The Fight Against Fascists (I Can't Believe This Exists)

[Wes Mantooth]

(06-08-2021, 04:35 PM)Dill Wrote: Now we get to Abrams. I am aware she questioned the results of her gubernatorial race in Georgia--which was run/administrated by her opponent. And that she complained of his strategic purging of voter roles before the election. All that makes a reasonable ground, at least, for questioning an election. Which she did. 

But when judicable evidence was not forthcoming, she conceded the election to her opponent.
https://www.npr.org/2018/11/16/668737597/georgia-facing-final-deadline-for-ballot-certification-in-governors-race

Rather than continuing to sell a "big lie" that her election was stolen, she set about changing voter landscape in her state, working with other political activists to register 800,000 new voters. This is a DEMOCRATIC RESPONSE to an election loss, not evidence of authoritarianism and certainly not fascism. In consequence, the Senate shifted to Dem control and Georgia was a key to Dems winning the exec.

Fwiw, this article is from Sept. 15th 2019, almost a year after her defeat:  https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/why-stacey-abrams-still-wont-concede-194648579.html

Here's some highlights...

And despite acknowledging Kemp as the legal victor, Abrams has refused to officially concede the election.

“Concession in the political space is an acknowledgment that the process was fair,” she told Yahoo News. “And I don't believe that to be so.”


Abrams, the former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, said she “certainly was very sad, depressed, angry” after her loss, and has maintained that her campaign “would have come to a successful conclusion” if not for voter suppression. The state board of elections ruled Kemp the victor by fewer than 55,000 votes.

Here's an article right after the election where it's described "she doesn't quite conceed":  https://www.newyorker.com/news/current/stacey-abrams-ends-her-race-for-governor-of-georgia-but-doesnt-quite-concede

Here's some highlights...


“Concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true, or proper,” Abrams told the crowd of reporters, staffers, and supporters. “As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede.


Her campaign filed multiple lawsuits, picking up a few hundred votes here, insuring counts of a few thousand more there. Other groups, such as Common Cause Georgia, pursued litigation of their own.


She went on, “Pundits and hyper-partisans will hear my words as a rejection of the normal order. You see, I’m supposed to say nice things and accept my fate. They will complain that I should not use this moment to recap what was done wrong or to demand a remedy. You see, as a leader I should be stoic in my outrage and silent in my rebuke.” But, she added, “stoicism is a luxury, and silence is a weapon for those who would quiet the voices of the people. And I will not concede, because the erosion of our democracy is not right.”


Abrams announced that she will be creating a political-action committee called Fair Fight Georgia, which will be filing a federal lawsuit against the state


To each their own, but I see some striking similarities between the two.  Both of them alleged foul play.  Both brought about lawsuits to challenge the results.  Both of them refuse to acknowelege that they lost in a fair manner, depsite rulings that indicate as such.

One is labeled a threat to democracy and their behavior in regards to this is described as being related to fascism (I'm not saying you're doing this, but others have).  The other is applauded for fighting for what's right and calling out an unfair process (even though it was lated ruled to be fair).

I just see a lot of hypocrisy in the narratives that surround these two.

[Wes Mantooth]

Fwiw, these two quotes from Trump and Abrams have a remarkable amount of similarities as well..

Trump

On January 6, President Trump said his supporters should “fight like hell” and that “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Abrams

Abrams said just a few weeks ago about elections legislation in Georgia that “we are at war, fighting to protect our democracy from domestic enemies at this moment.”

This is interesting as well...

Abrams, Fair Fight Action, and their allies were also no strangers to switched- or missing-vote conspiracy theories. In that same filing, Powell cited Fair Fight Action’s raising concerns about “hackable voting machines.” Fair Fight Action had claimed without evidence that Georgia’s old voting system “erased 100,000 votes in ’18.” The group’s February 2019 legal filing against my office claimed that “defendants place voters at risk of having their voter registrations, and votes, removed or changed.” This too was backed by little more than speculation. The filing cites two cases in an election with 4 million ballots cast in which individuals claimed they had trouble selecting Abrams, but were ultimately able to.

[Dill]

(06-08-2021, 04:22 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: To the former, I guess we'll find out in 2022 and 2024. I hope you're right that Trump is just a fringe part of the party. The house removing Cheney from power isn't a good sign of that though.

To the latter, sure. I won't pass judgment on every Trump supporter. People vote certain ways for various reasons. But the racists/fascists/Nazis/White supremacists are definitely getting their checklist with Trump, whether the people voting for him want that or not.

Trumpists are definitely NOT the fringe of the Republican Party. 

Look at how McConnel and McCarthy shifted gears when it was clear that the base was sticking with him, even after the 1/6 debacle. When Lynn Cheney bucked the party leadership by shooting off her mouth--i.e., sticking by the truth about Trump and his election lie--she was booted from her leadership position. The majority of Trump voters still believe the election was stolen from him. And that gives him great power to control Senate and House votes, if only to block them. 

The bolded is correct. Just as the "racists/fascists/Nazis/White supremacist's were definitely NOT getting their list checked by a Biden/Harris ticket.

Recognizing the aspects of Trump's behavior and policies which attract this kind of support =/=calling all Trump supporters white supremacists. But note that many of his supporters/defenders also deny that the aforementioned racist aspect of his polices and behavior is there at all. (Remember the thread on his Minnesota speech? People had difficulty seeing an racism in his denigration of African refugees in Minnesota and promise to stop their influx--followed by praise of the "good genes" of the states early (Scandinavian) settlers?)  Trump is also powerful attractor of people who deny race is still a problem in the U.S., people who often claim raising racial issues is itself the "real" racism. 

The problem with any kind of support for Trump now is not simply that he is racist, but that he is authoritarian and anti-democratic. Wherever he saw an opportunity, he scorned rule of law--obstructing justice, firing whistleblowers, extorting allies to get dirt on political opponents, working the DOJ to protect him from impeachment, coercing officials to change election results, working up a mob at the Capitol with the big lie the election had been stolen and it was of to Mike pence to fix that, then watching them storm the Capitol building on tv as frantic police looked for support and military authorities looked for authorization to help. 

[Wes Mantooth]

Here's some quotes from Hilary, where she's "threatening democracy" and the legitmacy of an election:

Hillary Clinton is sticking with her conviction that the 2016 presidential election was not conducted legitimately, saying the details surrounding her loss are still unclear.

“There was a widespread understanding that this election [in 2016] was not on the level,” Clinton said during an interview for the latest episode of The Atlantic’s politics podcast, The Ticket. “We still don’t know what really happened.”

“There’s just a lot that I think will be revealed. History will discover,” the Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nominee continued. “But you don’t win by 3 million votes and have all this other shenanigans and stuff going on and not come away with an idea like, ‘Whoa, something’s not right here.’ That was a deep sense of unease.”

Here's another...

"You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you," she said to cheers on the Los Angeles stop of her "Evening with the Clintons" tour with her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

And another...

Hillary Clinton dismissed President Trump as an “illegitimate president” and suggested that “he knows” that he stole the 2016 presidential election in a CBS News interview to be aired Sunday.

“No, it doesn’t kill me because he knows he’s an illegitimate president,” she said. “I believe he understands that the many varying tactics they used, from voter suppression and voter purging to hacking to the false stories — he knows that — there were just a bunch of different reasons why the election turned out like it did.”

Fwiw, I found these about 10 seconds.  I'm sure I could go out of my way and find so many more, from her and everyone else.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(06-08-2021, 04:44 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: It depends on what you consider a racist policy. A policy that was created with the intention of being racist or a policy that has consequences dependent on race.

I have routinely stated (and this is not accusatory btw) that intent matters. An unintentionally racist policy only become a racist policy if that fact becomes known but the policy stays in play unchanged. 

Quote:The War on Drugs may not have been (but probably was) designed as a racist policy, but it had obvious racist results. Same with stop and frisk.

I agree with you on the war on drugs, especially the sentencing discrepancies between possession of powder versus rock cocaine.  I do not think stop and frisk is inherently racist.  When one looks at the demographics of who commits street level crime and then focus on stopping street level crime you're going to get disproportionate results in regard to ethnicity.  That doesn't mean that an individual officer can't implement the policy in a racist way, and I have no doubt that this happened (but not on the scale that many would claim), but that does not make the policy racist.

Quote:People who supported the politicians that passed and enforced those policies weren't necessarily racist, but their vote still resulted in racism.

I see how you could come to that conclusion.  But by the same logic many Democratic voters are pro criminal as the people they voted for are enacting policies resulting in a large rise in crime.  They may not be pro criminal but their vote still resulted in an increase in crime and a decrease in consequences for criminals.

Quote:Like I said, I wouldn't call every Trump supporter racist. But every single one of their votes led to racist results, because Donald Trump objectively emboldened racists.

I don't disagree.  However, again by the same logic, Biden is responsible for the crises at our southern border. 

[Dill]

(06-08-2021, 04:51 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: I'm not sure what the scholars on fascism say, but one term I've heard thrown around with Donald Trump a lot is "proto fascist." Basically, a politician that normalizes and trends towards certain aspects of fascism such that someone can take up the reins and potentially lead to full fascism in the future.

This makes a pretty good case for "protofascism." 
https://theweek.com/articles/574097/donald-trump-leading-protofascist-movement

I don't think Trump could ever be a true fascist. It's just to much work and focus. 

It is easy to identify a lot of "proto fascist" organizations and movements in Germany's Second Reich after 1905, obsessed with preventing immigration and feminism, hating socialism and liberal democracy, demanding national expansion, etc.. But they had very little traction until after the WWI defeat. 

PF is a fuzzy term though, since it covers a lot of behaviors often exhibited by people one wouldn't want to classify as proto fascists. E.g., a politician committed to parliamentary democracy might still want to exclude Jews and women from the franchise.

[Dill]

(06-08-2021, 04:58 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: To each their own, but I see some striking similarities between the two.  Both of them alleged foul play.  Both brought about lawsuits to challenge the results.  Both of them refuse to acknowelege that they lost in a fair manner, depsite rulings that indicate as such.

One is labeled a threat to democracy and their behavior in regards to this is described as being related to fascism (I'm not saying you're doing this, but others have).  The other is applauded for fighting for what's right and calling out an unfair process (even though it was lated ruled to be fair).

I just see a lot of hypocrisy in the narratives that surround these two.

Yow Wes! I humbly concede the analogy and the point.

I think you have aligned the terms of comparison very well here. Or at least I don't see how to refute it. 


One could argue the behavior of Abrams and supporters is not nearly so consequential as the Donald's, as they were unable to convince millions to back them, etc. But there is nothing in the evidence you provided to separate their personal intent/behavior/culpability from Trump's. 

You foul fiend--you had all those links ready to drop, didn't you. 

[Dill]

(06-08-2021, 05:18 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Here's some quotes from Hilary, where she's "threatening democracy" and the legitmacy of an election:

Hillary Clinton dismissed President Trump as an “illegitimate president” and suggested that “he knows” that he stole the 2016 presidential election in a CBS News interview to be aired Sunday.

“No, it doesn’t kill me because he knows he’s an illegitimate president,” she said. “I believe he understands that the many varying tactics they used, from voter suppression and voter purging to hacking to the false stories — he knows that — there were just a bunch of different reasons why the election turned out like it did.”

Now I'm a bit unclear what the contention is. Perhaps I missed a post. Has someone asserted that any grousing about a loss threatens democracy, or that that is the main charge against Trump? Remember, when people call Trump a threat to democracy they aren't just referring to verbal complaints, but obstruction of justice, attempts to coerce state officials to "fix" the vote counts and the like. 

I understand why Hillary might feel burned here. Personally, I think Comey's decision to announce he had re-opened the investigation into her server probably tanked her. And she is within her rights to complain about the disinformation, active Russian intervention and the like. 

But she did concede, right? and right away.  No one was removed from Dem party leadership for calling out her behavior, right? This one falls a bit short of apples to apples, unless I missed the point of contention.

[CJD]

(06-08-2021, 05:23 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I have routinely stated (and this is not accusatory btw) that intent matters. An unintentionally racist policy only become a racist policy if that fact becomes known but the policy stays in play unchanged. 



I agree with you on the war on drugs, especially the sentencing discrepancies between possession of powder versus rock cocaine.  I do not think stop and frisk is inherently racist.  When one looks at the demographics of who commits street level crime and then focus on stopping street level crime you're going to get disproportionate results in regard to ethnicity.  That doesn't mean that an individual officer can't implement the policy in a racist way, and I have no doubt that this happened (but not on the scale that many would claim), but that does not make the policy racist.



I see how you could come to that conclusion.  But by the same logic many Democratic voters are pro criminal as the people they voted for are enacting policies resulting in a large rise in crime.  They may not be pro criminal but their vote still resulted in an increase in crime and a decrease in consequences for criminals.


I don't disagree.  However, again by the same logic, Biden is responsible for the crises at our southern border. 

I agree that intention matters. While results also matter, if the intent is not malicious or ill-willed, the negative results can teach you not to repeat that mistake again, whatever it was.

Regarding Stop and Frisk, there was a study that found black and Hispanic people were stopped disproportionately, even after controlling for precinct variability and race-specific estimates of crime participation. Granted, this looks at statistical data on the precinct in which the stop occurred, so it doesn't account for the perception of crime participation but the statistical reality of it (I.E. a cop may be in a precinct that has a low rate of black crime, but still stop black people because of his perception that black people in his precinct are dangerous, for some reason). As the study says:

Quote:To briefly summarize our findings, blacks and Hispanics represented 51% and 33% of the stops while representing only 26% and 24% of the New York City population. Compared with the number of arrests of each group in the previous year (used as a proxy for the rate of criminal behavior), blacks were stopped 23% more often than whites and Hispanics were stopped 39% more often than whites. Controlling for precinct actually increased these discrepancies, with minorities between 1.5 and 2.5 times as often as whites (compared with the groups’ previous arrest rates in the precincts where they were stopped) for the most common categories of stops (violent crimes and drug crimes), with smaller differences for property and drug crimes. The differences in stop rates among ethnic groups are real, substantial, and not explained by previous arrest rates or precincts

 
This isn't proof that the cops were acting with racist intentions because you can never truly know what a person is thinking, but I do think it is indicative of the general perceptions of the police force in the way in which the policy was carried out.


As far as Democrats causing a rise in crime, I'm not sure what you're referring to. I'd have to know more before I could speak on that. And, regarding the southern border, I think Biden is perceived to be "Softer" on immigrants than Trump was (which was, frankly, inevitable once Trump left office, because no president before him ever opined about shooting illegal border crossers, to my knowledge), which likely caused at least a portion of this surge, as the migrants indicated when interviewed. I also think COVID caused a backlog of migrants who potentially would have come regardless of who was president. 

With that said, honestly, even if Biden's policies were the sole reason for the increase in migrant crossers, I still think it's the right thing to do to treat these people better than they were treated by Trump. In many cases, I personally hoped we would have gone further in some regards. If that means more come, then I wouldn't call that an unintended or unforeseen consequence. I see it more as a predictable result that people voting for Biden (and Biden himself) hopefully foresaw and accepted.

[Wes Mantooth]

Here's Hilary's advice to Joe Biden leading up to the 2020 election...

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/hillary-clinton-says-biden-should-not-concede-2020-election-under-n1238156

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton said in a new interview that Joe Biden should not concede the 2020 presidential election “under any circumstances," anticipating issues that could prolong knowing the final outcome.

Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances, because I think this is going to drag out, and eventually I do believe he will win if we don't give an inch, and if we are as focused and relentless as the other side is,” Clinton said in an interview with her former communications director Jennifer Palmieri for Showtime's “The Circus,” which released a clip Tuesday.

The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee predicted that among several scenarios, Republicans are going to try to “mess up absentee balloting” so that they could get a potentially narrow advantage in the Electoral College.

“We've got to have a massive legal operation, I know the Biden campaign is working on that,” she said. “We have to have poll workers, and I urge people, who are able, to be a poll worker. We have to have our own teams of people to counter the force of intimidation that the Republicans and Trump are going to put outside polling places. This is a big organizational challenge, but at least we know more about what they're going to do.”

I mean, it sounds like Trump took her advice.  Don't conceed under any cicrumstances, accuse the other side of messing with absentee ballots, and organize a massive legal operation to fight tooth and nail.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(06-08-2021, 06:22 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: I agree that intention matters. While results also matter, if the intent is not malicious or ill-willed, the negative results can teach you not to repeat that mistake again, whatever it was.

Regarding Stop and Frisk, there was a study that found black and Hispanic people were stopped disproportionately, even after controlling for precinct variability and race-specific estimates of crime participation. Granted, this looks at statistical data on the precinct in which the stop occurred, so it doesn't account for the perception of crime participation but the statistical reality of it (I.E. a cop may be in a precinct that has a low rate of black crime, but still stop black people because of his perception that black people in his precinct are dangerous, for some reason). As the study says:
 
This isn't proof that the cops were acting with racist intentions because you can never truly know what a person is thinking, but I do think it is indicative of the general perceptions of the police force in the way in which the policy was carried out.

Here we get into a dangerous area.  You and I can discuss this like adults, but others will read nefarious intent into this discussion.  To start this discussion, let's get the ethnic breakdown of New York City, the setting for the study in your link.  We'll use 2019 as that is the last "normal" year on record.  

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/newyorkcitynewyork?

White alone:  32.1%
Black alone: 24.3%
Native American:  0.4%
Asian alone: 14.1%
Pacific Islander:  0.1%
Hispanic:  29.1%

Now, let's look at the crime statistics for the same year.

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_planning/year-end-2019-enforcement-report.pdf

Murder by arrestee:

Black: 58%
Hispanic: 35.2%
White: 3.3%
Asian/PI: 3%

Rape by arrestee:

Black:  40.7%
Hispanic:  45.4%
White:  6.7%
Asian/PI: 7%

Robbery:

Black:  59.4%
Hispanic: 35.2%
White:  5.2%
Asian/PI: 3.2%

Felony Assault:

Black:  51.8%
Hispanic:  33.1%
White:  8.3%
Asian/PI:   6.4%

Shootings:

Black:  71.6%
Hispanic:  24.1%
White:  2.7%
Asian/PI:  1.5%

Firearms arrests:

Black:  70.9%
Hispanic:  23.1%
White:  4.3%
Asian/PI:  1.6%


Now, armed with these numbers, where would you focus your efforts if you were implementing stop and frisk?  You do see some extremely disproportionate numbers in these crime statistics, yes?  Stop and Frisk is attempt to implement the hardest type of policing, proactive.  I can tell you that I, personally, have stopped crime by nothing people about to engage in it by their body language and other factors.  I am sure there are some that would label my suspicions, although proven correct, to be motivated by "problematic" factors.  Of course it's an easy bridge to cross, for some at least, to go from reasonable suspicion to, "hey what is that black kid doing here?"  This is where the practice falls apart and opens itself up to attack.  

Quote:As far as Democrats causing a rise in crime, I'm not sure what you're referring to. I'd have to know more before I could speak on that. And, regarding the southern border, I think Biden is perceived to be "Softer" on immigrants than Trump was (which was, frankly, inevitable once Trump left office, because no president before him ever opined about shooting illegal border crossers, to my knowledge), which likely caused at least a portion of this surge, as the migrants indicated when interviewed. I also think COVID caused a backlog of migrants who potentially would have come regardless of who was president. 

Democrats have caused a rise in crime by buying into defunding the police.  By electing DA's who are soft on crime (see Philly, Portland, San Francisco, St. Louis, Chicago and Los Angeles).  By creating an atmosphere in which law enforcement is bad, and systemically racist, while criminals are just victims. 

By publicly stating we should abolish the police and incarceration. 

https://news.yahoo.com/rashida-tlaib-calls-no-more-221355507.html

By defending or downplaying riots and helping raise bail money for rioters.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/03/kamala-harris-tweeted-support-bail-fund-money-didnt-just-assist-protestors/

Don't take my word for it, just look at the rising crime rates in pretty much every city in the nation.

Quote:With that said, honestly, even if Biden's policies were the sole reason for the increase in migrant crossers, I still think it's the right thing to do to treat these people better than they were treated by Trump. In many cases, I personally hoped we would have gone further in some regards. If that means more come, then I wouldn't call that an unintended or unforeseen consequence. I see it more as a predictable result that people voting for Biden (and Biden himself) hopefully foresaw and accepted.

Sure, but you're basically conceding the point I'm making.  

[Wes Mantooth]

(06-08-2021, 06:02 PM)Dill Wrote: Now I'm a bit unclear what the contention is. Perhaps I missed a post. Has someone asserted that any grousing about a loss threatens democracy, or that that is the main charge against Trump? Remember, when people call Trump a threat to democracy they aren't just referring to verbal complaints, but obstruction of justice, attempts to coerce state officials to "fix" the vote counts and the like. 

I understand why Hillary might feel burned here. Personally, I think Comey's decision to announce he had re-opened the investigation into her server probably tanked her. And she is within her rights to complain about the disinformation, active Russian intervention and the like. 

But she did concede, right? and right away.  No one was removed from Dem party leadership for calling out her behavior, right? This one falls a bit short of apples to apples, unless I missed the point of contention.

I'm not sure if that was stated in this thread or not, but I've seen it said before.  People will specifically point to the election and what followed and say that Trump is a threat to democracy or he won't respect the integrity of a democratic election.

I will give her (Hilary) credit for her concession, at least the immediate words spoken.  This is what Trump should have done, this is what every politician should do:

“Donald Trump is going to be our president,” she said, speaking at the New Yorker hotel in Manhattan. “We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead.”

My issues with Hilary, and many in the Democratic party is what followed for next couple of years.  While I don't think hers and Trumps situations following defeat are apples to apples, I do think that plenty of people were questioning the legitimacy of the win and did everything they could to change the result.  So yeah, to now hear them complain about Trump questioning the same things, it rings a little hollow.

Abrams on the other hand, that's a much better comparison.  So if someone is up in arms about Trumps behavior following defeat I sure hope they were up in arms about hers.  Otherwise it's just more partisan bs.

[CJD]

(06-08-2021, 07:01 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Here we get into a dangerous area.  You and I can discuss this like adults, but others will read nefarious intent into this discussion.  To start this discussion, let's get the ethnic breakdown of New York City, the setting for the study in your link.  We'll use 2019 as that is the last "normal" year on record.  

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/newyorkcitynewyork?

White alone:  32.1%
Black alone: 24.3%
Native American:  0.4%
Asian alone: 14.1%
Pacific Islander:  0.1%
Hispanic:  29.1%

Now, let's look at the crime statistics for the same year.

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_planning/year-end-2019-enforcement-report.pdf

Murder by arrestee:

Black: 58%
Hispanic: 35.2%
White: 3.3%
Asian/PI: 3%

Rape by arrestee:

Black:  40.7%
Hispanic:  45.4%
White:  6.7%
Asian/PI: 7%

Robbery:

Black:  59.4%
Hispanic: 35.2%
White:  5.2%
Asian/PI: 3.2%

Felony Assault:

Black:  51.8%
Hispanic:  33.1%
White:  8.3%
Asian/PI:   6.4%

Shootings:

Black:  71.6%
Hispanic:  24.1%
White:  2.7%
Asian/PI:  1.5%

Firearms arrests:

Black:  70.9%
Hispanic:  23.1%
White:  4.3%
Asian/PI:  1.6%

Now, armed with these numbers, where would you focus your efforts if you were implementing stop and frisk?  You do see some extremely disproportionate numbers in these crime statistics, yes?  Stop and Frisk is attempt to implement the hardest type of policing, proactive.  I can tell you that I, personally, have stopped crime by nothing people about to engage in it by their body language and other factors.  I am sure there are some that would label my suspicions, although proven correct, to be motivated by "problematic" factors.  Of course it's an easy bridge to cross, for some at least, to go from reasonable suspicion to, "hey what is that black kid doing here?"  This is where the practice falls apart and opens itself up to attack.  

But that's what I'm saying. The perception of who is dangerous is what dictated who the police stopped. Black people are arrested for violent crimes more often, so police will perceive black people as more dangerous and therefore enact a neutrally written policy in a racialized manner, like Stop and Frisk. Like I said, I'm not calling police racist for carrying out Stop and Frisk the way they did. It just had racialized consequences. In that same study, I believe it references the likelihood of finding contraband/firearms/some evidence of illegal activity.

Quote:In the period for which we have data, 1 in 7.9 whites stopped were arrested, compared with approximately 1 in 8.8 Hispanics and 1 in 9.5 blacks. These data are consistent with our general conclusion that the police are disproportionately stopping minorities; the stops of whites are more “efficient” and are more likely to lead to arrests, whereas those for blacks and Hispanics are more indiscriminate, and fewer of the persons stopped in these broader sweeps are actually arrested. It is perfectly reasonable for the police to make many stops that do not lead to arrests; the issue here is the comparison between ethnic groups

So, despite stopping white people less often, whenever they did stop white people they were more likely to find them worthy of arrest. This could be an indication that, in the rare times that they did stop a white person, it was for more suspicious circumstances relative to the times they stopped the black and Hispanic people. That, or black and Hispanic people act suspicious more than white people when they are doing nothing wrong. This is a possibility, given those groups' general skepticism of cops. Cops could interpret their awareness of the cops as fear of being caught. 

I don't believe you can draw conclusions from studies like this about the mindset of the police, but you can definitely derive some understanding of the general perceptions of the different races, in my opinion. Not just the perception of the police, by the way. This perception appears to stretch across the entire country.

Quote:Democrats have caused a rise in crime by buying into defunding the police.  By electing DA's who are soft on crime (see Philly, Portland, San Francisco, St. Louis, Chicago and Los Angeles).  By creating an atmosphere in which law enforcement is bad, and systemically racist, while criminals are just victims. 


By publicly stating we should abolish the police and incarceration. 

https://news.yahoo.com/rashida-tlaib-calls-no-more-221355507.html

By defending or downplaying riots and helping raise bail money for rioters.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/03/kamala-harris-tweeted-support-bail-fund-money-didnt-just-assist-protestors/

Don't take my word for it, just look at the rising crime rates in pretty much every city in the nation.

Fair enough. But I don't think this is comparable to a law not intended to be racist having racist consequences. It seems like a lot of those policies and stances are intended to sway favor towards those perceived to be criminals. That will have (hopefully foreseeable) side effects of more crime, but that isn't necessarily exclusive to what may be the intended goal of broadening rights and protections for not-yet-convicted suspects of crime.

Quote:Sure, but you're basically conceding the point I'm making.  

I mean yea. I think we may have a minor disconnect here. I'm saying a policy doesn't have to be intentionally racist to have racist consequences and those racist consequences should be considered when voting for someone with a history of racism. So, a person isn't necessarily racist if they vote for Trump but they are responsible for racism in that Trump was openly racist. 

You're countering with policies that had an intention that came to bear. More protections for criminals and suspects and more protections for illegal immigrants. This will have the side effect of more crime and more illegal immigrants, but I don't think those policies ever tried to claim those wouldn't happen. They seem like pretty A to B connections for those policies. 

The apples to apples comparison would be that people who vote democrat are responsible for more crime in cities and more illegal immigrants in this country, which I don't believe I ever refuted. If I did, it was not intentional.

The difference, in my opinion, is that I believe most Democrats would say "the increase in crime and illegal immigrants is worth the increased civil rights for those groups of people, especially in the case that they are not guilty."

I don't think people voting for Trump would admit that the racism they caused was worth...whatever Trump accomplished. I doubt the majority of them would even admit Trump was racist haha.

[Belsnickel]

(06-08-2021, 04:36 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Cheney was removed because she wouldn't stop shooting off at the mouth.  She was overwhelmingly protected after her Yea vote for impeachment.  Is wasn't until months later when she kept bucking party leadership publicly that she got the boot.

This is all correct, but what was she shooting off at the mouth about? What issue was she bucking party leadership about? Could it have been her arguing against "the Big Lie" that is being pushed by Trump and his allies in Congress?

Saying Cheney was removed from leadership for bucking the GOP leadership is like saying the Civil War was fought over states' rights.

(06-08-2021, 04:51 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: I'm not sure what the scholars on fascism say, but one term I've heard thrown around with Donald Trump a lot is "proto fascist." Basically, a politician that normalizes and trends towards certain aspects of fascism such that someone can take up the reins and potentially lead to full fascism in the future.

That is the term I have seen most often used by experts in the field, as well.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(06-08-2021, 07:42 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: This is all correct, but what was she shooting off at the mouth about? What issue was she bucking party leadership about? Could it have been her arguing against "the Big Lie" that is being pushed by Trump and his allies in Congress?

Saying Cheney was removed from leadership for bucking the GOP leadership is like saying the Civil War was fought over states' rights.

It wasn't just that, but it was certainly part of it.  I think it was more her not letting the issue die, consistently bringing it up or answering questions in detail about it.  It was obviously a politically damaging event, which is why they voted against a commission on 01/06 as they knew it would drop right before election time next year.  But, like I said, they totally tolerated her position on Trump until she wouldn't shut up about it months later.  If you don't want to play politics then don't be a politician.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(06-08-2021, 07:23 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: But that's what I'm saying. The perception of who is dangerous is what dictated who the police stopped. Black people are arrested for violent crimes more often, so police will perceive black people as more dangerous and therefore enact a neutrally written policy in a racialized manner, like Stop and Frisk. Like I said, I'm not calling police racist for carrying out Stop and Frisk the way they did. It just had racialized consequences. In that same study, I believe it references the likelihood of finding contraband/firearms/some evidence of illegal activity.

Therein lies the rub with this type of thing.  You can't target crime without targeting criminals.  If one ethnic group commits a largely disproportionate amount of crime how do you target criminals without disproportionately contacting that group?  Of course, there's a vast range of possible actions within that framework.

Quote:So, despite stopping white people less often, whenever they did stop white people they were more likely to find them worthy of arrest. This could be an indication that, in the rare times that they did stop a white person, it was for more suspicious circumstances relative to the times they stopped the black and Hispanic people. That, or black and Hispanic people act suspicious more than white people when they are doing nothing wrong. This is a possibility, given those groups' general skepticism of cops. Cops could interpret their awareness of the cops as fear of being caught. 

I don't believe you can draw conclusions from studies like this about the mindset of the police, but you can definitely derive some understanding of the general perceptions of the different races, in my opinion. Not just the perception of the police, by the way. This perception appears to stretch across the entire country.

But is it a perception driven by facts?  The statistics would indicate that it is.

Quote:Fair enough. But I don't think this is comparable to a law not intended to be racist having racist consequences. It seems like a lot of those policies and stances are intended to sway favor towards those perceived to be criminals. That will have (hopefully foreseeable) side effects of more crime, but that isn't necessarily exclusive to what may be the intended goal of broadening rights and protections for not-yet-convicted suspects of crime.

They absolutely did not foresee this and are fighting that logical conclusion tooth and nail.

Quote:I mean yea. I think we may have a minor disconnect here. I'm saying a policy doesn't have to be intentionally racist to have racist consequences and those racist consequences should be considered when voting for someone with a history of racism. So, a person isn't necessarily racist if they vote for Trump but they are responsible for racism in that Trump was openly racist. 

You're countering with policies that had an intention that came to bear. More protections for criminals and suspects and more protections for illegal immigrants. This will have the side effect of more crime and more illegal immigrants, but I don't think those policies ever tried to claim those wouldn't happen. They seem like pretty A to B connections for those policies. 

Oh, they absolutely did claim otherwise.  At the very least they will deny any correlation.  Try and find just one Dem politician on the national level who equates the major crime spike with "defund the police", demonizing law enforcement and soft on crime positions.

Quote:The apples to apples comparison would be that people who vote democrat are responsible for more crime in cities and more illegal immigrants in this country, which I don't believe I ever refuted. If I did, it was not intentional.

The difference, in my opinion, is that I believe most Democrats would say "the increase in crime and illegal immigrants is worth the increased civil rights for those groups of people, especially in the case that they are not guilty."

See, that's a position I could at least respect, while completely disagreeing with it.  But I can't find a single person of prominence, or any Dem politicians for that matter, who is actually saying that.

Quote:I don't think people voting for Trump would admit that the racism they caused was worth...whatever Trump accomplished. I doubt the majority of them would even admit Trump was racist haha.

I've said before that having Trump was worth the conservative SCOTUS.  I can't imagine how severely curtailed our liberties would be if Hillary got to appoint three justices.  To me that was worth four years of Trump.  Also, I don't think Trump did anything but bring people who were already racist out from under their rock, people of all ethnicities btw.  

[samhain]

(06-08-2021, 04:31 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Curious, can you give me some examples of what one might find on a Fascist/Nazi/White Supremacist checklist?

I'm pretty confident that if Trump proposed loading liberals onto trains and herding them into camps for incineration and gassing, an at least middling number of his supporters would be down like a clown, Charlie Brown.  After all, liberalism is an evil disease, and these people (the libs) are intentionally destroying America.  They are a threat to everyone's lifestyle, and Christ probably hates them, too.  Also, DJT has a large swath of supporters that literally believe that liberals are abusing kids in secret pizza parlors and whatnot, and it's not a couple of random nutbags.  It's people we all know.  Who wouldn't want to put libs onto trains destined for mass execution if that's you're belief?

I'm not really joking here.  I think many MAGA types would be fine with killing people who politically disagree with them if they thought they could do it without life-wrecking legal consequences, and especially if Trump or his eventual political heir could frame it as a state-sponsored act.  I guarantee they'd do it if the people being executed were strangers.  I reckon a lot wouldn't have much issue giving up family and friends, either.  

[Wes Mantooth]

(06-08-2021, 10:34 PM)samhain Wrote: I'm pretty confident that if Trump proposed loading liberals onto trains and herding them into camps for incineration and gassing, an at least middling number of his supporters would be down like a clown, Charlie Brown.  After all, liberalism is an evil disease, and these people (the libs) are intentionally destroying America.  They are a threat to everyone's lifestyle, and Christ probably hates them, too.  Also, DJT has a large swath of supporters that literally believe that liberals are abusing kids in secret pizza parlors and whatnot, and it's not a couple of random nutbags.  It's people we all know.  Who wouldn't want to put libs onto trains destined for mass execution if that's you're belief?

I'm not really joking here.  I think many MAGA types would be fine with killing people who politically disagree with them if they thought they could do it without life-wrecking legal consequences, and especially if Trump or his eventual political heir could frame it as a state-sponsored act.  I guarantee they'd do it if the people being executed were strangers.  I reckon a lot wouldn't have much issue giving up family and friends, either.  

I actually started wasting my time on a reply to this. (I deleted it)  Why bother though?  It's your forum from here on out, bud.  Nuance, and actual debate be damned.

I'll be heading back to JN now.  Take care.

[Benton]

In our short life as a democracy, Trump is probably the closest thing we've had to a fascist.

Should we vilify him for that? I dunno, probably.

Should we use him as a cautionary tale on not blindly following morons just because of party? Definitely.

How the dude was not impeached for advocating for a coupe then walking away from it is mind boggling, and troubling. The thing is, he probably didn't think ... with all the rhetoric from Paul and Cruz and equal morons ... that there was anything wrong with saying people were stealing from his supporters and they need to forcefully take things back.

[CJD]

(06-08-2021, 08:18 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Therein lies the rub with this type of thing.  You can't target crime without targeting criminals.  If one ethnic group commits a largely disproportionate amount of crime how do you target criminals without disproportionately contacting that group?  Of course, there's a vast range of possible actions within that framework.

I would say target the criminals. I'm confident that police have the ability to set up systems that can identify and target criminals based on their actions without seeing a black person and subconsciously thinking "black guy = crime. I should frisk him."

Quote:They absolutely did not foresee this and are fighting that logical conclusion tooth and nail.

Oh, they absolutely did claim otherwise.  At the very least they will deny any correlation.  Try and find just one Dem politician on the national level who equates the major crime spike with "defund the police", demonizing law enforcement and soft on crime positions.

Well then they need to understand what they're even campaigning for. I am not certain of this, but I find it likely that defunding the police will cause an increase in crime. It's at least a logical expectation. Fewer cops on the streets means fewer boots on the necks of criminals. In the movie, The Dark Knight, the opening scene is criminals seeing the bat signal and stopping crime for the night because they didn't want to risk getting caught by Batman. That is what increased police presence would do as well, at least in theory. (The movie also proposes that this creates "crazier" criminals who have adapted to the new "police state" that Batman creates. I don't know if that would happen in reality, but it's at least interesting to think about.)

The downside, of course, is increased crackdown on communities and disadvantaged groups of people in order to stop and/or catch all the crime will inevitably lead to more crime. If you imprison a man for smoking weed, his child will grow up without a father and the family will grow up without a second source of income. This leads to poverty and instability, which potentially leads to the child getting involved in criminal activity (as gangs and drug dealers prey upon the poor and desperate in their communities) and then the cycle repeats. Repeat this enough times over enough generations, and you can see how "stopping crime" can often times create crime.

Defunding the police, ideally, would address this phenomenon, as the movement generally views crime as a consequence of poverty and racism (such as the War on Drugs) rather than bad people being bad. But, in doing so, you're removing the "bat signal" for the existing criminals...

And then, obviously, being more kind to illegal immigrants (and, in the ultimate goal, making certain forms of "illegal immigration" no longer illegal) will encourage more illegal immigration. That's just a fact. If a politician denies that, then they need to be replaced by a politician who understands cause and effect.

Quote:I've said before that having Trump was worth the conservative SCOTUS.  I can't imagine how severely curtailed our liberties would be if Hillary got to appoint three justices.  To me that was worth four years of Trump.  Also, I don't think Trump did anything but bring people who were already racist out from under their rock, people of all ethnicities btw.  

I suppose that's one way of viewing it. Obviously, I disagree but I understand why you would feel that way. It's true that a lot of what Trump did was lay bare the racism still existing in this country, but I can't help but feel like his presidency will have a negative impact on the next generation. Young, impressionable minds seeing such a disgusting human being as president will inevitably normalize that behavior. Some may even see it as a means to power and replicate him. I don't think we've yet seen the extent of the damage that Trump has caused this country.