Re: The US Politics Thread

[Found]

I’d have to side with the red elephants on that one. Usually when education has been an issue I’ve tended to side with liberals, because I do kind of believe it would be good for every child to have the right to learn things, evolution, what fucking planet they’re living on, that type of stuff.
But, there is a fine line between a child’s right to an education and an activists’ right to have a line of direct access to a whole generation of children’s minds, to use as their own resource. So, I am mindful of the politicisation of eduction, there have been borderline issues regarding sex education and lgbtwhatever stuff in the past, where they’ve really pushed the envelope between what is a real education and what is a “liberal values” influence job. You want to make a living as an influencer? Get on Instagram and out of school classrooms.

You realize that teaching abstinence only and creationism would be classified as a  “conservative values” influence job by a) liberals, b) the entire scientific community, right?

And it's been going on for decades.

Just so we’re clear when we talk about education and the ‘right’ to an education we’re talking about using government power to integrate the citizenry into an information system, whether the citizens like it or not, right?
Because if you’re talking about parents or some little local social organisation telling their kids to not have sex or that the bible is true, I don’t have a legal problem with that. I have a personal problem with it but it’s free speech right? I can’t control what other people tell their own damn kids about reality, I don’t think I should have that power either.

It’s easy for me to see why you might think schools should be used as an equally coercive counter balance to the indoctrination that happens in households or within private institutions, but I don’t think coercion should be institutionalised at that scale. I definitely don’t think the government should be made just as coercive as the most coercive parent. It’s obviously tragic that we cannot be totally free from coercion as children, if your parents are tyrants that sucks, but what am I supposed to say to that, neutralise them by making the government a tyrant? That just doesn’t make any sense to me and I don’t even know if it would be good for a child to be in the middle of a tug-of-war between their household and their school. Let’s take a worst case scenario as an example, a really religious parent terrifies their children about going to hell if they have sex. If a teacher comes along and tells them having sex would be a great thing, is that going to help them in any way or just increase their cognitive dissonance? I have no idea frankly and it might vary on a case by case basis.

The government should not be used to impose conservative values like abstinence or myths like the 7 day earth creation theory, so there’s not any double standard in my thinking. If the government is used to do that you won’t find me supporting it.
I prefer these culture war fights over moral values to be conducted in domains that have nothing to do with coercion, where some kind of meritocracy of ideas and morals could actually take place. You can disagree with that and say the culture is too important to be left open or to be disproportionately influenced by parents, so the government needs to get a firm grip over it by using education as a tool of power. That’s a bit too authoritarian for me, unless you are an actual infallible know-it-all (which people are not, and the critical-race-baiters are definitely not). And I myself would be too authoritarian to a creationist, because I agree with using the government infrastructure to teach all citizens basic facts, some of which contradict cherished conservative beliefs. But teaching ideology and moral values at the point of a gun is, I don’t know, it’s like you’re asking for a fight, to worsen antagonisms and divisions.


In terms of sex education I agree with:
- Teaching children what sex is
- Teaching children what different sexual activities exist
- Teaching children what ‘best practices’ are IF they choose to engage in these activities  
- Teaching children what the risks of the activities are and how much risks can be reduced by ‘best practices’

What I disagree with:
- Telling children any of these activities are good or bad or that they should or shouldn’t do them
- Using pornographic materials that don’t have any educational value
(And it’s kind of ironic that even if I did want to stop young people having sex I would still teach them sex education, because you know what happens when you show them pictures of sexual infections? They tend to get scared of sex LOL)

So take homosexuality or transgenderism for example. I don’t see why the culture war over those issues shouldn't just take place in media, films, art, public discourse, academia in the form of research, and wherever else these cultural struggles take place in a free society. Why should they be allowed to ‘put their thumb on the scale’ of cultural trends by using the government to indoctrinate everyone that it is definitely a very good thing and you're a very bad person if you have any doubt about that? I don’t appreciate being scolded and lectured by a queer anymore than by a priest. It’s not necessary to do any of that to make progress happen, and that coercion is not good in general. Also the rich shouldn’t be allowed to control the culture either in case you bring that up, I don’t have a problem with government power being used non-ideologically to curb a bunch of big corporations from controlling and censoring every outlet of cultural production.
And you can’t even make this about a ‘minority needs protection’ thing, because frankly, i would be legitimately surprised if much less than 50% of the male population has some degree of interest in sexual practices that are seen as non-traditional)



P.S.

To Hapless Hans, it is so funny to me that a German got just as irrational at this subject as I predicted you would. What is it with Germans and education systems? There is no other people on the planet that gets so weird about this subject. It’s not surprising that when you study history of education, it’s the Germans that invented new forms of educational authoritarianism as a form of nation building. Is it in your blood or something? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system

[Myesyats]

and yet Marxist discourse has been in academia since Marx and it's kind of making a renaissance these days in overall cultural discourse

Well, the discourse itself isnt harmful unless it starts translating into law. Thats why its so dangerous, its seemingly appealing in theory but disastrous in practice.

The extremist nature of such proposals is tough to debate because obviously you can't oppose anti-racist laws, thats very logical. If you oppose a pro-equality law or whatever it isntantly means you're anti-equality. These guys refuse to see and ignore the stuff that is added on in small print.

I dont even look at CRT in terms of race. But I observed that those who push it want to frame it as anyone who opposes such a bill in its current shape is racist, period.

Thats my view as an outsider, as I said before I dont deal with these issues irl and we didnt even take up that debate yet as a society. Also our history is vastly different to the US.

[El Gunner]

lol besides the dig at Hans, which is between you two anyway, that was a good nuanced post explaining yourself @Found. I mostly agree with you then. America's liberal agenda these days does seem to be on the point of extreme where it impatiently and blindingly wants to overthrow everything outdated, and that will come at a cost of mystifying a large population of its people who have largely grown up on old, conservative beliefs. As the past 5 years can attest that all the empathetic (but also vain) virtue signalling, SJW-movements and in-your-face "wokeness" brings about a lot of contradictions and disharmony more than practical solutions.

I think we all agree American Dems need to do better and be more practical at implementing their ideas.

I don’t appreciate being scolded and lectured by a queer anymore than by a priest.

agreed.

It’s not necessary for progress to happen and it’s not good in general.

disagree, this doesn't make any logical sense. In terms of linear time thinking, progress is inevitable. And how can progress not be good in general? Progress is progress.

[Found]

It’s not necessary for progress to happen and it’s not good in general.

disagree, this doesn't make any logical sense. In terms of linear time thinking, progress is inevitable. And how can progress not be good in general? Progress is progress.

You misunderstood what I meant but it’s probably my fault because my grammar was flawed in that part you quoted.
What I meant was that it isn’t necessary to use coercion to make progress happen, because progress can happen with or without government coercion. And I didn’t mean progress isn’t good, I meant coercion isn’t good.

[Myesyats]

lol besides the dig at Hans, which is between you two anyway, that was a good nuanced post explaining yourself @Found. I mostly agree with you then. America's liberal agenda these days does seem to be on the point of extreme where it impatiently and blindingly wants to overthrow everything outdated, and that will come at a cost of mystifying a large population of its people who have largely grown up on old, conservative beliefs. As the past 5 years can attest that all the empathetic (but also vain) virtue signalling, SJW-movements and in-your-face "wokeness" brings about a lot of contradictions and disharmony more than practical solutions.

I think we all agree American Dems need to do better and be more practical at implementing their ideas.

I don’t appreciate being scolded and lectured by a queer anymore than by a priest.

agreed.

It’s not necessary for progress to happen and it’s not good in general.

disagree, this doesn't make any logical sense. In terms of linear time thinking, progress is inevitable. And how can progress not be good in general? Progress is progress.

[McLewis]

It's really something that progressives are getting blamed for these losses, despite having no tangible power in either chamber of Congress nor no power at any level of government.

[BarrileteCosmico]

CRT is not a thing being taught in any school. It's a wedge issue created out of thin air to mobilize conservatives. And it worked.

Dems on the other hand have fallen to infighting and given their electorate nothing to fight for. They first need to figure out how to govern, without that no pitch will win.

Edit: well apparently it is being taught, corrected
https://www.virginiaisforlearners.virginia.gov/what-we-are-reading/

[Pedram]

Midterms are gonna be a massacre for Dems if they don't accomplish something meaningful by then, as always the mainstream media is pointing their fingers at progressives instead of Manchin and Sinema who have been Republican's best allies.

[BarrileteCosmico]

Realistically if Manchin were not there someone worse would be, so he's fine. His state is never going to elect someone more to the left than him.

Sinema should be primaried though.

[McLewis]

CRT is not a thing being taught in any school. It's a wedge issue created out of thin air to mobilize conservatives. And it worked.

Dems on the other hand have fallen to infighting and given their electorate nothing to fight for. They first need to figure out how to govern, without that no pitch will win.

Edit: well apparently it is being taught, corrected
https://www.virginiaisforlearners.virginia.gov/what-we-are-reading/

I'll address this in the Racism thread.

[BarrileteCosmico]

The house approved the bipartisan infrastructure bill at $1.2T. The bill itself is nothing special, basically keeps the status quo. But it is much needed to maintain the US' crumbling infrastructure. It includes a few nice things like replacing all of America's lead piping (so there will be no more Flints in the future). Politically, it was also a big win for Biden as he was elected (partly) for his supposed ability to reach across the isle and get bipartisan deals done, and this was proof of that.

Nevertheless, the bill has been stuck on congress for some time because progressives threatened to tank it unless they were able to also pass the far more ambitious $3.5T Build Back Better bill, which includes massive (and mostly needed imo) increases to social safety nets.

This lead to serious infighting between progressives and moderates as this was never able to get past Manchin and Sinema.

Yesterday it was approved, as progressives capitulated in the face of Virginia's loss and NJ's very narrow win. BBB is no closer to being done, but the bills are no longer linked. The squad voted against it and AOC called it 'bullshit', so it doesn't seem like everyone is on board with the need either.

[McLewis]

Enough Republicans voted for it to pass this so The Squad's "no" vote was a safe one. Moderates will wonder how Progressives who voted no will be able to explain this to their base, but they've already done so...many times. It's no secret to their base.

Frankly, I'm very cynical when it comes to "wins" like this for moderates. It usually means a win for corporations and Big Business, which means main street are unlikely to see many tangible results from it that they can actually feel.

The devil will be in the details, as always.

[M99]

Any anime fans out there? pic.twitter.com/TxX4qiJhOi

— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) November 7, 2021

Bruh how is this real

[BarrileteCosmico]

No way

AOT is truly mainstream now

[BarrileteCosmico]

Inflation is accelerating in the US and long term expectations are becoming unhinged.

This means the Fed will have to step in, raise rates, slow the economy down, throw people into unemployment.

Which means Biden is done, and the dems too. Trump will run in 2024 reminding people of his economy, and will win in a landslide.

Heard it here first.

[McLewis]

I don't think it will be Trump, but you're right about the rest.

[El Gunner]

KANYE 2024

[Myesyats]

[BarrileteCosmico]

@mclewis if it's not Trump it's Ivanka.

[Warrior]

I have a long-term bet with a friend on that

500$ for me if Dwayne is president

50$ for my bud if he's not elected by 2028

I genuinely believe it will happen

[El Gunner]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNDgcjVGHIw

[Myesyats]

People: government please help us
Republicans: no
Democrats: no, but with empathy

[Myesyats]

Democrats: fuck bezos, pay your share in tax, stop treating workers like shit
Also democrats: same day shipping? damnnnnn.... you go girl

[Art Morte]

Democrats: fuck bezos, pay your share in tax, stop treating workers like shit
Also democrats: same day shipping? damnnnnn.... you go girl

The US Democrats are great for challenging the far-right elements of the Republican party. They say all the right things. But in power they're so uninspiring. Biden is quickly becoming one of the most forgettable American presidents. This lack of charisma is only going to lead to a Trump 2.0.

[Myesyats]

His birthday is in 4 days btw....79

My nan is 79 and by 6pm she's half asleep in her chair after a day of doing nothing whereas biden has work all day on top of that

[VivaStPauli]

Eh, my nan at 79 worked two jobs, drove her grandkids around, and smoked two packs a day like a champ.

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