as a whole, but the over concentration of that poverty that is the problem. Obviously, we'd also like to decrease poverty rates as a whole, but what makes poverty a trap today is the combination of few job opportunities and plenty of handouts in the neighborhoods with the highest rates of poverty. It stacks the decks against anyone who is raised in those neighborhoods. And IMO focusing on the skin color distribution of those people is a total distraction from the real problem. Doubly so when constant references to how gentrification or welfare reform will "hurt the black community" fill our political discourse. Race is used as an argument against fixing the problem.

And yes, the irony to me is that while race is used in this way by those seeking to maintain the welfare status quo, IMO the welfare status quo is what perpetuates the disproportionate racial condition in the first place. It just bugs me that we move right past the assumption that welfare is good for those who receive it and right to the racial argument, which has the effect of ensuring that anyone who says that welfare isn't good for those who receive it and should be reformed will be denounced for supporting some kind of racist agenda. Meanwhile, what's lost in all this talk about race, is the discussion as to whether welfare really does help those who receive it in the long run. What effect does it have on their chances of economic success? What effect does it have on their children's chances? How does the concentration of welfare recipients in a geographical area affect these things? These are the questions we should be asking. But instead, we're talking about how racist you must be to even broach the subject.

Your ignorance is hilarious. As mentioned, this goes two ways. Part of the problem is self inflicted and the other part is systemic. To pretend it's just or primarily the former only demonstrates that you aren't serious about the conversation. Furthermore it demonstrates your blatant disrespect to blacks to continue to believe such nonsense. It is a fact that simply being black in a middle class neighborhood devalues your house and the neighborhood. Not because of The Man is scheming a plan to hold the black man down, but because people desire to live with people who look like them. That applies to everyone.

I don't agree that those things cause poverty. First off, what you call "white flight" is another labeling of an economic action by race. It wasn't "white flight", but "flight by everyone who could afford to flee".

Nope. Places where the inner city poor where mostly white didn't experience the same sort of issue and are now mostly gentrified. South Boston...for example.

Gbaji doesn't understand 90% of anything having to do with race. All of his answers come down to a defensive "Not our fault!" and then some weird reinterpretation of history to absolve himself* of any wrongdoing.

*In a political sense; I don't think Gbaji is personally responsible for whatever.

It's not hate, it's obviously tough love.

This makes me think of the recent spate of women trying to go join ISIL. I mean, seriously, how much could you hate yourself that you want to support extremist Islamic misogyny?

Um. That's the point. When it's based on race (as in calling someone an Uncle Tom if they are black and don't vote Democrat) it's a problem. When it's based on actions (as in calling someone a RINO when they support positions that aren't in line with their own party), it's not. Get it? You're the one trying to equate calling someone a RINO with calling someone an Uncle Tom. But they are very different things. One is judging someone based on their actions. The other is judging someone based on their skin color. Surely you can see how the latter case is problematic.



But a lower percentage of white people are negatively affected. For a racist, if he has to inconvenience a small percentage of white people to ***** over a large percentage of black people, that might just be seen as a price to pay. You're also missing a point I made earlier about concentration of poverty. White poor are much less likely to be as concentrated geographically as black poor. There are a few different social reasons for this, but it's why Smash's point about white inner city neighborhoods not suffering the same fate as black inner city neighborhoods doesn't really counter what I'm talking about. I'll talk more about that later.



Correct. So if welfare does not exist (or you and/or your parents were never on it), then there is no cost associated with upward mobility because you aren't losing benefits you never had. Once you are on welfare though, that cost now exists and will affect your decisions. This is why implementing welfare right at a time period when black people were disproportionately poor has had the effect of perpetuating that disproportionate poverty condition. Had they waited say 10 or 20 years after the civil rights act was passed and a ton of artificial barriers to black success were removed, black economic conditions would have improved and that gap would not have been so large, and we would not see such a disparate economic effect today.

Again, I'm not saying this was the sole reason for implementing welfare at all. I'm sure most people who supported welfare back then and support it today do so out of an honest belief that it helps those in need. But it's hard to deny that the timing of its implementation here in the US could not have been worse in terms of the negative impact on blacks. That could have been coincidence, but as I mentioned earlier, given the long history of overt racism by the Democratic party towards blacks, I'm quite sure that many of them just switched to more covert means, and becoming strong proponents of implementation of a welfare state right at that time would be a great way to do that.



Sure. But by constantly using those identity associations when arguing *for* those things, they are playing on and perpetuating assumptions about those identities themselves. I can't say what any one particular Democrat politician is thinking in his head, but clearly as a group they believe that they can't win on ideology alone because they have to resort to identity politics. My concern here is what happens when the ideology is lost and all you have left is pandering to groups in order to win votes? How close to that point are the Democrats today? Heck. Have they already crossed that line. What exactly do they really stand for? Because it's hard for me to see any arguments from the left that don't rapidly turn into "vote for us because the other side hates <insert identity group here>". Heck. It's the immediate answer that I got *twice* when I asked for an alternative explanation as to why blacks vote so heavily for Democrats. And not even specifics about platform positions. Just "the other guys hate them". Really? That's all you have? Kinda circular isn't it? Our party is better for <group> because the other side hates <group>? That's weak. Really really weak.



Do you get that your entire response rests on your own assumptions as to what happened with "white flight"? I'm disputing your assumption, and you just respond by saying "but I assume this, so you are wrong". Um... How about addressing what I actually said instead of calling me names for saying it?

My issue is that you assume that white flight was all about choices made by white people. But, as you yourself pointed out, this applies to everyone. Black people also desire to live in neighborhoods with people who look like themselves. But this is problematic when the percentage of people who look like you are massively disproportionately likely to be poor. It serves to concentrate that poverty in a way that white poor didn't. When you couple that with the implementation of welfare programs which served to enable large concentrations of very poor people to live in areas unable to support them otherwise *and* the black power movement which actively pressured black people to form into "black communities" for political advantage, and you have a recipe for disaster. Again, I suppose it was possible that this all happened as the unintended consequence of well meant actions, and not one person thought about how this might be negative for black people at any point along the way, but it seems remarkably well targeted at just the one group that right up until just a few years earlier were being oppressed by a whole set of overt laws aimed at oppressing them. Coincidence? Maybe. But you've got to be pretty naive not to even consider the possibility and perhaps take a bit more cautious position towards these programs that are supposed to be "helping" black people.


Doesn't look like they've helped much to me. Do you think they have?

Edited, Apr 3rd 2015 4:33pm by gbaji

You do realize you're on the next poster over, avoiding answering direct questions, right?



Edited, Apr 3rd 2015 5:15pm by Bijou

So, who's pushed the button?

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Gbaji wrote:

What am I supposed to do? Stick to a single topic, or follow every single side thread that you toss in and then insist that I must respond to? You do realize that you are like the poster child of changing the subject, right?

You're conflating topics with threads. As I pointed out, as long as I play along with your tangents, you write in paragraphs. When I stick to one topic in a thread and ignore your tangents, you quit posting. If it were the other way around, then you would have a point. I intentionally stayed on topic on one thread and went along with tangents in another, guess which one you decide to participate in? Just like when your "browser crashed" in the last two threads we were in.

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Gbaji wrote:

Is that fair when the direct questions I'm being asked to answer are at best tangentially related to the subject at hand? Look at the example case. I was talking about black people being labeled Uncle Toms for not complying with an assumed race based political ideology. He responded by rambling on about RINOs. I'm honestly not even sure what point he thought he was making. The two are unrelated. Done for different reasons. And even have a different objective. We generally don't call people RINOs in order to shame or pressure them into complying. We call them that so that others in our party may realize that they aren't good Republican representatives and perhaps vote in someone else who better represents the ideal of the party. Which is perfectly reasonable for someone to do when assessing a politician.

BS!!

You are saying that Democrats are practicing bad tactics by committing an Appeal to Popularity fallacy which is enforced by the fear of reprisal.I asked a simple question if whether or not Republicans do the same thing (the answer is yes via the term RINO, etc). Instead of answering the question, you avoid it and then try to make the question about race.
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Gbaji wrote:

There's also no racial component. They are completely different things, yet Alma has latched onto the RINO thing like a dog with a freaking bone. More relevantly, he's used that bizarre side track to avoid talking about the initial issue about how blacks are pressured into voting Democrat via labeling systems like "Uncle Tom" and "race traitor". Silly me for realizing that he's doing this just to divert attention away from a subject he doesn't want to talk about.

You were attacking the tactics of Democrats while stating that blacks are victims of those tactics. I responded by saying that Republicans employ the same type of tactics and they also include race. You just failed to respond to the racial component, even though that is completely irrelevant to the claim of the Democratic tactics. Democrats do the same thing for abortion and immigration which are based on actions, not race.

No. When dealing with political actions. That's the point of "RINO". It's applied to elected representatives, not to voters. There's a massive difference between expecting a politician to take political actions that are in alignment with the views of the party he is a member of, and expecting a black person (all black people) to hold social positions and vote in alignment with a single political party. I've explained this several times now. Seriously. What part of this don't you understand?



And we go back around in circles again with you repeating an assertion I already responded to as though I never responded. I've already answered this. It does not "prevent" anything. What it does is make it harder to be successful. What is up with you and absolutes? It's about statistical outcomes. And in that context every single thing has an effect. Welfare acts to shield the poor from the consequences of poverty. But this also acts to reduce the incentive to get oneself out of poverty by blunting the benefits gained along the way.

Once again, I can only explain things to you. I can't make you understand them. The concept of welfare acting as an economic trap is well discussed and well understood. If you honestly don't understand this, why not just google a few terms and start reading? You'll find article after article written on this very subject. You're free to disagree in terms of how to deal with the problem, but it's ridiculous for you to just deny that it even exists.



Striking out the derail. Since when is being black or a woman a "fundamental belief"? It's an identity. You're saying "if you are black you should vote Democrat". Why?



Then do so. And not in "because they don't like them" or "because they have policies that hurt them". Be specific. See, the problem I'm having here is that I'm arguing that Republican policies are not actually bad for blacks, but Dem policies are, and that the Dems use labels and repeated claims to the contrary to convince people that it's the other way around. So you repeating those same claims doesn't hold any weight here. It's circular. I'm saying that people only think GOP policies are bad for blacks because Liberals and Democrats keep saying it. And your response is to just say that their policies are bad for black people. All you're doing is repeating the claim I'm refuting. If you really think that claim is true, then explain why. And be specific.

I'll also point out the irony of me pointing out how people fail to argue why blacks for *for* Democrats but instead why they vote *against* Republicans, and you proceed to do that exact same thing. Shouldn't you vote for a party because you agree with their positions? Aren't you the least bit concerned that maybe the reason the Dems want you focused on why you should dislike the GOP is because they're afraid that if you actually look at their own positions, platform, and past actions you might discover that you dislike them even more? Just a thought.



Ok. I buy that actually. But for those of us who do follow politics, shouldn't we actually look at the underlying positions and make a decision that way? Your argument is like saying the doctor giving a child a lollipop as a means of encouraging him to comply with an examination and a child molester using a lollypop to entice the same child into his van are similarly right or wrong because both are "pandering". And just as with the example above, I'm willing to overlook pandering if I've examined the underlying objectives and agree with them and am not when I don't.

And, as I mentioned above (and you failed to respond) my issue is that it seems as though the Left has abandoned even the pretense of ideology or principles on which they act. They just pander to groups to gain political support and then go off on their own agenda once they have sufficient power to do so. It's how a party given the presidency, both houses of congress, and a supermajority in the Senate have as their primary success with that power the passage of a health care bill that consistently polled at 55-60% opposed. They clearly didn't use the power they were granted to do what "the people" wanted. Which suggests to me that they gained power, not by running on their agenda, but by running on an identity based campaign. Vote for me cause I don't hate you! Um... That's great, but what are you going to do once you are in office?

Do Dem voters even ask that question anymore? Or do they just vote for the guy because he doesn't hate <insert identity group here>? Isn't that kinda important?



Wrong. I said people who could afford to leave the rapidly increasing poverty of the inner cities did. You're the one who inserted "white" in there. Wealthy black people moved out of those neighborhoods too. As did wealthy Asians. And wealthy Latinos. And not even "wealthy". Just "able to afford to leave". As those neighborhoods became more poor, people who could afford to leave left. In many cases this meant lots of white people, but as we have gone around in circles several times over, white people make up a majority of the population, so saying it was "mostly white people" who left these neighborhoods isn't really saying anything.

Let me also remind you that I'm specifically speaking of the post civil rights era (say mid 60s and on). When we look at that time period, we see that the motivations for people's movements in and out of most areas is economic, not racially driven. Well, except for the black power movement, which was decidedly racially motivated and driven by the specific intention of building neighborhoods with high black populations so as to increase black representation in politics. You really can't blame "white flight" on that at all.



Read what above? Just repeating the same assertion over and over isn't an argument. I'm telling you that what is labeled as "white flight" is really a combination of factors, very little of which had to do with racial considerations by white people.



My whole point is refuting your use of the label "white flight". I don't like that term, and have never liked it because it suggests that it was all about white people making choices (with the assumption being they are "fleeing" black people out of some kind of fear or whatnot). Which is an incredibly unfair way to view the issue. The choices were made by a host of people across all racial groups, and almost entirely had to do with economics. People move in and out of neighborhoods for a variety of reasons. Race is rarely the reason, despite far too many people obsessing over it.

The problem, as I've been trying to explain all along is that there is already a strong correlation between race and crime. Heavily black neighborhoods tend to have high crime rates. Not because they are black, but because they are poor. Similarly, people move out of the area, not because it's full of black people, but because it's full of poor people. And where poverty goes, crime goes. You're making the same mistake of assuming that people move out of those neighborhoods because they don't want to live near black people as you did when assuming that cops pull over black people more often because they are black. No. They do so because black people are more likely to be poor, and crime is higher in poor neighborhoods, therefore black people will be pulled over at a higher rate than white people.

It's all related to the same freaking thing. The same thing you steadfastly refuse to even acknowledge may exist. But as long as you stick to that denial, you can never understand what's really going on. You'll continue to blame all of these problems on racism when that's not what is causing them. As I have said many times it's poverty that is the problem.




I answered this several times. I'll do it again, because apparently I'm a glutton for punishment.

Pointing out that someone else is obsessed with race doesn't make me obsessed with race. Get it? The Left is obsessed with race. I'm pointing it out. That's it. The conspiracy I'm talking about is also me pointing out an obsession with race by another group (also part of the Left, or at least Democrat). The first obsession is about defining everything in racial context and using that context to gain political power/support. The second obsession is by racists who realized that they could use this process to introduce government action that would harm people they don't like (in this case black people). Both groups are liberal. Both view issues in the context of race.

The first uses racial inequity to create support for government action, while the second uses government action to create and perpetuate racial inequity. They feed off each other. And it works largely because the members of the first group are generally unwilling to examine the effects of their actions after they are done. They're too busy moving on to the next thing, too sure of the rightness of their cause, and too afraid to look at the truth of things and risk discovering that they might have contributed to something "bad" to risk challenging their hard held beliefs by actually assessing their effects. They assume that welfare helps the poor so firmly that they see no reason to examine the long term effects of welfare on the poor. Examining those effects can only create a risk that they were wrong and they don't want to believe they could be wrong. So they don't do it. And not only do they not do it, but they harshly attack anyone who suggests otherwise. Thus perpetuating the problem.


Sure. It's a theory. But whether you believe it isn't really the point. The point is that many of the actions your "side" has taken have had the effect of creating or perpetuating the very problems that your "side" claims to be fighting against. That alone should make you at least question what the heck is going on. Shouldn't it?

Edited, Apr 3rd 2015 9:12pm by gbaji

https://xkcd.com/123/

Rate up for beating my expectation that it was a link to the "wrong on the internet" comic.