The Political & Philosophy Thread

[rms]

see: Atlanta, black metropolis

 

[The Ozzman]

How does one exit white society but remain in a western nation?

Replacing with non-whites. See: Germany

 

[Einherjar86]

i thought this tale was that blacks left and didn't find it better, not that they couldnt leave

They could try to distance themselves geographically, but nowhere valuable enough to begin their own farmsteads that whites hadn't already occupied (or wouldn't imminently occupy).

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I find it interesting that you're sympathetic to the inability of drug addicts to make a choice due to the conditions which led to their addiction, but not sympathetic to the conditions of racial disparity in the American South (and North, let's be fair) that made it extraordinarily difficult for blacks to exit white society.

I find it interesting that you're too autistic to identify scare quotes and understand the point I was making. I consider all forms of government use of power to take choice from those affected by said use of power.

I know I'm a former addict. But that impact of addiction isn't a factor until you're addicted and you don't become addicted the first time you try something. It involves successive choices before this factoid is even relevant.

Sure but I don't think that's relevant to the reduced lack of choice for those already addicted. Unless one takes a strict deterministic outlook on life, there's a root choice somewhere that led to some other action where choice was removed. The opioid crisis exists today because the once-available option to be legally prescribed methadone was significantly curtailed, for example.

Former slaves had the choice to migrate to Africa, therefore [insert justified violence against them here].

See my reply to ScifiAcademic420 above.

Was there really much of an ideological division between northern and southern Democrats?

Yes. Tammany Hall was founded at the start of the 19th century for the express ideological purpose of providing immigrants the right to vote, and turning that vote into a solid Democratic bloc, which would remain its primary purpose until the 1960s basically made its existence redundant, for example. Many Northern Democrats embraced progressive economic politics just as Northern Republicans did, e.g. Woodrow Wilson (though he was a Klan lover himself), while Southern Democrats tended to be more economically conservative.

 

[The Ozzman]

ScifiAcademic420

I lol'd

 

[Einherjar86]

I find it interesting that you're too autistic to identify scare quotes and understand the point I was making. I consider all forms of government use of power to take choice from those affected by said use of power.

Attentive readers likely interpret it as you quoting CIG's word "choice." (pun intended)

So you can try not being a whiny little bitch and explain your points. Or you can just be a bitch. It'll be more productive the former way, but the latter is more entertaining.

 

[CiG]

ScifiAcademic420

Sure but I don't think that's relevant to the reduced lack of choice for those already addicted. Unless one takes a strict deterministic outlook on life, there's a root choice somewhere that led to some other action where choice was removed. The opioid crisis exists today because the once-available option to be legally prescribed methadone was significantly curtailed, for example.

Fair enough. My main point was that the KKK was worse because black people can't choose their race/have less opportunity to choose to go where there's no threat from white terrorism compared to how much more choices are available to avoid being caught up in the war on drugs. Both are bad though in the end regardless, despite which one you or I think is worse.

Yes. Tammany Hall was founded at the start of the 19th century for the express ideological purpose of providing immigrants the right to vote, and turning that vote into a solid Democratic bloc, which would remain its primary purpose until the 1960s basically made its existence redundant, for example. Many Northern Democrats embraced progressive economic politics just as Northern Republicans did, e.g. Woodrow Wilson (though he was a Klan lover himself), while Southern Democrats tended to be more economically conservative.

Okay so the chief difference is that the northerners wanted to get the minority to vote for them? Is it really a big difference between the north and south or is it just that the northerners knew they had to do this in order to compete with the similarly progressive northern Republicans?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Attentive readers likely interpret it as you quoting CIG's word "choice." (pun intended)

So you can try not being a whiny little bitch and explain your points. Or you can just be a bitch. It'll be more productive the former way, but the latter is more entertaining.

I used the word 'choice' several times. I only put it in quotes twice, both in the exact same context. Both times I added scare quotes immediately following a preceding statement on the degree of choice available to people affected by the war on drugs to avoid its effects. The first time, I made an explicit contrast between being born black (something which is not a choice at all) and being in proximity of the Klan (which is to some extent a choice). If you're too stupid to put it all together that's not my problem.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Fair enough. My main point was that the KKK was worse because black people can't choose their race/have less opportunity to choose to go where there's no threat from white terrorism compared to how much more choices are available to avoid being caught up in the war on drugs. Both are bad though in the end regardless, despite which one you or I think is worse.

I'm pretty sure there's not a great amount of social or geographic mobility among inner-city blacks. There is really one major difference between the Klan and cops. The Klan didn't give blacks much choice to desegregate; they were forcibly moved to backwater towns by violence or threat thereof, but once settled, did not encounter each other. The Klan had nothing to gain from the local existence of black people other than the political power needed to suppress them. The war on drugs and its operators, on the other hand, uses indirect methods (employment blacklists, redlining, etc) to sequester blacks within striking distance. Once localized, they can be routinely set-up and shaken down on the auspices of fighting crime, while profiting directly financially and socially. The Klan treated blacks like pests, cops treat blacks like farm animals. One system was self-completing, the other was self-promoting, which is why Klan violence is associated with local tumult in racial politics (Reconstruction, the Taft-Wilson-Harding back-and-forth, and the Civil Rights era), and why the police state only strengthens year on year.

Okay so the chief difference is that the northerners wanted to get the minority to vote for them? Is it really a big difference between the north and south or is it just that the northerners knew they had to do this in order to compete with the similarly progressive northen Republicans?

Republicans were not as pro-minority; many were wealthy Anglophiles. The point is that the tactics of Northern Democrats (technically Democratic-Republicans) of 1800 were really no different from the tactics of the party of Hillary Clinton today. Obviously that doesn't mean they were all saints and motivated purely out of moral concern; Tammany Hall was infamously corrupt, as all political lobbying bodies tend to be. But it's just one of many things in which Northern and Southern Democrats were quite divided on. Worth mentioning that the KKK despised the Irish and Catholicism as well.

 

[Einherjar86]

I used the word 'choice' several times. I only put it in quotes twice, both in the exact same context. Both times I added scare quotes immediately following a preceding statement on the degree of choice available to people affected by the war on drugs to avoid its effects. The first time, I made an explicit contrast between being born black (something which is not a choice at all) and being in proximity of the Klan (which is to some extent a choice). If you're too stupid to put it all together that's not my problem.

Whose problem is it?

 

[CiG]

@HamburgerBoy Fair enough on your first response. I don't think we're going to convince each other on which is worse, but I'll willingly acknowledge that you're making good points about the war on drugs btw.

To your second response, this is new to me so I appreciate that. At what point did it become pointless to separate parties by region? For some reason I never really thought about how odd it is for parties to differ so much region to region. Wasn't the civil war between Republicans and northern Democrats vs. southern Democrats?

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Until Reagan came along.

let's not forgot to thank Bill Clinton for his glorious three strikes law.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

To your second response, this is new to me so I appreciate that. At what point did it become pointless to separate parties by region? For some reason I never really thought about how odd it is for parties to differ so much region to region. Wasn't the civil war between Republicans and northern Democrats vs. southern Democrats?

The Civil War didn't end with a great victory. The South lost the right to own slaves, and if you hold Jefferson as the be-all-end-all of legal interpretation, they also lost the right to secede. Otherwise, the South was pretty much allowed to do what it wanted for the next 100 years and the North didn't really care. The economic and cultural conditions of America could vary pretty significantly, and greater autonomy of the states at that time could mean people identified with their state more strongly than with their nation. Southern Democrats began turning Republican after Goldwater lost in 1964, but it was a slow process and not the total party flip that some thing it was. The South was basically purple (meaning flip-states that could turn red or blue) until GWB, but even that isn't purely due to ethnic reasons, since you also have a lot of evangelicals in the South (Dems stopped courting them circa Al Gore).

let's not forgot to thank Bill Clinton for his glorious three strikes law.

Definitely, that and making pain the fifth vital sign, forcing doctors to give out opioids to anyone that demanded them. Reagan started the American police/nanny state, and basically every president since him has only expanded things.

 

[Dak]

Reagan started the American police/nanny state, and basically every president since him has only expanded things.

Yeah, FDR was one of those rugged individualist types.

 

[CiG]

The economic and cultural conditions of America could vary pretty significantly, and greater autonomy of the states at that time could mean people identified with their state more strongly than with their nation.

I had this in mind when I asked and had a feeling you'd mention it. I figured this was the case.

 

[Dak]

The US still has pretty significant variance, although state identity has fallen from where it was 150 years ago.

 

[Einherjar86]

Regionally speaking, it's still the case. Maybe not state by state, but there's still widespread regional identification, and there's definitely still an identitarian rift between north and south.

Also between urban and rural, clearly.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Yeah, FDR was one of those rugged individualist types.

FDR is overlooked when it comes to his drug policy, but he didn't have a lasting effect on it nor social or police policy in general, it was basically all directed towards economic policy. FDR was more notable in the things he allowed the government to encompass, since most of his actions were ended willingly or ruled unconstitutional by the 50s.

 

[Dak]

FDR is overlooked when it comes to his drug policy, but he didn't have a lasting effect on it nor social or police policy in general, it was basically all directed towards economic policy. FDR was more notable in the things he allowed the government to encompass, since most of his actions were ended willingly or ruled unconstitutional by the 50s.

Gotta el-mow on this one. The New Deal dramatically altered society in a social sense, by creating an expectation of Federal "problem-solving" and covering at least the "to grave" portion of the "cradle to grave" goal of socialist government.

Just because he didn't start the drug war doesn't mean he wasn't terrible.

 

[Dak]

Regionally speaking, it's still the case. Maybe not state by state, but there's still widespread regional identification, and there's definitely still an identitarian rift between north and south.

Also between urban and rural, clearly.

I'm not the greatest personal rep for this, since I don't have a great love for the south and I've never lived in truly rural areas. But the north-eastern seaboard is a generally abhorrent place to me, and at this point, Virginia may as well be Yankeedom, despite hosting most of the Confederate battlefields on the Eastern side, so include it too. I also generally despise hyperurban areas. Concrete rat warrens.

I've seen most of the US other than the north-eastern seaboard, and met people from all over while in the service, and the inner and eastern Rockies is where I'd call my true home, whether desert or northern reaches. Beautiful spaces, comfortable towns, wonderful people (especially Idaho and Montana).

There are four states where I met pretty much nothing but vapid, conceited persons in the Corps: Florida (not a Southern state), California, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. NY has a such a split between east and west can't include it......I will say I only met Penn people from major cities. I know the App range hits Penn too.