# How do I respond to this? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 30, 2015, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913 "2015-06-30T22:36:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2015, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/61 "2015-07-01T17:57:39Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I see no reason to believe that this (a legitimate trust that most black people are honest and accurate about how black people are treated) would no longer be true. One of the things that dramatically showed how black people deserve the benefit of the doubt was shown recently with video evidence that demonstrates how abusive police is on several occasions. It is unrelated to the issue, but it is interesting to me that UFOs have shown less and less on video, I only point at that because I do remember how many law and order types (That are mostly white) made it look in the past as if minorities invented all those accusations against the police, making the abusive incidents to be as likely to exist as UFOs. Turns out that in one case the video recorder captured the planting of evidence on a black guy that was dying. ---
**Author:** ![justrob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9adbd/32.png) [@justrob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justrob)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/62 "2015-07-01T19:13:18Z")
I can’t find this image outside of it’s Facebook post but this seems like a fairly good rebuttal to Johnny L.A.'s. [https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/photos/a.347907068635687.81180.346937065399354/877145225711866/?type=1](https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/photos/a.347907068635687.81180.346937065399354/877145225711866/?type=1) ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2015, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/63 "2015-07-01T21:54:46Z")
Ask your conservative friends about: The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bimetallism The Spanish-American War Warren G. Harding Joseph McCarthy The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and Immigration Act of 1924 Anyone with a deep, historical understanding of the Republican Party should be able to talk about all of those. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/64 "2015-07-02T03:32:55Z")
If you look at the party switch with black voters it started with FDR and the new deal. At a time when Republicans were pushing for the rights of black people the Democratic party was buying up their votes with social programs. But they couldn’t be bothered to seek election in the south as Republican blacks did a half century earlier the first black Democrats were in Northern states like Illinois Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York… You know, safe states. The deal was clinched when JFK GOT MLK release from prison. It only took a couple of generations to destroy the nuclear family and the results are pretty obvious. in less than a hundred years we’ve enslaved millions of people into institutional poverty and the beauty of it is we got them to support the process. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/65 "2015-07-02T03:39:43Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > If you look at the party switch with black voters it started with FDR and the new deal. Before Civil Rights and the Voting Rights Act, there’s not much we can legitimately know about black voters’ preferences, because _in so many parts of America black people weren’t allowed to vote_. After Civil Rights, the Democrats dominated with black voters with massive majorities. > [@](#): > > At a time when Republicans were pushing for the rights of black people the Democratic party was buying up their votes with social programs. But they couldn’t be bothered to seek election in the south as Republican blacks did a half century earlier the first black Democrats were in Northern states like Illinois Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York… You know, safe states. You mean states that _mostly allowed black people to vote_? Again, before the VRA and CR, analyzing black voting tells us very little about what black people actually supported, since so many were disenfranchised. > [@](#): > > The deal was clinched when JFK GOT MLK release from prison. It only took a couple of generations to destroy the nuclear family and the results are pretty obvious. in less than a hundred years we’ve enslaved millions of people into institutional poverty and the beauty of it is we got them to support the process. Most black people I’ve spoken to, as well as public polling, indicates that most black people believe that modern America is a much better place for black people than past decades. I trust that they have an accurate understanding of how they are treated, in general – throughout American history, black people were pretty much always right (in general) about how they were treated, and white people were often totally clueless about how black people were really treated. In short, I trust black people as a group (not necessarily every individual black person) to tell me about how black people are treated in America, and how they were treated in the past. ---
**Author:** ![A.I.G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecb155/32.png) [@A.I.G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.I.G)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/66 "2015-07-02T03:40:21Z")
> [@Tzigone](#): > > Though I notice they aren’t mentioning the 1960s and civil rights at all. 80% Republican support in House. 82% Republican support in Senate 61% Democrat support in House. 69% Democrat support in Senate. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/67 "2015-07-02T03:43:14Z")
> [@Tzigone](#): > > Edit: [1860](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/1860_Electoral_Map.png), [2008](http://politicalmaps.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/2008-election-map-nytimes.png) I like this. Extremely busy at the moment, so I’ll have to find time to read the rest of the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/68 "2015-07-02T03:46:35Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > If you look at the party switch with black voters it started with FDR and the new deal. At a time when Republicans were pushing for the rights of black people the Democratic party was buying up their votes with social programs. But they couldn’t be bothered to seek election in the south as Republican blacks did a half century earlier the first black Democrats were in Northern states like Illinois Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York… You know, safe states. > > The deal was clinched when JFK GOT MLK release from prison. It only took a couple of generations to destroy the nuclear family and the results are pretty obvious. in less than a hundred years we’ve enslaved millions of people into institutional poverty and the beauty of it is we got them to support the process. This opinion is completely ignorant of history. Conservative whites left the Democratic party because of their opposition to civil rights. Read the history of the Dixiecrat party, which specifically lasted from 1948 to 1948, but which established the motivation for the move of conservative southern racists from D to R. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/69 "2015-07-02T03:55:43Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Before Civil Rights and the Voting Rights Act, there’s not much we can legitimately know about black voters’ preferences, because _in so many parts of America black people weren’t allowed to vote_. After Civil Rights, the Democrats dominated with black voters with massive majorities. This is pure historical bullshit. We know which party had black Congressman first for YEARS prior to the other and they were in states the Democrats were busy hanging black people from trees trying to stop their vote. There is no way you can spin this other than it was the Republican party who backed black candidates and pushed through civil rights laws. You are literally trying to white wash history because you’re embarrassed by it. Democrats were front and center during all efforts to destroy rights in the black community. That is FACT. If History bothers you tough shit. ---
**Author:** ![A.I.G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecb155/32.png) [@A.I.G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.I.G)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/70 "2015-07-02T03:56:33Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > This opinion is completely ignorant of history. Conservative whites left the Democratic party because of their opposition to civil rights. Read the history of the Dixiecrat party, which specifically lasted from 1948 to 1948, but which established the motivation for the move of conservative southern racists from D to R. Yet they continued to vote D in governorship, state and local elections well into the 90s. Hmm… > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I’ve explained how Teddy Roosevelt broke up corporations, I’ve explained how the Democrats shifted toward The Common Man under FDR Is breaking up corporations a “good” thing? Is appealing to the lowest common denominator by giving them money, a “good” thing? The responses here seem strange. The presidential voting patterns from 2008 aren’t the same that existed throughout the 20th century into the 1990s. So what are you implying by your 2008 map, and what are do you see in [this map?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1980) So the assumption here is that southerners are racists, Republicans are racists, and that the electoral map supports that. Except that those same states are also the states where the most blacks live in the US. And those states voted D overwhelmingly in non-presidential elections. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/71 "2015-07-02T03:58:29Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > The deal was clinched when JFK GOT MLK release from prison. It only took a couple of generations to destroy the nuclear family and the results are pretty obvious. in less than a hundred years we’ve enslaved millions of people into institutional poverty and the beauty of it is we got them to support the process. **iiandyiiii** replied to this already, but if you want to talk about solutions, the ones that are like this one are usually opossed by Republicans because usually it is expensive, forgetting how much expensive it will be by allowing the usual cycle of poberty to continue: > **[A Different Approach to Breaking the Cycle of Poverty](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/a-different-approach-to-breaking-the-cycle-of-poverty/384029/)** > > Two-generation programs focus on improving education for children and job opportunities for parents at the same time. > [@](#): > > “At first, when I was working, I thought I could do it, but it’s not that easy,” she told me, pushing a baby carriage down a busy street in Mechanicsville as trucks rattled by. > > That’s why a foundation is sponsoring a new approach to breaking the cycle of poverty just a few blocks from where Davis and I spoke. It tries to give children access to high-quality, early-childhood education while helping parents get better jobs and build stronger families. It’s called the two-generation approach, and has been found to be one of the best bets in helping families escape poverty. > > “It’s really attempting to better integrate the services and tools that parents and children receive at the same time,” said Leah Austin, the deputy director of the Atlanta Civic Site, the complex in Mechanicsville where the Annie E. Casey Foundation is piloting this approach. > > After all, a parent who finds a job working a night shift at a fast-food restaurant may be happy to find work, but end up with a whole new range of childcare problems. A center that focuses on both the parent’s working life, and the childcare they’ll need, can spare them some of those headaches. I do remember that a millionare in Florida stumbled on a similar idea, and instead of having a runided neighborhood it got almost all the families he helped in his city out of poverty. > **[Millionaire uses fortune to help kids in struggling town](https://www.today.com/news/millionaire-uses-fortune-help-kids-struggling-town-1C9373666)** > > Harris Rosen went from a childhood in a rough New York City neighborhood to becoming a millionaire whose company owns seven hotels in Orlando, but his self-made success is not his proudest achievement. Twenty years ago, the Orlando, Fla. neighborhood... ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/72 "2015-07-02T04:03:32Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > This is pure historical bullshit. We know which party had black Congressman first for YEARS prior to the other and they were in states the Democrats were busy hanging black people from trees trying to stop their vote. > > There is no way you can spin this other than it was the Republican party who backed black candidates and pushed through civil rights laws. > > You are literally trying to white wash history because you’re embarrassed by it. Democrats were front and center during all efforts to destroy rights in the black community. That is FACT. If History bothers you tough shit. Funny thing about history, while it is embarassing that the Democrats were indeed on the wrong side in the past, they got better. Current history is not so kind to the Republicans now, so there is a lot of embarassing things to clean up now on the Red isle. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/73 "2015-07-02T04:07:15Z")
[Republican Platform under Eisenhower .](http://static.politifact.com.s3.amazonaws.com/politifact%2Fphotos%2F1956_platform_meme.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/74 "2015-07-02T04:14:47Z")
> [@A.I.G](#): > > Yet they continued to vote D in governorship, state and local elections well into the 90s. Hmm… That is almost a whole generation in the past BTW, way to go to make us feel old. 🙂 > [@A.I.G](#): > > Is breaking up corporations a “good” thing? Is appealing to the lowest common denominator by giving them money, a “good” thing? It is very unlikely that the internet you are using now would be as open if the Bell corporation had not been broken decades ago. > [@A.I.G](#): > > The responses here seem strange. The presidential voting patterns from 2008 aren’t the same that existed throughout the 20th century into the 1990s. So what are you implying by your 2008 map, and what are do you see in [this map?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1980) > > So the assumption here is that southerners are racists, Republicans are racists, and that the electoral map supports that. Except that those same states are also the states where the most blacks live in the US. And those states voted D overwhelmingly in non-presidential elections. If the replies you see seem strange, it is because you need to prop up strawmen to make it so. It is true that not all republicans are racists, but unfortunately almost all of the raciists who are left depend on the Republican party to breath. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/75 "2015-07-02T04:19:57Z")
> [@A.I.G](#): > > Yet they continued to vote D in governorship, state and local elections well into the 90s. Hmm… Yes. Keep thinking on it and when you’re done, please come back to make the point you got stuck on. ---
**Author:** ![A.I.G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecb155/32.png) [@A.I.G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.I.G)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/76 "2015-07-02T04:23:25Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > That is almost a whole generation in the past BTW, way to go to make us feel old. 🙂 Oh, so D’s stopped being racist only 20 years ago? 😉 I kid of course. But that’s the sort of arguments being used here. > [@](#): > > If the replies you see seem strange, it is because you need to prop up strawmen to make it so. It is true that not all republicans are racists, but unfortunately almost all of the raciists who are left depend on the Republican party to breath. That depends on what you define as racist, of course. Or whom. > [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Yes. Keep thinking on it and when you’re done, please come back to make the point you got stuck on. I didn’t get stuck on any point. That was my point. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/77 "2015-07-02T04:28:11Z")
Still catching up, and little time right now but… > [@A.I.G](#): > > Is breaking up corporations a “good” thing? Of course it is! Read up on Teddy Roosevelt [R], and why he (and others) did it. See also: Cartels, collusion, price-fixing… ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/78 "2015-07-02T04:32:07Z")
> [@A.I.G](#): > > I didn’t get stuck on any point. That was my point. There was no point to what you wrote. At least not one that was responsive to the substance of the matter. If you are asserting that conservative white southern racists were still running as democrats in the 1990s, please give me a couple of examples. ---
**Author:** ![A.I.G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecb155/32.png) [@A.I.G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.I.G)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/79 "2015-07-02T04:35:09Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Still catching up, and little time right now but… > > Of course it is! Read up on Teddy Roosevelt [R], and why he (and others) did it. See also: Cartels, collusion, price-fixing… I’m quite familiar with the argument about monopolies and price fixing. Although I don’t think anyone on any political side has made the argument against this, in those cases (which are, BTW, rarer than a flying pig, because most monopolies in existence are government sanctioned monopolies). So your argument doesn’t address any opposite view of the Republican side. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913/80 "2015-07-02T04:39:40Z")
> [@A.I.G](#): > > Oh, so D’s stopped being racist only 20 years ago? 😉 I kid of course. But that’s the sort of arguments being used here. As it was pointed before the argument is mostly what the scarecrow was made of. > [@A.I.G](#): > > That depends on what you define as racist, of course. Or whom. To me they are the ones that depend on outfits like Numbers USA that are pointed as hate groups by people like the Southern Poverty Law center but many Republicans are happy to use them to help move along lawsuits like one recently made against the government regarding the dreamers that eventually was dismissed. Recently they were used to twist a humanitarian crisis into a border crisis by their astroturfing in the media and calls and letters to congress, in a recent discussion I do remember that many of the conservatives in this message board did not see any problem or issue here even if that outfit was identified as a hate group, I have to say that IMHO many Republicans do not want to face or to deal with a lot of the prejudice that a few of their peers have. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-this/723913.md?page=5)