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Maxwell
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« Reply #175 on: May 11, 2015, 09:10:27 PM »

OK my point was simply that there was no hypocrisy in attacking Juggalos from my subculture, it's quite common. Plus consistent. Can you seriously imagine someone who is a fan of this type of band being an ICP fan? I mean even if they liked any hip hop music AT ALL...

Furthermore it's well known that ICP's music is full of misogyny, homophobia and glorifies violence and is extremely un-PC. Is it any surprise it'd be hated by some of the most politically correct out there? I mean, consider that even Dude Fest has come under controversy before due to the name, with some people in some zines finding it sexist. In 2007 there was even "A Different Kind of Dude Fest", a more political and SJW-oriented musical fest of the same type in Baltimore and the name primarily protesting that even if the "Dude Fest" name was a joke it had undertones of the institutionalized sexism of mainstream culture in it. Even some bands that played at the normal Dude Fest played at that. It's no coincidence these Juggalo gangs also popped up. Can you imagine gangs of SJW hardcore fans? Of course not because that'd be completely antithetical to all their values.

Look, the ICP makes objectively terrible music, I find their mannerisms and rituals bizarre myself, and "Miracles" in particular is one of the most aggressively stupid, anti-facts, anti-thought songs ever recorded.

But I'm glad for these folks that they've found a community where they feel like they belong, and Nix and TNF are absolutely right to decry the sneering classism in this thread.  FF in protest.

So then what's your thoughts on the whole DIY post-hardcore/real emo scene? Because you haven't expressed a particularly positive opinion of that in the past.

News at 11: music reflects the society it develops in

But really, you complain about the 'misogyny, homophobia' etc. here and claim that it's no surprise that 'SJW types' wouldn't like it, but I don't know if that's necessarily true. A lot of people like music that they don't necessarily agree with. I like a lot of older hip-hop, which is often misogynistic and/or homophobic, but I don't automatically agree with what's being asserted by the singer in question. Likewise, I don't care for the politics of  lot of musicians that I like (since I do like a good bit of country, for instance), but I don't have to agree with someone's politics to enjoy their work. Unlike you, I don't judge cultural production on the basis of whether or not it agrees with my specific ideological framework, because if I did, I wouldn't be able to engage with any (or just a very small bit of cultural production), because my views are very much out of the mainstream.

You need to learn how not to make every single act you engage in something that reinforces the things you already hold to be true. Otherwise, you're going to continue to go through life as a stunted, dogmatic imbecile.   

This post is very "YAS"
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World politics is up Schmitt creek
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« Reply #176 on: May 17, 2015, 08:33:54 PM »

His "conservatism" was more in the interest of taking liberal elites and social workers, while his "liberalism" was largely in the interest of getting ahead of and/or coercing liberal ideas so they couldn't campaign on them. His presidency, in retrospect, has few things policy-related that should appeal to either a liberal or a conservative, this in the political success, he contributed greatly to the rightward bent of the nation, though he can hardly be attributed with having triggered such a thing. Even discussing his personal views is a difficult task, as different aides and recordings will tell you different things. His racial policy is itself a strange phenomenon. He advanced agencies like the Office of Minority Business Enterprise, somehow became the "greatest school desegregator in history", and according to Buchanan and others had genuine concern for African-Americans, while at the same time scuttling busing, advancing various "tough on crime" tactics that would affect blacks, and is on record saying that he preferred abortion in the case of a mixed-race child. He as well signed legislation in 1974 that would be viewed favorably by proponents of "community-oriented policing". It's ironic, of course, that conservatives rebelled against Ford and not him, since Ford, while likely personally more liberal, presided over a more conservative economic approach and started rolling back detente under the guidance of Rumsfeld and Cheney, though one could reason that, regardless of who held office by 1976, conservatives would have attempted to oust him. It's as well ironic that a man who had been able to churn such vitriol and hatred from the left nevertheless almost won the presidency in 1960 and won a landslide in 1972. This irony is as well at the crux of Nixonism, pitting all sides against each other to win vast swaths of the middle and the right. Hell, in 1960, you could've stated, with history on your side, that Nixon was the candidate more favorable to civil rights. His presidency is a good example of the triumphs and failues of both ideologies on the American political scene. He was able to placate New Deal liberalism enough to not offend a good deal of its benficiaries, while also doing so in the name of a middle class conservatism. Someone to his right would have threatened the New Deal benefits that many Americans were attached to, someone to his left would have threatened the cultural sensibilities of middle America. He adopted several personas, and pursued policies to the detriment of each of them. The man who was endorsed by unions in his re-election nevertheless pursued free trade; the man who had friends in the business world and was backed by them signed into law the EPA and other environmental protections; the anti-communist who would protect you from the Soviets sought detente; the centrist who didn't threaten the status quo made himself the bedfellow of Dixiecrats and spoke to anti-war protesters at the Lincoln Memorial. My "conclusion" would be that he simply was a conservative interested in co-opting the liberal policies that were in vogue, while also taking up the mantle of the conservative rhetoric that was becoming popular. However, he goes well beyond a simple one-word or even one-sentence explanation. If you examined the presidencies of any other president after him, you might run into a similar debate, but the causes for question about their ideologies were exceptions. For Nixon, the contradictions were the rule. 
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Mr. Smith
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« Reply #177 on: May 17, 2015, 08:34:32 PM »

His "conservatism" was more in the interest of taking liberal elites and social workers, while his "liberalism" was largely in the interest of getting ahead of and/or coercing liberal ideas so they couldn't campaign on them. His presidency, in retrospect, has few things policy-related that should appeal to either a liberal or a conservative, this in the political success, he contributed greatly to the rightward bent of the nation, though he can hardly be attributed with having triggered such a thing. Even discussing his personal views is a difficult task, as different aides and recordings will tell you different things. His racial policy is itself a strange phenomenon. He advanced agencies like the Office of Minority Business Enterprise, somehow became the "greatest school desegregator in history", and according to Buchanan and others had genuine concern for African-Americans, while at the same time scuttling busing, advancing various "tough on crime" tactics that would affect blacks, and is on record saying that he preferred abortion in the case of a mixed-race child. He as well signed legislation in 1974 that would be viewed favorably by proponents of "community-oriented policing". It's ironic, of course, that conservatives rebelled against Ford and not him, since Ford, while likely personally more liberal, presided over a more conservative economic approach and started rolling back detente under the guidance of Rumsfeld and Cheney, though one could reason that, regardless of who held office by 1976, conservatives would have attempted to oust him. It's as well ironic that a man who had been able to churn such vitriol and hatred from the left nevertheless almost won the presidency in 1960 and won a landslide in 1972. This irony is as well at the crux of Nixonism, pitting all sides against each other to win vast swaths of the middle and the right. Hell, in 1960, you could've stated, with history on your side, that Nixon was the candidate more favorable to civil rights. His presidency is a good example of the triumphs and failues of both ideologies on the American political scene. He was able to placate New Deal liberalism enough to not offend a good deal of its benficiaries, while also doing so in the name of a middle class conservatism. Someone to his right would have threatened the New Deal benefits that many Americans were attached to, someone to his left would have threatened the cultural sensibilities of middle America. He adopted several personas, and pursued policies to the detriment of each of them. The man who was endorsed by unions in his re-election nevertheless pursued free trade; the man who had friends in the business world and was backed by them signed into law the EPA and other environmental protections; the anti-communist who would protect you from the Soviets sought detente; the centrist who didn't threaten the status quo made himself the bedfellow of Dixiecrats and spoke to anti-war protesters at the Lincoln Memorial. My "conclusion" would be that he simply was a conservative interested in co-opting the liberal policies that were in vogue, while also taking up the mantle of the conservative rhetoric that was becoming popular. However, he goes well beyond a simple one-word or even one-sentence explanation. If you examined the presidencies of any other president after him, you might run into a similar debate, but the causes for question about their ideologies were exceptions. For Nixon, the contradictions were the rule. 

...Damn you, you beat me to it.
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Sopranos Republican
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« Reply #178 on: May 20, 2015, 09:08:38 PM »

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=213161.0

^This thread.
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Marokai Backbeat
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« Reply #179 on: May 26, 2015, 04:13:40 AM »

Most presidential historians rank by consequentiality, rightly or wrongly. That's why top ten lists are dominated by some shady and perhaps controversial characters who still have effects reverberating today - Jackso, Polk, Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt etc. Coolidge was never a man interested in building a 'legacy' and indeed a few decades after his presidency, all remnants were eroded away. That small government, austere and Prohibitionist, vaguely isolationist, highly protectionist model he craved was washed away by FDR and his successors; the modern GOP (even those who speak highly of the man) has no desire to return to that party.

He firmly didn't understand or even care about how the very role of President had shifted beneath his feet. Consider the contrast between Reagan and his hero Coolidge when disasters struck. After the Mississippi floods, Coolidge didn't really get that he was expected to be something more than a distant figurehead. Was it an admirable stance, as he maintained, to avoid politicking by staying away? Possibly - but as future President Reagan would show upon the Challenger disaster, such aloofness was rapidly becoming fatal for the role of POTUS. In foreign policy and immigration, again, Coolidge laid no lasting impact. His Immigration Act lasted the longest time, but that would be dismantled in the Johnson administration - now recognising the Act as an anachronistic racist failure.

Again there is much to admire about the character about of Calvin Coolidge - his steps against racism (aforementioned Immigration Acts aside)and lynching were extremely laudable. I get why he is loved by a certain type of person. I even get his 'wit' - although it reminds me of social awkwardness more than anything else. But was Calvin Coolidge a man of consequence, a president who will be go down in the ages? No, of course not. And, quite frankly, that is just how he would prefer to be remembered.
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Snowstalker Mk. II
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« Reply #180 on: May 26, 2015, 03:42:00 PM »

I honestly don't give a damn if Serbs died. America comes first to me.

MUH ARBITRARY LINES ON A MAP

Commie, there are things such as cultures, etc. Not just lines on a map. I care about my country - not someone else's. I know you as a Commie, you want to pretend countries, cultures, languages don't exist - you and your little Frankfurt School, America hating views - but no one will ever, ever accept Communism in this country.

Sure, there are such things as cultures. But cultures are not independent or free floating. They are the result of hundreds of thousands of years of intermixing between different peoples, intermarriage between different peoples, and cultural exchanges in general. And they continue to evolve and develop on account of the dialectical processes that govern society at large. A good example of that is the very idea of 'white people', or the 'white race', an identity category you seem to hold dear for reasons I can't comprehend outside of what appears to be a victim mentality on your own part.

The idea of a 'white race' is a new concept that has only developed very recently in historic terms. As late as the 1920s, Southern Europeans weren't considered 'white' by mainstream U.S. public opinion, which helped to influence legislation like the Immigration Act of 1924 and other public policies which sought to exclude them. Fast forward to the 1960s, with the defeat of the left and class politics in general, and we have the construction of a 'white identity' that now includes those very groups excluded in the past, in direct opposition (as a result of, really) the rights revolution and the identity-based struggles therein. Thus the banner of 'white nationalism', the 'white race', and all attempts at a universal white identity are not anything other than an attempt to make sense of the world where the left and labor politics had lost and struggles for recognition on the grounds of identity succeeded. The idea of 'white people' itself has always existed for exclusionary purposes, but the idea of a universal 'whiteness' that you seem to subscribe to here is a very new one. So sure, there are such things as 'cultures', but they're not as static and unchanging as you, or the neo-Nazi scum of the Internet, or their 'left-wing' counterparts, the SJWs, would like to have us believe.

You say that you 'care about your country', but apparently you don't care enough about it to recognize that it was founded in the spirit of liberty, equality, and fraternity of all people, no matter if they have the stars and stripes on their porch, the Union Jack, the Russian flag, etc. The men and women who made this country a land of possibility, a new start, a refuge for the wretched of the Earth, didn't do so as an isolated group. They were part of a worldwide revolutionary tradition beginning with the Dutch Revolt and closing with the abolition of slavery by the heirs of the American Revolution in the 1860s. Thomas Paine famously said 'I have no country to fight for, for I am a citizen of the world', or something to that affect, and there's certainly good evidence to think that the other radicals of the revolutionary period (Thomas Jefferson in particular) were well aware of the fact that theirs was but a small part in a grander movement.

Caring about your country means recognizing that it is not infallible, and that it makes mistakes, and that its leaders are not flawless. Just shouting 'USA! USA! USA!' is mindless and makes you look like an idiot, and not without reason - because the inability to think critically about the problems that your country faces and has faced makes you one.

I don't pretend that countries and languages don't exist. I understand that they do, and as a communist, I want to do what can be done to hasten the overthrow of that system which divides men and women along borders, which denies them the fruit of their labor, and which condemns them to relentless toil, forever and ever. The nation-state is a walled off area for capital accumulation, and in that context, I oppose it. I obviously don't oppose the idea of separate languages or cultures and think that cultural diversity is worthwhile.

I don't hate America, I hate the politico-economic system that produces want and meaningless toil for the vast majority of the populace, while allowing a gilded few to enjoy pleasures that the rest of us can only dream of. In spite of my own tendency to get hyperbolic, I'll be frank and say I don't hate you or anyone else on this site with whom I have differing opinions, because I understand how opinions and ideologies are formulated within the context of society at large. That said, I do despise the system which makes young men hopeless and resentful enough to become the most vile kind of misanthrope, the 'white nationalist', the 'MRA', or whatever garbage you have floating through your head. You can talk about how proud you are to be white all day long, but that won't prevent you from being exploited at work by a small group of parasites that is happy to have you keep talking about how proud you are to be a white man - because it keeps your attention off of them.

I'm not even going to address the bit of cloaked anti-Semitism you have going on there (what, with references to the 'Frankfurt School' and all), but I will say that I agree with next to nothing of the Frankfurt School's sociopolitical analysis, which should be obvious to anyone who has read the varied critique of other left-wingers I post here fairly often. But you're new here (assuming you're a real person and not, say, DevotedDemocrat, whom you seem to be fairly close to in terms of views), so I'll give you a break on that.
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Ebsy
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« Reply #181 on: May 31, 2015, 02:16:08 PM »

Depends on however that State resolves ties.  I think most would make it be a matter of random chance, but frankly I doubt any tie after the initial result of a statewide election would still be a tie after a recount.

I agree, and the 2008 MN Sen race is a good example of the amount of swing that might be expected. MN has very good audit procedures for their elections, but even so there can be ballots in dispute. The initial count was Coleman leading Franken by 215 votes out of 2,885,555 cast. After the recount Franken led by 225 votes out of 2,887,337 cast. After the final court challenge the margin favored Franken by 312 votes out of 2,887,646 cast.

There are two factors to consider here. First is the change in the ballots cast. MN ended up with and additional 2091 ballots found to be valid. Missing votes and unreported or partial precincts can happen just due to human or technical errors. In this case it resulted in an additional 0.072% ballots cast which make up less than one in a thousand. However, when the margin is also less than one in a thousand, that matters.

The second is that the recovered ballots are unlikely to exactly mirror the statewide vote. That was true in MN where Franken gained 1,254 votes and Coleman gained 727. Statistical fluctuations can seem large because the added ballots are not uniformly distributed across the state. So in the case of a tie, it's very likely that a recount will find more valid votes, and it is highly unlikely that they will split exactly evenly when those added ballots total in the hundreds or thousands as they would for presidential electors.
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IceSpear
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« Reply #182 on: June 01, 2015, 03:05:59 PM »

She doesn't have to explain the donations. The real explanation is that it doesn't matter.

The media is painting this as if the State Department awarded a contract. That is fundamentally dishonest.

The State Department had no influence on the decision. They simply sent a representative to The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States along with a dozen other agencies both federal and the state of Utah.

The State Department is only a research entity in these matters. The best Hillary could do for them is order the representative to hide any shady acts against the interest of U.S. national security by the company so that they could not be negatively damaged in the bidding process. The media has uncovered no such thing or even hinted to researching it.

The fact that you don't see CIFUS mentioned on any article related to this "scandal" only shows how unbelievable retarded and useless the United States press has become. These websites of supposedly intelligent media outlets are writing pages in a supposed information age with supposed unlimited resources and supposed unprecedented editorial freedom, yet are omitting facts that would have been included in a 60 second bulletin on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite 40 years ago because their research is so poor that they aren't even aware of them

It does not matter who or what entity donated to The Clinton Foundation. It had no influence on the proceedings because the Clintons had no legal ability to influence on the proceedings.
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Mr. Smith
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« Reply #183 on: June 02, 2015, 12:22:55 AM »

Let's get one thing straight: the GOP isn't on the cusp of some awe-inspiring reinvention of itself, the country isn't on the precipice of a realignment, and the traditional elements of the Democratic Party aren't in any danger of abandoning it within the next generation.

The Republican realignment beginning in the 1980s happened because three elements were present:

1) A generation of prosperity. We obviously haven't had that for ages, and it's not just around the riverbend. Even if it were, it would need to be consistently present for a decade or two before it could affect the political discourse enough to upend the key players in each party. People make stupid decisions, politically-speaking, when there is unbounding prosperity (like voting to eliminate surpluses, and pissing in their pants whenever a moderate downturn occurs because they have no idea what a supply-side depression really looks like).

2) A bunch of dumb kids unaware of Republicans. The dominance of Democrats for decades finally gave away to enough (young) people growing up in said prosperity and not personally experiencing Republican policies to actually be stupid enough to vote for them. Everyone with a politically-aware mind these days - or even just a basic understanding of cultural norms - knows that the GOP is a bigoted group of old, white farts that hate gays, minorities, women and just about anyone else. Economically, most almost remember or know who was responsible for the latest recession.

3) Persistent Republican moderation. When you're a poor, poor perpetual political minority for decades, what do you do? You act as if you agree with the majority more often than not, soften your rhetoric and pretend to be in it for the people. The Republicans have literally never done that since the 1980s, and they're not about to start now. Further ensuring this will continue is the fact that their hyped-up extremist Baby Boomer crowd is going to live substantially longer than any other American generation; expect the bulk of them to continue voting well into their 80s.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #184 on: June 06, 2015, 03:43:07 AM »

My immigration stance?

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My ancestors were accepted into this country as refugees fleeing vicious pogroms in Russia. Why would I ever abandon that most American of ideals, that this is a country that anyone can come to to build a new life?
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Hifly
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« Reply #185 on: June 06, 2015, 03:56:18 AM »

Green Party.

I have voted Green here in Austria since I was able to vote. But sometimes I disagree with them, like now for example when it comes to the asylum crisis. The Greens simply want to import as many asylum seekers as possible (100.000s of them) and let them have all the goodies that Austria provides for them. I simply want them deported, most of them - especially the 80% of young males that are coming instead of the women and children who are left behind in the war areas and who are the ones who should be here and not the men, who should fight against Assad and IS and not lurk around the local town squares and surf the internet on their 300€ phones ... I favour a moderate asylum approach with 20.000 asylum seekers max. and not 70.000-80.000 like this year and only for those who are really in need, not economic asylum seekers. The Green Party seems to be reality-denying and playing into the hands of the FPÖ with their constant "wide open barn-door philosophy".
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SUSAN CRUSHBONE
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« Reply #186 on: June 06, 2015, 06:06:16 AM »

Green Party.

I have voted Green here in Austria since I was able to vote. But sometimes I disagree with them, like now for example when it comes to the asylum crisis. The Greens simply want to import as many asylum seekers as possible (100.000s of them) and let them have all the goodies that Austria provides for them. I simply want them deported, most of them - especially the 80% of young males that are coming instead of the women and children who are left behind in the war areas and who are the ones who should be here and not the men, who should fight against Assad and IS and not lurk around the local town squares and surf the internet on their 300€ phones ... I favour a moderate asylum approach with 20.000 asylum seekers max. and not 70.000-80.000 like this year and only for those who are really in need, not economic asylum seekers. The Green Party seems to be reality-denying and playing into the hands of the FPÖ with their constant "wide open barn-door philosophy".

no.
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Hifly
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« Reply #187 on: June 07, 2015, 01:34:21 PM »

Not really a good post per se, just a fantastic set of election results:

Final results:

Question 1 (voting age at 16):
Yes 19.13%
No 80.87%

Question 2 (voting rights for foreigners):
Yes 21.98%
No 78.02%

Question 3 (term limits for ministers):
Yes 30.07%
No 69.93%
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #188 on: June 07, 2015, 03:45:34 PM »

Go away.
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IceSpear
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« Reply #189 on: June 15, 2015, 01:14:37 AM »

We saw it in 2004 when John Kerry, a patriotic gentleman and war hero, was brought low by GOP 'Swift Boat Veterans For Truth,' who smeared his heroic war record, painting him as a coward, a liar and a traitor. Kerry, stunned, did not fight back hard enough.

The GOP will try to reduce Hillary to "Benghazi" and "secret email server," Bill's presidency to "Monica," the CGI to "dirty foreign money." They'll call Hillary a bitter, dried up old woman.  Who cares?

The Clintons don't come from big bucks. They are not the Bushes, nor are they scions of the Kennedy family. They are not Rockefellers. They don't own oil wells. They do have to compete with those people. So, they have to make money. Now, can you please explain what your problem is?

There is not another Presidential aspirant that has the breadth of Hillary's experience both foreign and domestic. She has been in the political arena for well over 23 years and is unbowed by the harsh light that has shone on her life for that whole time. She absolutely does have what it takes to be President - intelligence, experience, and intestinal fortitude. You don't have to like her or her husband, just vote for her, and not just because she is a woman, or just because she is a Democrat, but because she has the best qualifications to be President of the United States, warts and all.

After 25 years of slander and abuse from the GOP, Hillary's running again. She's not scared of them. Who else has her guts?

I'll be proud to vote for her.
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Türkisblau
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« Reply #190 on: June 15, 2015, 01:23:49 AM »

We saw it in 2004 when John Kerry, a patriotic gentleman and war hero, was brought low by GOP 'Swift Boat Veterans For Truth,' who smeared his heroic war record, painting him as a coward, a liar and a traitor. Kerry, stunned, did not fight back hard enough.

The GOP will try to reduce Hillary to "Benghazi" and "secret email server," Bill's presidency to "Monica," the CGI to "dirty foreign money." They'll call Hillary a bitter, dried up old woman.  Who cares?

The Clintons don't come from big bucks. They are not the Bushes, nor are they scions of the Kennedy family. They are not Rockefellers. They don't own oil wells. They do have to compete with those people. So, they have to make money. Now, can you please explain what your problem is?

There is not another Presidential aspirant that has the breadth of Hillary's experience both foreign and domestic. She has been in the political arena for well over 23 years and is unbowed by the harsh light that has shone on her life for that whole time. She absolutely does have what it takes to be President - intelligence, experience, and intestinal fortitude. You don't have to like her or her husband, just vote for her, and not just because she is a woman, or just because she is a Democrat, but because she has the best qualifications to be President of the United States, warts and all.

After 25 years of slander and abuse from the GOP, Hillary's running again. She's not scared of them. Who else has her guts?

I'll be proud to vote for her.

Fitting as that's supposed to be King's last post on this forum (he's moved to AAD.)

Maybe should rename this the "King Memorial Good Post Gallery"? He deserves it more than Spade tbh.
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Mr. Smith
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« Reply #191 on: June 15, 2015, 01:54:31 AM »

Why does the left not favor scholarships or vouchers? Why are they insistent on keeping kids in public schools that are failing? They don't want private or charter schools to exist, despite them doing better than public schools. If they care about the poor so much, they should want poorer kids who generally go to worse off schools to go to better ones, increasing their chance of not being poor in the future.

If I had to guess, I would say its because they're (and by they I mean left wing organizations and big money) a puppet for labor and teacher's unions.

What evidence do you have that public schools are 'failing', relative to charter schools or private schools? The methods that have been invented to test how well schools and students are doing in school always seem to find that schools are 'failing' and students are falling behind precisely because that's what they were designed to do. Pretending otherwise is naive. We have no way of accurately comparing education statistics when the U.S. school system is not comparable between tiered systems like in Germany (and most studies erroneously compare the average American student with students in elite German Gymnasiums or the highest ranked students in Shanghai), and attempts to do so are disingenuous on the very face of it, because you're not using comparable tests. Beyond that, how does one even begin to quantify knowledge?

There's also literally zero evidence that charter schools perform better than public schools. Private schools may perform better in certain cases, but this comes in part from the fact that these schools are well funded by the parents who have the money to send their children to these schools in the first place. Nothing is more of a determinant of how well schools 'perform' than the access these schools have to adequate educational materials, teaching staff, learning facilities, and, most important of all, the socioeconomic background of the students in question. The children of the employing class have no problem paying attention in school on account of say, hunger. You can't say that about kids who grow up in working class towns or ghettos where a lot of them don't get enough to eat, especially when you take into account that half of all U.S. public school students live in poverty.

Education is not going to solve poverty. Poverty is the result of a lack of money, not the result of the lack of an education. There are plenty of PhDs working at McDonald's these days, or, even those who have managed to land a job aren't being paid all that much. Just using that example alone, in academia, the proportion of adjuncts to tenure track professors is heavily weighed in the former direction, which means a lot more workers without benefits, without a retirement plan, without job security, and with low wages. This is purely anecdotal, but I have a friend who works as an adjunct and only makes about $30,000/year. So much for education being a path out of poverty! The United States has plenty of people with college degrees who either can't use them for want of job openings or because they've been certified with skills that are obsolete or unneeded.

The fact of the matter is that the Left favors high quality public schooling for everyone because most people can't afford public schooling and even if they could, there's something inherently unfair about making people pay for the privilege of being educated. This is a debate that we had in the early 1800s and won because most people agree with the left that the circumstances in which a child is born and brought up in should not deny them the most rudimentary abilities of citizenship, i.e. reading, writing, etc.

School choice would ultimately result in private schools jacking up tuition (after all, they've got the voucher, which essentially subsidizes a good portion of their total income, so why wouldn't they try to make even more? They are a capitalist enterprise, after all!) and would result in even more racial segregation, combined with, of course, religious quackery being inserted into the day to day education of students. I for one am not willing to sacrifice millions of people to daily sermons from pedophile priests on piety or snake oil salesmen teaching whatever 'science' benefits the bottom line of the company who owns the schools.

The assertion that the left (which, I assume in reality you're talking about liberals here) is under the thumb of the teachers' unions is cute. The Democratic Party is full of full-time union-haters like Chicago's Rahm Emanuel, who forced the Chicago Teachers' Union into a strike three years ago and has shut down schools across Chicago and appointed his cronies to the Chicago Board of Education. In Philadelphia last year, the city government cancelled its contract with the teachers union and forced a strike, and in Seattle just recently, the Democratic Party controlled local government picked a fight with teachers. Barack Obama, the head honcho of this entire operation, has put in motion the stealth privatization of education via Race to the Top and the Common Core system, and he's backed to the hilt of course by right-wingers Arne Duncan and former DC public school superintended Michelle Rhee. DC, of course, with its entirely Democratic Party run municipal government, was a trailblazer in the effort to destroy teachers' unions and public education.

Andrew Cuomo wants to destroy the 'public school monopoly', and Hillary Clinton has likewise been a big-time backer of so-called 'reform' efforts. Perhaps the actual left is tied to the teachers' unions, but the liberal left, of which you and other right-wingers refer to when you ask these kinds of questions, is certainly not in the pocket of the teachers' unions.

You should do some research before you come in brandishing wild, nonsensical arguments about how much the 'left' doesn't care about poor kids because it doesn't want to subject them to PepsiCola Elementary School or the Church of the Holy Pedophile Middle School.
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« Reply #192 on: June 15, 2015, 11:56:40 PM »

Fitting as that's supposed to be King's last post on this forum (he's moved to AAD.)

Maybe should rename this the "King Memorial Good Post Gallery"? He deserves it more than Spade tbh.

^^ It's so annoying this forum doesn't have a 'like' feature.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #193 on: June 16, 2015, 12:08:47 PM »

This is an odd question, but gives a good excuse for a little historical ramble.

Historically 'social democrat' denoted a socialist who believed in participating in parliamentary politics while also advocating for universal suffrage. It was particularly associated with the various Marxist parties who modeled themselves on the SPD, which is why we have the little historical irony of the future CPSU being founded as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In countries where the dominant socialist movement had a more indigenous character and was therefore not Marxist in orientation, the term was generally interchangeable with Marxist.1

The dominant tendency in Marxism at this stage, incidentally, was the rather dogmatic Orthodox Marxism of Karl Kautsky, an ideological current that has no heirs. Orthodox Marxist's believed in History as a force; that events would inevitably conspire to produce the final victory of the workers movement, and that the role of socialist parties was to work towards the day that the Messiah came back prepare the ground for the imminent transformation of society. If you want to know why the often numerically superior and at times notably more popular Mensheviks never exploited their advantages over the Bolshevik cult, this is why. History turned out quite differently, and the two dominant strands in socialism ended up being the two principle opposition currents to Orthodox Marxism: the Revisionism of Eduard Bernstein (which was founded on the fairly logical principle that as History is plainly not unfolding as it ought to, why don't we focus our attention instead on practical reforms to improve the lives of our supporters?) and the tendency that eventually became known as Communism (founded on the logical but somewhat psychotic principle that as History is plainly not unfolding as it ought to, why don't we force the little fycker to do what it ought to fycking do?). Almost all Marxist parties split between the two tendencies,2 and the term Social Democrat became associated entirely with the former as it was abandoned by the latter in favour of the new/old term Communist.

Which is where things get a little confusing, because as now there was little difference in practice between the Revisionist parties and non-Marxist socialist parties such as the Labour Party or the ALP, it became common (but only in Left Intelligentsia circles and only rarely in those countries without a strong Marxist tradition) to describe all non-revolutionary socialist parties (whatever their origins) as Social Democratic.

And things get even more confusing in the Post War decades, because in those countries without a Marxist tradition (which often happened to be English speaking countries), some people on the right-wing of their respective socialist parties started to refer to themselves as 'Social Democrats' as a way of distinguishing themselves ideologically from their more left-leaning comrades. Though something of an end was brought to this when part of the right-wing of the Labour Party broke away to form the (short lived) Social Democratic Party in the early 1980s.

And things get even more confusion, because (alas) academia discovered the word and threw it around like confetti from the 1970s onwards to refer to all kinds of different things (c.f. the supposed 'social democratic consensus' in Post War Britain). Worse still: the term was discovered by American academics, and as we all know most Americans are deeply weird on the subject of socialism and act as those the terms associated with it are magic words with all sorts of deep and significant mystical meanings. Americans badly need to be converted en masse to nominalism in my never knowingly humble opinion.

All of which leaves us in a state of considerable confusion, but I would argue that if the term has any utility, it is to denote traditional parties of the non-Communist Left and the members and supporters of such parties. Although, given all of the above, it's hardly a perfect term: there are certain members of the Labour Party who would likely respond to being described as 'social democrats' with physical violence. As to who is or is not a socialist, the difficulty you'll find there is that 'socialism' has no clear definition (or at least there is not now and never has been a clear definition of 'socialism' that all self-described socialists would agree with), and given the history of the word (in terms of widespread use it suddenly appeared in the early 19th century as a label applied to a wide range of political radicalisms, some of which were not particularly new) can never have one, except in very general terms. I wouldn't quite go so far as to argue that everyone who believes that they are a socialist is one, but such a claim would not be all that wide of the mark. Although if you'd rather be very American about this and just go with whatever nonsense Merriam-Webster claims, then I doubt I can do anything to stop you.

1. I.e. this was the case in both Britain (dominated by an already venerable tradition of trade unionism and heavily influenced by Nonconformist Protestantism and - in some areas - Catholicism) and Russia (dominated by the frankly nihilistic Socialist Revolutionaries). Not that the respective non-Marxist socialist traditions in either country had much (or frankly anything) in common with each other.
2. The remaining Orthodox Marxists were typically subsumed into the ranks of the Revisionists, though not always without drama. In some parties they - rather than the Revisionists - remained the dominant faction, which was usually terrible news for the party in question. But what is notable is that they very rarely fell in with the Communists.

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« Reply #194 on: June 16, 2015, 12:39:47 PM »

Why King Memorial? Did King leave?
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Murica!
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« Reply #195 on: June 16, 2015, 12:41:05 PM »

Yeah, he moved to AAD.
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« Reply #196 on: June 17, 2015, 07:30:22 PM »

Because being transgender is not nearly the same thing as what Rachel Dolezal did. Minorities are not something white people can wear as costumes when they want us for their own selfish gain or because they’re bored being white. Comparing what Dolezal did to transgenderism is insulting to both people who face discrimination because they are transgender or because of their race.

Being transgender is not something voluntary. Putting on blackface and lying about yourself for your own gain is. Gender and sex are complicated things that we don’t fully understand 100%, but both have a basis in biology. When I was born, I was born with the physical sex of a male, and my biology resulted in me identifying with the gender of a male by influencing my way of thinking, my tastes, and how I wanted to express myself (I am cisgender).
When a transgender person is born, they are born with the physical sex of one gender, but their biology affects their way of thinking, their tastes, and how they want to express themselves as the other gender/sex. Though gender norms are heavily influenced by society around us, no one “chooses” to be transgender in the same way that no one “chooses” to be LGBT.

Race, on the other hand, is not anything like sex and gender. When my mom was born, she was not born “inherently” Asian. When my dad was born, he was not born “inherently” white. When I was born, I was not born “inherently” mixed-race. Race is merely a superficial set of external characteristics like skin color, facial features, hair texture and color, etc. that has no major bearing on our way of thinking, our tastes, or how we want to express ourselves.

Despite being superficial when taken by itself, race is still a major force in the world because it is ingrained in culture and has serious implications for minorities (especially black people) in society. Thought I am racially half-white and culturally identify as white, and all of my friends and family recognize this, when I go out into public and deal with people at work or on the street who do not know me personally and my background, my features often lead to people thinking that I am Hispanic, Arab, Turkish, or southern European (a lot of Hispanic people here in the USA think I’m actually Spanish as in “from Spain”). While I am fortunate to never have experienced outright discrimination, but rather mostly awkward mistakes and cultural insensitivity at worst, many people have it far worse. This is something I realized about myself and the world only 3 years ago or so, when I finally gained the independence to leave home by myself, get a job, and interact with the public.

“Transracial” as recently as a month ago simply referred to families where the parents had adopted children of a different race and had to explain to them, that while race did not exist in their home, it had serious implications for them outside in the world (the most common example is white parents have “The Talk” with their black children about police).

It is possible and acceptable for a white person to be culturally black. Like, let’s say they were adopted by black parents, lived in a black neighborhood, socialized with black people, and were immersed in black culture. The reverse is also true. If Dolezal felt an affinity to black culture, that’s totally cool. She could’ve been a white woman who allied herself with black people and other minorities in the struggle for equality. Being a white ally is invaluable because you can form a bridge to other whites who don’t understand the struggle by challenging them. The problem is that being a white ally means you have to take the time and effort to build a reputation and track record with civil rights workers, and she probably found out that these workers didn’t immediately trust her.

So what did she choose to do? She chose to lie about her life and become black. She chose to take the place of a deserving black person who has had to live with the injustice and discrimination that black people face in America (especially black women) and replace that person with her lies, and speaking in place of them (i.e. silencing them) instead of speaking with them. She is tarnishing the hard work that white people have done over the past 200+ years when they work with civil rights groups.

If she did fabricate those death threats and hate mail that are being investigated right now, then she is stealing limited resources, time, and efforts from real hate crimes that are being committed and are often underreported.

If her claim that she is black got her a job at the university teaching Black studies, then she stole that job from a deserving black person who actually has personal experience all their lives with discrimination. It is further a problem since black people already face enormous challenges advancing in the workplace and academia. Additionally, students who took her classes say she mistreated them.

Though I’ve only seen this claimed in one place, if she did receive a full-ride scholarship to Howard University, then it is possible she may have denied that scholarship to a deserving black student.

So when you claim this is all “harmless”, you’re wrong. It is.

So how is this different from minorities who pass as white? Well, in many cases, that’s actually a matter of survival. I myself can easily pass as white, intentionally or unintentionally (especially during December – April, when I lose the coloring in my arms, neck, and face, and look like a white guy with dark hair and eyes). I don’t necessarily endorse it, so I don’t intentionally do it. However, white people in the United States do not face the same challenges that minorities (again, especially black people) face to advance in society and the workplace. If a minority passes off for white, they still have had to live with injustice and discrimination in their “pre-white life”. When she went black, she never had previously experienced the struggle that black people and other minorities face, and yet she claimed she did. As a white woman, she could’ve taken a huge number of jobs and been successful. The problem is that she used her blackface to possibly take resources from deserving black people and then mistreated people using her position.

Now if she had claimed to be black, darkened her hair and skin, lied about her past, but did not really benefit from any of this by getting a job and a scholarship and faking hate crimes, I don’t think I’d really have a problem with it. If it was revealed and went public, you’d probably see a lot less anger about this. It would be weird as hell, but since in this case there wouldn’t have been much harm, no one would really care.

The problem though, is that she used it to get ahead, lie her way into a position of trust, and may have taken resources and a voice from deserving minorities. Again: she wore being a minority like a costume for her own benefit, and used her position to insult and mistreat others.

If you defend her actions and equivocate transgenderism and this new bulls*** definition of “transracial”, then you are insulting people who face gender and racial discrimination, stealing an identifier from people who come from transracial adoptive families, and are helping perpetuate white privilege.


EDIT - goddamn am I wordy
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Mr. Smith
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« Reply #197 on: June 17, 2015, 09:09:40 PM »

One key factor to look at, is whether by virtue of students having the option to vote with their feet, and leave the comprehensive public school system, that such competition, and fear of empty desks and loss of public school teacher jobs, will incentivize the public schools to offer a better educational product because they no longer have a captive student monopoly.

The problem is that not all students are able to vote with their feet.

For children living in poverty, without access to a private vehicle, or with two working parents it is oftentimes simply not possible for them to do anything other than be bused to their local public school.  "School choice" would be a much more serious proposal if taxpayers were going to foot the bill for a single student to be bused 90 minutes one-direction twice a day. A student's ability to get a good education should not be dependent on the willingness of his parents to transport him to school.     

Vouchers are a waste of public money - the students who need them the most are often unable to take advantage of them due to a variety of demographic/socioeconomic factors beyond the State's control, and the students who do take advantage of them are often already the most high-achieving students in their respective districts.  The money spent on vouchers would be much better utilized helping to lessen the inherent disadvantages that some students face due to their backgrounds.
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Illuminati Blood Drinker
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« Reply #198 on: June 18, 2015, 09:00:38 PM »

As I was driving to work today, I came across a sudden moment of self realization that has haunted me for hours.

I have blood on my hands tonight. I once helped to enable and foster this culture of hate that is a cancer on the heart of America. Every time I defended a Confederate war memorial, or a flag flying over a state house, I helped to contribute to this climate of hate. Every time I posted “it’s ok to be proud to be white” in response to civil rights issues, as I often did circa 2011, I contributed to the climate of hate. Every time I expressed opposition to say, gay marriage, I contributed to the fact that it has taken this long for marriage equality to be implemented. Every time I defended Rhodesia (and this admission should not be taken as an endorsement of Mugabe or his regime), I ultimately was defending the right of a minority to oppress a majority based solely on race. See a pattern? White nationalists are a strange bunch. They think they are bigger in numbers than they actually are. When they aren’t engaged in a hateful circle jerk at Stormfront, they are out actively spreading their loathsome message in simpler, more docile, and worst of all, seemingly acceptable ways. By spreading my bile like I did in 2011, I encouraged this and promoted this. And tonight, for the first time, I truly realized just how wrong I was. I can’t just dismiss this as a “phase” as I so often have done. It was worst than just a “phase.”

I was wrong. I was vile. And I have blood on my hands tonight. I may have not fired the gun, but there is simply no excuse for my thoughts and actions. While I have strived to heal myself from this dark period of my life, this atrocity, this terrorist attack that has struck America to the core, should not be glossed over as another gun tragedy, nor should it be an issue solely about gun violence. It is an issue about America’s conscience, and transcends the simplistic left/right boundaries. 

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« Reply #199 on: June 19, 2015, 06:46:02 PM »

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