As I've said numerous times over the months (years?), when it comes to political threads, I don't respond to people's posts for the person I'm responding to; I respond to people's posts for all of the people watching the thread who might actually learn something. I understand very much that I'm unlikely to convince conservatives I respond to of anything, but I know for a fact I've convinced various lurkers who might have previously considered themselves to he conservatives.
Respectfully and frankly, your posts tend to ramble nonsensically off-topic, and I generally find a lot of them to be difficult to respond to. They're not very concise, and I have to weed through a lot of irrelevant asides to find what needs to be responded to.
In reality, people of color face far more instances of police violence than their white counterparts. There is a double standard in this country where white people can protest COVID restrictions while armed, and unarmed Black people and protest systemic racism only to be met with police violence. There is an economic divide between Black people and White people because of the history of slavery and institutionalized racism. The slave ancestors of Black people started at zero when slavery ended, while White people started with all the wealth that they used to educate the next generation and pass on to them as well. Institutionalized racism such as red lining and job discrimination created a disadvantage for Black people, and the economic effects of this can still be seen today. Studies repeatedly show job discrimination when sending in the exact same resumes and only changing the race or the name in a way that suggests a racial difference.
There is inarguably systemic racism in this country, and I'm fatigued from addressing it so often to people who irrationally want to deny it. I don't use the word "inarguable" lightly. Unlike other issues (impeachment, minimum wage, etc.) arguing against someone who flatly denies systemic racism exists is like arguing against someone who claims the Earth is flat. At a point, you realize you're just banging your head against the wall.
Candidly: You; your privilege; your stubbornness; your refusal to educate yourself; your ignorance; your rambling irrelevant posts; your pretentiousness; your high horse; and frankly, your racism can fuck off. You don't need to tell me I'm doing a bad job convincing you of my view. That's not my goal, and you're not that important.
Complex topics require complex considerations, and have analogous actions that might indicate future events. If your lack of consideration for secondary impacts, costs and causes you to hyper focus and lurch from issue to issue then that is less than ideal from what I see, might even wander into the realm of sophistry. Show me the evidence, show me the rationale based on science, economics and the like is the default setting for me.
Arguing to the abstract is also where I often find myself, though I do enjoy a certain amount of devil's advocate if we end up a bit echo chambery, or one side or another is a bit weak or so not well represented. I suppose as an argumentative approach there are better options (there is a reason political ads of every stripe are so often appeal to emotion rather than rationality and devoid of hard data, same for adverts in general -- how many car or computer adverts deal in specifications rather than selling one on a lifestyle or aspiration).
It is also not the first time I have faced a charge of verbosity and a propensity for flowery language. There is a consideration that arguments are more than facts and figures and being able to persuade the man is useful, and while I would like to believe I consider how a person thinks (what their moral basis and moral logic, or general logic) in my approach to things I suppose my enjoyment of the art of language is a weakness. Maybe I will master it, or maybe I will doom myself to discussing with those also given to long form pondering.
On police violence. Is this unjustified violence? I am quite the fan of police action channels, raw and all sides of all spectrums. There are instances where "earning the hate" is the order of the day, though that is usually less in violence and more in procedure. I go through the list of people killed by police and the unjustified efforts are few and far between.
Armed protest? Because I was watching the Michigan stuff a few months ago. Press and local government railed against such rather than letting them skirt by.
I also watched the goings on in New York, Seattle and Portland. Nothing much doing there either despite ample justification to crack some skulls, and even less from the courts themselves.
Weak and ineffectual on all counts and all sides is how I would categorise the government counter protest efforts this last years and years prior.
Economic divide by dint of history. Certainly, some great history to study there as well. Not sure that counts as present systemic racism given much of it happened decades earlier. I would also be interested to see the magnitude of that -- it is generally held that wealth lasts but a few generations. Some also ponder the intact family thing (up to the 50s and all that) as that is often a greater predictor.
We are however back to wealth as the issue and not racism. Solve for education, opportunities and abilities to not get left behind and you solve far more issues than you ever might be putting two in the body and one in the head of the four or five people with a spicy flag in the garage, or canning any CEO or hiring manager you stick in an MRI and ask some questions about how they feel about black people that in turn answer poorly.
If it was a true and present issue (as opposed to a historical one) it would be born out in statistics (primary and secondary), in given instances (likely innumerable ones) and other forms of evidence. We can do it for any number of other things for physics, law, history, social debates, economics but so far nothing has been presented that we can dig into, and all the while I am looking at said list of things from the earlier posts wherein access to the larger culture, economic system, educational system, political office, business and whatever showcasing millions making it does rather sit there as a glaring counter. More can certainly be done, and some might even quite radical.
My privilege. If I have any it is barely above the level of noise vs other things that allowed me to get ahead. As a general concept I still find it dubious. However if it is one of your sacred cows I will leave it alone and we can discuss something of relevance.
My stubbornness. I would say my opinions are arrived at after long consideration of many laws of physics, economics, statistical analysis, psychology, political theory, legal theory and more besides. It is a technique that serves me very well in most other areas when it comes to designing systems, predicting outcomes, making things for people to use and the like, and a fail to see why it would not serve here either. To that end the onus would be on others where I misread the stats, why the stats presented are flawed, why the risk-reward analysis I might have done on a given topic might be flawed, where I might have fluffed some maths or need a more in depth understanding. It is however also a position I accord to others I am debating with and assume they performed a similar analysis, this despite evidence to the contrary on so many occasions.
My pretentiousness. I am just a guy having a giggle on the internet, on a topic that is comparable in seriousness to the quality of the latest EA sequel we otherwise end up discussing. If I went pop tomorrow or lived another 100 years then nobody would care or likely be terribly impacted by it, give or take butterfly effect. Same as likely everybody else here (I doubt there are
many undercover movers and shakers, or future ones, perusing this). Make a charge that sticks next time.
My high horse. That is likely covered by other replies in to that paragraph.
My racism. Recall the but a couple of lines ago about making a charge that sticks. Proving ones purity is a hard task, though generally the burden is on the one making the claim so I shall await that. I will however say I find a laughable notion/charge against me and figure you have a better chance of making a case for me committing some space piracy than you do that one.
...
@
Vetusomaru:
@
SylverReZ:
