(08-14-2020, 12:36 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: His extreme stance on gun control aside, it's not what he, personally, embodies, it's the idea of a Dem held Congress and White House.  You're focusing too much on the office of the Presidency, I'm more concerned with what his holding it will enable the Dems to do on Capitol Hill.  Here's the thing, I kept warning people that CA style gun control was coming to a theater near you, people scoffed at the idea.  It's now happening, incrementally in some areas, but it's happening.  I can see which way the wind is blowing and the Dems complete capitulation to the current far left sentiment has shown me that their being in power is something we should want to avoid at all cost.  So Biden, on his own, is not some far left fringe lunatic.  Harris is a political opportunist, always has been, she'll be whatever gets her what she wants, which is more power.  Neither will stand up to the extremists in their own party.  They might not always cater to them, but they certainly won't repudiate them.

(08-14-2020, 01:28 PM)hollodero Wrote: In my defense, I am focusing on the presidency for the election is about the presidency. I don't want to be snarky, it's just that there are elections for the house, the senate, for governor etc. where I would understand better why you want to avoid Democrats. As for the presidency though, for me it's hard to fathom to be more afraid of president Biden than of president Trump, who along many other imho huge issues once and again shows that he is not a believer in democracy, the rule of law etc. and wants to undermine it as good as he can.
Which is one reason why I declared your case of how we all should fear president Biden as underwhelming to me. Of course that verdict also stems from your being afraid of a moderate candidate because his party might turn to extremes - while when it comes to the actually extreme candidate, you claim that this is merely a small tide and all those extremes will just disappear in his party again as soon as he is gone. I just have a different take on that.

Quote:But I probably should not interject too much, on the grounds that I also just have no issue with stricter gun laws, eg. with universal background checks or with gun permits handed out after some kind of aptitude check. But that's mainly me being brought up and socialized in a society where we regard guns differently, and US gun laws aren't exactly my cup of tea. On this issue, you have my acceptance regarding your take, but not my empathic understanding, especially regarding the importance of it. 

(08-14-2020, 01:28 PM)SSF Wrote: I think what you're saying is we should fear a president Trump more than we should fear a president Biden.  This is an argument I can understand.

(08-14-2020, 01:28 PM)SSF Wrote: I'd have zero concern over a president Biden with a GOP controlled Congress.

(08-14-2020, 01:28 PM)SSF Wrote: He's already discussed confiscation, and the Democratic party would certainly have no issue with that. As we've discussed before, Europe has a very limited history of civilian access to weaponry outside of Switzerland. Also, as I've stated before, the Framers used Europe as an example of why civilian firearm ownership was important, as the lack of it in Europe allowed oppression and totalitarian rule, historically, if not at that exact point and time.

(08-14-2020, 09:39 AM)hollodero Wrote: Well, you took an argument of mine, compared it to an argument made on FOX and then you state that those FOX people usually make those arguments in bad faith. I agree with that, but I don't see that as an efficiant rebuttal of my initial argument. It's not on me that Ingraham made s amiliar one.

And secondly, I see this logic as flawed, as stated in my reply to Pat. Maybe not completely flawed, but the extremes of this line of thinking are. Blacks were loyal and were mistreated in the country for a long time and still are now, so that's an argument for a black president. Now sure, there now was a black president, but there are still black women and Obama was not a woman, so now we need to pick a black woman for VP and for president in 2024 (and this is quite likely the reality). She should probably pick a gay VP then, because let's face it this group also was treated poorly by society and the law and still is, and they are mostly loyal Dem voters. When do we throw a bone to the hispanics? What about Asians, they are 1/2 of the black population, but a ratio of 2 blacks : 1 asian seems only fair, and Asian Americans suffered concentration camps...

(08-14-2020, 10:51 AM)Nately120 Wrote: Maybe I'm just too biased to see, but I find right wing humor to fall flat.  It's just that right wingers tend to not be very entertaining, nor do they appeal to people who are themselves entertaining.

So we have another white candidate so we give Biden cornrows like they gave Hilary because they're pandering to the black vote and Kamala Harris is a woman so she's clearly a nasty sperm dump..it's just lazy satire.  Then again, it's amusing that Trump uses grade school-level insults during press conferences to attack his opponents.  Did politics just become more juvenile and stupid as I got older or did I really get so much wiser as I aged that the world of adults revealed itself to be gleefully juvenile and superficial?

And before any of you disagree with me, keep in mind that people who disagree with me are sleepy nasty idiots with poopy pants.

(08-14-2020, 11:15 AM)hollodero Wrote: No, no need to compare, it's just that I introduced the concept of marginalized hispanic women that under the introduced logic might deserve a similar recognition and you responded with a list of grievances black women have to endure. It's an implied comparison. My stance of maybe better not committing to a candidate's race or gender is largely based on the assumption that these implied comparisons are not the ideal way to look at things in the first place. 
I mean, your argument seems to be black women had it worst and the issue of explicit and implicit racism is on top of minds at this moment, so they deserve a black female VP, and while the former might very well be true I still would not see the latter as a necessary consequence. 

I am not radical within that thought. I would have found it perfectly fine if Biden had said I need a VP, I found a highly qualified person, that has merits from A to Z and also as a black women has an unique understanding of the grievances blacks and women have to face. I feel that would have been better, very much including for Kamala Harris. It's the early commitment to a black women that kind of "bothered" me. Or at least I have some questions about that approach.

As for the meme, I agree with your perspective on that, I don't see these instances as a particularly compelling reason to pick a black woman for VP. I can't really argue against a different viewpoint on that though.

(08-14-2020, 02:55 PM)Dill Wrote: 1. Not on you what Ingraham does; I have been arguing why I would like to see charges of identity over merit disappear from public debates over candidates. Picking candidates is not like picking the best left tackle for your offensive line in pro-football. Diversity in party representation is important because of the way rewards, opportunities and POWER have been skewed away from women and minorities in the past.  Since the late 80s and early 90s, groups and organizations which formerly defended or tolerated segregation enlisted MLK's "content of character" remarks when they realized the roll back of segregation would be permanent. "How can anyone disagree with the best person for the best job?"--when that puts at the head of line so many who have had better opportunities and access to education, and keeps that cycle running. It's also a way a making the history and politics of each specific choice disappear in the abstraction "the best qualified person" as a standard no one can argue against--in the abstract. So it's these meritless and selective defenses of meritocracy that I would like to see disappear from public discussion.

2. You still appear to have missed the essence of my point--Black women have been doing the party's WORK for it, in the trenches at the local level, for decades now--the canvasing and registering and phoning and renting facilities for meetings and printing handouts etc etc etc. And mostly in states where and during times when this was dangerous work. At this point I don't see gay or Latina groups stepping forward with the same credentials. So it's not primarily about gay or Latina or Asian "ratios."

The Republican analogy here would be to Evangelicals and grass roots organizations like Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, who have performed similar work for the Republican party, sending teams into individual neighborhoods knocking on doors, seeding disinformation about the ERA, and otherwise creating the basis of issue-recognition and identification that the party could then mobilize from the state and national level. Picks like Palin and Pence aren't just about covering some new bases, but about rewarding labor--and insuring it will continue.

We should be past the "why a black VP" and this point and begin dissecting Harris' record as a prosecutor, to find out if there is anything really objectionable about it. I am just beginning the process and so far have found nothing. The most serious objections, perhaps, still need to be brought forward.

Quote:A Virginia mayor is facing calls for his resignation over a Facebook post in which he said that Joe Biden "just announced Aunt Jemima" as his running mate.


Luray Mayor Barry Presgraves posted the comment about two weeks ago on his Facebook page. The comment was condemned by members of the Luray Town Council and other residents before he took it down.

Luray is a town of less than 5,000 people, the majority of them white, according to the most recent census data. Four percent of the population is Black. The town is about 90 miles west of Washington, D.C.
Biden named California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate on Tuesday.


A number of Black women were on Biden’s running mate short list, including Florida Rep. Val Demings; California Rep. Karen Bass, who leads the Congressional Black Caucus; Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms; and Susan Rice, the former national security adviser to President Barack Obama.


Presgraves apologized at a town council meeting on Monday night.

"I want to make this very clear to everyone with absolutely no qualifications," Presgraves said. "I understand what I posted on social media was wrong, offensive and unbecoming."


Presgraves, 77, added that it does not reflect what is in his heart.


"I also want to make a direct apology to all people of color and women. Passing off demeaning and worn out 
racial stereotypes as humor isn't funny," he said, reading from a prepared statement. "I now fully understand how hurtful it is and I can and will do better and we can all do better. We must."


He concluded his statement by saying, "From the bottom of my heart, I am sorry and humbly ask for your forgiveness and your grace."


Barbara Veney, 69, a Luray resident, addressed Pregraves directly at the meeting.


"I've been here all my life. Almost 70 years. And today, I'm hurt," she said.


Veney told Presgraves she was not there to tear him down or speak ill of him but that she had to stand for what is right. Veney said her father was Black and white, her mother was Indian and Black, and that she was not taught to be racist. She said she was taught "what comes out the mouth can hurt and you have to be careful what you speak because words do hurt."


"We need somebody with positive thinking that will shape this community. No more dividing," she said. "In order for us to move on ... I'm asking you today, Mr. Mayor, that you step down in love — because I love you — and do the right thing."
At least one person at the meeti

ng said he did not deem the Facebook comment racist. Audre King, a resident of Luray, said that he did not believe that the mayor intended for his comments to be racist "although in the context, they very much were."

(08-15-2020, 12:24 PM)GMDino Wrote: Gonna be an uphill struggle in some parts of the country.  I'm positive this isn't the only smalltown mayor with these views, spewing them about the interwebs.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/virginia-mayor-urged-resign-after-saying-biden-picked-aunt-jemima-n1236601?fbclid=IwAR3d7mpVu1L0EhmDgEHjP2Z8Mf6OCrYuHsnBK3wyrS7Z6XNw8pKGVyUkeHs



I'm aware we posted about this before but I wanted to share hie "apology" and wonder what IS in his heart if those words aren't from there. 

(08-15-2020, 12:53 PM)hollodero Wrote: I really think everyone would be better served if apologies like that got accepted, at least to an extent. Biden wants the same to happen for his more unfortunate sayings, of which he produces plenty as well. I get that this particular comment from this mayor was not like one of those Biden blunders and uncomparably abysmal, I don't want to diminish that. But at least he found the decency to regret the error of his ways, and this imho should be encouraged. For the good of society.

(08-15-2020, 01:19 PM)GMDino Wrote: I am all for forgiveness.  But I find these kinds of comments for an elected official to be hollow.  "not what is in my heart" translates, to me, to "I think this but I don't want people to know that I'll pretend I'm dumb enough to say racist things but I'm not really racist." 

Again that's just my take on overtly racist statements.

(08-15-2020, 12:53 PM)hollodero Wrote: I really think everyone would be better served if apologies like that got accepted, at least to an extent. Biden wants the same to happen for his more unfortunate sayings, of which he produces plenty as well. I get that this particular comment from this mayor was not like one of those Biden blunders and uncomparably abysmal, I don't want to diminish that. But at least he found the decency to regret the error of his ways, and this imho should be encouraged. For the good of society.

(08-15-2020, 02:21 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: It should be pointed out that this apology was the second one he made after first refusing to apologize. His first apology was the "sorry if you were offended" type of non-apology apology.

(08-15-2020, 11:14 AM)hollodero Wrote: I don't agree that argueing for the best person is a sign of a meritless and selective defense of meritocracy. I get that the argument got misused, but that doesn't make it inherently moot or discriminatory or anything.

On the other hand, Puff Diddy and all the other self-declared Black leaders threatened Biden when he dared to talk to Gretchen Whitmer. They claimed that if he didn't choose a black woman as VP, he'd be a "devil", one of those devils black people are sick of voting for. This is just irrational, promotes identity politics, I know this word is frowned upon, but it is. At least I get why many might perceive it that way, or why people might say that the democrats are overly focused on one specific demographic that, after all, 84% of people do not belong to that also vote and that also have grievances and desires.

(08-16-2020, 02:59 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote:

(08-15-2020, 11:14 AM)hollodero Wrote: I also did not miss the point that black women did a lot of groundwork for the democratic party. I'd hope they did it because they saw promise in Democratic politics, or to promote certain politics and policies, and not to ensure one of their own gender and race a VP post. For that's what it's about, isn't it? One can argue that a black woman is particularly suited to implement good policies for black women, but that is far from a given and other qualifications - like competence, the right ideas, or understanding of the law and politics etc - are far more decisive, also not every black woman is automatically a blessing for all black people. One wouldn't support Ann Coulter on the grounds that she's a woman and women were historically marginalized. This is no shot against Kamala, again, it's a shot against the principle. I gave my reasons why I think so, I don't feel like rephrasing all the points already made.

(08-16-2020, 01:51 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: An interesting article on the media's complete 180 on Harris.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/13/media-crush-kamala-harris-395020

(08-16-2020, 02:29 PM)masterpanthera_t Wrote: Yes, indeed. I don't understand how someone so convincingly ejected from the primaries is now chosen as the deputy. It's not as if Stacey Abrams couldn't have boosted Biden's voter turnout or garnered him more votes than Harris among the demographics into which Biden would seek to make inroads.