The Virginia Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of High-Quality Posts

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

For those of you who don't know the story behind this, a while ago Admiral President made a timeline called "Misfire", where Oswald's gun jams and JFK Lives. The first reply was a comment by FDB saying "go on", and there were quite a few people (including me) who empty quoted this. Eventually, one user said our empty quoting had gotten out of hand, but another user decided to not only again empty quote FDB's go on, but to empty quote the user who had said the empty quoting had got out of hand, and to merge these two empty quotes. From then on the entire thread was just people merging empty quotes to see just how big we could get this empty quote. The final empty quote, dear reader, before a mod deleted the thread, looked like this:

[snip]

"Misfire" - the greatest thread in the history of forums, deleted by a moderator after 3 pages of heated empty-quoting,

I wasn't going to delete each empty-quoting post.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

About 20% of them will be normal, well-adjusted members of society.

40% of them will spend every waking moment being triggered by everything.  They will treat Buzzfeed as a legitimate news source.  Each one of them will have a unique gender.

40% of them will spend every waking moment thinking about cuckoldry.  They will go onto 4chan every day, which they think makes them very enlightened.  Each one of them will have their own podcast, the name of which will be a very cringeworthy holocaust pun.

Each of these groups will view the other as an enemy.  However, Only the first group will reproduce in large numbers, so the next generation will be okay.

[PragmaticPopulist]

Well I didn't get banned in about two days from AAD due to a mass outcry from just about everyone there upon registering like the OP...

I've also never defended child pornography or flooded with forum with NSFW content in my signature.

[wxtransit]

For those of you who don't know the story behind this, a while ago Admiral President made a timeline called "Misfire", where Oswald's gun jams and JFK Lives. The first reply was a comment by FDB saying "go on", and there were quite a few people (including me) who empty quoted this. Eventually, one user said our empty quoting had gotten out of hand, but another user decided to not only again empty quote FDB's go on, but to empty quote the user who had said the empty quoting had got out of hand, and to merge these two empty quotes. From then on the entire thread was just people merging empty quotes to see just how big we could get this empty quote. The final empty quote, dear reader, before a mod deleted the thread, looked like this:

Can I assume that this TL is dead?

Why would it be dead?

Because all the useless messages and quote chains.

But that's the best part!

Can we stop with these quoting from a quote that quotes from a quote, etcera etcera?

Go on

Can we stop with these quoting from a quote that quotes from a quote, etcera etcera?

Get out.

This thread was a mistake.

The only mistake here is you outing yourself as a blasphemer!

When can we expect the first update?

I think this may have gotten a little bit out of hand.

Agreed. Are we going to actually wait for an update, or make this gargantuan quote chain even longer?

Make it longer. Why the hell not!

What the hell happened to my timeline

You didn't update quick enough, that's what happened. If you had just posted an update earlier First Degree Burns wouldn't have posted "Go on", and the quote chain wouldn't have started. So basically, it's all your fault.

I love the person that quoted me, even though I completely never posted in that thread. This was before my write-in campaign, so it must have been like one of the three people that knew of me back then.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Both Texas, Georgia, and Florida have distinct traits that make it such that from what I can tell, aren't exactly good examples. For Georgia, outside of (Democratic-controlled) Atlanta, the state isn't doing too well. For Texas, a big driver of the economy is the oil industry, which is a caveat that other states lack. Lastly, Florida has an economy built largely on tourism, much more so than any other state - it's literally called the Sunshine State - and the aerospace industry (favors from the U.S. government).

Even if the point above can be completely discarded, there are still two glaring fallacies:

• There needs to be an effective cause-effect relationship proven between "supply-side economics" and "economic growth", which has not been proven.
• Disproving examples of where supply-side economics have failed requires addressing the situations directly, not just using whataboutism and pointing to a different example...and this deflection suggests a lack of ability to justify these clear failures of supply-side economics (needlessly cutting taxes on the rich --> massive budget deficits --> social programs cut).

I generally harbor this sentiment:

There is no one-size-fits-all economic policy. That said supply side as it's typically described is generally a terrible idea without significant wealth redistribution programs.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Moderate DINOs hate her because she's a young, attractive, military veteran with a Non-Interventionist Foreign policy and Left-Wing economic policies who doesn't scream about #metoo and Transgenders all the time like Gillibrand.

No, instead she advocates for multiple leaders who support the mass killings of Muslims in their own countries.

Her left-wing economic policies don't mask the fact that she's far-right socially. Which of course is exactly what you want, which is why you like her so much.

Is she though? I realize her father opposes(ed) gay marriage, but she's one of the leading voices to decriminalize weed in the House.

"Sure, she called people who want gay marriage 'homosexual extremists,' but at least she supports making weed less illegal!"

My issues with her are:
-her shaky record on LGBTQ+ rights. Despite her current lip service to preserving my right to exist, I don't entirely trust her due to her previous statements
-meeting Assad
-supporting Assad
-the Hindu nationalist stuff isn't great
-I'm suspicious of any Democrat praised by Republicans (Steve Bannon, Bill Kristol, etc.)
-was very slow to endorse Hillary after Bernie lost

My problems with Bernie are:
-his ideas are good but he had no real feasible plans to actually get them through Congress
-would not have been able to actually get anything done
-Republicans would have used MUH SOCIALISM to hammer him in the General, and if he somehow won that, they would have clobbered the Dems in 2018 and 2020, probably giving President Cotton or whoever supermajorities to work with starting in 2021, who would then reverse anything Sanders managed to accomplish, and then some
-civil rights is a huge issue to me and he seems to view the rights of racial and sexual minorities as less important than the issues of "ordinary Americans," by which I can only assume he means straight white people, since I know a ton of people who aren't white and/or straight but are what I'd describe as "ordinary Americans" concerned about healthcare, taxes, and other "bread and butter" issues
-his die-hard supporters are obnoxious as , and this is coming from someone who supported him in the primaries

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Early contender for best post of the year:

Context:

Badger, RINO Tom, PNM, TheSaint250, Santander, Mortimer

Excuse me, but I'm probably more ideologically in line with more of the GOP's policy stances (abortion, death penalty, quasi-stricter immigration) than any of these other delusional RINOs, even if I'm the only one who is not lying to myself in that I should not be a Republican.

Perhaps, yet the others maintain a pretense of support for the GOP insomuch as they want to fix its problems and improve it, whereas your signature appears to flaunt a wish for its destruction and disingenuous primary voting.

The GOP is beyond repair, and thankfully it appears you are self-aware enough to realize that, as evidenced by your "Conservative" (or is it "Constitution"?) party avatar.

So yes, I am actively rooting for the party's demise. We need a healthy alternative to the Democratic Party. Not a party for resentful degenerates who pride themselves on ignorance and being the "true Americans" party while unironically flying the Confederate flag on their vehicles.

Until then, I will vote for Democrats in every single general election and for the most unelectable Republican in the primary. It's not like there's much of a difference between someone like Joe Arpaio and Martha McSally anyhow from a policy standpoint.

So what do you hope to accomplish by such a strategy? I fail to see how you expect to actually improve matters by doing that. I mean, have you tried convincing the people you hate to think otherwise? It's not like once you blow up the Republicans whatever takes their place won't be the same thing with a different label unless they're convinced it should be otherwise.

I changed my avatar to the Constitution Party after Trump's nomination because I could not support his candidacy and wanted to make that statement of protest--without pandering to the travesty of a movement the Never Trumpers turned into. I too am disgusted with what the Republican Party is. I'm disgusted by the vast market of scam artists trying to fleece money out of gullible older people with PACs that will never accomplish anything more than cashing a check. I'm disgusted by all the racial crap. I'm disgusted by Trump's conduct. I'm disgusted by the blatant corruption in the Republican's economic policies designed to help donors rather than ordinary people. I'm disgusted by the lunatic conspiracy theory laden mess that is the "conservative media". I'm disgusted by the anti-rational views within the party. I'm disgusted by the piss-poor excuse for social conservatives who are a walking caricature. But the thing that disgusts me most of all, about Trump, and about his opponents even more so, is the kind of destructive nihilism that merely wants to burn things down rather than build something. Any smarmy prick can go around making fun of people; it's way easier to attack others than to actually believe in and defend a set of principles because when a person attacks they can lob a smorgasbord of  sarcastic insults without having to worry about whether those criticisms are consistent with each other. It may make for effective political campaigns but it's a garbage strategy for governing a civilization.

The degree of rote hatred for the Trump folks from his opponents is simply mind-boggling to me. I didn't vote for him, but many of my friends and family did. I don't comprehend why people are unable to view Trump supporters as people, however misguided, generally trying to make the best of a bad situation. I think people fail to recognize that acting in good faith and in a genuine manner is often more important that having the right views. I know politicians don't do that, and I'm not really expecting them to, but this situation will not improve until ordinary people are willing to look act in good faith.

So you want the Democrats to win. Fine. Then work to make them better. But if you want to make your enemies worse rather than your side better, then you are what's wrong with America.

[YE]

I'm proud of folks like myself that go to work every day, regardless of whether or not their employers kept faith with them.  Who took 2nd jobs to ensure their families had what they need, because their work was not valued as much as the investment of stockholders or the complaining of rich taxpayers.  I'm proud of folks who went to work and delayed gratification; who didn't view themselves as automatically entitled, and who didn't quit, even when it was clear that everything wasn't going to turn out according to their hopes and dreams.

There are poor folks who have given it all they have.  I respect them.  There are poor folks who never attempted to work steadily, and who never viewed it as their responsibility to make their own way in life.  I have little respect for them.  And I don't respect yuppies and rich types who are ungrateful for what they have, never mindful of how much less others that have worked as hard as them do not have.

I respect work.  I respect perseverance.  I don't respect sloth and I don't respect quitters and those that won't try at life.

So you think it's okay that middle aged people complain about their jobs no longer existing because of technology?

I hate how middle aged people think that the government should enforce socialism and repress technological progress to ensure that their job still exists.

It's your own fault if the free market leaves you behind.

FWIW, I'm not a "middle aged" person.  I'm 61 years old.  Old enough to be your Grandpa, sonny.  I work, my wife works, we are raising our 12 year old son (a grandson we adopted out of necessity) and caring for a disabled adult family member while her husband (one of my grown sons) attends college following a serious on-the-job industry, after which the "fee market" screwed him out of his rightful healthcare.  You're young enough to be my grandson, and, in all likelihood, your biggest loss was probably when some hot looking girl dumped you without warning.  I could be wrong, but in my experience, folks who experience real tragedy (My Father died on my 10th birthday, for example.) have a wee bit more empathy than to view those less fortunate than them as losers in the game of "Free Markets".  (Old as I am, I can turn on the "condescending jets" when I need to rebut some of the same.)

One thing that middle aged folks face when they "retrain" for new careers, or upgrade their skill bases, is Age Discrimination.  The job search process (mostly all online today) preempts much pavement pounding, and is designed to increase the distance between job applicants and employers.  If I were to submit my resume, folks would immediately calculate my age and make decisions.  I'm viewed as someone who'll be sick a lot, who'll be tired, who'll be out-worked by younger hotshots, who'll be inflexible, etc.  Most older workers are far more open-minded and flexible than they're given credit for, but most hiring managers are young enough to be my son/daughter, and I'm sure they project any number of issues they have with their parents onto an older applicant like myself. 

I'm not feeling sorry for myself, but I'm also old enough to remember a Social Contract which included long-term security for workers who were loyal and faithful; it was a Social Contract that built Middle Class America.  I'm now told by snot-nosed Hedge Fund Manager Wannabes that this is somehow "socialism".  It's kind of like my car dealer singing one song the day I singed the contract for Gap Insurance when I bought my car, and another song when my car was totalled in a 5 car chain-reaction accident caused by a Smartphone Addict.  Folks tell my generation that we didn't play the Capitalist Game skillfully enough only AFTER they sucked the best working years out of our lives, making promises along the way that were often not kept.

The snot-nosed yuppies of MY generation trashed the middle class for the folks of my adult sons' generation.  And I look at my 12 year old son.  What is the motto for America going to be for him?  "Move It Or Lose It !"?  "Only The Strong Survive"?  My son has ADHD; will his willingness to work and his loving character mean nothing in the Social Darwinist World of 2030s Yuppie Hedge Fund Managers?  Is the America you have planned for him one where he is consigned to an underclass if he's a Capitalist Non-Hacker?  I see this as the World folks are creating for my Grandchildren's generation, and I weep at the thought of it.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Anti-progressive?  Do we really need a new word to replace "reactionary"?

Are the only two options here "progressive" and "reactionary"? I mean, there are a zillion ideologies: liberal, libertarian, nationalist, mercantilist, interventionist, etc. that are neither inherently progressive nor inherently reactionary. It makes perfect sense to say Trump is neither progressive nor reactionary, though he is clearly actively anti-progressive while he couldn't care less about reactionaries.

Whether Trump himself is really reactionary is beside the point. His whole campaign was waged on classic reactionary themes such as Make America Great Again that invoke a past that never was.

[JA]

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.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Context:

But it's a delusional belief, the equivalent of when some fringe Democrats cliam that Republicans are going to kick all black people out of the country. Corbyn has a poor judge of character which has led him to become associated with Anti-Semites due to factional blindness, but no more than your beloved right-wing parties which see Jewish Soros-led conspiracies everywhere.

The Tory government which is the "bulster" against Corbyn has promoted Alan Duncan into ministerial position. The Trump administration is well-known to employ and associate itself with Anti-Semites. Silvio Berlusconi, a man with a long history of Anti-Semitic "banter" (and has promoted the granddaughter of Mussolini, who follows her grandfather's views) will soon take control of Italy in open coalition with parties that directly expouse fascist rhetoric. Shinzo Abe keeps as his deputy a man who has repeatedly praised Hitler and the Nazis, and has had several of his cabinet members outed as Nazis. etc

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Re: Thomas Jefferson political party

Clearly Democratic. He would balk at the sight of the plutocratic Republican party, and their desire to concentrate power in the hands of the few.

Broadly speaking, history has very rarely been about "big govt vs. small govt", otherwise the French Revolutionaries would be considered right-wing. Rather, it is about studying power structures and competing interests.

This concept of the government providing for its people through things such as social welfare was largely proposed during the Progressive Era, over a century after Jefferson. The very function of today's government would have made absolutely no sense to people before the Progressive Era, let alone to people before the Industrial Revolution. The government of Jefferson's era largely had one goal: to protect private property. The underlying left-wing basis that ties the left to government intervention, wealth distribution through social programs, simply did not exist.

During this pre-industrial era, the majority of America lived in an agrarian society. Jefferson had a very idealized view of this agrarianism; a world of self-sufficient farmers, with no wages and no real hierarchies* (*for white men). This was in opposition to the free-market industrial capitalists of the day, who largely envisioned a class-based society. The industrial capitalists benefited from policy such as road and port upgrades, so that they could trade their goods on the open market, while Jefferson and his vision of the self-sufficient farmer had no need for such policy; thus, they saw taxes that funded these projects as money going directly to the rich elites.

It soon becomes clear how Jefferson is more similar to the modern Democratic Party, and how the Federalists are more similar to the Republican Party. This is precisely why FDR believed himself to be the ideological heir of Jefferson and Jackson (despite being the most "big government" president ever), and why the Democratic Party had begun to hold Jefferson-Jackson dinners in the late 40s (when Truman, a Democrat, desegregated the military and spawned a segregationist revolt). Though, to be fair, expecting right-libertarians to understand historical context is a little bit demanding.

[RINO Tom]

Re: Thomas Jefferson political party

Clearly Democratic. He would balk at the sight of the plutocratic Republican party, and their desire to concentrate power in the hands of the few.

Broadly speaking, history has very rarely been about "big govt vs. small govt", otherwise the French Revolutionaries would be considered right-wing. Rather, it is about studying power structures and competing interests.

This concept of the government providing for its people through things such as social welfare was largely proposed during the Progressive Era, over a century after Jefferson. The very function of today's government would have made absolutely no sense to people before the Progressive Era, let alone to people before the Industrial Revolution. The government of Jefferson's era largely had one goal: to protect private property. The underlying left-wing basis that ties the left to government intervention, wealth distribution through social programs, simply did not exist.

During this pre-industrial era, the majority of America lived in an agrarian society. Jefferson had a very idealized view of this agrarianism; a world of self-sufficient farmers, with no wages and no real hierarchies* (*for white men). This was in opposition to the free-market industrial capitalists of the day, who largely envisioned a class-based society. The industrial capitalists benefited from policy such as road and port upgrades, so that they could trade their goods on the open market, while Jefferson and his vision of the self-sufficient farmer had no need for such policy; thus, they saw taxes that funded these projects as money going directly to the rich elites.

It soon becomes clear how Jefferson is more similar to the modern Democratic Party, and how the Federalists are more similar to the Republican Party. This is precisely why FDR believed himself to be the ideological heir of Jefferson and Jackson (despite being the most "big government" president ever), and why the Democratic Party had begun to hold Jefferson-Jackson dinners in the late 40s (when Truman, a Democrat, desegregated the military and spawned a segregationist revolt). Though, to be fair, expecting right-libertarians to understand historical context is a little bit demanding.

Came here to post that.  Won't stop some 15-year old libertarian from saying otherwise, though.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Goes without saying that this is a horrible tragedy, and as much as I know it's insensitive to be "that guy", let's just wait and see how many "thoughts and prayers" tweets and statements go out. It hasn't worked before, but maybe this time it will.

Let's face it: this nation views school shootings as a regular part of our zeitgeist. Nothing concrete has been done (and I'm not talking about just gun control here) to at least try and stop these types of massacres from happening, therefore we are all complicit in the murders of these kids. It is quite literally the price we have agreed to pay for the right to own guns...a right that many of us choose not to even exercise. This is not me saying "ban guns" because I personally don't think that's the solution (or if it's even a solution) yet how much longer can we pretend that these shootings are "tragic" without actually trying to prevent them?

We're all complicit. No one wants to try solutions, conservatives, liberals, progressives, what have you. After Sandy Hook, I accepted that if we did not rally together immediately to try and find some kind of solution, we never would. And we haven't.

[Landslide Lyndon]

It's more wide reaching than that.

'THE GREATESY COUNTRY ON EARTH' can't accept psychologically that it has a problem with anything, from guns, to healthcare to education that other countries clearly do better with because you're told and tell yourself that America is 'TGCOE.'

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

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.

Gee, I don’t know. Maybe the fact that in places like New York City, there are jurisdictions where black people are ten to twelve times more likely to undergo stop-and-frisk than white people. Maybe the fact that black people have consistently been given worse or no education until 40-50 years ago affects the culture. Maybe the fact that FDR’s redlining continues to affect the black community to this day* has something to do with it. Maybe the fact that “certain neighborhoods” - that just happen to be black, regardless of income, - to this day have a heavier police presence than white neighborhoods results in more blacks being caught committing crimes. Yet we continue to see black people and BLM stereotyped as “violent thugs who hate the police” because of a few dozen marchers. Yet we continue to advocate for these “law and order” policies. Now you tell me - have I responded earnestly to THIS question?


*Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/upshot/how-redlinings-racist-effects-lasted-for-decades.html

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

It's not so much a matter of choosing an investigative tool, so much as noticing certain things instinctively. What I noticed with Jefferson--in opposition to Adams--when I read both of their biographies was the view of history. And this is important in a way that petty issues are not. Adam's philosophy was one of continuity. The radicals that he saw in the French Revolution in his mind wanted to burn all of history. History was the foundation upon which the modern world rested. Jefferson--in his more whimsical and radical moments--was more than willing to indulge in this character. The tree of liberty and so forth. This, I have felt for a while--and partially as a matter of luck, in that it is what I stumbled upon--is one of the philosophical dividing lines between conservatives and liberals (or worse) during the era. Patrick Henry found himself moving to the right by the mid-1790's as he saw the Revolution get out of hand. To put a more modern spin on the conservative/liberal divide, let us note that, upon Jefferson's victory in 1800, a Connecticut woman rushed over to her friend's house, clutching a Bible. "Hide this. They'll never suspect you. You're a Democrat!" There were those on the Federalist fringe who actually thought Jefferson would ban the Bible! Hell, it was the Federalists that even early marked themselves off as the nationalists of the two camps--the Jeffersonian view of the world wanted a world marked by agrarian free trade. The Hamiltonian model was one of national self-sufficiency and effective isolation.

Honestly, the most confusing time periods for demarcating the 'liberal/conservative' distinction between the two parties is, in my opinion, probably the second and third party systems. But the Federalist/Republican era, and the Gilded Age, onward help to draw lines pretty friggin' clearly.

[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.

Gee, I don’t know. Maybe the fact that in places like New York City, there are jurisdictions where black people are ten to twelve times more likely to undergo stop-and-frisk than white people. Maybe the fact that black people have consistently been given worse or no education until 40-50 years ago affects the culture. Maybe the fact that FDR’s redlining continues to affect the black community to this day* has something to do with it. Maybe the fact that “certain neighborhoods” - that just happen to be black, regardless of income, - to this day have a heavier police presence than white neighborhoods results in more blacks being caught committing crimes. Yet we continue to see black people and BLM stereotyped as “violent thugs who hate the police” because of a few dozen marchers. Yet we continue to advocate for these “law and order” policies. Now you tell me - have I responded earnestly to THIS question?


*Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/upshot/how-redlinings-racist-effects-lasted-for-decades.html

>Complains about how "no one wants to discuss how bad black people are!!!!!!!1!11!1!!11!!"
>Gets two actually it's five detailed, fairly comprehensive responses that thoroughly refute his view of 13%+ of the American population and explain why the few things he says about minorities that are true are the way that they are
>Doesn't respond

Huh. Maybe he's "listening," but Fuzzy Bear sure isn't "having a conversation."

[TJ in Oregon]

lol people who live in a bubble and never struggled for anything coming in and saying society is crumbling. go buy your $5 latte and $10 toast and opine about the fall of America

It takes a lot of $5 lattes to match the monthly payment for a pickup truck that is far more expensive to buy and keep fueled than some compact car that is more practical. The people who have bought those overpriced pickup trucks that are more vehicle than they need (you can rent one when you really need one unless you are in a business that needs one, in which case you can afford buying the truck outright) have typically struggled all their lives, and in view of how they vote (that sounds like a Trump voter) they are in just as big a bubble as those who can afford the $5 latte and $10 toast.

I live in a rural area drowning in meth and opiates -- a part of Michigan that is basically eastern Kentucky without the hills. If you can't imagine what parental drug use does to kids...  I have no children, but you can imagine what I would want them to think about certain things. Children should not grow up thinking that the police are the "Blue Meanies" because they bust their parents' meth lab or arrest parents when they get into a fight. The problem isn't that meth is illegal; the problem is that meth messes people up so badly that it makes police action necessary.

We have a mass culture that denigrates formal learning, and any kid who grows up in it will be handicapped in competition with adults who as kids have taken school seriously. That mass culture does even more harm to kids than Jim Crow racism did to blacks. We reel now as a culture that treated sexual harassment as a perquisite of power until recently unravels on sexual conduct of some people with very high profiles -- including the current President. OK, so we are doing some things about it, which indicates that we are not crumbling as badly as we would be if we simply shrugged it off.

Our educational system does little even at the undergraduate level to shape the potential leaders of our society (that includes the college graduate who gets a job at the auto plant and becomes a shop steward with the UAW, so that is a leader) the capital to make moral choices at some personal sacrifice. Because life for our college graduates often has its focus on sex, material gain and indulgence, bureaucratic power, and entertainment and our society treats those who can give up any one of those for principle as schmucks, such an old standard as

Do not lie, cheat, or steal; do not tolerate lying, cheating, or stealing by others

becomes "Go ahead, but just don't get caught."

People who have the choice between the morally-good life and living large but are smart enough to know the consequences of a vile social order aren't making the choice for moral goodness.
And, yes, our political system is in bad shape. America is badly polarized because identity matters more than quality, and because our legislative branch is under the control of lobbyists. Yes, that was as true with Barack Obama as it is with Donald Trump; Obama resisted the trend, but Trump exults in it. "Constituent service" used to mean the people in one's district; it now means giving spoils to those who hire the lobbyists.

...I'm not going to disparage the $5 latte or the $10 toast; the American consumer society depends upon people making consumer choices and not living in ashes and sack-cloth. The consumer society is what has kept America from facing a proletarian revolution.

[Atlas Force]

It would be better to nominate no one then to nominate Moser. Moser would do active harm to the Texas Democratic party because she's a sneering costal elitist who said she'd rather have her teeth pulled then live in Texas.

The fact that the far left is coming to the defense of a wealthy carpetbagger with abject contempt for the people she's running to "represent" just because the Democratic party also opposes her is the closest thing I've seen to horseshoe theory in action. You might as well come to the defense of Mitt Romney. Just because the DCCC is against her doesn't mean she's a good candidate, you effing morons.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Reaganfan's reported posts do not amount to enough to justify a ban at this time.

Are you f#$king kidding, Brittain?!?!? 

Perhaps no one reports because no one--quite justifiably--believes doing so matters for $hit with the current moderation "values" and double-standards in place?

As noted by others, Naso has done this for YEARS as has been REPEATEDLY AND CONSISTENTLY reported as the subjects of COUNTLESS threads!

Look, I'm willing to give mods some break in terms of infractability being in the eye of the beholder. HOWEVER, to claim Naso has an insufficient record of WELL-documented and grossly racist, homophobic, anti-Latino, Islamophobic, and now anti-Semitic posts is simply 2+2=5 factually WRONG!

I literally can NOT believe you of all people just tried claiming that with a straight face.

I now read there's a temp ban for Naso (not sure how long). That still doesn't change a word of what I've posted above.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

It’s not all that consequential that people would download the maps before they were removed from the site.  Anyone fimiliar with the various election pages of Wikipedia would already know that the templates can be found in other parts of the worldwide web.  At the time, the removal of the maps was a symbolic gesture: a way to bring attention to the fact that I believed that this forum, which was formed with purely academic purposes in mind, had been compromised to the point where it was not worthy to hold the content for which it was intended.  

Given the rencent events regarding Naso’s temporary ban, I am considering being them back.  However, as the creator of these templates, I reserve my right to not bring them back either.

For what it's worth, I am not going to take into account your views regarding whether these templates should be on this forum. I'd happily load them up again if necessary, regardless of your opinion on that front.
The map-making community on Atlas should not have to pay for the fact Naso might still be posting on here. I am not willing to leave you in the position to call all the shots when you seem willing to take your templates away as hostages. There might be a situation where such a reaction might be justified, hypothetically. This ain't one of those.

Tim, I'm genuinely saddened and sorry that you feel that way.  However, I must disagree with you on several points.  First all, I don't believe that the reduction of the maps will deal a serious blow to the map making community.  As stated, the maps are already featured on several other outlets, including Election Maps Co. (a Facebook spin-off of this forum that most map nerds are already familiar with), which I believe feature all the templates and maps in their original color code as well as providing outlets for discussion, or even Wikipedia (although the colors are switched for Democrats and Republicans, most people here can adjust to blue=Dem, red=GOP as many of us are already familiar with the color scheme used in the rest of the United States).  The only point of not featuring them on the forum itself is due to the hostile nature of discourse which has made its way to the forum.

Speaking of discourse, many of the map makers here rarely post here anyways.  This is due to a combination of factors: one, many map makers (myself in particular) have covered so many maps that there are already so little left to contribute.  The second, and my most critical point, is that many posters who may offer much in the contribution of political geography may not post as often because they do not see this forum as the most desirable outlet for such contributions.  In my humble opinion, concern trolls, white nationalists, and people who intentionally post hackish material are a toxic element for which few people want to put up with.  Hell, even I avoid the forum due to the demoralizing nature of some discussions, and I've been posting here for almost a decade.  Think of how intimidated non-members and younger potential posters must feel wading through the often mean spirited, hate-filled discourse that occupies the various threads of this forum.  I believe that if the forum is going to survive and gain traction for new membership and discussion, we have to police harder to ensure a pleasant environment.

As younger individuals are the perfect target demographic to join in introduce new content, I think it's important to point out that many of these people are more likely to to non-white, or even immigrants who are attending college due to green card status or even DACA.  I go to school with numerous individuals who fit these traits, many of whom are working their asses off just to gain the skills necessary for employment.  They are not sub-par individuals.  In fact, I'd bet that they work infinitely harder to than those who post hateful content in the various boards on this forum, and could provide substantially more content in the span of a few weeks than posters like Naso has over the course of 15 years.  To go SJW, I believe people should not have to endure prejudice based on their nationality or the color of their skin, but by the content of their character (MLK).  By refusing to create a hate-filled environment, we dissuade those who have the most potential to contribute to the forum as a whole.  

This post is not refutation of my decision to possibly bring back removed content, but is an explanation for the actions which have already transpired.  Although I would prefer it that you would not bring back the maps, as an act of good faith I will not contest any maps which you link on this forum.  However, I believe we should use whatever practical (non-violent, verbally peaceful/passive resistance) if we are to encourage real change.  

[Cold War Liberal]

Wow, I'm actually surprised at all the people who care about representation instead of hiding behind all that "we must appeal to the WWC so we must not speak of identity politics" BS that has been the default Atlas mindset for so long.

Representation matters. I've lived 20 years on this planet as an Asian male, 17 of them in the United States. I have experienced racial abuse myself, whether it's other people saying "ching chong" to my face, or strangers assuming that I know complex math but not English. On the Internet, including these very forums, I see all sorts of abuse, saying how people who look like me should all be dead or deported because we eat dogs and are taking peoples' jobs. I can't speak for the experiences of other people of color on Atlas, or of women on Atlas, but I'm sure they have their stories.

Representation matters. To some, as I have mentioned, I don't belong in this country because I'm an immigrant from China. We're not American, even though we built the transcontinental railroad and advanced American science and technology to soaring heights. To some, black people like RFKfan are not true Americans, even though America was built on the backs of black slaves and black laborers, that American culture would be virtually unrecognizable without their contribution to music and the arts. Ditto for Hispanics, ditto for gay people, ditto for women. And what have we all gotten in return? Racism, sexism, all sorts of -isms. That we don't deserve a voice. That we don't deserve a leader who is one of our brothers and sisters. That we don't deserve sh*t except ignorance and disrespect.

Representation matters. In the past few weeks, we had a Black superhero smash box office records, a slate of Asian-American Olympians proudly going for the gold, and a young Hispanic woman as the face of a nationwide gun control movement. These people are more than just movers and shakers; they are inspirations. Black Panther was a huge force among Black people because it told them that they needed not to be slaves or criminals; they can be scientists and superheroes. Likewise when Linsanity was a thing; it told Asian-Americans that they needed not to be nerdy weaklings, that they can play ball just as well as their Black and White counterparts. And before that, on that one fateful day in 2008, the son of a Kenyan politician and a white woman from Kansas had a message. You too, no matter who you are or what color your skin is, can be president.

Representation matters. It is not a panacea. Needless to say, America did not become a postracial society after 2008, and it will not no matter who the next Democrat president is. Ditto if the next president of color or the first woman or LGBT president is a Republican. Neither Ben Carson nor Ted Cruz are friends to most black or Hispanic people (or anyone really). But representation does not mean nothing. The first woman, Hispanic, Asian, etc. president will inspire millions from historically underrepresented groups to go into politics and make change. That is not nothing. That is something. And it also sends a message to the haters and losers who think that America was made solely for straight Christian white men. We're here, we're American, and we're gonna roll.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I don't think it's all that different from the so-called "states rights" movement. It's never about rights, but about subjugating a particular group.

As I see, having authority shouldn't be seen as a "right". There's a reason that the founding fathers talked about the states having "powers" and not "rights".

That's absolutely right. The Bill of Rights are not really rights, but are actually restrictions on the state.

So-called "parental rights" have nothing to do with any tangible right. It's all about ensuring older whites keep power as long as they can. "Parental rights" is almost always about being able to strike your child, marry your child away, cut your child's genitals, and/or force religious dogma despite their opposition.

All three of them.

[Landslide Lyndon]

This may be a bullet well dodged. That's one of the few redeeming qualities about Trump: he exposes "good" people for the hypocritical, self-serving, pompous cockroaches that they really are (or as Rick Wilson appropriately put it, "Everything Trump touches dies"). You really think that a Secretary of State Mitt Romney would be harsh to his boss's puppet master? Gimme a break. Romney would drop to his knees for Putin quicker than he did for Trump. The strange adoration that some have for him on this forum is nauseating. If anyone needs to go into the woods and take up knitting, it's this man.

P.S. You all trying to "convince" jfern that Russia is bad is as pointless as trying to make Trump see the light on the issue. Like the orange moron at the White House Mar-a-Lago, no matter how much evidence is produced, he's not going to believe it because it undermines his core theory that Hillary lost because she's a "neoliberal something something warmongering something corporatist something something Goldman Sachs something transcripts" Satan Incarnate. Putin could come out and publicly admit that he interfered in the election with the sole intention of defeating Hillary and jfern would still have his head buried deep in the sand and be spouting off his typical nonsense that Debbie Wasserman Schultz, John Podesta, and the DNC are the bigger threats to democracy. Best way to deal with him is just to ignore him when it involves anything Russia/Hillary related because you know he's voluntarily not living in reality on that subject and is just going to use more of the same ole tired, right-wing Russian propagandist talking points that they use over at the mother ship.