Talk Elections

To All:

First, all threads on this Board should be about politics, and not your preferences, opinions or questions about non-political issues, including geographic preferences, such as polls or discussions as which city, or nation, or National Park, or whatever you would prefer. Those threads belong in the Off Topic Board.

Probably "opinion of" threads about a race, or for that matter any ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or even of a class, are a bad idea. You see, except for perhaps rich white people, we start to get on very thin ground, particularly if someone has a negative opinion. We had/have a bit of a contretemps about a poster who arguably has a negative opinion of poor people. Report, after report, after report. Do you see where I am going with this?

So I respectfully request that such threads not be put up. If someone feels a compelling need, in a given context to do one that gets close to the line on this, I suggest you PM me first.

Outside of personal attacks, I normally am pretty much a laissez faire type Mod, and often let stuff go by, unless it is reported, and then I need to be fair to both the reporter and the reportee, and hew to policy. But on this one, I just see trouble down the road with this genre of "opinion of" threads, and I want to try to nip it in the bud, before someone gets hurt, and many get offended, and more feuds are fueled.

Thanks for listening.

Your most controversial Mod,

Torie

I deleted two posts. I take no real exception to their being made in the first instance, but they are inappropriate to remain for a long half life. Folks can make comments for feedback purposes and/or discussion or reaction or whatever, but if the post does not help elucidate or clarify the policy, or explain it, such posts will not remain as a permanent fixture on this "stickied" thread. That is the way I am balancing the competing considerations on this one.

What do you mean, we can't express any objections to your censorship?

I think what I said was quite clear, opebo. Take it elsewhere than this thread please.

So what shall we discuss on this board? Tea and crumpets?

That's a category, therefore it's prohibited.

Can we get the official list of topics we're still allowed to discuss on this forum? It might be easier to go about it that way.

Okay, here is the list :

1. Kitties
2. Puppies
3. Other Nice Things Everybody Likes

Shouldn't this thread have a poll?

Anyway, just thought I'd comment on this thread.

I can certainly understand how threads on these sorts of things can lead to some unsavory comments made of certain controversial nature that can trigger unpleasant emotions in people who are members thereof.  However, unlike the moderator who has come on here to defend his regime, I would say that if anything this rationale is more a reason why these types of threads should not only be allowed, but be encouraged.  There are quite a few people on here, I am quite convinced, who are natural bigots who use the guise of enlightenment and supporting "the right side" to mask their bigotry.  Threads asking about these sorts of things is an easy way to out them, though if they are wise they will refrain from revealing their hate filled supremacist view of the world.
As it is, they get away with too much in general discussion by claiming "but many (insert x here) were (insert x here)!" without owning up to, or even just outright admitting that they don't like (insert x here).  I for one would applaud revealing these hypocrites to the world, and then bashing the hell out of them.

If anything, the OP demonstrates why we need to get rid of the "Report" button, which more often not is an instrument of the malformed in the mind to repress views that they don't like rather than legitimate violations of the rules.

Franknburger noted on another thread that there are specific guidelines from Leip (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=184774.msg3999449#msg3999449). The reporting feature is a specific element of his guidelines as to when certain types of posts should be deleted or modified.

Could a thread on this work:

What do you think would be the hardest on you, and which do you think would be the easiest on you? Being a different sexuality than you are now, being a different race than you are now, or being a different gender than you are now?

(Basically a different way to get people to reflect on what's currently worse in American society... racism, sexism, or homophobia)

I see nothing beyond the pale as to that kind of thread.  It is not asking about the merits of a group as to which having a negative opinion would raise issues, but rather a personal question about how one might navigate having been dealt a different deck of cards than one was in fact dealt.

Expected. Identity reigns supreme. And to the extent that class comes into play, it is simply another identity to be celebrated (let's have a tolerance parade for the poors, or "raise" their minimum wage while we cut their hours). That's why Dems squealed over Romney's 47% comments; it was a classist remark, and Dems will tolerate accelerating wealth inequality, but saying mean things is unacceptable.

OK...

I can address that.

I was born a normal white kid in Cuba, the grandchild of Euro immigrants (Spaniards).

I migrated to the US in 1968, and apparently something happened on the flight over because once we landed, we weren't allowed to mark the "Caucasian" box in the immigration forms. I'm not quite sure what we were called, but we were no longer Caucasian. I recall correcting someone who asked me if I was Mexican a couple of years later (they saw my last name), and his response was basically "Cuban Mexican, Puerto Rican Mexican, Mexican Mexican... what difference does it make?"

That was rough.

Then in 1973, Richard Nixon invented Hispanics and suddenly I'd been transferred. I was now a member of an ethnicity that didn't exist at the time of my birth. It was (as best as I can explain) ethnic conscription. Cubans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans... one big happy opinion pollster group. As an additional benefit, I had a whole new box to check off on the census forms.

Everything went along fine for years, and I sort of got used to my status, then one day George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin and VOILA! White Hispanics were born, and I'd been transferred again.  

I'm training my kids to be white as most descendants of Europeans seem to claim that they are, and to enunciate their last name the same way that people from the UP pronounce it (that's as Caucasian as one can get) and maybe people will see them and think "you're too white and too tall to be a Mexican of any nationality", and the generations of my descendants will just be...

Well, maybe by then we'll stop the silliness and decide to just be people.

I get the rationale to move the geographic opinion threads off of IP, but there are a couple of factors that I think should be considered. One, my observation is that most of the geographic polls/competitions are decided based on the poster's view of the politics of the location. Two, the polls have the potential to crowd out the substantive threads in Off Topic: sports, science, etc. Ideally there is a child board for the personal opinion polls, but we'll see where Dave goes.

Fun stuff being a mod. :( Actually I never vote for a location based on its politics. I typically prefer places with politics at variance with mine. But hey, if the geography post is a poll or question specifically about a location based on its politics, I will leave it here. How about that Solomonic compromise? :) Or alternatively, since it's about geography, how about moving them all to your board Muon2?  :P

These type of polls have occasionally on Political Geography. I usually let the develop for a few replies. If the the replies are adding factual information about the geography I let them stay. If they become purely opinion (and it's usually about politics as posters are demonstrating the Big Sort) then I move it to IP. As I said, I'd prefer a board to collect all forum opinion polls. Otherwise once one starts it tend to generate many along a similar line. That's not bad by itself, but a dozen such polls will knock other substantive threads off page 1 of the board.

Do we support freedom of speech and the American way?  I know that's a loaded question, but that's only because I know that it won't be answered outside of a politically correct format. 

I don't support the American way (normal)

Commie!  :P

This guy was a forum institution?

The whole Hispanic category is pretty stupid. The census should abolish the "Do you have Hispanic/Latino ancestry" question and add mestizo, mulatto, and native Meso/South American as racial categories. Asian should also be split into East and South/Central Asian while Caucasian should be split into European (which is what everyone means by white) and Middle Eastern/North African. This last one is actually supposed to happen in 2020. I think that would help.

I would consider you white if your ancestry is just Spanish. I think from a political standpoint white hispanics are more right leaning than brown hispanics. It would be interesting to see polling of the different subsets of Hispanic/Latino if that category was abolished.

This is really nice and wonderful facts