Politics on topic or off topic (Civil thread)

[The Wrench]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Alright fellas.

Not sure if you watched the debate, but it was rough and I’m not really feeling the Joementum we were promised.

Feel free to discuss the debate or whatever is on your mind really just don’t be mean or toxic.

[kayozz]

No trick. I see the left constantly claiming Trump's racist and I've seen no basis for it, it's like it fell from the sky, random slander. "Palestinian" isn't a race.

https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/ ... sm-history

[MrStonedOne]

The way i look at it. this election is between two people. somebody who is bigoted towards my demographics, and somebody who is bigoted towards every other demographic except my own.

Thats not a great sell to White America. I don't understand why democrats are, given a choice between being allowed to be racist against white people, and protecting trans kids, are choosing the ability to be racist against white people over protecting trans kids.

When republicans get elected minorities get harmed. Why choose a racist and controversial policy that will just lead to more republicans getting elected? Why is being able to discriminate against white people that fucking important?

I live in a blue state so i get to write in bernie. but if i lived in a swing state, i don't think i could bring my self to actually tick the box of anybody who supports policies that are racist or sexist against me. i'd likely just sit home or continue writing in bernie. hell on that measure trump is technically one of the better president we've had (except for the part where he ended funding for the one fucking (respected) rape study that actually asked questions inclusive towards victims of female assailant, you win some you lose some.) Why shouldn't i be selfish and vote in my self interest?

[Archie700]

remember when this was supposed to be civil

[MrStonedOne]

Running defense for racism tends to reduce the civility levels.

Thats a feature of society, not a bug.

[Higgin]

Look at the anger this topic brings out in me, a bernie supporter.

do you see why i call it a poison pill?

Don't solve upstream problems downstream. it just unfairly benefits those who make it down stream and match the characteristics without actually solving the issue.

I can cop to that. It was and they are a racist attack on a racist problem. If you're concerned about the practice undermining or foiling the principle, it does, and it'd be better to do away with it (as was done.) There just needs to be a follow-up.

Equal opportunity efforts upstream have been effective, too - I hoped to bring up that the reason we got race-conscious admissions in the first place was because of an objection on principle to equal opportunity being advanced more broadly through upstream measures.

In that sense, they've only been a 'good' relative to a policy and a position that would be perfectly happy with inequal opportunity ticking along across racial lines which, at the time quotas and set-asides were offered up, were even more deeply skewed by history. I should clarify myself to say that yes, unequivocally, racial discrimination is bad. I find it very hard to see the follow-up and reasons for the Trump admin. and Court doing away with it pointing towards any belief in equal opportunity as a good, but that is no defense of the racist practice. Courts can do good things for bad reasons.

[BonChoi]

I live in a blue state so i get to write in bernie. but if i lived in a swing state, i don't think i could bring my self to actually tick the box of anybody who supports policies that are racist or sexist against me.

Bernie Sanders on Twitter the day that the Supreme Court effectively banned affirmative action:

https://x.com/SenSanders/status/1674439 ... 46?lang=en

If you don't want to go onto Twitter to read what he wrote (and I don't blame you) I'll post a screenshot here:



Surprisingly when you Google "Bernie Sanders Affirmative Action" there are digg links that pop up leading to people asking why Bernie supports affirmative action, but all of the sources they link to are dead.

[Higgin]

The issue here ends up turning on disparate treatment vs. disparate impact.

Race-conscious admissions - even arguably those more positive outreach/upstream efforts if similar aren't offered to other groups - are disparate treatment. They are discriminatory.

The impact of race-blind admissions is that marginalized groups out in the world get less of a shot.

Ultimately the just thing is to level the playing field and address the marginalization upstream of the competitive opportunity - which shouldn't be competitive when it comes to higher ed., but if it's going to be, is where people rightly find race-conscious admission to be unfair.



*My beef with how they've been lately handled is that when you set out after disparate treatment without doing anything about disparate impact, it may very well suggest you don't give a shit about the disparate impact. The reverse is true and both reflect a fundamental lack of concern for some group who, in the balance, it's seen as acceptable to bear the costs over others - which should be nobody.

**Another way to frame this is that making one person marginal to address another perceived as marginal is still making someone marginal on the basis of arbitrary characteristics. It can work in practice for redressing equalities on paper, leading to substantive changes in how groups are positioned in society to reflect a more "equal" distribution, but in ethical terms it's trading one marginalization for another - that is the fair argument that affirmative action is a poison pill.

[MrStonedOne]

Thank you for expressing your thoughts on it. Sorry if i let myself get a little too invested there.

[Higgin]

Thank you for expressing your thoughts on it. Sorry if i let myself get a little too invested there.

Thank you for checking me on it.

[Timonk]

None tell bro bout being racist against Muslims.

You can't be racist against a religion.

Muslims (Ethnic Group) on Wikipedia

[Jonathan Gupta]

bring back felons rights to vote

[Higgin]

On the discrimination thing, there's a plausible argument that focusing on disparate impact by discriminating against people is also a practical poison pill as well -

If you're getting told you matter less and deserve to suffer or have fewer chances because of nothing you've done, no shit you're probably going to be less sympathetic to the claims of the people doing it that actually, you should feel like you have it so much better off and suck it up. just look at how bad it is for these other people.

not a good foundation for making common cause with those other people. partial approaches to justice have been a poison pill and cause of reaction across progressive politics in this country for a long time.


on civility, it's important and good to be able to be honest, totally understandable to be emotional (we're feeling machines that learned to think - not the other way around,) and healthy to be held responsible. unfortunately political realities are often uncivil - there are core stakes in beliefs, identities, and the feeling that the other people in the room see you as human that make discussing them a tight rope to walk.

if you can remember that the other people involved are human and return to that fact, you can talk civilly about uncivil things. it's crucial to do so rather than only ever talking to the people you agree with, because we all have to live with one another, and it can be better.

[Higgin]

bring back felons rights to vote

was thinking about this the other night and yeah

https://www.usvotefoundation.org/voting ... on/florida

one of the few good things out of florida in the last few years, though i'm not sure where if at all you draw the line - current felons and even resident non-citizens should have a voice in how they're governed. it's more of an indictment of our society if we're afraid of what they'd ask for if they could and probably gets in the way of reintegration.

interesting map and discussion: https://felonvoting.procon.org/state-felon-voting-laws/

[MrStonedOne]

If you're getting told you matter less and deserve to suffer or have fewer chances because of nothing you've done, no shit you're probably going to be less sympathetic to the claims of the people doing it that actually, you should feel like you have it so much better off and suck it up. just look at how bad it is for these other people.

The problem is when you are on the otherside of affirmative action, seeing high school classmates get special help applying for grants and scholarships and extra support to guide them thru the process by women in stem groups who get invited to highschools and career days, go and get yourself declared at-risk for homeless so you can get on financial aid because your microsoft father decided they don't want to pay for your college, half to walk 35 minutes to get to classes only to see posters for women only self defense courses hosted by the local police department, go to the bathroom to see posters about how your gender is accountable for the actions of others in a Its-On-Us anti-rape campaign (for a college that doesn't even fucking have dorms no less), finish up, check your phone, its an email about a womens only assertive salary negotiation workshop, as you walk to your building wondering when they will have one for socially awkward autistic men, you hear the assertive and outgoing women who normally sits behind you in compsci101 say shes going.

It really gets hard to be sympathetic to the claims of progressives that actually I have it so much better off, and should suck it up.

All we've done is limit what compassion, empathies, and support people can access, based on stereotypes about their demographics.

[MrStonedOne]

Back on lighter subjects. What do you all think about the voting age. Lowered? raised? removed?

[EmpressMaia]

Back on lighter subjects. What do you all think about the voting age. Lowered? raised? removed?

Lower to 16 and allow felons to vote

[Jackraxxus]

we should RETVRN to absolute monarchy and rule by divine right.
God gave His most holy mandate to the royalty of yore but I haven't heard of Him giving any such thing to our elected officials.

[TheRex9001]

Jackraxxus has an A-Shirt with "God save the king" under his tshirt so he can rip up his tshirt in public if anyone insults the king

[ekaterina]

Trump is the type of sleezy business fuck that says what ever he thinks he needs to say to sway his targets into doing what he wants.

I am curious as to what led you to this conclusion.

So why advocate for a racist solution? We could have affirmative action for poor people of all races instead.

so looking at race directly has been an imperfect proxy for that, because people have not been interested in a broader program where you'd end up facing the racial implications head-on either.

That doesn't really answer my question. Why advocate for an imperfect solution? It's over now and we have an opportunity to implement a better one instead of just going back, even if, in your eyes, racist affirmative action was better than nothing.

the idea of an inherently hostile, insular, criminal minority coming in from abroad and threatening the native population is a xenophobic and often racist trope.

It has literally already happened in France, Sweden and England. It is not some "xenophobic and often racist" fantasy.

The problem with our model is that any one of these metrics does not directly measure human security or need fulfillment. Line go up does not mean life go better.

Correct. Material well-being is only part of one's living standards, although one could argue it is the largest part. Still, its role is undeniable.

they're still historical cowards who've been overly complicit with big finance and fallen far short on this stuff. i don't blame anyone who looks at $5 or $7/gal. gas, food more expensive, feeling useless at work (because behind all those unemployment numbers are a lot of people who've been made more permanently useless if they're not doing more precarious gig work to get by, or otherwise dying deaths of despair,) and private health insurance premiums and says, "what the fuck has Biden or this party done for me lately?" not nearly as much as they could or should, but the republican approach of trickle-down and right-to-work doesn't work

Did you literally not just argue for how Republican policies have worked better than Democrat ones right before saying Republican policies don't work? Yeah, they're not perfect. Yeah, "trickle down economics" only works in theory when you assume rich people actually invest their money and don't just hoard it like a TTRP dragon, but material outcomes have been better under Republicans in recent memory, no?

nevermind that the privatization cutting into things like public education in favor of charter schools - and privatizing public services in general - is opening them up to a great degree of very political, particularist, and often religious or racially-biased administration. sort of like the whole schedule F/civil service deal at the federal level.

This is not something I agree with but ultimately I don't think this is a big enough issue to sway any Republican voter over to the Democrats.

At the end of the day, it is racism if the percentage of [generic race] who get accepted is less then percentage of people that apply who are [generic race].

... assuming the distribution of quality among the candidates is equal in all races, which it usually isn't.
If, for example, Asians tend to have higher scores, it would only be natural for a merit-based admissions system to result in there being more Asians accepted, percentage-wise.

My yard stick, is that any random white kid applying to the college should have an equal shot at getting in compared to any random black kid applying to the college.
If there are reasons why some people will be less likely to apply, address those. use outreach to get more applications from under represented groups. drop extracurricular from the equation since it discriminates against ALL RACES in poor zip codes if you must.
What can not be allowed to be tolerated is justifying lowering the percentage of white people who get accepted to below the percentage of people that apply who are white.
Don't solve upstream problems downstream. it just unfairly benefits those who make it down stream and match the characteristics without actually solving the issue.

Absolutely! All of this. The way you tried to express it above was just not mathematically sound.

https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/ ... sm-history

Thanks for trying to answer it, but this is a known left-wing publication, obviously biased against him, and the introduction itself already tells me it's going to be making leaps in logic. Trump attacking people who happen to be of other races (criminals, his opponent's VP, etc) is not the same as attacking them because of their race.

There's real evidence he might've been a racist in 80s, but none of the examples from the 90s onwards, in my view, point to actual racism, just insensitive comments.

remember when this was supposed to be civil

With the people who actually kept participating, it has been.

Why shouldn't i be selfish and vote in my self interest?

You should. Other people have their votes to seek out their interests, yours is to seek out yours. Theoretically, in a democracy, this would make everyone's interests proportionally represented. The "first past the post" system sadly undermines that.

Muslims (Ethnic Group) on Wikipedia

Did you actually check the link you sent? That's about a small group in the Balkans, definitely not what we were talking about.

The problem is when you are on the otherside of affirmative action, seeing high school classmates get special help applying for grants and scholarships and extra support to guide them thru the process by women in stem groups who get invited to highschools and career days, go and get yourself declared at-risk for homeless so you can get on financial aid because your microsoft father decided they don't want to pay for your college, half to walk 35 minutes to get to classes only to see posters for women only self defense courses hosted by the local police department, go to the bathroom to see posters about how your gender is accountable for the actions of others in a Its-On-Us anti-rape campaign (for a college that doesn't even fucking have dorms no less), finish up, check your phone, its an email about a womens only assertive salary negotiation workshop, as you walk to your building wondering when they will have one for socially awkward autistic men, you hear the assertive and outgoing women who normally sits behind you in compsci101 say shes going.

It is an absolute disgrace how sexism against men is seen as normal.

[Jacquerel]

the idea of an inherently hostile, insular, criminal minority coming in from abroad and threatening the native population is a xenophobic and often racist trope.

It has literally already happened in France, Sweden and England. It is not some "xenophobic and often racist" fantasy.

It hasn't in England, you're just being duped by or possibly just spreading xenophobic and racist scaremongering
I can't talk for the other two places I don't live in but the fact that you're making yourself such an easy mark makes it easy to doubt
although as you also can't see that a guy who made a career out of being a scam artist is a scam artist I can easily believe it's not intentional

[TheRex9001]

In Sweden the issue isnt the people coming in its the infrastructure which is promoting crime, our infrastructure was by the 80-90s already decaying into crime. If you are interested in this topic Var det bra så? might be a good read, alongside Miljonprogrammet : utveckla eller avveckla? Explaining how the Swedish cities where most crimes were built are made for a different style of family than the one we have now and is based on faulty designs, namely the ABC cities principle designed in the 1950's which cut the "förort" from the main city which meant that when work eventually got bad in the förort the whole cities economy collapsed because the shopping couldnt stay open leading to less jobs leading to less shops. The immigrants who came to sweden got placed in these förort areas and predictably it didnt improve anything to have more people living in areas that had by this point either collapsed or were at a knifes edge, predictably it lead to crime.

Edit - I forgot to mention what Miljonprogrammet was, it was a program by which the government built 1 005 578 new homes. It ran through the sixties into the seventies

[AsbestosSniffer]

the idea of an inherently hostile, insular, criminal minority coming in from abroad and threatening the native population is a xenophobic and often racist trope.

It has literally already happened in France, Sweden and England. It is not some "xenophobic and often racist" fantasy.

It hasn't in England, you're just being duped by or possibly just spreading xenophobic and racist scaremongering

Spoken like someone who's not been to post-industrial Northern towns.

[Jacquerel]

In Sweden the issue isnt the people coming in its the infrastructure which is promoting crime, our infrastructure was by the 80-90s already decaying into crime. If you are interested in this topic Var det bra så? might be a good read, alongside Miljonprogrammet : utveckla eller avveckla? Explaining how the Swedish cities were most crimes were built are made for a different style of family than the one we have now and is based on faulty designs, namely the ABC cities principle designed in the 1950's which cut the "förort" from the main city which meant that when work eventually got bad in the förort the whole cities economy collapsed because the shopping couldnt stay open leading to less jobs leading to less shops. The immigrants who came to sweden got placed in these förort areas and predictably it didnt improve anything to have more people living in areas that had by this point either collapsed or were at a knifes edge, predictably it lead to crime.

Edit - I forgot to mention what Miljonprogrammet was, it was a program by which the government built 1 005 578 new homes.

you mean that minorities and immigrants who receive poorer treatment and are forced into less sustainable economic positions tend to have higher rates of criminality as a result, and this is in turn used to turn them into a bugbear to avoid actually solving the problems causing this and galvanise people against a common manufactured enemy rather than the people who are causing the societal problem?

that sounds kind of stupid, imo they probably just have some kind of inherent criminality and came here exclusively because they wanted to cause problems

[oranges]

was the civil in this thread title short for civil war?

[AsbestosSniffer]

was the civil in this thread title short for civil war?

Would you rather it was called the Burger thread instead? Bürgerkrieg is how you say civil war in German. Perhaps if our minds were set on food the fighting would cease!

[ekaterina]

you mean that minorities and immigrants who receive poorer treatment and are forced into less sustainable economic positions tend to have higher rates of criminality as a result, and this is in turn used to turn them into a bugbear to avoid actually solving the problems causing this and galvanise people against a common manufactured enemy rather than the people who are causing the societal problem?
that sounds kind of stupid, imo they probably just have some kind of inherent criminality and came here exclusively because they wanted to cause problems

Who "forced" these economic migrants to move to these European countries? If it's so bad over there, why don't they just move back?

[Jacquerel]

you mean that minorities and immigrants who receive poorer treatment and are forced into less sustainable economic positions tend to have higher rates of criminality as a result, and this is in turn used to turn them into a bugbear to avoid actually solving the problems causing this and galvanise people against a common manufactured enemy rather than the people who are causing the societal problem?
that sounds kind of stupid, imo they probably just have some kind of inherent criminality and came here exclusively because they wanted to cause problems

Who "forced" these economic migrants to move to these European countries? If it's so bad over there, why don't they just move back?

is that another trick question or do you not understand migration?
a place can mistreat you while still being a better place for you economically (or even in terms of safety and good treatment) than a second other place

[Timonk]

Muslims (Ethnic Group) on Wikipedia

Did you actually check the link you sent? That's about a small group in the Balkans, definitely not what we were talking about.

if you wanna be technical might as well go all the way

[WineAllWine]

the idea of an inherently hostile, insular, criminal minority coming in from abroad and threatening the native population is a xenophobic and often racist trope.

It has literally already happened in France, Sweden and England. It is not some "xenophobic and often racist" fantasy.

It hasn't in England, you're just being duped by or possibly just spreading xenophobic and racist scaremongering

Spoken like someone who's not been to post-industrial Northern towns.

We're arguing with ekat here but whatever I'm taking the bait.

In England (n.b England specifically, not the UK*) the areas with the highest level of migrants are the areas most supportive of immigration, even among the native population.

Some racist on Twitter had a go like "oooh what would you know about immigrants in your Islington Elite bubble?" bitch, Islington has one of the highest rates of migrants in the country.

*Scotland is very welcoming to immigrants but has very few, take from that what you will.

[AsbestosSniffer]

the idea of an inherently hostile, insular, criminal minority coming in from abroad and threatening the native population is a xenophobic and often racist trope.

It has literally already happened in France, Sweden and England. It is not some "xenophobic and often racist" fantasy.

It hasn't in England, you're just being duped by or possibly just spreading xenophobic and racist scaremongering

Spoken like someone who's not been to post-industrial Northern towns.

We're arguing with ekat here but whatever I'm taking the bait.

In England (n.b England specifically, not the UK*) the areas with the highest level of migrants are the areas most supportive of immigration, even among the native population.

Some racist on Twitter had a go like "oooh what would you know about immigrants in your Islington Elite bubble?" bitch, Islington has one of the highest rates of migrants in the country.

I've lived around these towns that have been receiving waves of migrants (mostly from South Asia) since the 70s, they are HEAVILY segregated with whites usually living in one area on one side of the town and the non-whites (A huge generalisation I'm aware but
one that is applicable in this scenario.) living in another, what Ekat was referring to was the populace of some of these groups being insular, which they are correct about. These cultures are very different to ours and to pretend otherwise is naive at best and actively patronising at worst, they have different beliefs, different ideals, different viewpoints on how people should live, standard cultural differences - But what this has led to is a great deal of separation and even occasional tensions between the communities and from my personal experiences growing up; harassment of people who identify as LGBT. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending there aren't issues regarding cultural differences is silly.

[WineAllWine]

Snip

Yeah... I'm from a midlands town and I know the kind of areas you're talking about.

They don't seem to be as much of a thing in London? Maybe because London has more younger migrants?

Any immigrant who comes here and is against LGBT people can get bent as far as I'm concerned.

I don't know what the solution is or anything this was kind of just a stream of thoughts okay bye

[MooCow12]

I endorse everything ekaterina has said so far but I think Alex jones would make the best president out of the 3 and fit perfectly fine on that debate stage.


I think we should also all take a moment to consider vermin supreme.

[RedBaronFlyer]

we should RETVRN to absolute monarchy and rule by divine right.
God gave His most holy mandate to the royalty of yore but I haven't heard of Him giving any such thing to our elected officials.

mandate of heaven is just a better version imo

divine right is for virgins who have to scream that you can't rebel because god told them they were very special and get to rule.

mandate of heaven is for chads who have to rule well or otherwise there are droughts, famines, plagues, civil unrest, etc. leading to their dynasty getting overthrown

[MooCow12]

Trump is the type of sleezy business fuck that says what ever he thinks he needs to say to sway his targets into doing what he wants.

I am curious as to what led you to this conclusion.

I think it's the reverse....

Didnt Biden literally lie about the border patrol agency endorsing him and they had to come out and say that they never have and never will. He also continued to lie that trump was the one that started the cages separating parents from their kids at the border when in actuality it was the obama biden administration that started that (and it was actually sort of a good thing that obama and biden had done because they had found that many of the "parents" that were taking children across the border were infact not even related to the children at all and instead were trafficking those children) but no we blame trump for our own morally dubious actions that had positive consequences because putting kids in cages was a good buzz phrase.

Literally all I ever hear from Biden now is buzz words or phrases that the democrats keep repeating even though they have context that do not stand up to the meaning, like "convicted felon" when the entire trial that lead to Donald trump's conviction was full of unprecedented errors and it's GOING to get appealed.

Another example is Biden constantly parroting that "DONALD TRUMP IS GOING TO DESTROY OUR DEMOCRACY" America is not a democracy it is a constitutional federal republic. The electoral college is literally not a mechanism for democracy its function is literally against democracy and meant to suppress unwanted side effects of having a pure popular vote and how it could unfairly impact minorities. But yes lets push the word democracy and pretend thats what our country is because thats what our party is named after.

Biden at this point is a fully mentally declined individual who is being abused by his spouse and his own party parading him around and using him for sympathy, he may not be the same person who was incredibly and openly racist in the past, but that transformation was heralded by seniority into his golden years. We all know nobody is voting for Biden, instead they are voting for whoever he is close to.


Hes not telling everyone what they want to hear about orange man bad because he is clever or sleezy, its because he has very little will of his own and thats what hes told to say, he feigns neutrality / morale superiority on everything because thats all he can when he cant pick a path on anything. And that strategy is what has been working because it's the exact opposite of what most people dislike about Trump and his bad manners.


Trump doesn't say what he wants people to hear, he says what he wants and he insults people while hes at it, how can everything he say be so controversial if he is trying to appease everyone else? No he does what he wants and he doesnt care who he pisses off to do it, when asked if he wanted russia to be defeated for the war to end he said he just wanted the war to end for people to stop dieing, even if that means Ukraine loses land in the end and Putin gets to get away from the war with some of the land he wanted. He wants a mass deportation of illegal invaders invading the country, thats not something a lot of people are comfortable with hearing, thats a dangerous and invasive operation that can put citizens at risk if done wrong. He wants to cut internal taxes and put tariffs on imports, thats not something foreign countries and people who care about those countries want to hear.

[BonChoi]

This thread is great

Truly one of the threads of all time

[Jacquerel]

I endorse everything ekaterina has said so far but I think Alex jones would make the best president out of the 3 and fit perfectly fine on that debate stage.

Hold on I thought this was extremely biting and genius satire (What better way could you imagine to discredit someone than saying "everything this guy is saying is right... and I think Alex Jones should be president!", especially if we are talking about not recognising crooks?) but following your more recent post I'm no longer sure

[MooCow12]

I endorse everything ekaterina has said so far but I think Alex jones would make the best president out of the 3 and fit perfectly fine on that debate stage.

Hold on I thought this was extremely biting and genius satire (What better way could you imagine to discredit someone than saying "everything this guy is saying is right... and I think Alex Jones should be president!", especially if we are talking about not recognising crooks?) but following your more recent post I'm no longer sure

Nothing in my more recent post says anything to endorse trump, i brought up alex jones fitting on that stage and should be running for president because someone earlier said trump was having a shizo rant on stage. Although that might not have been on this forums.

Biden and Trump are victims in their own ways and this should not be controversial to say.

[Jacquerel]

I think you're right to identify Biden as fundamentally empty of ideas but wrong to say Trump isn't playing to a crowd and telling them what they want to heae; they both are, but just different crowds

Trump and Alex Jones are really fundamentally on quite similar grifts, Trump has just been doing it longer and more successfully and is selling something other than fake alpha make supplements

It's what he has been doing for his entire public life

His "telling it like it is" image and "gaffes" and occasional thrown in bigotry is fundamentally crowd pleasing

Did you know the polls hardly changed after that awful debate? Both these guys already have their bases and are saying the lines they need to keep them (although one of them can do it without reading a teleprompter)


Or maybe by "it's the reverse" you meant "it's both of them" not "Trump isn't marketing he's being genuine" and I'm talking to soneibes who already agrees with me

[MooCow12]

Why would the polls change after the debate, its just more of what we heard from both of them for the last 4 years, the only difference is people cant call clips of Biden's cognitive decline "cheap fakes" anymore since it happened on live television while the entire world watched.


Watching them play games like golfing would have been more productive than hearing the same shit over and over again.

[Jacquerel]

Yeah that's also what I'm saying
They're both just following the scripts they have to keep their respective bases angry and paranoid about the future under the other guy

They're not saying the same things because you can't actually please everyone at once with the sane words, they have different audiences for which what they are saying works and that is who the things they are saying are for
They might as well be debating a mirror or a wooden plank

You're correct to identify that this largely makes these spectacles a waste of time

[Higgin]

Back on lighter subjects. What do you all think about the voting age. Lowered? raised? removed?

If not removed, lowered to 11 or 13, the 8th made a national holiday, and kids given a pathway to do it through their schools.

civic education should start earlier, and young people should have a say in the world they're going to live in - 11-13 is around the age a lot of people start to broaden their reference groups to their broader society instead of just their peers (or parents at an earlier age)

it's probably happening younger due to the internet now, but i don't have anything to back that up

[MooCow12]

Back on lighter subjects. What do you all think about the voting age. Lowered? raised? removed?

If not removed, lowered to 11 or 13, the 8th made a national holiday, and kids given a pathway to do it through their schools.

civic education should start earlier, and young people should have a say in the world they're going to live in - 11-13 is around the age a lot if people start to broaden their reference groups to their broader society instead of just their peers (or parents at an earlier age)

it's probably happening younger due to the internet now, but i don't have anything to back that up

when i was 12 i thought minecraft steve was hot fuck no.

[BonChoi]

11 to 13 to vote is a horrid idea

18 is fine.

[The Wrench]

11 to 13 to vote is a horrid idea

18 is fine.

Why?

[gameaddict07]

IDK about you man but I wouldn't trust an 11 year old to be able to make their own independent adult decisions.

[The Wrench]

IDK about you man but I wouldn't trust an 11 year old to be able to make their own independent adult decisions.

Why not raise the voting age? What makes 18 a good number?

[Archie700]

Back on lighter subjects. What do you all think about the voting age. Lowered? raised? removed?

If not removed, lowered to 11 or 13, the 8th made a national holiday, and kids given a pathway to do it through their schools.

civic education should start earlier, and young people should have a say in the world they're going to live in - 11-13 is around the age a lot of people start to broaden their reference groups to their broader society instead of just their peers (or parents at an earlier age)

it's probably happening younger due to the internet now, but i don't have anything to back that up

Higgin I genuinely want to know why the hell do you think forcing a political decision on high school or even elementary school students who have not even grasped the political climate is a good idea

[Jacquerel]

Children below voting age should participate in a child vote instead where they elect the next national children's president, a role empowered to create the official list of which vegetables are and aren't yucky and the country's policy on cooties.

[The Wrench]

I think children shouldn’t vote but I wanna see why you all put the line at 18 instead of 21 or 25? 18 year olds are hardly adults

[Jacquerel]

The voting age should be locked at whatever the age is where you can be tried in a court of law as an adult; if you have the legal responsibilities of one then you should have the civic rights and responsibilities too.

If you don't want people to vote until 25 because for some reason you don't think a 23 year old has a fully formed brain, they're obviously not able to be treated as an adult criminal either because you don't think they are an adult. And god forbid you have sex with one. We probably shouldn't make them work for a living either as they're not ready to enter the adult world and make important decisions.

[Higgin]

Back on lighter subjects. What do you all think about the voting age. Lowered? raised? removed?

If not removed, lowered to 11 or 13, the 8th made a national holiday, and kids given a pathway to do it through their schools.

civic education should start earlier, and young people should have a say in the world they're going to live in - 11-13 is around the age a lot of people start to broaden their reference groups to their broader society instead of just their peers (or parents at an earlier age)

it's probably happening younger due to the internet now, but i don't have anything to back that up

Higgin I genuinely want to know why the hell do you think forcing a political decision on high school or even elementary school students who have not even grasped the political climate is a good idea

forcing, no - making available? yea!

political interest and civic engagement are learned. even the behavior of voting itself is learned and a predictor of future voting. most Americans don't make their votes with much more education or knowledge - life experience, possibly, sure - than they left with from their high school civics class.

kids should be empowered to learn about the world they live in and be part of making decisions about it. you don't need a lot of detail knowledge to make a vote that represents you or for it to matter that you're able to vote - as both a way to learn practical things about how the world works and to develop a sense of responsibility, as an educator? I see voting as a great opportunity that we've kept pushed out too far, nevermind that it's important for us to try as best we can to address the fact that the kids didn't choose terms of the world they were brought into.

there are people perfectly allowed to vote now who do so on much less knowledge and consideration than a kid might after sitting down - with their parents, teachers, peers, community members, or an evening reading up on the iPad - and considering the choices they now have to make. many people who vote now do so with about as much or less emotional and social intelligence than plenty of 13 year-olds, but those capacities (especially in the young) grow with use.

even if they don't get an education or even-handed exposure to the issues, the habit of voting and a chance to buy into it as a responsibility are probably healthy to establish younger for our democracy and for the kids, man, idk.

politics are going to have a lot more to do with their lives (and already do) than a lot of the shit we teach them. understanding them better and making choices about them younger are good - the 18 y/o starting point for voting comes at a time when all their previous engagement will have been one-sided and, quite predictably, their interest/skills/knowledge much less developed. they've got skin in the game, so they should have the franchise once they can start learning how to independently use it.