Saladman posted:

Ironically, any European trying to criticize the United States for electing a demagogue in 2016 is going to need a Trump-strength reality distortion field to avoid the fact that half of Europe has elected populists to their head of state in the past 5 years. At least off the top of my head, for both left and right wing populists, but mostly right wing, we have Spain

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

The best scenario now is either California seceding or a massive Civil War that will destroy the evilest empire the world has known since the British, Spanish and Aztecs

FactsAreUseless posted:

Yeah! Take that, the loving Aztecs!

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Mexico is going to take Texas back and sacrifice a hundred thousand Yanqis by doing epic Kano heart ripping fatalities for Huitzilpochtli

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Hell of he actually advocates isolationism and ignore the repub fuckers on foreign policy he might be the least harmful President to the world ar large since Carter lol

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Mexico is going to take Texas back and sacrifice a hundred thousand Yanqis by doing epic Kano heart ripping fatalities for Huitzilpochtli

Pedro De Heredia posted:

Spain did not elect a right-wing populist. What the gently caress are you talking about?

Me posted:

At least off the top of my head, for both left and right wing populists, but mostly right wing, we have Spain

HorseLord posted:

If this election gives you a new reason to hate America, it should be that a large section of the liberal establishment and their followers think that anti-trump political action would be unreasonable, and that instead we should "compromise", "seek to build understanding" and other 1930s SPD horseshit.

I fully expected this because as far as white american liberals are concerned fascism just means they'll get the front seats of the bus reserved for them again.

Mercrom posted:

I don't have any respect for American liberals. They complain about human rights abuses like making gay marriage illegal but still always elect war criminals. They don't really have any right to complain about the rest of the country electing a openly racist sex criminal. When people demonize BLM and defend cops who shoot unarmed black men, they are not being racist, they are being completely consistent with US policy from both the right and the left.

botany posted:

... so they're being racist.

Mercrom posted:

Some are. But I bet most are just firmly stuck in the belief that might and success makes you right, and that the weak only have themselves to blame. It's far more prevalent and consistent than even racism.

FactsAreUseless posted:

It's part of racism. You can't separate these ideas. Racism is about power.

Mercrom posted:

I think you can separate the ideas when they manifest in the form of other discrimination like classism, sexism and deciding which countries you like.

Mercrom posted:

Some are. But I bet most are just firmly stuck in the belief that might and success makes you right, and that the weak only have themselves to blame. It's far more prevalent and consistent than even racism.

Hambilderberglar posted:

Ever since Brexit the idea of a common military for the EU outside of NATO has been upgraded from its previous status of "maybe, perhaps, at some point, wouldn't it be nice if, some people are talking about, maybe, MAAAYBE" to something with a lot more urgency.

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Is that stereotype actually a thing still? The only depictions of millionaires and billionaires as virtuous people on media on the last 20 years are usually reserved for tech startup types like Zuckerberg or Musk.

Saladman posted:

Ironically, any European trying to criticize the United States for electing a demagogue in 2016 is going to need a Trump-strength reality distortion field to avoid the fact that half of Europe has elected populists to their head of state in the past 5 years. At least off the top of my head, for both left and right wing populists, but mostly right wing, we have Spain, Italy, Greece, UK (kind of), Hungary, Poland, Switzerland (kind of), Austria (neck-and-neck, we'll see how the re-re-revote goes), Finland, and Norway. France is about to have a harrowing showdown between Madame Trump and whoever the old guard can throw up, and Merkel is going to get trampled next year too.

Fortunately, when you hear anyone say something along the lines of what people said when Bush was president, you can know to not waste your time trying to deal with them, as they're hopelessly unaware of their own surroundings.

botany posted:

Given that the economically weak are more likely than not minorities, that belief justifies the oppression of minorities, which makes it racist.

Mercrom posted:

You know I'm all for calling everything bad in the world racist if it gets things done but let's not take this logic too far. Once leftists start advocating affirmative action in courts the right will have won forever.

botany posted:

what

I'm saying if something systemically disadvantages PoC it's racist. That should not be controversial. And I don't understand your point about affirmative action.

Mercrom posted:

The courts systematically disadvantage the poor because the poor are more often criminals. That doesn't by itself mean the system is classist or racist. Capitalism isn't racist either, but it is inherently classist.

botany posted:

The US justice system, of which the courts are a part, is racist because (a) laws like mandatory minimum sentencing are openly racist by design and (b) if you're black you are statistically more likely to get a harsher sentence than a white person. Also I still want to know what you meant when you talked about affirmative action.

Mercrom posted:

I meant reducing sentencing to minorities because of their overrepresentation in prisons.

quote:

Also wasn't the mandatory minimums welcomed by minorities at first as an attempt to reduce crime in their neighborhoods? It didn't work mainly because higher sentences don't reduce crime.

botany posted:

Yeah but AA clearly isn't racism, since it doesn't systematically disadvantage minorities. So writing it into the law is not a problem. People who think otherwise effectively are trying to uphold white supremacy, which makes them racists.

silence_kit posted:

Of course AA is racist policy! I personally think that AA is mostly a good thing because it works to counteract in practice racism against blacks and latinos, but it is like the very definition of racist policy! This is the controversy!

I understand that you would prefer not to have that word be associated with AA, and so you are now adjusting the meaning of the word so that your favorite ideas do not get associated with that attack word, but come on, let's be honest about what it is here.

botany posted:

I am honest. Racism is the systematic oppression of minorities. AA isn't racist, unless you subscribe to that idiotic idea of ~*~reverse racism~*~ in which case (a) you're a moron and (b) gently caress off.

botany posted:

I am honest. Racism is the systematic oppression of minorities. AA isn't racist, unless you subscribe to that idiotic idea of ~*~reverse racism~*~ in which case (a) you're a moron and (b) gently caress off.

Mercrom posted:

Also AA isn't racist because it doesn't judge a person because of their ethnicity,

silence_kit posted:

Wow, it's no wonder that you aren't getting what Mercrom is saying. You are basically ignoring why there is so much controversy surrounding AA by defining away the issue.

silence_kit posted:

Wow, it's no wonder that you aren't getting what Mercrom is saying. You are basically ignoring why there is so much controversy surrounding AA by defining away the issue.


Of course it does. This is the point of the policy!

botany posted:

(a) you're a moron and (b) gently caress off.

botany posted:

silence_kit posted:

Either you are seriously taking as gospel the advertising copy which, by redefining the definition of racism, is designed to hide that AA is a policy which judges people according to race, or you are suffering from cognitive dissonance. I can't decide which. Again, I will iterate that I personally support the policy.