If 51% of the vote isn’t significant, then 49% of the vote is even less significant.
This, the first real reply in the thread, demolishes the OP. Funny how s/he has totally ignored it.
See? This is part of the problem right here. It’s entirely possible to accept transsexualism and bear transsexuals no ill will while still being squicked out/concerned over open bathrooms. But no, not to people like you for whom there is no middle ground. It’s either wide open acceptance completely and immediately or the person involved has to be a “phobe”. This is the kind of crap you think of as “doing the right thing”, I’m sure, but try to get through your head that you are not the actual arbiter of what is and what isn’t the right thing, nor are you the arbiter of who is or isn’t a good person. It’s this “agree with us all the way on everything or you’re an asshole” attitude that is much of the problem, and it’s in large part what has brought you to where you are today politically. People are complex creatures who all have different opinions and who come to different beliefs and acceptances at differing rates and times. Yes, acceptance of homosexuality and transsexualism is a good thing. Expecting - indeed demanding - everyone else to come to it as soon as you have and in all its permeations which in the beginning can seem extreme, is not…especially when it’s accompanied by arrogance, superiority, insults and denigration. Patience and education are much better ways to bring these types of results about. They result in less offensive pushback, less determination not to give in on the issue, and a more genuine and heartfelt acceptance as opposed to one that exists only on the surface so as to avoid confrontation in order to mask an unconvinced mind.
See, here you go again. Believe it or not, a lot of people in this country simply don’t like it when people break or flaunt the law and it has nothing to do with race. Doesn’t it piss you off (assuming you typically obey the law because you think it’s the right thing to do) when someone runs a stop sign or tailgates you because they’re doing something wrong? Do you ever find yourself wishing there was a cop around to catch these people breaking the law? If you’re like most people you do. But what if the cop was of the attitude that what these people were doing wasn’t all that bad and he was gonna keep on allowing them to do it? And what if his superiors made it known that traffic law breakers were welcome in their city and they would not only be protected from prosecution for misdeeds they commit there but shielded from attempts to arrest and prosecute them in other municipalities where they had similarly broken the law? You’d probably be pissed and think it was ridiculous. And then suppose someone came along defending these people and they started calling you names and accusing you of bias of some sort. You’d think they were total assholes, would you, because you know damn good and well that what you object to is people breaking the law, and even moreso for people in authority to protect them while they do it. This, in reality, is the way most of the people who voted for Trump view the issue. So-called ‘race’ has nothing to do with it. But instead of taking this information to heart I fully expect you to continue to try “to do the right thing” by calling anyone and everyone who believes we shouldn’t just throw our borders open to anyone and everyone a “racist”. And you can know you’re right in calling everyone who disagrees with you names because after all Hillary got more votes than Donald. :rolleyes:
And see, here you go yet again! In your mind there’s absolutely no legitimate reason to object to open bathrooms and therefore the only reason anyone would is that they’re worried about “being raped by a tranny”, and then you follow that up with another insulting and dismissive insult.
There are none so blind as they who will not see. Are you gonna be one of them or are you gonna change your ways and start trying to bring about the change you want through a more reasonable and effective approach that involves education and time enough for people to come to realize and accept things on their own? I’d think about it carefully if I were you. Trying to pound a square peg into a round hole and then hurling epithets when that doesn’t work hasn’t taken you where you want to go. Quite the opposite actually.
He explained perfectly well in the post you just quoted from why that isn’t a good idea and why the framers of the Constitution created the Electoral College to forestall it.
Correct but utterly beside the point. BPC claimed Hillary won by a huge margin. A 2% margin is still not huge no matter what percentage the other side drew.
Then you explain to them why their concerns are irrational.
And what then, when they refuse to change their mind? Like the vast, vast majority of people I have met who are concerned about this issue, who care more about the phantom harm of transgender predators than they do of the real harm of assault that trans people suffer, the dysphoria made worse by forcing them into the wrong bathroom, and more? There is a right and wrong here. There is, in fact, very little middle ground.
Well what would you call someone with an irrational fear and/or hatred of transgender people?
I’m sick and tired of pretending that beliefs with no good reason for existing are justifiable. Particularly when they hurt other people for no good reason. And I’m not going to pretend to give those ideas the time of day here.
That makes considerably more sense. Okay, fine, it’s not necessarily racism.
You’ll have to excuse me for not believing that people have convincing reasons for refusing to let people use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender. I’ve looked; I can’t find them. It generally boils down to either “they’re really men in drag” or “I’m worried about being raped”.
Check out my posts on christianforums sometimes. You might be surprised.
The Electoral College is completely ill-equipped to protect against the sort of “tyranny of the masses” that exists in modern times. How can anyone in the 21st Century justify a system that is more focused on making sure New York isn’t oppressing Kansas than making sure that White Americans aren’t oppressing Black Americans? The Electoral College actually makes that sort of tyranny of the majority worse by giving more weight to the votes of individuals living in less racial diverse states. The fact that it’s winner take all in almost all states also makes it worse, since it means a substantial Black minority in several large states still won’t control even a single electoral vote, even if it’s numerically superior to the White population of a small, 3 EV state.
Maybe this system made sense when only considering the interests of White male landowners in the 18th century, whose voting interests were perhaps largely determined by what state they live in. Nowadays race, income, and level of education (especially in the most recent election) are much more significant factors that what state you live in.
The phrasing of this really tickled my funny bone! Now, in the Fake News era. well-defined arithmetic results are accompanied with qualifiers like “maybe.” 
Funny you never mentioned that during your Senatorial and Congressional elections. Why shouldn’t the people of New York and California decide who your Senator will be, in addition to the President?
Imagine a global government, run by direct democracy. Voters in China and India would determine every political choice for us. Would that be ‘fair’? Of course not. Because local representation matters. We aren’t all just ‘one people’, and a system that allows residents of the heavily populated cities to decide how the people of the rural heartland are governed would be unstable and foolish, as their needs and wants are very different.
The genius of the U.S. Government structure is that it is very focused on making sure that no regions of the country feel permanently disenfranchised. Federalism, the electoral college, the way the House and Senate are constructed… all if this is set up to prevent the kind of distant, all-powerful government that the U.S. was created to get away from in the first place.
Read the Declaration of Independence again. Read the Federalist Papers. Maybe it will help you gain some insight into why things are the way they are, and reflect on how those features have kept the U.S. a stable democracy for more than 150 years.
If you are unhappy that California and New York don’t decide most elections, maybe it is time to rediscover a love for Federalism and a weakened central government. If the country is going to elect Trumps, the next best thing you could do is work to isolate your state governance from the rest of the country.
I love that touch of homoeroticism included in an anti-diversity screed. No, we won’t sit down & shut up. (Writing from Houston–where Clinton won. But where the bigots invented The Bathroom Threat to fool the gullible.)
Then there’s Sam Stone:
It’s interesting how this definition of “Federalism” does not match the Federalism of Alexander Hamilton–and George Washington. In those days, Federalism meant having a strong executive & a strong central government. (After the Federalists waned in power Chief Justice John Marshall kept the flame going.) Jefferson & the Democratic Republicans were the ones for states rights & “yeoman farmers”–farming the land left over from the plantations.
Hood rats voted for Hillary: news at 11.
Pleks, you’re eating a warning for that. We don’t allow hate speech at the SDMB. Please don’t do it again.
[QUOTE=Bridget Burke]
I love that touch of homoeroticism included in an anti-diversity screed. No, we won’t sit down & shut up.
[/QUOTE]
It’s not homoerotic if one’s own side is the alpha male dog doing the screwing.
Starving has expressed his swooning admiration for Trump’s alpha-maleness before…
Anyway, Trump will be stumbling around, believing the last person who’s had his ear, vaguely aware that he’s in over his head. There’s not enough Viagra in the world for him to screw us all.
In Fourth Mansions, R A Lafferty talks of the District of Columbia:
(I won’t include the list. Read the book yourself–if you can find a copy.)
The rest of Trump’s party has plans for us–but less fleshy.
Not so well-defined. I’ve heard Clinton’s vote margin stated as anywhere from 1.6 million to 4 million so the 2% figure I stated is an approximation, thus the maybe.
A wise move for certain. One day, perhaps, humanity will have the ability to resolve such incredible mysteries as “what was Hillary’s popular vote margin”, but until we have the amazing, futuristic ability to count votes, it’s probably safer to be intentionally vague about it.
Donald Trump won Pennsylvania by 44,312 votes. He won Westmoreland County, pop 357K, by 66,921 votes, and lost the rest of the state.
Trump won Wisconsin by 22,177 votes. He won Washington County, pop 132K, by 30,875 votes, and lost the rest of the state.
Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes. He won Allegan County, pop 111K, by 15,880 votes, and lost the rest of the state.
In other words, his whole margin of victory in the electoral vote is only due to three small areas with only 600,000 people between them. Should we allow the individuals who live in these three small counties to choose the President of the entire USA? That’s freakin’ crazy!
(FWIW, there were multiple counties in each state that I could have used in place of the ones I chose.)
Hillary should never had ran in the first place ! I was pissed off that she did , she lost the first b/c people didn’t like her so why would people like her any better the second time !
If those were the best reasons there are, then they’re inadequate.
His argument was that California and New York are different. Which is irrelevant. States don’t vote. People vote. So explain why the votes of people in some states should count for more than the votes of people in other states.
As a hint, you might want to avoid complaining about the way “urban dwellers” vote. That’s uncomfortably close to Pleks and his “hood rats”.
Yeah. 80% of the country live in urban areas. The idea that rural people are the “real America” is asinine. People should have an equal weight to vote. Small states have more than enough equalizer in the Senate.