Trump: Not a "Conservative" but an "Anti-Progressive"

[Cold War Liberal]

Until anyone has a good, thoughtful, legitimate ing reason to be against justice for people of colour, fairness for women, acceptance of queerfolk, and kindness to people with different religious beliefs, this whole damn thing is a sick joke. Truly.

I mean, "anti-progressive?" WTF is that? You feel insecure that you're asked to have an iota of consideration for people who are different? You're uncomfortable accepting that some people are born into circumstances that force them to confront bigger barriers than you, just because you're afraid of the possibility that maybe you didn't "earn" everything you have with "hard work" alone?

JFC

Condescending individuals like you, young, inexperienced, and having paid no dues to life, don't get it.  What has been discounted, disrespected, and disregarded is WORK and WORKING Americans.  Folks like you, who haven't worked much, haven't sacrificed for others (I mean REAL sacrifice, not just an afternoon as a counter-demonstrator.), and haven't pulled their weight.

I'll tell you what my morning was like.  After working 40 hours on my regular job that requires a college degree, on which I haven't gotten much in the way of raises over the last decade (except for when I was promoted), I took my 61 year old butt to a local restaurant, where I have a part time job cleaning the place up, and getting it ready for opening, cleaning floors and bathrooms.  As an extra duty, I cleaned nasty, greasy garbage cans and pipes on a hard tile floor despite some aches and pains that are, likely, undiagnosed osteoarthritis.  I do this so my 12 year old son can have some extras (namely,, particiation in speed roller skating).  

I'm not asking for sympathy, and I'll own my mistakes and choices, but if you want to talk about confronting bigger barriers, how about my 12 year old son, who is my adopted step-grandson.  My wife and I adopted him due to the out-of-control substance abuse of my oldest son and his birth mother.  He's been diagnosed with ADHD, and I'm not going to vouch for the pre-natal care he received,  I'm not asking for folks to applaud my wife and myself, but I want you to consider how much difficulty he's had at school, and how much ignorance I've put up with by folks from all sorts of sources who seem to believe that if I only spanked him more, he'd learn and pay attention.  

Now I realize that other folks have endured prejudices and barriers, but I also realize that the rate at which Americans commit crimes is not uniform across all demographics.  Yes the wrongs of discrimination need to end, but the disadvantages of many who claim "discrimination" are, in fact, the disadvantages that come from poor life choices, including the decision to commit crimes.  I'm not for discrimination (especially discrimination in employment) and while I don't sign off on sexual sin, I'm not for Scarlet Letters or Government Jackboots kicking down doors for activities between consenting adults.  But you'll forgive me if I express the concept that the FIRST consideration of any government ought to be the concerns of the folks who do the work of society and pay the taxes.  

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The Obama years were not some sort of American Nightmare.  I voted for Obama in 2012 and I generally thought he was OK as President.  But the Obama years were years where those who didn't pay taxes, broke laws, and did little to contribute to the work of society had their grievances given top priority.  Rioters were referred to as demonstrators, illegal immigrants were presented at a political convention as "countrymen" and folks who actively resisted lawful arrests were made martyrs, while folks who cheered this on viewed coal miners as the real enemy, for their "attack" on "the environment" and cheered the loss of mining jobs.  And, yes, the media and many institutions overrun by liberal bias have more sympathy for select groups of "victims" than for folks who have followed the rules and find themselves out of jobs.  There was an "Enough is enough!" consensus on the issue of penalizing folks who took responsibility for their own lives and followed the rules and laws of society.

Decades of working, of supporting a family, of taking responsibility for both my life and the lives of my wife and children (especially minor children) has given me a worldview that only doing that can bring.  When you're adult enough to take on such responsibilities, and demonstrate enough grit to persevere in fulfilling them when the going gets tough, you'll have something with depth and weight to say.  Right now, you're merely pompous and inexperienced, and probably not up to what millions of folks do every day.  In my youth, I was a snotty know-it-all like you are now.  I now understand why folks blew me off.  Perhaps the maturing process will afford you the same experience.

And, perhaps, this is silly of me.  But your signature of Hillary and her mother (I think that's her.) laughing on a park bench.  It's easy for me to visualize her either laughing at the plight of ordinary, hardworking, culturally conservative law-abiding Americans when she's not lecturing them as Deplorable.  People like me OUGHT to be voting Democratic.  It's the attitudes of Democrats toward people such as myself that make it tough.  Trump, with all his imperfections, is willing to give at least lip service to honoring those who work and play by rules, as opposed to those who don't.  Yes, I get it' they're not actually doing that in the photo, but the imagery is easy to conjure up, and Hillary brought that on herself.

Thinking black people and other minorities should have equal rights is condescending, but assuming someone you disagree with is not contributing to society, and dogwhistling that poor black people don't work, don't pay taxes, and are lazy, sexually loose, socially-deviant criminals is not condescending? Personal experience tells me that these tired, disgusting, and borderline libelous stereotypes are false.

[Cold War Liberal]

Thinking black people and other minorities should have equal rights is condescending, but assuming someone you disagree with is not contributing to society, and dogwhistling that poor black people don't work, don't pay taxes, and are lazy, sexually loose, socially-deviant criminals is not condescending? Personal experience tells me that these tired, disgusting, and borderline libelous stereotypes are false.

So what accounts for the disparity in crime statistics by demographic categories?

I'm listening.  Perhaps if folks will respond earnestly to THIS question, it might lead to a solution to THIS problem.

I actually laughed out loud when I read this.

Slavery turned into Jim Crow, which included redlining, which systemically prevented most African-Americans from accumulating wealth (the average white family STILL has over 10x the wealth of the average black family, 80 years after redlining began). The War on Drugs was explicitly began with the intention of locking up hippies and black people, and thrived under every single President from Nixon through Trump (Obama's the only one who even tried to stop it, and he failed, for the most part). Unchecked police violence and LAW AND ORDER rhetoric coming from the government, along with a long, long, long history of horrible things the government has done to black people, leads to no small amount of distrust against the government and the police.

So! You're poor, in part because some rich guy from NY in the '30s told HOLC not to give home loans to your great-grandparents because they had a certain level of melanin in their skin, which made them high-risk, for some reason (hint: Social Darwinists believed that black people were frail and going to "go extinct;" the "strong primal beast" stereotype didn't begin until after Jesse Owens and other black athletes started excelling). You're looked down upon by those who have never had to walk a millimeter in your shoes (the kind of people who cry victim about how bad they have it and how much they have to work but also have over 5,000 posts on an online political forum) for not magically fixing your situation because of the American Dream mentality some people have about America. If you decide you want to walk to a convenience store in your neighborhood, or drive a car, or read a book in a car, or play outside with a toy gun while being 12 years old but also black, you get shot by police officers who apparently get scared too easily and shouldn't be in policing (but they get off anyway!). The government uses property taxes to fund schools, and your property is worth little for aforementioned reasons, so your local schools get little money, so they can't afford to actually teach you very well, which keeps you from getting a good job, and keeps you poor. Society tells you that the way to succeed is one way, but that way is not accessible to you because of systemic forces older than the country itself. So you decide to forge your own path because that's the only way you can support yourself. You're not proud of it, but it's all you can do to support your family and yourself. You have to take matters into your own hands, because the government has never supported (and often actively worked against) you, and the law and those who enforce it are not on your side 99 times out of 100.

But at least we elected a black President, so racism can't exist anymore... right?

(This is hopefully obvious, but maybe not: most African Americans don't experience this set of circumstances, but every single one of them has been affected by racism to one extent or another)

Just because a demographic does something more often than another demographic doesn't mean it's because it's inherent to the biology of that demographic. Correlation doesn't equal causation.

[Cold War Liberal]

Why does being stopped and frisked make Black people kill each other at a higher rate than white people?

Also lol@redlining as an excuse

"How could Black people not be poor criminals? They were denied the right to live around white people and forced to live among other Black people."

Meanwhile, White people make due living in the middle of nowhere in the suburbs and when they do start moving to those accursed inner cities that Black people were forced to live in by redlining, those areas suddenly became the most valuable real estate in the world.

"Hi, I'm Mortimer, and I condescend to people about redlining while simultaneously not knowing what redlining is, confusing it for segregation, and implying that it has nothing to do with wealth accumulation!"

Segregation is forcing people to live apart based on race. Redlining is doing that, then telling insurance companies not to give loans to people who live in "certain" (read: black) areas. If you can't see how that negatively affects black people, then I really can't help you.