If someone is oppressed, it doesn’t matter what the name of the organization is that’s doing the oppression, whether it’s a government or a corporation or a gang or a fiefdom: what matters is the oppression. So no, the libertarian argument that you get rid of government oppression by getting rid of government is profoundly unpersuasive.
The dream is that people get to fulfill their dreams, not that well-off people like you get to bask in freedom while oppressed people get a boot on their necks.
I maintain that anyone, from the Pope on down, who cares about human dignity at this point doesn’t have the luxury of worrying too much about manners in the face of the threat human dignity faces.
Sorry for the long post.
I think what we are getting into is a core difference between the left and the right. How much government
Its a little ironic have been a huge fan of The Straight Dope but one of the reasons I finally signed up for the message boards was to hopefully get away from the anger and wide assumptions both sides have for one another in this politically charged atmosphere.
I grew up in a house where politics was rarely discussed, I remember watching Nixon get on the helicopter as he resigned. my 10 year old self ask my Dad what that means for us and our family. Dad said not a damn thing tommorrow you will go to school Ill go to work and life will go on.
Think for most of us who runs the Federal government has little impact on us, your life is what you choose to make of it. Local government has a much more immediate and constant effect on your lives but even that isnt the end all be all.
Point being is I am here to learn and listen to the other side, to try and see what Im may be missing. Even though I lean right on most issues , I lean left decidely on some key issues too. People need to remember right or wrong a persons politics are partially based on their life experiences.
Like for example on Facebook have a number of friends and classmates from highschool in the 80’s that I follow. Its follow in the loosest sense I rarely post on their pages but when Im board i read their stuff that hits my page. Now you see some are left some are right and the back and forth bickering just amazes me, hell we all partied together, got drunk and stoned on the weekends played the same sports or were in the same social circles. And now the dialog can be heated at times, its funny some of the craziest left field ones are now conservative and vice versa on the left. Just made wonder what happened that these people that grew up in the same area made them go in diverse directions, and lose their tolerance for an individuals right to their own determination.
In Texas, they only publish stats on the early voting from the 30 most populous counties, but those have 78.6% of the registered voters, and 75-80% of the final vote statewide. But more people have voted already in those 30 counties than voted in those 30 counties through Election Day in 2014.
Okay heres where Im here to learn so dont take this as combative, where are these oppressed people in the United States? Not saying it isnt happening but where exactly? The reason I say this as lower middle class 54 year old caucasian male, Ive traveled over the years and have seen good progress from where things were to where they are now.
Obviously there is always more to be done especially in a country of 330 million but its trending in the right direction these things take time. For example a wide area in two counties of our metro area had been depressed, broken down, crime riden for years literally, decades. Though it has a ways to go its gone from a low income predominately white area, to a vibrant business and residential multicultural area, with new and remodeled buildings, housing and infrastructure its been a 30 year process though. Those people in that area 30 years ago probably felt oppressed but it was just the cycle of things, it went through it hey day in the 40’s 50’s and 60’s then started to decline but is now making a strong comeback with totally different demographics. All of it with different parties in control in government locally, statewide and federally ie sometimes it doesnt matter who’s in control.
I hope you also realize while Utopia is the goal, there is always going to be some group that feels oppressed. I mean damn Im sure the anarchists and miilitias feel oppressed, so quelling all discontent just isnt going to happen. we have a long way to go as a country but theres more opportunity and more availble to a wider cross section of cultures than there has ever been, Its trending in that direction.
Getting back on topic, here is how I would define victory:
Blue Wave: Dems get 230-240 House seats, break even in the Senate (hold 49)
Blue Trickle: Dems win the House, lose 3 or 4 Senate seats
Red Tide: Pubs win the House
Blunami: Dems win the Senate
All these can be adjusted depending on governorships won and popular vote totals.
Yeah maybe better to create a GD tread on this but I don’t have the time right now. So I’ll just ask for you to share those statistics.
To my sense of it the claim is true and that is exactly what is so threatening and scary to less educated whites, who previously were most often economically okay (without even realizing how racial privilege was contributing to that) but who are now seeing a wider cross section of sub-cultures (Blacks, browns, immigrants … heck female) getting more education and passing them up.
Trump’s “again” is wanting to reverse that as much as possible but while it stokes up the hate, it is not in any wide scale taking away the socioeconomic progress these groups have made.
At what level of removal of government do you think that slavery or race-based terror disappears?
This is one of the weirder Libertarian talking points from recent years. It is so astonishingly ahistorical and oblivious to modern-day horrors that I struggle to think how anyone can repeat it with a straight face.
Yes: when powerful racist people live under a government, they do their powerful racist shit under a government. When they live under anarchy, they do their powerful racist shit under anarchy.
A democratic government with strong human-rights protections provides the best recourse we’ve yet devised for oppressed folks seeking justice. It literally took the federal government sending in the National Guard before the South became desegregated–and a century earlier they had to send in a lot more than the National Guard. Hardly an argument for weakening government.
“Powerful racist people” do not live under a government. They control the government and pull its strings, hence the adjective “powerful”. Without the power of the state behind them, where does their power lie?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m generally not an anarchist. I do believe that the state has a legitimate function, which includes protecting human rights. The problem arises when the state becomes powerful enough to be a cudgel in the hands of those who would oppress.
So I had a few moments and here are some stats. Lots in there but a few to highlight that bear most on point.
And income results per Pew. Note: there are major disparities. Same education is associated with greater benefit to whites than Blacks, for example. But the trend, the comparison to the even worse past, is pretty clear.
Again, the disparities are dramatic and the progress relatively paltry, but it is indeed trending to greater than there was. Pulling out from that Pew article Black poverty rate has changed from 30% in the mid '70s to 26% in 2014. A small improvement. But meanwhile the white group is disparate. Those with education are doing fine (and the very wealthiest, generally white, have become much more wealthy) but those without college have seen drops.
The rich turn into warlords. They create and employ private armies to protect their wealth. Through the industries they control, they provide the jobs that people need, and pay them just barely enough to live on. Their ability to control others’ lives is limited only by the presence of rival warlords.
Looks pretty similar to what we have now, just replace “warlord” with “nation-state”.
Regardless, like I said, I’m not against a functioning state to protect the would-be exploited from the would-be exploiters. Historically (at least in modern history), the state has far too often itself been the exploiter.