The American Politics Thread

rushfan4 wrote: https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/letters/2017/08/15/clinton-was-right-about-deplorables-now-they-storming-out-basket/4Uac7SNZZozi8AyAix6UiN/story.html I guess this is the point that I am trying to make.  Nothing has really changed all that much.  Hillary pointed out this basket of deplorables during the campaign and all that it did was energize Trump and his supporters.  Are we really all that surprised that Trump responded how he did?  People are acting as though "now he has crossed the line and gone too far" but as far as I can tell he is just being consistent. I have no idea how this clown got elected but it worked for him then, and honestly, I wonder if we are delusioning ourselves if we think that anything has changed because of his remarks.  The people that hated him then still hate him now and have been quite vocal about it since day one of his election but sadly this mostly just comes across as sour grapes. From what I can gather, the people who voted for him then only because they hated Hillary, may regret his behavior and that he is such a buffoon, but they would still rather not have Hillary.  I just don't think that this is the game changer that the Democrats are hoping that it is.

SteveG wrote: Sean Trane wrote: Two more X's and the Dems win the game!

Playing the game of dick wack dope. 5 x's and you ein.

I am sick and tired of our politics at the moment.  The Stephanie Miller Show always cheers me up.  A little at least. http://https://www.stephaniemiller.com/

^ in fact to add to that sense of history we are living in.

Edited by micky - August 19 2017 at 07:55

micky wrote: Nah...  See the guy who looks like he stepped right off the top of a wedding cake... he was the important X. The whole lot of the others.. including Trump.. buffoons. Dangerous in their own way... but limited to what they could do by their own buffoonery, inexperience.  As the last 7 months have shown... cleaning up after Bush took all Obama could do... cleaning up after Trump.. piece of cake. His damage is more to the social fabric of the nation rather than anything he actually does himself assuming he keeps us out of a Asiatic War. Pence though is a true domestic danger...  and why again Trump is gone next year if Mueller finds what we suspect he will find.  Trump was not part of the Republican Party.. nor was truly supported by it ...he simply took it over.. and is f**king up their brand name.  Pence though.. he is one of them... and a very dangerous right wing fundie social activist. Something Trump is not. Unless Trump does a complete 180 and things continue as they have.  Trump will be gone if Mueller gives Congress political cover with their own voters to save their own asses for the midterms and attempt to preserve any chance of winning in 2020.

Yes! Pence scares me. Trump is just so incompetent at his job that we might be better off with him. Then again, Trump is so clearly unhinged that ousting him may be necessary. The cost may be elevating the VP to POTUS and, having sound experience in government, he may not be quite so incompetent in pushing his agenda and message. I just don't know.

^ again... bingo.   I assume most of you aint'  black...  and knowing most of you generally. You aint' from the south. Racism.. is VERY much alive.  Whites aren't shot for being white... blacks still are.  

Edited by micky - August 19 2017 at 11:58

rushfan4 wrote: HackettFan wrote: rushfan4 wrote: I'm not quite sure what HackettFan is trying to get at with his post, but I assume it is because I do not have a PhD in linguistics (congrats on that by the way).  The only reason that I typed the word Black in bold was to stress the word that people to tend to have a problem with in that catchphrase.  Yes, you were adequately describing what their problem with it was by placing 'black' in bold. And I explained that that does not comport with what any and every native speaker understands about the language. They are being disingenuous by forming that interpretation. They are changing its meaning. Let's put it this way. A 'Black lives matter' activist would speak in a fashion as to put the sentence stress on 'matter' (place 'matter' in bold). This is the normal default way to utter sentences in English according to how information is typically packaged. If I say horses have four legs, one is not free to say that I am saying that sheep do not. If I say animals matter, one is not free to say that I am saying that humans do not. If I say that Linguistics is a cool cognitive science, one is not free to say that I am saying that Psychology is not. Gotcha.  What you say makes sense to me now.  And I agree that there is a falseness to this interpretation.

Excellent! Spread it around. A few other posts recast my critique in more digestible fashion.

rushfan4 wrote: I read far too many comment sections on CNN and other news websites.  The more real argument that is made is if "black lives matter" so much why do they only show up when there is death by police officer.  In the city of Detroit numerous blacks are murdered each and every day.  Chicago is a war zone.  More blacks die in Chicago then soldiers in the war on ISIS.  Where are the black lives matter folks then?  If black lives matter so much why are they not protesting these murders?

Or trust and embrace the police as a partner to take care of it. Ah, but there is no trust in the police in many Black communities, however. The issue behind 'Black lives matter' is to seek equal treatment under the law. If that's achieved, then there is a basis for trust. Black on Black violence is a different issue. For most Whites who are victims of violence, that violence is perpetrated by other Whites. We have continuously failed to address White on White violence.

rushfan4 wrote: Personally, I was raised to believe that the police are the good guys, and I still think that this is true.  I have no idea what the true story is behind all of the police officers shooting black people.

I am also White. Although my parents started out in the city of Buffalo, I mainly grew up in a neighboring suburb. The suburb was even rated one year by some entity as the safest in the country. The police force was hyper professional there. In the city crime was a genuine problem. Later on I worked for ten years delivering pizza in Buffalo. It was a scary job, as I went around with a target on my back, and this was before things like caller ID, and cell phones were uncommon. Two of the times I was robbed by a Black person, two other times I was robbed by a White person (all four times the pizza seemed to be as important as the money in my estimation). While delivering, I also saw searches of Black males, once done right across from the pizzeria. They did not find anything and made no arrest and I thought and still think that it could not have been Constitutional. That outlines a bit of my personal experience.

rushfan4 wrote: Almost every story that I have seen has involved a black man breaking the law and being shot by a police officer who was doing his or her job.  Police brutality?  Excessive force?  Fearing for their own lives?  Unlike the gang bangers who are killing each other without a second thought, I am pretty sure that every one of these police officers who may feel justified in what they have done, would if given a second chance tried to have found a way to have tried to end things differently.

Do you remember the video of a shooting in which a Black psychologist was trying to calm a Black patient of his? I don't remember everything about it, but it was on video and the psychologist was trying to de-escalate the situation and encourage his patient's cooperation with police instructions as you would expect a psychologist to do. A police officer on the scene shot the psychologist. The psychologist asked the police officer why he shot him. The police officer said, "I don't know." In addition to a PhD in Linguistics, I have a Masters in Psychology. Do you know how social psychologists prime feelings of anger in their experiments? They expose subjects to a photo of a Black man's face. They use this technique even when an experiment isn't studying race, but just negative emotions themselves. They do it because it's reliable. Being consciously against racism is not always enough. The bulk of our thought processes, including racial attitudes, are subject to automatic activation rather than conscious control. Awareness of this must be at the forefront of police training. There is a genuine danger that police are exposed to, but if individual police survival were actually the foremost and overriding consideration, then they should always shoot at every encounter or take every day off. We of course expect something more tempered. And they do deserve hefty salaries.

rushfan4 wrote: I agree that most of these men did not commit a crime that deserved for them to be executed, but if they hadn't been committing the crime that brought them to the police's attention then the events that occurred resulting in their deaths wouldn't have happened.  Forgive my possible naïve point of view, but I don't think that I am alone in this point of view.  I think that this is mostly the white point of view.

I don't think we know the extent of how true this is or not because there are no statistics gathered on wrongful police shootings. It is surely correct in a good portion of cases, some that I may vaguely recall. However, the real issue is equal treatment under the law, and this means being sentenced by the judicial branch, not an arresting officer.

rushfan4 wrote: Don't get me wrong. I agree 100% that black lives matter as much as all lives matter.  It makes me sad that anybody would kill anybody else.  And I think that it is sad that each of these situations resulted in someone's death.  Anyhow I'm going off the rails on a very touchy subject.  I don't think that I have said anything too radical but just trying to provide a counter point of view.

Discussion appreciated.



Edited by HackettFan - August 19 2017 at 13:56

SteveG wrote: JJLehto wrote: Easy Money wrote: Its quite simple; the phrase black lives matter does not imply that other lives do not matter, it just points out that there are those who act as if black lives don't matter. Indeed, and the fact so many people jump to that conclusion, must speak to something. Which is nothing new, we never did deal with our race issue, just keep ignoring it and moving around to avoid it.  Yes, our race issue is down to laws put on paper. We have done little to alter how people thinkabout race issues. The fact that Trump's Christian supporters failed to object to his "both sides were at fault" stance illustrates that clearly. If the church will not take a stand on race issues, how can it's followers?   As to black lives matter, wouldn't it be more correct to state black lives matter, too. (Just asking.)

Easy Money wrote: ^ I am not what you would call anti-police at all. As a trouble making youth I had plenty of first hand experience with police officers, and I was often impressed with their patience and professionalism, but its well known in the black community that there are police officers who have an agenda against blacks, and officers who are straight up KKK. This has been well documented in recent times via amateur videos and police dash cam videos etc. One video I can recall specifically shows an officer in South Carolina executing an older black man in the back as he tried to run. Another recent video shows an officer punching a black man in the head after he is handcuffed and pinned to the ground. This is all the more unfortunate as it makes it even harder for the good cops to do their job.

Edited by JJLehto - August 20 2017 at 14:53