Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[AdrienIer]

Crony capitalism wins a domination victory

[Krill]

Life goes on. Or is that attitude white privilege too?

[Gavagai]

The term is strictly used in the context of white people in first world countries, particularly those with an important non-white population. Being white in a near 100% white countries doesn't really give you  advantage inside your country

You are saying I will become privileged the moment I move to the US? Good to know.

(The whole discourse is a vicious nonsense, of course. For every person, you may produce a list of ways in which this person is advantaged or disadvantaged. Take me: a good education, white skin, and functional family are advantages, non-native English and a passport of a shithole country are disadvantages. Or Barack Obama: black skin - a disadvantage, Harward diploma - an advantage. What this discourse does is arbitrary elevating certain advantages while, by extension, downplaying or ignoring certain advantages. This approach produces hatred and division in society as there are a lot of people who are disadvantaged in ways which do not happen to take a public spotlight, in contrast to the tribulations of gays, blacks and other professional victims. These people elect Trump and suddenly no one understands what is happening.)

[T-hawk]

Gavagai drops this on the thread:

[AdrienIer]

If you want to nitpick : white people born and raised in first world countries, or whose parents were expats from first world countries.

I think you've hit a new low by calling gays and blacks "professional victims". Mike Pence wants to "cure" homosexuality by burning their brains out with electric shock treatment and forcing other monstrosities on them : in any respectable country he could face a judge for advocating such horrific acts. In the US he gets elected VP. But sure being gay today comes without any problem at all in the US.
Some posts here were borderline racist and fascist. But I can definitely cross the borderline part here.

Edit : And T-hawk cheers on with some kind of neonazi gif. I'm going to have to take a break from this thread again because you guys are really, truly, deeply vile.

[Gavagai]

I think you've hit a new low by calling gays and blacks "professional victims".

Yes, it was the most important thing in my post
Btw, Pence only ever advocated "curing" those homosexuals who want to be cured while you give the readers an impression that he wanted to apply all those horrible things to unwilling victims. But you have a moral high ground here, sure. 

[Japper007]

@Gavagai

Wanting to rectify certain injustices due to race does not automatically mean that we don't also want to fix other injustices. For instance a policy advocated by the left wing: free, state-funded education would solve educational inequality. Universal healthcare and many other socialist policies can drastistically reduce wealthgap. But whenever such policies are proposed your side cries "muh taxes" and "lazy immigrants". This is of course because your side doesn't actually care about these injustices, but loves to use them as a smokescreen to silence people who actually do.

[T-hawk]

Edit : And T-hawk cheers on with some kind of neonazi gif. I'm going to have to take a break from this thread again because you guys are really, truly, deeply vile.

I'll give a shot at bringing it back to productive discussion then.  My point all along is that the liberal side can't engage in progress because all they do is throw insults and labels like vile, rather than looking to address everyone's interests with inclusive solutions.

The gif is over-the-top, of course.  But the point it's making is real and what Gavagai said.  The facts of reality include unbalanced and unfair factors everywhere.  Some of those factors were established in the past by people who looked like me, for reasons that could be called immoral or bigoted.  That does not confer upon me any immorality or bigotry, I never committed those actions, and that's why such insults just bounce off as the gif shows.  Those factors may have led generations later to a beneficial environment for me that you call privilege.  That still does not obligate me to act against my own interests.

Pence on homosexuality: No, I don't support any of that.  But I have confidence that will never translate into actual policy, even if he were to acceed to president.  There is plenty of popular opinion against it and the checks and balances will still function against a single executive.  It is not my duty to act against my own economic interest to support someone else's social interest.  I'm a hold-your-nose Trump supporter, and what I've been trying to establish is that there are rational defensible reasons for that stance aside from the actual deplorable stuff.  The liberal side just doesn't distinguish in their haste to fling all the insults.

[Gavagai]

@Gavagai

Wanting to rectify certain injustices due to race does not automatically mean that we don't also want to fix other injustices. For instance a policy advocated by the left wing: free, state-funded education would solve educational inequality. Universal healthcare and many other socialist policies can drastistically reduce wealthgap. But whenever such policies are proposed your side cries "muh taxes" and "lazy immigrants". This is of course because your side doesn't actually care about these injustices, but loves to use them as a smokescreen to silence people who actually do.

1) It kind of does. Let's assume that race is a serious handicap when it comes to being able to get admitted to a good college. Let us say that being raised in a single-parent family is an even larger handicap. Consider now, the consequences of an affirmative action policy which makes a college accept black children without competition. It would mean that there are fewer places left for all other children and that makes it even harder for white single-family children to get accepted. And no, you cannot fix it by extending the number of protected minorities, as literally everyone is handicapped in one way or another. You are only going to set the society to the state of a civil war where all groups would scream at each other that they are more miserable victims than neighbors next door.

2) I do not care about these injustices indeed because I have a different concept of justice. I believe that only actions can be just or unjust. In my view, only unjust actions should be penalized. Free education and healthcare are paradigms of injustice in my view because they involve forcibly taking resources from those whose only crime was that they earned this money, which is penalizing a just action. Furthermore, these resources are given to random people who had nothing to do with the success of initial producers which only adds insult to injury.
The left, as I understand believe that justice applies not (only?) to actions but to states of affairs. This is already an assumption which I consider absurd, logically incoherent and morally vile; afterward, they arbitrary declare a certain imaginary state of affairs (e. g. "equality", whatever it means) to be a moral ideal and consider themselves justified to commit whatever evil necessary to make this ideal happen. This is how the belief that ends justify means lies at the core of left-wing philosophy.
I understand, that I have painted the Left in a rather unflattering manner but this is the best reconstruction of their thinking I have. If you disagree with this picture (which is very possible), please, enlighten me on what exactly I have got wrong.

[Japper007]

1) It kind of does. Let's assume that race is a serious handicap when it comes to being able to get admitted to a good college. Let us say that being raised in a single-parent family is an even larger handicap. Consider now, the consequences of an affirmative action policy which makes a college accept black children without competition. It would mean that there are fewer places left for all other children and that makes it even harder for white single-family children to get accepted. And no, you cannot fix it by extending the number of protected minorities, as literally everyone is handicapped in one way or another. You are only going to set the society to the state of a civil war where all groups would scream at each other that they are more miserable victims than neighbors next door.

Why did you immediately jump to affirmative action? I don't even believe in that stuff. What I believe in is creating programs that help everyone, but especially people who are currently disenfranchised. To take your example, I'd fund libraries in districts where those demographics live and maybe throw some more projects/field trips to local schools. 

2) I do not care about these injustices indeed because I have a different concept of justice. I believe that only actions can be just or unjust. In my view, only unjust actions should be penalized. Free education and healthcare are paradigms of injustice in my view because they involve forcibly taking resources from those whose only crime was that they earned this money, which is penalizing a just action. Furthermore, these resources are given to random people who had nothing to do with the success of initial producers which only adds insult to injury.
The left, as I understand believe that justice applies not (only?) to actions but to states of affairs. This is already an assumption which I consider absurd, logically incoherent and morally vile; afterward, they arbitrary declare a certain imaginary state of affairs (e. g. "equality", whatever it means) to be a moral ideal and consider themselves justified to commit whatever evil necessary to make this ideal happen. This is how the belief that ends justify means lies at the core of left-wing philosophy.
I understand, that I have painted the Left in a rather unflattering manner but this is the best reconstruction of their thinking I have. If you disagree with this picture (which is very possible), please, enlighten me on what exactly I have got wrong.

The state of affairs can very much be an evil, Apartheid was a "state of affairs", so was slavery and serfdom. Currently the state of affairs in the USA where blacks and other minorities are treated unjustly (voter suppresion laws, police brutality against them being de facto decriminalised, vastly greater conviction rates for crimes which would earn most whites a mere slap on the wrist) is an evil.