A New Conservative Party

[WAB]

It helps to earmark it for something.



I would agree and a look at charitable donations would support this also. Generally speaking, I find liberals to be more full of shit than conservatives. Conservatives will tell you where they stand. Liberals will pretend.

Most white conservatives claim they are not racist, but the evidence proves otherwise, thus, most conservatives are full of shit and hide where they really stand.

The Politics of Donations

NYT's Yeahbuts

First, your own article actually refutes your claim. The final sentence of the abstract says, "Ultimately, total levels of redistribution—both private and government—are higher in Democratic-leaning counties."
IOW, Democrats act to redistribute more money toward the poor, they just do so through a combination of charity and passing government programs to help the poor.

In addition, this analysis separates "charity" between giving to one's own religious congregation, vs. giving to more general religious organizations, and giving to non-religious charities.

[P]"We found the strongest support for the religious explanation. Republicans are not only more likely to attend church than Democrats, but church attendance – among Democrats and Republicans alike – is strongly associated with charitable giving. Gaps in giving, therefore, are linked to differences in the social composition of the parties, in which the average Republican is more religious than the average Democrat. Moreover, the overall giving gap emerges because Republicans donate more to their own religious congregations, rather than nationally active religious charities. Republicans and Democrats give roughly equal amounts to religious organisations aside from their own congregations, and we also find some evidence that Democrats donate more to non-religious organisations than Republicans. In other words, the baseline difference in charitable giving emerges because Republicans are more religious than Democrats, and religious people donate generously to their religious congregations."[/P]

They find that all the extra "giving" of Republicans is to their own congregations to which they belong. IOW, they are self-servingly "giving" to their own ingroup and to promote their own dogma, and to advance their own political interests, since Churches get away with far more political activities than non-religious non-profits charities do. Also, since we are talking about congregations that appeal to right wing conservatives, some of that "giving" is going towards denying people's human and civil rights (anti-choice and anti-gay laws) and to pay for programs that abuse children, such as gay-conversion therapy and creationist education that lies to kids about science.

Most conservatives are racists? Some are, some are not. I have conservative leanings and I despise racism. I know of many others like myself. How do you explain black conservatives like Larry Elder and Thomas Sowell? Think they want to keep blacks from voting? Are they Uncle Toms? Or are they paid by the righties to shpiel and pander for the right, like some dipshits have said about Candace Owens?

 

[Deepak]

It’s peculiar to me that you’re talking about black conservatives as some homogeneous entity. More, I don’t think Sowell ever called himself a black conservative. And more than that, if he personally doesn’t advocate for black votes (either to increase or decrease their franchise) but also supports people whose policies disenfranchise black voters then DO they want to keep blacks from voting?

Does Lee Atwater’s Southern Strategy and the Republicans’ coordinated effort to disenfranchise voters somehow become both virtuous and race-neutral because Larry Elder and Thomas Sowell exist?

While you specifically may not support disenfranchisement of black voters, would you support a party that had a large contingent in favor of that policy in an effort to get a good conservative Laissez-Faire economy and tax reduction?

I mean the premise itself is flawed, unless you think skin color is a proxy for anything other than one’s complexion. For all your venom, you seem to be the only one constraining the possibilities for black minds, conservative or otherwise. I can tell you I’ve met half-Jewish people who associated with people who had swastika tats, and I’ve met black people whose words if you wrote would leave no one wondering if the author was racist against blacks.

 

[WAB]

It’s peculiar to me that you’re talking about black conservatives as some homogeneous entity. More, I don’t think Sowell ever called himself a black conservative. And more than that, if he personally doesn’t advocate for black votes (either to increase or decrease their franchise) but also supports people whose policies disenfranchise black voters then DO they want to keep blacks from voting?

Does Lee Atwater’s Southern Strategy and the Republicans’ coordinated effort to disenfranchise voters somehow become both virtuous and race-neutral because Larry Elder and Thomas Sowell exist?

While you specifically may not support disenfranchisement of black voters, would you support a party that had a large contingent in favor of that policy in an effort to get a good conservative Laissez-Faire economy and tax reduction?

I mean the premise itself is flawed, unless you think skin color is a proxy for anything other than one’s complexion. For all your venom, you seem to be the only one constraining the possibilities for black minds, conservative or otherwise. I can tell you I’ve met half-Jewish people who associated with people who had swastika tats, and I’ve met black people whose words if you wrote would leave no one wondering if the author was racist against blacks.

There is nothing racist in what I wrote. And you don't seem to have understood any of it.

Venom? Where? How?

I do sense some from you, though.

 

[Deepak]

There is nothing racist in what I wrote. And you don't seem to have understood any of it.

Yeah, that's not what I said, so you may want to reread the post.

Venom? Where? How?

"Are they Uncle Toms?"
A pretty racially charged term that you seem to have introduced to the lexicon of this thread.

Or are they paid by the righties to shpiel and pander for the right, like some dipshits have said about Candace Owens?
Who are you referring to here? This again seems to be something you're introducing to the thread and attempting to wield against other participants.

I do sense some from you, though.

Your sensory equipment is faulty. Quote specifically where my racial animus is.

And just to add here, while Africa is one of the two continents to still elude me, having been born in India and being a cricket fan I have a lot of friends from the West Indies. The town I grew up in had a sizable Haitian population and I generally a very diverse population. I'll extend my offer to my entire post history. I'm not sure if the IIDB archive is still easily available and searchable too, but include that in the universe as well. Quote specifically my racist comments and demonstrate why they're racist.

<Edited>

 

[WAB]

Yeah, that's not what I said, so you may want to reread the post.



"Are they Uncle Toms?"
A pretty racially charged term that you seem to have introduced to the lexicon of this thread.

Or are they paid by the righties to shpiel and pander for the right, like some dipshits have said about Candace Owens?
Who are you referring to here? This again seems to be something you're introducing to the thread and attempting to wield against other participants.

I do sense some from you, though.

Your sensory equipment is faulty. Quote specifically where my racial animus is.

And just to add here, while Africa is one of the two continents to still elude me, having been born in India and being a cricket fan I have a lot of friends from the West Indies. The town I grew up in had a sizable Haitian population and I generally a very diverse population. I'll extend my offer to my entire post history. I'm not sure if the IIDB archive is still easily available and searchable too, but include that in the universe as well. Quote specifically my racist comments and demonstrate why they're racist.

<Edited>

Egads, Deepak, I have not said you are racist.

You may check my posting history as well. I've posted at this site and the old site since 2004. In the archives I am WilliamB.

We have a misunderstanding. When I said "I sense some from you", I was referring to 'venom', NOT racism! Read my prior post again...

 

[Deepak]

We have a misunderstanding. When I said "I sense some from you", I was referring to 'venom', NOT racism! Read my prior post again...

Mea culpa, though I'll offer that addressing the contents of my post rather than me is probably the best means of avoiding misunderstandings. When I see someone dismiss my post out of hand then start talking about my character, in whatever capacity, it's a red flag to me.

 

[Swammerdami]

I don't think many on the left actually care that much about helping the poor. It seems to me that some of them are MUCH more about wanting to pull down the rich than lifting up the poor.

I continue to be bemused and saddened by the confused hateful bullshit right-wingers come up with to justify their obsessive dislike of progressive thought.

 

[WAB]

I don't think many on the left actually care that much about helping the poor. It seems to me that some of them are MUCH more about wanting to pull down the rich than lifting up the poor.

I continue to be bemused and saddened by the confused hateful bullshit right-wingers come up with to justify their obsessive dislike of progressive thought.

I'm not a right winger. I am a moderate with some conservative leanings and some liberal leanings.

I am pro-choice. I am a secularist. I advocate the legalization of drugs. I am all for gay marriage.

I am generally fiscally conservative. I defend the first and second amendments. Especially free speech. I approve of gun control laws but am defiantly against the concept of making gun ownership illegal.

I am registered as an independent. I have never been a democrat nor a republican.

My political views are on record at this site and have been since 2004.

I have no hatred for anything or any person. Hatred is a waste of energy and unproductive.

I have, however, called some people in the modern progressive movement 'regressive', because I see many people of that ilk who do not appreciate the right to free speech and wish to eradicate it. I disagree with left wing proponents of compelled speech, and agree with Jordan Peterson's stance in that area.

That you could describe me as a hateful right winger shows me that you don't know my posting history and I don't believe you care to know me.

Fling your slings and arrows, Swammi. They bounce off and do no harm.

 

[Jarhyn]

I don't think many on the left actually care that much about helping the poor. It seems to me that some of them are MUCH more about wanting to pull down the rich than lifting up the poor.

I continue to be bemused and saddened by the confused hateful bullshit right-wingers come up with to justify their obsessive dislike of progressive thought.

IKR? It's like cancer.

Honestly, I don't really care about tumors. Sure they're shitty weird growths, but ultimately it is not the tumor itself that kills (ok, sometimes it does...). Rather, it is the malnutrition that the tumor makes happen around the body. If cancers just grew and did not soak up all the resources, we wouldn't care.

Rich people are like tumors. We don't care about them excepting for the fact that they are soaking up and controlling all the resources that the rest of the body of society needs. We have tissue necrosis due to malnutrition across all sorts of segments of society.

Then the tumors of society are like "you just hate tumors! You don't care about that tissue necrosis at all! Tumor rights!"

No, we care about the necrosis. It's just that the most direct path to end the necrosis is to cut out the tumors. If they were less malignant and greedy, it never would have come to this. It didn't have to, and over the last several decades didn't come to it. But this is where we are now.

 

[ronburgundy]

Most white conservatives claim they are not racist, but the evidence proves otherwise, thus, most conservatives are full of shit and hide where they really stand.



First, your own article actually refutes your claim. The final sentence of the abstract says, "Ultimately, total levels of redistribution—both private and government—are higher in Democratic-leaning counties."
IOW, Democrats act to redistribute more money toward the poor, they just do so through a combination of charity and passing government programs to help the poor.

In addition, this analysis separates "charity" between giving to one's own religious congregation, vs. giving to more general religious organizations, and giving to non-religious charities.

[P]"We found the strongest support for the religious explanation. Republicans are not only more likely to attend church than Democrats, but church attendance – among Democrats and Republicans alike – is strongly associated with charitable giving. Gaps in giving, therefore, are linked to differences in the social composition of the parties, in which the average Republican is more religious than the average Democrat. Moreover, the overall giving gap emerges because Republicans donate more to their own religious congregations, rather than nationally active religious charities. Republicans and Democrats give roughly equal amounts to religious organisations aside from their own congregations, and we also find some evidence that Democrats donate more to non-religious organisations than Republicans. In other words, the baseline difference in charitable giving emerges because Republicans are more religious than Democrats, and religious people donate generously to their religious congregations."[/P]

They find that all the extra "giving" of Republicans is to their own congregations to which they belong. IOW, they are self-servingly "giving" to their own ingroup and to promote their own dogma, and to advance their own political interests, since Churches get away with far more political activities than non-religious non-profits charities do. Also, since we are talking about congregations that appeal to right wing conservatives, some of that "giving" is going towards denying people's human and civil rights (anti-choice and anti-gay laws) and to pay for programs that abuse children, such as gay-conversion therapy and creationist education that lies to kids about science.

Most conservatives are racists? Some are, some are not. I have conservative leanings and I despise racism. I know of many others like myself. How do you explain black conservatives like Larry Elder and Thomas Sowell? Think they want to keep blacks from voting? Are they Uncle Toms? Or are they paid by the righties to shpiel and pander for the right, like some dipshits have said about Candace Owens?

Ah, the ol' "I have a couple black friends, so I cannot be a racist" canard. No one with any intellectual integrity would offer such a defense, so the following is a waste of time, but...

The GOP has spend the last half century courting the white supremacist vote, which is the #1 reason they took control of the south. Southern counties that had the most slaves in 1860 (just before being forced to free them) voted strongest for the Dems when Dems were the conservative party, and then switched around the Civil Rights Act to now being the counties that most support the GOP because they became the conservative party via an openly admitted strategy of Republican operatives to court the pro segregationist white conservative christian vote. Most conservatives and 85% of Republicans support preserving monuments to traitors who killed US soldiers and lost a war trying to preserve slavery, and those monuments were mostly built by white supremacists the early 1900s in opposition to civil rights efforts and at the height of the KKK. Most conservatives deny the impact of slavery and Jim Crow on current outcome inequalities and instead blame blacks themselves or "black culture", which logically presumes inherent racial inferiority since any self-inflicted harms by blacks that could explain outcome differences must either be caused by black Americans unique historical experiences (which is slavery, Jim Crow, and modern racism) or are innate. Most conservative deny that white supremacy exists to any notable degree today, which is a position so absurdly irrational and in denial of reality that only the severally mentally disabled could actually believe it, and all others are lying. Unless one has money to gain by lying about it (such as Owens), the most plausible reason to lie about the existence of white supremacists is because one is trying the hide amongst them and shared their ideology, so they don't want it accurately identified for what it is.


As for the rare black conservative, they mean nothing and there is various factors that motivate them. Candice Owens is a dishonest shill, who radically changed her supposed politics overnight when she realized she could make far more more money and get more fame by being a poster child for the alt-right whose views she had previously lambasted before making a career move.

 

[WAB]

I don't think many on the left actually care that much about helping the poor. It seems to me that some of them are MUCH more about wanting to pull down the rich than lifting up the poor.

I continue to be bemused and saddened by the confused hateful bullshit right-wingers come up with to justify their obsessive dislike of progressive thought.

IKR? It's like cancer.

Honestly, I don't really care about tumors. Sure they're shitty weird growths, but ultimately it is not the tumor itself that kills (ok, sometimes it does...). Rather, it is the malnutrition that the tumor makes happen around the body. If cancers just grew and did not soak up all the resources, we wouldn't care.

Rich people are like tumors. We don't care about them excepting for the fact that they are soaking up and controlling all the resources that the rest of the body of society needs. We have tissue necrosis due to malnutrition across all sorts of segments of society.

Then the tumors of society are like "you just hate tumors! You don't care about that tissue necrosis at all! Tumor rights!"

No, we care about the necrosis. It's just that the most direct path to end the necrosis is to cut out the tumors. If they were less malignant and greedy, it never would have come to this. It didn't have to, and over the last several decades didn't come to it. But this is where we are now.

Hi Jarhyn.

So, if I read you correctly, you do advocate for pulling down the rich, who you describe as 'tumors'? Am I wrong? Please correct me, as I'm just a working man, and something of a numbnuts.

I assume you care about helping poor people, though. You seem like a very moral and decent person.

Let me tell you plainly and without any decorative language the impression I get from some progressives here at TFT (and I will give you names in a private message should you ask). I occasionally get a whiff of snobby disdain from posters here, who it seems to me don't think a working 'class' (there is no such thing as social classes. Class categories are social constructs and not real things) person like myself can possibly have that much on the ball. In fact, one member who is still active, told me straight out that I couldn't be very intelligent since I was a working schmo who never went to college and always had low paying jobs. I will tell you this member's name in private message if you ask.

Now, what I believe led to this member's ire was that I had voiced some rather conservative political views in a thread. Not crazy far right garbage, not white supremacist nonsense, not racist bullshit, nothing misogynistic (I consider myself a feminist and have stated that I think I should have been a woman), nothing hateful. This person wouldn't acknowledge that I thought of myself as the artistic type: while not exactly starving, since I always worked hard at my various jobs, but someone who was willing to settle for little money in order to keep me free to pursue my passion, which is poetry and fiction, and my important hobby, writing, playing, and recording my own music.

All of the above is on record here at TFT and the older, defunct sites associated.

I have also received snooty, snobby remarks from other posters, and have been called a simpleton by one particularly silly and obviously classist member.

More later...

ETA: I see Ron has made a derogatory post. Hey Ron, did I say I have a "few black friends"?

I would still like to hear a rational answer to why there are many Black republicans and conservatives. All I hear is your kind of hand-waving bullshit.

I will look into Candace Owens more, to see if what you say has any merit.


Stay on your toes.

 

[Deepak]

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cleCtBP0o5Y[/YOUTUBE]

 

[WAB]

Most white conservatives claim they are not racist, but the evidence proves otherwise, thus, most conservatives are full of shit and hide where they really stand.



First, your own article actually refutes your claim. The final sentence of the abstract says, "Ultimately, total levels of redistribution—both private and government—are higher in Democratic-leaning counties."
IOW, Democrats act to redistribute more money toward the poor, they just do so through a combination of charity and passing government programs to help the poor.

In addition, this analysis separates "charity" between giving to one's own religious congregation, vs. giving to more general religious organizations, and giving to non-religious charities.

[P]"We found the strongest support for the religious explanation. Republicans are not only more likely to attend church than Democrats, but church attendance – among Democrats and Republicans alike – is strongly associated with charitable giving. Gaps in giving, therefore, are linked to differences in the social composition of the parties, in which the average Republican is more religious than the average Democrat. Moreover, the overall giving gap emerges because Republicans donate more to their own religious congregations, rather than nationally active religious charities. Republicans and Democrats give roughly equal amounts to religious organisations aside from their own congregations, and we also find some evidence that Democrats donate more to non-religious organisations than Republicans. In other words, the baseline difference in charitable giving emerges because Republicans are more religious than Democrats, and religious people donate generously to their religious congregations."[/P]

They find that all the extra "giving" of Republicans is to their own congregations to which they belong. IOW, they are self-servingly "giving" to their own ingroup and to promote their own dogma, and to advance their own political interests, since Churches get away with far more political activities than non-religious non-profits charities do. Also, since we are talking about congregations that appeal to right wing conservatives, some of that "giving" is going towards denying people's human and civil rights (anti-choice and anti-gay laws) and to pay for programs that abuse children, such as gay-conversion therapy and creationist education that lies to kids about science.

Most conservatives are racists? Some are, some are not. I have conservative leanings and I despise racism. I know of many others like myself. How do you explain black conservatives like Larry Elder and Thomas Sowell? Think they want to keep blacks from voting? Are they Uncle Toms? Or are they paid by the righties to shpiel and pander for the right, like some dipshits have said about Candace Owens?

Ah, the ol' "I have a couple black friends, so I cannot be a racist" canard. No one with any intellectual integrity would offer such a defense, so the following is a waste of time, but...

The GOP has spend the last half century courting the white supremacist vote, which is the #1 reason they took control of the south. Southern counties that had the most slaves in 1860 (just before being forced to free them) voted strongest for the Dems when Dems were the conservative party, and then switched around the Civil Rights Act to now being the counties that most support the GOP because they became the conservative party via an openly admitted strategy of Republican operatives to court the pro segregationist white conservative christian vote. Most conservatives and 85% of Republicans support preserving monuments to traitors who killed US soldiers and lost a war trying to preserve slavery, and those monuments were mostly built by white supremacists the early 1900s in opposition to civil rights efforts and at the height of the KKK. Most conservatives deny the impact of slavery and Jim Crow on current outcome inequalities and instead blame blacks themselves or "black culture", which logically presumes inherent racial inferiority since any self-inflicted harms by blacks that could explain outcome differences must either be caused by black Americans unique historical experiences (which is slavery, Jim Crow, and modern racism) or are innate. Most conservative deny that white supremacy exists to any notable degree today, which is a position so absurdly irrational and in denial of reality that only the severally mentally disabled could actually believe it, and all others are lying. Unless one has money to gain by lying about it (such as Owens), the most plausible reason to lie about the existence of white supremacists is because one is trying the hide amongst them and shared their ideology, so they don't want it accurately identified for what it is.


As for the rare black conservative, they mean nothing and there is various factors that motivate them. Candice Owens is a dishonest shill, who radically changed her supposed politics overnight when she realized she could make far more more money and get more fame by being a poster child for the alt-right whose views she had previously lambasted before making a career move.

Yes, I did know that Owens had gone from left to right, but I did not know it was so sudden. I suppose what you say might have merit, since sudden political 180's are rare and potentially suspect. But in her case, it appears she was attacked and then received support from the right. I do not know, as I am not inside her mind. I never pretend to KNOW more about another person's motivations than they do themselves.

However, dramatic changes in political views happen. Dennis Miller was deeply affected by the 911 attacks.

Usually the switch is gradual, as in the case of David Horowitz, a former communist who now swings for the right, and there is Dave Rubin , who is not a right winger but who became disillusioned by the growing silliness of the regressive left.

I was a very left liberal into my twenties, until I began to take an objective look at things.

I think the radical left has never been sillier than at present in the U.S. of A.

I do not like the far right either. They are dangerous bozos.

But will you believe me? That is the question.

 

[WAB]

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cleCtBP0o5Y[/YOUTUBE]

Great song! Love me some Simon, Paul and Carly, unrelated.

Oh, and it's good to have no.secrets. Tell it all. Wear thy heart on thy sleeve. And put money in thy purse! Above all, put money in thy purse. Money is freedom. No money, no freedom.

 

[ronburgundy]

Ah, the ol' "I have a couple black friends, so I cannot be a racist" canard. No one with any intellectual integrity would offer such a defense, so the following is a waste of time, but...

The GOP has spend the last half century courting the white supremacist vote, which is the #1 reason they took control of the south. Southern counties that had the most slaves in 1860 (just before being forced to free them) voted strongest for the Dems when Dems were the conservative party, and then switched around the Civil Rights Act to now being the counties that most support the GOP because they became the conservative party via an openly admitted strategy of Republican operatives to court the pro segregationist white conservative christian vote. Most conservatives and 85% of Republicans support preserving monuments to traitors who killed US soldiers and lost a war trying to preserve slavery, and those monuments were mostly built by white supremacists the early 1900s in opposition to civil rights efforts and at the height of the KKK. Most conservatives deny the impact of slavery and Jim Crow on current outcome inequalities and instead blame blacks themselves or "black culture", which logically presumes inherent racial inferiority since any self-inflicted harms by blacks that could explain outcome differences must either be caused by black Americans unique historical experiences (which is slavery, Jim Crow, and modern racism) or are innate. Most conservative deny that white supremacy exists to any notable degree today, which is a position so absurdly irrational and in denial of reality that only the severally mentally disabled could actually believe it, and all others are lying. Unless one has money to gain by lying about it (such as Owens), the most plausible reason to lie about the existence of white supremacists is because one is trying the hide amongst them and shared their ideology, so they don't want it accurately identified for what it is.


As for the rare black conservative, they mean nothing and there is various factors that motivate them. Candice Owens is a dishonest shill, who radically changed her supposed politics overnight when she realized she could make far more more money and get more fame by being a poster child for the alt-right whose views she had previously lambasted before making a career move.

Yes, I did know that Owens had gone from left to right, but I did not know it was so sudden. I suppose what you say might have merit, since sudden political 180's are rare and potentially suspect. But in her case, it appears she was attacked and then received support from the right. I do not know, as I am not inside her mind. I never pretend to KNOW more about another person's motivations than they do themselves.

However, dramatic changes in political views happen. Dennis Miller was deeply affected by the 911 attacks.

Usually the switch is gradual, as in the case of David Horowitz, a former communist who now swings for the right, and there is Dave Rubin , who is not a right winger but who became disillusioned by the growing silliness of the regressive left.

I was a very left liberal into my twenties, until I began to take an objective look at things.

I think the radical left has never been sillier than at present in the U.S. of A.

I do not like the far right either. They are dangerous bozos.

But will you believe me? That is the question.

I have no basis to believe you, so it would be irrational for me to do so. People lie, especially about holding immoral views, and you are a random person to me. What I know is that you uttered the phrase that you don't like the far right. Well, Trump is the extreme far right and is supported by the most white supremacist and generally bigoted elements of US society. If you are not strongly opposed to at least 90% of what Trump has said and done over the past 5 years (including while he campaigned in 2016), and if you do not support his impeachment, then you definitely do not oppose the far right and your words are empty. Similarly, if you think the far left (which failed to even get it's candidate nominated) is more dangerous than the alt-right (which is the far right) then you are either dangerously ignorant of reality to a level denoting mental deficiency or you are lying and/or deluding yourself, with the most plausible motive for deceit being that you don't have a problem with most far right's views and only want to count actual hood wearing KKK members as the "far right", so you can pretend you're a moderate by comparison.

 

[SimpleDon]

Once again, my Schwarze Raubtier (Dark Beast) as Bomb#20 calls it. Bomb’s second language is apparently French, mine is German.

It is not an accident that things in the US started to go to shit in 1980, from increased income inequality to reduced life expectancy to the lack of good jobs to the high cost of medical care to the surge in illegal immigration to the increase in the national debt. This was the year that we adopted new political economics to use to form our economic policies. We went from a reality-based one built on how the economy works to doing whatever we could do to increase corporate profits.

It is not an accident that to accomplish these results the corporatists choose to lie to the least demanding segment of the political spectrum in the US, conservatives. Conservatives not only tolerate being lied to, but they also need to be lied to maintain the fiction that their default position of no change is rational in the most dynamic economy and society that have ever existed.

It is really that simple.

 

[WAB]

Ah, the ol' "I have a couple black friends, so I cannot be a racist" canard. No one with any intellectual integrity would offer such a defense, so the following is a waste of time, but...

The GOP has spend the last half century courting the white supremacist vote, which is the #1 reason they took control of the south. Southern counties that had the most slaves in 1860 (just before being forced to free them) voted strongest for the Dems when Dems were the conservative party, and then switched around the Civil Rights Act to now being the counties that most support the GOP because they became the conservative party via an openly admitted strategy of Republican operatives to court the pro segregationist white conservative christian vote. Most conservatives and 85% of Republicans support preserving monuments to traitors who killed US soldiers and lost a war trying to preserve slavery, and those monuments were mostly built by white supremacists the early 1900s in opposition to civil rights efforts and at the height of the KKK. Most conservatives deny the impact of slavery and Jim Crow on current outcome inequalities and instead blame blacks themselves or "black culture", which logically presumes inherent racial inferiority since any self-inflicted harms by blacks that could explain outcome differences must either be caused by black Americans unique historical experiences (which is slavery, Jim Crow, and modern racism) or are innate. Most conservative deny that white supremacy exists to any notable degree today, which is a position so absurdly irrational and in denial of reality that only the severally mentally disabled could actually believe it, and all others are lying. Unless one has money to gain by lying about it (such as Owens), the most plausible reason to lie about the existence of white supremacists is because one is trying the hide amongst them and shared their ideology, so they don't want it accurately identified for what it is.


As for the rare black conservative, they mean nothing and there is various factors that motivate them. Candice Owens is a dishonest shill, who radically changed her supposed politics overnight when she realized she could make far more more money and get more fame by being a poster child for the alt-right whose views she had previously lambasted before making a career move.

Yes, I did know that Owens had gone from left to right, but I did not know it was so sudden. I suppose what you say might have merit, since sudden political 180's are rare and potentially suspect. But in her case, it appears she was attacked and then received support from the right. I do not know, as I am not inside her mind. I never pretend to KNOW more about another person's motivations than they do themselves.

However, dramatic changes in political views happen. Dennis Miller was deeply affected by the 911 attacks.

Usually the switch is gradual, as in the case of David Horowitz, a former communist who now swings for the right, and there is Dave Rubin , who is not a right winger but who became disillusioned by the growing silliness of the regressive left.

I was a very left liberal into my twenties, until I began to take an objective look at things.

I think the radical left has never been sillier than at present in the U.S. of A.

I do not like the far right either. They are dangerous bozos.

But will you believe me? That is the question.

I have no basis to believe you, so it would be irrational for me to do so. People l
ie, especially about holding immoral views, and you are a random person to me. What I know is that you uttered the phrase that you don't like the far right. Well, Trump is the extreme far right and is supported by the most white supremacist and generally bigoted elements of US society. If you are not strongly opposed to at least 90% of what Trump has said and done over the past 5 years (including while he campaigned in 2016), and if you do not support his impeachment, then you definitely do not oppose the far right and your words are empty. Similarly, if you think the far left (which failed to even get it's candidate nominated) is more dangerous than the alt-right (which is the far right) then you are either dangerously ignorant of reality to a level denoting mental deficiency or you are lying and/or deluding yourself, with the most plausible motive for deceit being that you don't have a problem with most far right's views and only want to count actual hood wearing KKK members as the "far right", so you can pretend you're a moderate by comparison.

I am glad this bit of extreme silliness is on record here. Thanks Ron!

I am a random person to you? Hmmmm... I have posted here for nearly 17 years. You are most certainly not a random person to me. Why? Because I read and pay attention. If I am a random person to you, then that tells me that you are not paying attention.

So please pay attention. I will address the rest of your hysterical silliness later. I need some college basketball.

Stay sharp, stay on your toes. I've got you where I want you. On the ropes.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

A magnificent human being used to say that.

 

[Swammerdami]

I do NOT condone comments like the following:

Rich people are like tumors. We don't care about them excepting for the fact that they are soaking up and controlling all the resources that the rest of the body of society needs. We have tissue necrosis due to malnutrition across all sorts of segments of society.

Then the tumors of society are like "you just hate tumors! You don't care about that tissue necrosis at all! Tumor rights!"

No, we care about the necrosis. It's just that the most direct path to end the necrosis is to cut out the tumors. If they were less malignant and greedy, it never would have come to this. It didn't have to, and over the last several decades didn't come to it. But this is where we are now.

Most rich people won their wealth in benign ways: inheritance, good investments, hard work. Most of us would be quite happy to be rich. Some rich people donate heavily to charities; some don't. But it is human nature to be greedy, and to want to pass on one's wealth to one's children.

Wealth inequality is bad for society, but the solution is to take political steps to help the poor, steps like improved schools in low-income areas, increased government funding for healthcare, childcare, education; and so on. Since production is finite, to afford improving the living standards of our poorest it is necessary to insist on higher contributions from our richest: capital gains taxes, estate taxes, and so on. Regulations and transaction taxes are also good to reduce the waste on talent in the financial sector. Better law enforcement would help too; I just read that $100 billion of Covid aid money was diverted to criminals.

Perhaps he agrees with all this, but Jarhyn's tone is completely wrong. We don't want to tax the rich because there's anything wrong with rich people as individuals. (There are plenty of greedy poor people who just haven't got lucky!) We just want a better allocation of society's finite resources: housing for the homeless, improved schools, and better nutrition for the masses, rather than spending society's finite resources on private jets and imported caviar.

@ Jarhyn, do you mostly care about helping the poor? Or are you more concerned with pulling down the rich? I assume it's the former, but if so, your words are very VERY misleading. I cringe whenever I hear a "liberal" write or speak like this.

I don't think many on the left actually care that much about helping the poor. It seems to me that some of them are MUCH more about wanting to pull down the rich than lifting up the poor.

I continue to be bemused and saddened by the confused hateful bullshit right-wingers come up with to justify their obsessive dislike of progressive thought.

I'm not a right winger. I am a moderate with some conservative leanings and some liberal leanings.
...
I have, however, called some people in the modern progressive movement 'regressive', because I see many people of that ilk who do not appreciate the right to free speech and wish to eradicate it. I disagree with left wing proponents of compelled speech, and agree with Jordan Peterson's stance in that area.

That you could describe me as a hateful right winger shows me that you don't know my posting history and I don't believe you care to know me.

I don't keep good track of the political stances of posters. This is the first post from you on a political subject that I recall. (I may have read other political posts from you without noticing the name, or making a permanent memory.) I shall assume that I over-reacted. You DID write "I don't think many on the left actually care that much about helping the poor" which is extremely damning of progressive thought. Do you feel this way about AOC? About Sen. Elizabeth Warren? About me, if you consider me "on the left"?

I hope I'm not wrong about this, but I'll guess that Jarhyn is much more concerned with lifting up the poor than pulling down the rich. I understand that his tone suggests the opposite; I find his attitude very unfortunate.

There is a horrid schism in American politics today. You make a severe charge against most on the "left" which I think is unfair (and which I took personally); I over-react by using pejorative words against you. Can you and I move toward bridging this schism now?

 

[prideandfall]

Most rich people won their wealth in benign ways: inheritance, good investments, hard work.

what exactly do you consider 'rich' to be? either in terms of total wealth ownership, or annual income, or something.
because i'm willing to bet whatever figure you come up with once you nail that down is not the people jarhyn is talking about.

Most of us would be quite happy to be rich.

most of us would also be quite happy to be able to fly, but that wouldn't stop those of us who can't from having an issue with those who can continually taking a shit on us from up in the air.
in fact, if the one who could fly persisted on shitting on the rest of us for long enough, and did so in a way that it became blindingly obvious was both intentional and spiteful, one might even conclude that an opinion that the solution to the problem is to 'pull down the flyers' might not be unreasonable.

Wealth inequality is bad for society, but the solution is to take political steps to help the poor, steps like improved schools in low-income areas, increased government funding for healthcare, childcare, education; and so on. Since production is finite, to afford improving the living standards of our poorest it is necessary to insist on higher contributions from our richest: capital gains taxes, estate taxes, and so on. Regulations and transaction taxes are also good to reduce the waste on talent in the financial sector. Better law enforcement would help too; I just read that $100 billion of Covid aid money was diverted to criminals.

so let's just say for the sake of a hypothetical that both of your suggested actions were taken: government programs improved, and taxes were levied on certain wealth activities.
what if that still didn't cover it? what if school improvement was inadequate and more was needed? what if more funding for healthcare was required? what would your suggestion be at that point?

Perhaps he agrees with all this, but Jarhyn's tone is completely wrong.

i recall once reading on these forums from a middle-of-the-road conservative southerner that he was all for programs that helped the poor, but he voted republican because democrats had, and i'm paraphrasing here: "an attitude like i should be thanking them for helping me, like i should be grateful. i'm a southerner and i have pride, and their attitude that i should be thankful for their help sickens me" - and that was quite possible the dumbest fucking thing i had ever heard a supposedly functioning human being say out loud.

likewise, 'the content of the message is right but i don't like the tone so therefor reject the message' is pretty monumentally stupid.

@ Jarhyn, do you mostly care about helping the poor? Or are you more concerned with pulling down the rich? I assume it's the former, but if so, your words are very VERY misleading. I cringe whenever I hear a "liberal" write or speak like this.

you seem to think that the two aren't synonymous, or at least symbiotic.
if you have a circle that represents all of the resources available to the human race, and 99.9% of that circle is taken up by 'the rich', then pulling down the rich will necessarily help the poor because there will be more resources available to them.

personally i favor pulling down the rich and also preventing the rich from even existing. i don't think there is any conceivable rational argument to justify any single human owning more than 3 million dollars - i mean that as the sum total of all wealth and assets controlled by an individual, including personal property and real estate and liquid cash and whatever else.
if you have a combined total wealth of 3 million dollars you should be taxed at 100% for anything/everything else that you do until you're under 3 million. and no member of a corporation in any position should be able to make more than 10x the salary of the lowest paid member of that corporation.

that's how you fix the issue of wealth inequality, by making it non-existent. not by some limp-wristed mewling about maybe sort of a little bit if it's OK with the rich perhaps taking just a tiny bit more from one of their revenue streams BUT NOT TOO MUCH as long as everyone is alright with that.

I hope I'm not wrong about this, but I'll guess that Jarhyn is much more concerned with lifting up the poor than pulling down the rich. I understand that his tone suggests the opposite; I find his attitude very unfortunate.

you are again operating under the assumption that the two aren't the same thing. i find no logical reason for this assumption.

There is a horrid schism in American politics today. You make a severe charge against most on the "left" which I think is unfair (and which I took personally); I over-react by using pejorative words against you. Can you and I move toward bridging this schism now?

the schism in american politics today is not one of civil discourse, despite the right's attempts to frame it as such.

the schism in american politics today is that there is one center-right party in the US that while flawed and generally without vision or political will is sort of at least trying to appear like they're identifying the worst issues plaguing society and trying to implement governmental policy to correct those issues in order to forward the advancement of human civilization... more or less. they might not always have the best ideas about how to fix these issues, and often may only be pretending to care, but they at least put some minimal effort into it.

meanwhile there is another party in the US that has a stated goal of undermining the very concept of human social government, and is actively trying to destroy the foundational notion of human civilization moving forward through time and adapting to emerging challenges with reasonable government regulation and social change.
this party doesn't offer ideas on how to fix problems, it either denies that problems exist and refuses to engage with even the idea that a solution should be found, or it makes the problem worse by pouring gas on the fire of the problem or seeking out all the fire extinguishers and throwing them in a lake.

you can't have rational civil discourse when the question is "how do we approach the issue of inflating health care costs making access to medical treatment out of the reach for a significant number of adults" and the two answers you get from the political parties break down to one side going: "perhaps if we give a massive handjob to the insurance industry they'll be nice enough to occasionally provide the service their business is supposed based on, instead of taking money from customers and then refusing to give them anything for it"
and the other side replying with "LET'S LYNCH ALL THE NIGGERS"

 

[marc]

Most rich people won their wealth in benign ways: inheritance, good investments, hard work.

Inheritance might be benign way to get large amounts of wealth. But among some of the richest people it is not a matter of 'good investments' and 'hard work'. You have vulture capitalists make their money by destroying businesses. The family that owns Walmart are all billionaires, but pay their employees so little that there have been Walmart stores that did Thanksgiving food drives for their own employees. Sure, some can reach extreme levels of wealth without screwing over large numbers of people, but that does not seem to be the norm.

Wealth inequality is bad for society, but the solution is to take political steps to help the poor, steps like improved schools in low-income areas, increased government funding for healthcare, childcare, education; and so on.

Any solution to a problem needs to deal with the cause of the problem, not just the effects. If someone is bleeding badly the solution is to close the wound, not just give them more blood to try and compensate. Many people are poor because businesses have worked hard to make sure they don't have to pay people a living wage. And when they can, move those jobs to other countries where they can pay far less for labor.

During the 50's and 60's, when we had an expanding middle class, the top marginal tax rate was over 90%. Nearly everything made over, I think it was 3 million, was taxed. So the wealthy had a choice, either that money could go to the government, which would hopefully put it to good use helping people out of poverty, or reinvest the money in the company to do things like hire more people, or pay them better. Reagan severely cut that tax rate, allowing the wealthy to pocket that money instead, incentivizing paying people less and using fewer people to do the same amount of work.