Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Eh, I suspect that it will get some Republican supporters in the Senate regardless, enough probably to carry it to Trump's desk but not enough to override a veto.
(Also, an override vote isn't a privileged motion so Evil Turtle can block that, and while there is 1 Republican representative who has endorsed the motion
that's far from enough to carry an override in the House either)
I have to second the opinion that this will put the Republicans between a rock and a hard place, especially if Trump vetoes it. Such a clear display of the Party and their President clashing is not going to be a good thing for Republican unity, which is exactly what they'll need for 2020.
The situation is bad enough for them and I think we could quite plausibly see it getting worse.
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangI mean, there are enough Republicans to don't like it that I think it getting a veto-proof majority in the senate is feasible, although definitely not certain. It getting a veto-proof majority in the house is the bit that almost certainly ain't happening.
Edited by Gilphon on Feb 22nd 2019 at 1:22:07 PM
What Republicans say they're against because they know their base wants to hear it and what they are actually willing to cast a vote against are two different things, so I wouldn't count on that. Generally, they want to be seen opposing Trump, but they don't actually want that opposition to have consequence. It's their way of having their cake and eating it, getting Trump's agenda passed while sidestepping the backlash.
That's pretty much the point of forcing them to cast a vote. It's the democratic equivalent of "Put up or shut up." It forces them to put their position on official record, which can then be held against them. And more often than not, those self-proclaimed resisting Republicans will fall in line with the party.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 22nd 2019 at 12:01:40 PM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Bringing this back up, but nowhere is this close to Harris or Warren supporting slavery reparations, which not only do I disagree with, but also a sizable minority of African Americans and an overwhelming majority of non-black voters.
Life is unfair...Slavery reparations are a thing that I wouldn't mind but they're a purely symbolic gesture beyond however much you want to pay the millions of black Americans they'd affect.
I also suspect that they'd get nasty (see what happened with Native American blood rules) when dealing with children of mixed race families.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 22nd 2019 at 11:07:18 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.While I am obviously not in a moral position to weigh in on the argument, from a practical perspective, reparations would be incredibly difficult to implement. Would we require an ancestry test to prove that you descended from a slave? Would we just hand it out to all people of color regardless of where they came from? What about other minority groups that the country has historically discriminated against?
There certainly is a case to be made that just about everything built in this country from its inception rode substantially on the backs of slaves, and so it's all illegitimate from top to bottom, but I don't see that bearing fruit without an actual war.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I've been thinking about it the last few days, and I've decided that reparations sold as reparations are probably a bad idea. The first question I had was "What would effective reparations look like?" They wouldn't look like a cash payment to black people. They are much more likely to look like investments in making the system that we have better. As I thought about it, trying to sell the idea to myself, what I found was that if I sold it as 'reparations' then I resisted it more then if the exact same solution was sold as 'making our system better'.
There are changes we need to make, ex. we need to update and strengthen the systems that we use to measure disorder so that we stop over-policing black neighborhoods. However, I was a marketing/sales major in college. What I learned is that you need to approach customers in a way that makes them want to buy your product. This is true for any wide organizational change, you have to obtain buy in. I don't think reparations are an effective way to get the buy in to make the changes, so we should try something else.
I think a better way to sell the changes is pointing out cases and emphasize making the system more just and fair for everyone. A fair system for everyone will be a fair system for POC because POC are a part of everyone. That is going to be a much easier sale to make.
RE: Reparations
This is one that bugs me simply because you're effectively punishing people who had zero involvement in the actual crime, which would likely foster a lot more resentment as a result, and would probably increase racism because of the overt unfairness of it.
And with the Reservations, there's another bizarre thing to consider - that crimes committed by a non-Native US citizen on the reservation or one committed by a Native outside of it can result in some serious Jurisdiction Friction. As in, there's currently a court case involving a Muscogee Creek member who'd committed a murder
that might wind up ceding a lot (read: 5,000+ square miles) of Oklahoma to the tribe itself. Because the crime in question may or may not have taken place within the Reservation's grounds - and if it did, the Tribal judges would be the ones who would have to punish him, not the US court system. Here
is the Wikipedia entry on the case, which will likely be more succinct reading.
It's also why there's a shitload of times where a US citizen has raped Native American members within the reservation and became Karma Houdinis, as the tribal police are the ones who have jurisdiction
, but tend not to be too prepared to actually do anything (think the small-town police squad looking into a murder or rape for comparison). The only other organization to actually have jurisdiction is the FBI, and they tend to have their hands full.
Edited by ironballs16 on Feb 22nd 2019 at 2:52:55 PM
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"Or it's from his large and devoted fanbase, I'm sure that Russian bots have gotten started but let's be careful not to fall into conspiratorial thinking where Russians are under every bed and in every closet.
This is one that bugs me simply because you're effectively punishing people who had zero involvement in the actual crime, which would likely foster a lot more resentment as a result, and would probably increase racism because of the overt unfairness of it.
Are rich people being punished when they're taxed to help the poor?
If not there is very little reason to oppose reparations on principle.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Feb 22nd 2019 at 2:42:48 PM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
There is already documented evidence of the social media troll farms starting up again, so I wouldn't get too complacent. That said, Sanders has an extraordinarily devoted base of support that tends to be extremely vocal on social media, giving him a disproportionate amount of visibility whenever he shows up.
That their devotion makes them prime targets for affinity fraud is a bonus for Russia.
The argument that reparations would be taking from people who have not personally committed any wrongs is missing the point. If you are standing on the tenth rung of a ladder whose fifth and lower rungs are made of enslaved people, you may not be standing on any slaves yourself, but you're benefiting nonetheless.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"That their devotion makes them prime targets for affinity fraud is a bonus for Russia.
I may not have been clear enough, I have no doubt that the Russians have begun their efforts in earnest.
But that doesn't mean that we should see the hype around Sanders and automatically think of the Russians, it's just as if not more likely that it's sincere support from his loyalists.
Direct money grants would be the worst way you could even consider this.
Unless you would be using regressive taxation no, you mostly would not.
And this assumes that a black person's specific wealth would be ignored when deciding how to doll it out, a questionable assumption.
Regardless, my point is simply that opposing it on the principle that it would be punishing people for something they aren't responsible for is the exact logic used to justify opposing taxes for wealthy people. "Don't punish success" and all that.
Personally, I have some rather significant practical concerns with the idea of reparations but I'm still unimpressed with their logic.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Feb 22nd 2019 at 2:51:10 PM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangI think 538 mentioned that there's a pretty big gap between how the politics watchers online, us included, feel about the candidates and how the public at large feels. I was actually encouraged when they said Warren's Native American stories don't seem to be much of an issue to the average Democrat talking on the streets or asking questions at rallies.
And despite the negativity around Biden here, a lot of people are still determining who they'll support based on if he runs or not.
![]()
You can't choose to get off the ladder, but you can either willingly lower yourself a few rungs so that the victims can get their own place by your side, or be forcibly lowered.
What we've been trying to do since the Civil Rights era is not tear the ladder down, but rather give everyone a hand up so that they can ascend by their own merits. This has patently not been enough, because too many of the people at the top refuse to relinquish their place.
Edited by Fighteer on Feb 22nd 2019 at 2:52:50 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I am really not fond of this logic, race relations are not a zero-sum game and suggesting that reparations require lowering one's socio-economic bracket tacitly encourages that thinking.
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Well, this is partly why I'm not comfortable with flat reparations, but the "rising tide lifts all boats" idea, while valid, only works if some of the boats aren't full of holes, or being deliberately weighed down. It may require some sacrifice from the folks on the good boats to get everything equalized.
What Fourth said, with the note that it's also a really hard sell to make. Humans are very loss averse.
So we fix the boats and get rid of the rocks. Given that we have a boat factory, if it requires me to take apart my own boat, something's very wrong.
Edited by Soban on Feb 22nd 2019 at 2:59:37 PM
This is why I get frustrated with discussions on these issues.
For example, BLM doesn’t want cops to shoot white serial killers. They’re justifiably angry that unarmed Black people get killed while armed white boys get brought in alive. BLM wants cops to not shoot people *in general.*
That’s it. Reparations isn’t about taking away from white people; it’s about lifting up Black people who were locked out from opportunities for generations. The new deal alone made a huge deal, as white families built generational wealth through home ownership and entered the middle class, while the majority of Black people were blocked from accessing those opportunities.
Edited by wisewillow on Feb 22nd 2019 at 3:01:04 PM
![]()
Take a look at this infographic by Forbes from 2017
, which shows median wealth by race in the U.S.
I see no reasonable way to bring the black and Hispanic lines on that chart up to the same level as the white ones without lowering the white ones a bit — in a relative sense, if not necessarily absolute.
We can patch up their boats all we want, but if everyone else is already miles ahead by the time they're seaworthy, it does them a fat lot of good.
Edited by Fighteer on Feb 22nd 2019 at 3:03:37 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trumps-national-emergency-policy-is-unpopular-but-not-really-really-unpopular/
Not sure how much I buy it, because this would be a pretty useful political cudgel to use against any Senator that voted nay.
That's part of the idea, isn't it? To put GOP senators on record one way or the other?
Edited by sgamer82 on Feb 22nd 2019 at 9:18:36 AM