I think it's time we had another talk about the krazen situation

[Brittain33]

He's only here to troll, the geography forum aside. He's not engaging in debate. He's just trolling and trying to piss people off. I don't see the value in that. What's more, if that behavior is allowed to take over, it provokes a reaction and destroys the community.

[Brittain33]

He's only here to troll, the geography forum aside. He's not engaging in debate. He's just trolling and trying to piss people off. I don't see the value in that. What's more, if that behavior is allowed to take over, it provokes a reaction and destroys the community.

Is he a good poster in the Geography forum?

He mixed his racial trolling with knowledgable posts about redistricting. I don't know if he does it so much recently, but he did back when redistricting underway.

[Brittain33]

If krazen held the political views that he does but didn't make a habit of referring to poor people as 'moochers' and 'leeches' and symbolically defenestrating them from his concept of the body politic in every other post he makes, I'd have no problem with him.

[Brittain33]

So if krazen lost his negative terms for poor folks, and just stuck to, say, e.g., the concept that the poor need the lash of putting their very survival a stake (well maybe keep the soup kitchens) to motivate them to change their condition (without characterizing their ethics), then there would be no problem with krazen - at least as to his very existence on the forum. Is that a fair statement of the position of some of you?

If he followed up with the same comments, again and again, no engagement or learning or follow-up, but used generic terms instead of slurs, it's hard to see it as much of an improvement. It would be a novelty and worth seeing, sure. But I don't know if he's up for the experiment.

And since he's here to troll, not to engage in discussion, I don't see why he would change anything. What he's doing now is working very well for him, if not for the forum.

[Brittain33]

And meanwhile characterizing the ethics of rich folks is fair game I guess. No I am not whining about the latter. I can handle it (generally by ignoring it). I'm just exploring the parameters here.

The only person I find equivalent to krazen in that sense is opebo. And I think many people find his shtick about anything dealing with the U.S. economy tiresome at this point. There are people who may make nasty comments about rich people, but I don't think their persona is to only make nasty comments about rich people to goad people to respond to give them more chances to make nasty comments about rich people.

If krazen made obnoxious comments but seemed like he was actually engaging with people, then he'd be barfbag.

[Brittain33]

As to the post immediately above, fair point Brittain33 - and good insight. As to your penultimate post above, why are you so certain krazen does not actually believe what he believes, and is just in your face about it?  We have other posters like that, one of whom definitely has me on his sh*t list.

I think it's very likely he believes what he says. But I don't think he cares if we agree with him or not. Kind of like Rush Limbaugh.

[Brittain33]

Just posting this because I looked for the trolling and didn't see it... it's an actual contribution.

I was thinking the other day if NJ will require a 3rd VRA district maybe in the early 2030's because of the growth of the Hispanic Heavy Hudson County Suburbs.

That's particularly interesting, considering that a majority-black district may soon be impossible in NJ.

It seems like there's a broader trend of fewer majority-black districts, as residential segregation decreases and African-Americans become less concentrated in inner cities/the black belt. In the meantime, Hispanic-majority districts will become necessary, as the latino % of the population rises. That latter trend will be interesting, particularly because it'll necessitate a lot of close judicial examination of this question (which has already been big in TX): What % is necessary for Latinos to elect their candidate of choice?

Well, Sires' current district is 54.5% Hispanic, but the previous incarnation was below 50 percent and pretty consistently elected the Hispanic candidate of choice for some time (Menendez, then Sires).  I don't think you need to pack too heavily for the Hudson County district- but in many other areas you might.

Pascrell's current district will get less and less white over time, but the Hispanic population is sufficiently dispersed (yes, you have the urban centers of Paterson and Passaic and such, but a lot of the Hispanic growth is in the suburbs) that a second majority district is quite aways off.

I wonder if at some point there will be calls for an Asian-opportunity district based in Middlesex; that's a future scenario that I find more interesting.

Is there any evidence of racial bloc voting in the NJ suburbs among Hispanic and Asians? More particularly is there any evidence of bloc voting by whites to oppose the preferred candidate of the minority. If not, then the calls for such districts may be no more than asking the commission to consider a community of interest based on an ethnic group.

Such a district arises through neutral redistricting principles in any case merely by linking like minded towns directly along the Northeast Corridor/Route 1/Route 27.

Middlesex County could have been cleaved east/west rather than north/south as it was. But the GOP decided that Pallone should have a safe district.