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~Right vs Left~ A discussion about Racism in the Political Spectrum

Debate Information

The Democratic Party was established in 1829 and can (But doesn't) boast the following achievements:

  1. Defended Slavery
  2. Started the Civil War
  3. Opposed reconstruction
  4. Reclaimed allocated lands for Slaves and returned them to the Slave owners
  5. Created Black Codes
  6. Imposed voting restrictions for Blacks in the form of literacy requirements and poll taxes
  7. Responsible for the creation and use of the Klu Klux Klan
  8. Imposed Segregation
  9. Imposed Jim Crow laws
  10. Perpetrated lynching
  11. Opposed the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment
  12. Fought against the Civil Rights Acts of 1950s and 1960s

The Republican Party wasn't established until 1854 and was created as an anti-slavery Party. They can (But generally don't) boast the following achievements:

  1. Fought against Slavery
  2. The Emancipation Proclamation
  3. Fought for African American Freedom in the Civil War
  4. Confiscated land from Slave owners and allocated it to freed Slaves
  5. Established the Freedman's Bureau
  6. Established 13th, 14th and 15th amendment for equality
  7. Fought against Black Codes and Jim Crow laws
  8. Fought the Klu Klux Klan under President Ulysses S. Grant
  9. Put the first Black people into Government Office
  10. Fought for the Civil Rights Acts of 1950s and 1960s

The above are matters of fact, here though lies the rub: Where did the ideology and philosophy of the Slavery party go?  In today's Society...you'd be hard pressed to find someone who thinks it just disappeared.  There's some debate as to the "Party switch" idea that I don't particularly subscribe to however, when it comes to determining where these nasty ideas are seated today in Politics...my money is on the Party responsible for helping minorities to fail.






I'm interested in what the consensus is on these ideas.



joecavalryMax_Air29kmelkevolution17George_Horse
"If there's no such thing as a question then what kind of questions do people ask"?

"There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".

"Oh, you don't like my sarcasm?  Well I don't much appreciate your stup!d".





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  • joecavalryjoecavalry 430 Pts   -  
    The Democratic Party is responsible for many negative events such as slavery, the civil war, etc. Although, this is clearly known in history, the Democrats do not claim to have done those things. Abraham Lincoln, a Republican President, abolished slavery. This freed many African-Americans. The GOP should recieve more African-American votes opposed to African-Americans voting for the Democratic Party.
    EmeryPearsonbrontoraptorGeorge_Horse
    DebateIslander and a DebateIsland.com lover. 
  • whiteflamewhiteflame 689 Pts   -  
    The video seems generally build around the purpose of disputing the notion that Democratic values and Republican values switched places at some point in our history, and I agree with that sentiment. Both parties have changed a great deal since the mid-1800's, and those changes have appealed to certain parts of the country better than others. They've also changed to appeal to various segments of the population, including certain racial groups. Populations have changed as well, particularly in their sentiments regarding racial and sexual discrimination, though some lingering effects persist. It's a complex of changes that have occurred over the course of about 150 years. Both parties have changed a great deal in that time. Even comparing the Democratic Party of today to that of 5 decades ago is problematic, much the same as comparing the Republican Party of today to that of the past is problematic. There's value in historical precedent, and I don't think anyone's challenging the facts you've posted here regarding who was in charge of what type of policy before, during, and shortly after the end of the Civil War, though I should mention that claiming the entirety of the Republican Party and the entirety of the Democratic Party stood against and for slavery, respectively, is an generalization that warrants some nuance. 

    But that doesn't sound like what either of you are arguing. @Vaulk, you're claiming that slavery is, in some ways, still alive and well within the Democratic Party. You're extremely vague on what you mean by that, and I don't see any support for that argument. The assertion that the Democratic Party is "helping minorities to fail" is entirely assertion and I would take great issue with it, but I think it's a tangential conversation unless you can link those policies to a pro-slavery mentality. To answer your question, the ideology and philosophy of the pro-slavery Democrats is simply not a part of any party platform today. I don't see evidence of such oppression in today's society from either party.

    As for your argument, @joecavalry, I strongly disagree that the GOP should receive more African American votes based solely on its abolitionist history. Voters don't tend to look at the history of a party when making decisions about whom to elect. Segments of the population generally vote for the party that they perceive as doing the most to help them. I'm not going to argue here that the Democrats do benefit them more, mainly because I feel that there is some subjectivity to that argument, but the idea that people should be voting a certain way based on a party's past successes (particularly successes of over a century ago) is extremely flawed. A party's platform today matters a great deal more to voters today than does their platform 150 years ago, and that is as it should be.
    EmeryPearsonBaconToes
  • VaulkVaulk 813 Pts   -  
    @whiteflame

    I'm generally on board with your points, and I agree that the broad brush stroke of "All or nothing" doesn't accurately reflect Democrats or Republicans historically or presently.  There's actually something to be said about the both parties historically having both left and right wing populations.  

    To clarify the idea of the slavery ideology being alive and well, I don't necessarily subscribe to the idea that it's "Slavery" per say, but more along the lines of the fundamental oppression that still exists.  I'll try my best to elaborate and support the argument that it exists in several forms today.

    1. The Moynihan Report clearly outlines the relationship between the decline of in-tact Black families and the rise of Black Single Mother Welfare enrollment.  The debate on whether Moynihan is correct in his conclusions regarding welfare and how it's affecting Black Families (Black Fathers in particular) is still hot to this day.  My conclusion regarding this matter is simply that the existence of the Welfare state has systematically removed the arguably most powerful reason for Husbands and Wives staying together...because they need each other.  Family is an investment in one's own future and the futures of each member in their Family...but without the need to stay together...the motivation to endure and remain resilient diminishes.  More importantly is that over generations this ideology that "You don't have to stay together to survive" generates children that are raised without a structured Family and end up producing children with exponentially more and more serious problems.  Note: I don't think this issue exclusively affects Black Americans, I simply believe that it affects them disproportionately.
    2. The passing of the Civil Rights act helped Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 to earn 94% of the Black vote but the disparity between what Blacks had fought for and what they actually got from Democrats was depressing.  While apartheid conditions were largely quashed in the South, the legislation did very little against structured racism that shaped the lives of Black people in places like Chicago, LA and Philadelphia.  Essentially, Northern Liberals crafted what scholars now call "Colorblind Racism" which describes the use of racially neutral language to make extreme racial inequalities look like natural outcomes of innocent private choices or free-market flow instead of intentional forces like Public Housing Covenants, Federal Mortgage Redlining, public housing segregation and School zoning.  So the Civil Rights Act legislation did great against problems in the south but did absolutely nothing for de facto segregation in the North.   Bayard Rustin (Civil rights organizer) laid it out best when he said: "People have to understand that although the civil-rights bill was good and something for which I worked arduously, there was nothing in it that had any effect whatsoever on the three major problems Negroes face in the North: housing, jobs, and integrated schools…the civil-rights bill, because of this failure, has caused an even deeper frustration in the North".  So today, the protest movements against second-class citizenship in Baltimore, Ferguson, Oakland, and elsewhere are part of the legacy of the largely ignored failures of civil-rights legislation.
    3. Bill Clinton...and for once we're not talking about his sex scandals.  This guy managed to get 83% of the Black vote in 1992 and 83% in 1996 and then turned around to create the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.  Michelle Alexander said it best: “It is difficult to overstate the damage that’s been done,"  "Generations have been lost to the prison system; countless families have been torn apart or rendered homeless; and a school-to-prison pipeline has been born that shuttles young people from their decrepit, underfunded schools to brand-new high-tech prisons.”  Bill Clinton himself admitted that his crime bill cast too wide a net and perpetuated the staggering issue of mass incarceration.
    These are just a few of the large and prominent examples of how Democrats (While appearing to champion for equality) are actually representative of the oppressive ideology that existed during Slavery.  Take a look at: Obamacare availability in the inner cities, Executive Amnesty, the results of crushing levels of Gun Control in places like Oakland, Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Atlanta...just to name a few of the problems created by Democrats, their monopoly control of these places and their policies.  

    I don't personally think that either side is CURRENTLY doing anything amazing for the Black population or for minorities in general however, there's something to be said about watching a political organization intentionally create more problems for a citizen demographic under the guise of "Helping".


          
    EmeryPearson
    "If there's no such thing as a question then what kind of questions do people ask"?

    "There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".

    "Oh, you don't like my sarcasm?  Well I don't much appreciate your stup!d".


  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5967 Pts   -  
    The nature of organized political groups is such that they tend to act in a way that lets them use the current political situation for their advantage. They evolve and change constantly, sometimes performing 180-degree pirouettes, and sometimes changing into something unheard of before.

    After the Independence War, the young democracy struggled to find its identity in the world dominated by monarchies and dictatorships. There were many political groups and movements advocating for giving the president a lot more power than the Founding Fathers intended, to avoid destabilization and division between various regions and social groups in the country. Democratic Party was likely born (not exclusively, but by large) as a response to the concerns of the consequences of those trends: it advocated for strong states and weak federal government, and it also was weary of rapid social change and wanted to preserve the status quo, including the right to own human slaves (which was viewed by them as an unalienable right of a free individual).

    With time, however, social progress became incompatible with the ideals of the Democratic Party. Their neglect of the ideals of equality, their loose interpretation of concepts of human rights and worker rights and many other factors not belonging to the evolving society demanded an alternative - which was born as the new Republican Party. The struggle for dominance between the two parties culminated in a civil war which was won by Republicans, and it was their ideas that became dominant on the American political landscape.

    As any authority that stays in power for too long, the Republican Party was slowly getting more and more corrupt, with its members becoming more concerned with preserving and increasing the amount of power they had, than with following the original Republican ideals. But since those ideals were still in demand, Democratic Party, sensing the opportunity to reverse the situation, employed those ideals instead - hence becoming more similar to the original Republican Party, than the Republican Party of that time was.

    The bottom line is that parties are not static, they evolve and change with time, and that evolution and change is dictated by the changing social, economical, political and international background. Hence the state of the current parties 150 years ago does not have much relevance on their evaluation at present.
    BaconToes
  • whiteflamewhiteflame 689 Pts   -  

    @Vaulk

    I have several two problems with your argument.

    First, you state that these problems are created intentionally. I don’t see any evidence of that. Going through your examples (and assuming they’re all correct – I’ve got several grievances, particularly with the Moynihan Report and its conclusions), none of them reveal anything regarding intention. If the welfare state is actually responsible for breaking up black families, that does not mean that the welfare state was imposed specifically for that purpose, which is what you appear to be arguing. Failing to impose restrictions preventing the second-class citizenship that led to protests in various cities doesn’t seem purposeful to me, nor do efforts like those passed under Bill Clinton seem aimed at causing harm to black people. There’s a difference between passing/expanding on flawed legislation that ends up harming minorities and actively seeking to harm those minorities.

    Second, you’re ignoring a great deal of beneficial legislation that has been passed by Democrats, and a great deal of harmful legislation passed by Republicans. Just running through a timeline of events:

    1948: Truman signs Executive Order 9981, requiring equal treatment for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.

    1965: Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965, making it easier for Southern blacks to register to vote. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and other such requirements that were used to restrict black voting are made illegal.

    1988: Overriding President Reagan's veto, Congress passes the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which expands the reach of non-discrimination laws within private institutions receiving federal funds.

    2008: Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) introduces the Civil Rights Act of 2008. Some of the proposed provisions include ensuring that federal funds are not used to subsidize discrimination, holding employers accountable for age discrimination, and improving accountability for other violations of civil rights and workers' rights.

    https://www.infoplease.com/spot/civil-rights-timeline

    I’m not going to pretend that all of these are perfect actions, but they are all clearly aimed at improving civil rights protections for minorities in the US. As for Republicans impeding such efforts, Reagan’s attempts to stop the Civil Rights Restoration Act is a good start. Barry Goldwater’s nomination to the presidency, particularly with his views on the Civil Rights Act, is widely credited for the mass exodus of black people from the Republican Party of the time.[https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/07/14/331298996/why-did-black-voters-flee-the-republican-party-in-the-1960s] Support for the Civil Rights Act was significantly more likely among Democrats of the time, which means that Goldwater’s views were more widely held among Republicans of the time.[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/republicans-party-of-civil-rights]

    It’s not my goal here to show that Democrats have been historically better for African Americans. As I said earlier, I feel that that is somewhat subjective because we must interpret the effects of specific actions and how much each party contributed to them. However, your argument is that the Democrats have been significantly worse for minority groups in the US. Much as you provide some examples of failures of the Democratic Party (and I won’t contest that there have been, though I disagree with most of the ones you’ve stated – I’m not going to go through each of the ones you listed at the end without first seeing you spell out the arguments on those points), many of those failures a) aren’t solely owned by the Democrats, b) aren’t representative of the Democratic Party, but rather of individuals in power, and c) are also present within the Republican Party and their actions. Your whole argument is that Democratic ideologies are the chief ones leading to oppression of marginalized groups like African Americans. I don’t think you’ve proven that. Pointing to a handful of examples doesn’t accomplish much in supporting your argument because they’re isolated examples, and in some cases, they’re clearly the responsibility of both parties. For example, the argument that the Civil Rights Act did not go far enough in correcting behaviors that led to segregation. Neither party addressed these problems, and both parties have had the opportunity to do so since the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Inaction on these fronts is certainly a gap in the effectiveness of this Act, but it is not evidence of oppression by Democrats.

    EmeryPearson
  • VaulkVaulk 813 Pts   -   edited May 2018
    @whiteflame

    Well, I suppose I can try my best to explain how the evidence shows intent.  You say you've gone through my examples and found that none of them reveal intent.  So let's begin with the example of LBJ I provided.

    1. Leader of the Democratic Party during the Civil Rights movement: Lyndon B. Johnson stated: "These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don’t move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there’ll be no way of stopping them, we’ll lose the filibuster and there’ll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again".  LBJ went on to explain that the reason the Civil Rights bill was so important to him was because with its passing: “I’ll have them n*****s voting Democratic for two hundred years.”

    You'd have to literally use scissors to try to skew the intent here into anything other than pure intent to deceive and control the Black population through the passing of a hollow bill steeped in White Supremacy.

    2. LBJ also created the War on Poverty...which is the origin of the Welfare State.  Enter Food stamps.  With a Man in office who openly wanted to give the appearance of helping Blacks but was more intent on oppressing...do you really need a smoking gun in his hand to be satisfied that his creation of the Welfare State was intended to look appealing but to also hold people back?  The Welfare State is more responsible for hurting Black people than discrimination.  LBJ's War on Poverty destroyed the Black family by effectively subsidized the dissolution of the black family through rendering the black man’s role as a husband and a father irrelevant, invisible and — more specifically — disposable. The result has been several generations of blacks born into broken homes and broken communities experiencing social, moral and economic chaos.  

    I never met LBJ, I didn't know his Family and I'll be frank when I say that, other than knowing he was a classical Racist, I don't know much about the guy.  That being said, whatever good things this guy accomplished during his lifetime were almost undoubtedly overshadowed by the fact that, during his time as the single most powerful Man on Earth, he put policies into place that ended up hurting Black people in such a way that reflects perfectly his openly racist ideology on keeping Black people down while deceptively securing their vote.  

    Today, Democrats continue to support and double down on the Welfare policies and programs that LBJ put into place and today...the Black vote still sits securely with Democrats.  No Democrat since 1964 has secured less than 82% of the Black vote despite the fact that Democrat positions almost always either support or enhance the Welfare State policies that Johnson put into place.

    To summarize, I'm generally a realistic person and I don't subscribe to pessimism or optimism, I think and act realistically.  So realistically speaking, I don't need any further evidence that Democrats still represent the Party of Slavery than the following facts

    Storytime:

    Once upon a time, LBJ (Democrat) said "I'll have those N*****s voting Democrat for 200 years" He also went on to explain that his push for the Civil Rights Act was a ploy to give Black Americans something that would make them but would also make no difference.  

    Then LBJ went onto create a Welfare policy that (While helpful to few) overwhelmingly destroyed the Black family and created a perpetual cycle of poverty, this policy was steeped in the intent represented by LBJ's Racist and White Superior ideology.

    LBJ is still somehow praised for the Civil Rights Act and in an overwhelming majority of circles is spoken of highly and in a positive light.

    So positive is the light cast on LBJ that the Democrat party STILL supports and even enhances the Welfare State policies that LBJ introduced during his Presidency and the Cities that are ran by a Democrat majority are the most prominent examples of these policies.  I'm almost certain that it's totally unrelated that these cities are also the most violent and impoverished places in the U.S.....sarcasm intended.  

    So today, Blacks aren't enslaved...they're just disproportionately trapped in a poverty cycle as a result of Democrat policies that were Fathered by a Racist White Supremacist who was intent on finding another way to subjugate Black people after Slavery was no longer an option.  

    To his credit...he was right though.  LBJ DID say that Democrats would have the Black vote for 200 years, it's been 64 years since then, so he's over 1/4 of the way there.


    To your other points, I agree that not all Democrat policies or politicians have strictly been bad for Black people or minorities and not all Republicans have been great for Blacks and some of them have ignored the problems as well.

    Truman's executive Order was great, from my perspective though it was likely a result of the need to increase Combat strength and a divided Army is not a combat effective Army.  This is the equivalent of creating equality because it makes you more money...not because it's the right thing to do.  I suppose the reason doesn't really matter though.

    1965 Voting Rights Act: This was really good, it did destroy poll taxes and literacy tests, making it easier for Blacks to vote.  Coincidentally (I didn't look) this act made illegal the very laws that DEMOCRATS had put into place (Jim Crow, Black Codes) which is where the poll taxes and literacy tests came from.  So even if Democrats DID undo this...they were undoing their own Party's actions.  Good Job Dems.  It was still a good thing so there's always that.

    There's a reason why Reagan vetoed the Grove City Bill in 1988, "Reagan opposed Civil Rights" is the not reason.  The Bill was a major overhaul and massive increase in Federal Government power and reach.  

    I'm not saying Republicans are great or they're just "So much better" than Democrats in regards to equality...I'm just saying that I don't recall a Republican Politician throughout History telling ANYONE that he's going to put N*****s in their place and make sure they vote for a certain party for centuries to come.  As far as I know, the vast majority of Republicans also oppose the expansion of the Welfare State and advocate regularly that it's bad for everyone.

    EmeryPearson
    "If there's no such thing as a question then what kind of questions do people ask"?

    "There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".

    "Oh, you don't like my sarcasm?  Well I don't much appreciate your stup!d".


  • whiteflamewhiteflame 689 Pts   -   edited May 2018
    Alright, your point essentially boils down to this (and correct me if I'm wrong): LBJ essentially created the Welfare State with the stated intention of ensuring that black people vote Democrat over a long period of time subsequent to this, and that the continued upholding of these policies essentially enforces a continued subjugation of black people in America, both via intention (as it is held by Democratic leadership through today) and outcome.

    Before I get started responding to this, I do want to say that it is not my goal as part of my argument to defend welfare and associated policies, mainly because I feel that that is a separate question. Debating the pros and cons of these policies would be tangential to the discussion at hand. We're not talking about actual effects of these policies, but rather the intention behind them and the intention behind the continued support of them. It's been your argument that Democrats support this chiefly on the basis that they wish to continue to the subjugation of black people in society, so even if I pointed out positive effects of these policies and we debated the merits of them, the intention could still be negative in this way. Hence, I will focus my attention on LBJ, his intentions, and the intentions of Democratic Party lawmakers since then. Similarly, I will not talk about the arguments you're making regarding the dissolution of black families as a) I've already stated my disagreement with the Moynihan Report, and b) it's part of a separate discussion regarding the impacts of this policy, as it would be nigh impossible to prove that this was a stated intention of welfare policies. I will, however, make a brief aside at the end to talk about the general mindset you're bringing to this through sources like Moynihan.

    So let's start with LBJ. I'm not going to defend the man on much, mainly because I don't think he needs defending. It's clear that he did a lot for the civil rights of minorities. I think we're both agreed that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was very important, though it certainly could have been improved, and it was spearheaded by LBJ and Kennedy before him. Maybe this was wrapped up in his desire to win the black vote for the Democratic Party, but whatever his intentions, I don't think anyone can deny the importance of this legislation. This means that even if LBJ passed certain policies with the aim to maintain a certain amount of control over black populations, the fact remains that he removed a great deal of other policies that were subjugating them. If the goal was to subjugate, that seems counter-productive.

    And that's part of what makes your argument regarding LBJ hard to swallow. I don't doubt that LBJ was prone to racial epithets, that he had a backwards view of black people and their place in society, and that he was clearly angling to secure the black vote for the Democratic Party. But that's not your argument. Your argument is that the set of welfare policies that he begin with the War on Poverty was passed with the intent of continuing the oppression of black people. And your support for that is solely LBJ's personal statements regarding the aims of his policy priorities, despite the fact that he didn't pass any of these policies with a Democratic supermajority. This wasn't solely a Democratic effort, but more importantly, there was no stated intention of subjugation. There was a stated intention of garnering votes and ensuring that those votes were consistently given to Democratic politicians, but you're not providing any evidence to showcase an intention that this set of policies was specifically aimed to subjugate. Winning voters is what politicians everywhere do, and trying to get a specific subset of the population to consistently vote for one side is not new. What you're arguing is a step beyond that, and you're not supporting that additional step. 

    Now, let's move onto continued Democratic support. You don't spend a lot of space backing this one up, instead focusing almost solely on the actual outcomes of these policies. Again, I think that's a separate issue. The question at hand is this: are the Democrats as a party intentionally subjugating black people? I don't think you're providing a meaningful answer to that question. Even if I buy that LBJ did do this (and I'm not - you've shown that he had somewhat derogatory views of black people and that he wanted to secure their votes for his party, not that he intentionally subjugated them), you're applying a single example to the whole of the party and stating that everyone in the party, or at least the most influential people, share key aspects of LBJ's views. You haven't demonstrated that. The extent of what you've managed here is to show that Democrats still support welfare and its related policies, and that these policies cause a great deal of harm to black Americans, specifically. Even if I accept all that (I do not), it's not pertinent to this discussion. You're using the outcome of harm to these populations as a basis for establishing intention, which doesn't work. It also doesn't make logical sense, since the very party you're talking about had a black president not too long ago. Could he have harmed black people with his support of certain policies? Absolutely. Is it likely that he did so with the intention of continuing to subjugate the very people that he identifies with? That seems exceedingly unlikely, and it's made all the more unlikely by the presence of a sizable number of black congressmen and senators, all of whom would have to be complicit in a consistent effort to subjugate... themselves and their families. Again, we're talking about intentions, not outcomes. Also, a large part of your argument hinges on the idea that if LBJ supported this policy for these reasons, then so do other Democrats. That assumes that a great deal of Democrats in power think the way LBJ did, and could have no other reason to support welfare and the like. I find that exceedingly unlikely as well.

    Now, let's talk about Republicans. I don't think it does us any good for me to list a sampling of racially charged quotes from Republicans over the years, though they certainly exist. Suffice it to say I don't want to debate "Republicans are more racist" because I don't think they are. That being said, while I agree that there aren't Republicans saying that they will ensure black people vote a certain way for the foreseeable future, I don't think anyone can deny that they are aware of the numbers of black people who vote against them and make efforts to reduce the impact of that population in general elections. Whether we're talking about race-based gerrymandering, which has reduced their representation in many states, or voting disenfranchisement schemes, which have reduced their voices in elections, there is evidence that Republicans care a great deal about these votes as well. You can argue that these policies have had alternate aims, but I don't think you can argue that the impact is unclear, or that black people aren't being actively harmed by these kinds of policies. If you want to talk about policies that continue to subjugate black people, these seem pretty problematic in that regard.

    Finally, I've had a nagging issue with your arguments from the outset that just won't let go, and I do feel I need to address it. A lot of your argument is centered on the idea that welfare and its associated policies is responsible for subjugating the black populace in meaningful ways. However, there is a very important and key feature that separates these policies from, say, Jim Crow laws, and that is choice. If you lived in a state that imposed such laws following the Civil War, you didn't have a choice. You were subject to those laws and you lost those rights. Welfare isn't an imposition, and the government doesn't force anyone to take it. Yet your argument is that the welfare state was an imposition and that it forced apart families and subjugated black people. That's where I see a problem, and it's a weird one because it's one issue I thought conservatives were pretty aligned on: whatever happened to personal responsibility? Why aren't the people who choose to rely on welfare as a means of survival responsible for their choice? Why is the government responsible? Sure, the government can facilitate both good actions and bad, but your argument appears to be that they are facilitating self-imposed slavery, and that the Democrats should be blamed for allowing that self-imposition. Along similar lines, you're also saying that black people have essentially been stripped of their autonomy with regards to choosing who receives their vote. That makes even less sense to me because when anyone votes they are presumably voting for the party that better supports their view of how the country should be run. If they are the ones casting the ballots and deciding who better supports their personally held views, why should the Democrats be treated as wrongful for appealing to those views? I could understand all of this if your argument was "the government needs to protect people from themselves by changing how they support them," but that's not what you're saying. You're saying that how they support them - with mechanisms that the people themselves have to seek out - is akin to enslavement.
    EmeryPearson
  • Max_Air29Max_Air29 84 Pts   -  
    The Democratic Party used to be fundamentally racist. Abraham Lincoln, a Republican President, abolished slavery. During this period, Democrats were seemingly for slavery continuing. Now, Democrats seem to be calling out the GOP on racism and discrimination, although most of the Republican Party is not racist and does not fight for further discrimination in the United States.
  • someone234someone234 647 Pts   -  
    In the past the Republicans were the good guys, yes.

    Now they are anything but. 

    It's like saying that a serial killer is to be seen as innocent if they had a broken childhood where they were a good kid and teen overall. It's also like saying we should loathe the reformed of the world for who they once were.
    Polaris95
  • VaulkVaulk 813 Pts   -   edited June 2018
    @whiteflame

    So let's start with LBJ. I'm not going to defend the man on much, mainly because I don't think he needs defending. It's clear that he did a lot for the civil rights of minorities. I think we're both agreed that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was very important, though it certainly could have been improved, and it was spearheaded by LBJ and Kennedy before him.

    I actually specified that the Civil Rights Act did very little for minorities and I explained in great detail exactly how that was the case.  LBJ specifically stated that the Civil Rights Act would be enough to make Black Americans but would make "No difference".  I actually went on to describe the bill as "Hollow" and steeped in white supremacy.  What I actually failed to mention was a quote from Civil Rights organizer Bayard Rustin

    People have to understand that although the civil-rights bill was good and something for which I worked arduously, there was nothing in it that had any effect whatsoever on the three major problems Negroes face in the North: housing, jobs, and integrated schools…the civil-rights bill, because of this failure, has caused an even deeper frustration in the North.” 

    We do agree that The Civil Rights Act was important, but that simple statement largely overlooks the intent of the Bill and what it actually did.  Your argument regarding removing subjugation being counterproductive to subjugation isn't entirely accurate.  Trading the whip for a system of near-impossible to defeat poverty isn't much of a move away from subjugation. 

     And your support for that is solely LBJ's personal statements regarding the aims of his policy priorities, despite the fact that he didn't pass any of these policies with a Democratic supermajority. This wasn't solely a Democratic effort, but more importantly, there was no stated intention of subjugation. There was a stated intention of garnering votes and ensuring that those votes were consistently given to Democratic politicians, but you're not providing any evidence to showcase an intention that this set of policies was specifically aimed to subjugate. 

    Okay, again I think maybe you missed the statement I quoted: "These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference".

    Alright, now what difference could LBJ be talking about here?  The proposed intent of the Civil Rights Act was to end segregation and put a stop to discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.  Now I think we can both agree that the existence of these issues establishes largely that subjugation existed at the time...and that the intent of the bill was essentially to end this subjugation however, LBJ made it crystal clear that his intent with the Bill was to silence Black people but that it wouldn't actually make a difference...and he was right.  The Civil Rights Act did very little to solve any of the underlying issues plaguing Black people at the time...instead it addressed several symptoms.

    So I'm showing that a Racist Man created a piece of legislation that on it's face appeared to solve discrimination and segregation but actually did little to solve either of those problems while simultaneously stating that his intent was to legislate a silencing effect that would make no difference for Black People...from my perspective I'm seeing intent to perpetuate subjugation under a new guise.  If by now you can't see that then it may be due to a large difference in what we consider qualifications for intent.  I'll be coming back to address the rest of your points, I'm limited today but I wanted to get back around to this debate before it staled out.  More to follow.


    EmeryPearson
    "If there's no such thing as a question then what kind of questions do people ask"?

    "There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".

    "Oh, you don't like my sarcasm?  Well I don't much appreciate your stup!d".


  • AmpersandAmpersand 858 Pts   -  
    "Please vote for us because a hundred years ago our party wasn't the racist one, just please don't pay attention to out current policies" - A Republican
    Polaris95
  • AmpersandAmpersand 858 Pts   -  
    "Also please end welfare to black people so that they are so poor they have to choose between self determination and poverty. Vote Trump 2020!"
  • VaulkVaulk 813 Pts   -  
    I'm curious as to where people get these giant paint brushes that say things like "All black people will be poor if you end welfare".  More important I'm curious as to how that's not an extremely racist point of view.
    "If there's no such thing as a question then what kind of questions do people ask"?

    "There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".

    "Oh, you don't like my sarcasm?  Well I don't much appreciate your stup!d".


  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5967 Pts   -  
    Assuming that cutting down social spending targets specifically black people is bad enough... But claiming that black people can only get out of poverty or secession activities by getting welfare from the government is probably more racist than anything our dear president has ever mumbled.

    In my neighborhood, a lot of black people have stable high-level jobs and enjoy a very high quality of life. They do not need welfare to prosper. Some do, but it has nothing to do with their skin color but, rather, with their social status and unemployability. I do not think either group would enjoy the notion that welfare is necessary for their success. Such condescending attitude may very well have been one of the reasons why Democrats performed so poorly on the elections in 2016: when you treat minorities as vulnerable defenseless children, you are bound to lose a lot of voters who do not enjoy being treated this way.
    Vaulk
  • whiteflamewhiteflame 689 Pts   -  
    @Vaulk

    I’ll start by clarifying something. I’ve been assuming from the start that the quote you’ve been using has been entirely accurate. After looking into it, the main quote you’ve been using (“I’ll have them n*****s voting Democratic for two hundred years.”) is not a validated quote. It appears that he might have said it, and that he did say some similarly racist things, but this appears to be an uncorroborated quote from a former Air Force One steward posted by Ronald Kessler, a right wing author who stood to gain from making LBJ look about as bad as could be. I don’t say this to dismiss the other quotes you’ve used, only to clarify that the use of this specific quote is probably not all that helpful to your case. [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-voting-democratic/]

    So, let’s talk more about LBJ’s words. You’re essentially stating two things: one, that LBJ was intent on achieving these goals for the stated purposes, and two, that that intention is the chief or sole reason Democrats did and continue to support certain legislation. We discuss the latter in detail later (a response for which may be coming soon), so I’ll focus on the former.

    There are two ways to interpret the words that he used, such as with the quote about “uppityness.” One is to take that information on its face: this is what LBJ said so this is what he believed. The second is to put these quotes in the historical context of what LBJ was trying to do at the time, which was to convince pro-segregation Dixiecrats that they should vote for this legislation. In other words, it was a ploy to make it sound more appetizing to racist Southern Democrats of the time to get their votes. Either of these two is possible, though I’d personally favor the latter because the former assumes that LBJ said these words just because he wanted to express his own sentiments, which would have been to his detriment given that he was trying to recruit the black vote; his racist language probably didn’t secure him any fans among the black community. Perhaps LBJ was just being blunt about his views because he didn’t care what people thought of him, and I’ll grant that that is a possibility, but you’re of the opinion that this was clearly why he said those words. I’d like to hear why you think this is an open-and-shut case. Please note, by the way, that I'm not denying that LBJ was a racially charged person who did say a lot of racist things regarding black people. I'm delineating between the intention to say something racially charged and the intention to "quiet down" black people, i.e. it's not doubtful that LBJ used the N word a lot, but it is doubtful that he was actively seeking to silence or subjugate them, as some of these quotes might indicate.

    But it’s not just about the quote. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that LBJ meant every word he said, showcasing his intentions to act in a certain manner. If that’s the case, then we would expect two things to be true: one, he would have made efforts to increase the number of people in poverty, particularly in black communities, and two, he would have made it absolutely clear that his chief goal was getting these communities to vote Democrat. You’ve stated that both are true, and though they do not directly reflect intention, they certainly provide a meaningful lens through which we can assess how intention played out in policy. So, let’s tackle each.

    When it comes to the first, from what I’ve read on the matter, The Great Society resulted in a pretty solid drop in poverty rates, from 22.2% to 12.6%, and this was felt in black communities as well.[http://www.lbjlibrary.org/press/civil-rights-tax-cuts-and-the-war-on-poverty] I’m sure you’ll take issue with this characterization, though the Census Bureau corroborates this.[http://povertynodes.com/2014/02/poverty-changes/] There may be some differential changes to poverty rates depending on the community in question, though I’d have to actually see some data showing that. Moreover, you would have to show that poverty rates increased or stabilized from a decrease among black communities during LBJ’s tenure in office. Perhaps your argument will be that he set those poverty rates up to either increase or stabilize post-presidency, though I don’t know how you’d go about proving that that was his aim, given that his presidency featured such a precipitous decline. Is it that he was functionally against poverty until he exited the office? That seems like a mixed intention at worst.

    When it comes to the second, there are more quotes that call this into question. LBJ expressed concern about losing white Southern votes, which he felt were clearly aligned against the Civil Rights Act. “When he signed the act he was euphoric, but late that very night I found him in a melancholy mood as he lay in bed reading the bulldog edition of the Washington Post with headlines celebrating the day. I asked him what was troubling him. “I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come,” he said.”[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-voting-democratic/] Perhaps LBJ was simply more concerned with garnering black votes than retaining white Southerners, though considering he was from the South himself, he clearly viewed passing this legislation as a pyrrhic victory. If the goal was to secure votes for the Democratic Party, then at best, he was only partially successful in that regard, and at worst, he alienated a substantial portion of the country to garner a minority. That doesn’t sound like a masterminded attempt to secure Democratic voters. Moreover, if all it took to secure black voters was to make them reliant on a social safety net, then old white people on Medicare would be staunch Democrats as well. This relates to another point I made earlier, for which I will continue to wait for a response.

    Finally, let’s be clear about what you argued in that early post. You said, and continue to state, that the Civil Rights Act did a lot for minorities in the South and very little for minorities in the North. I haven’t challenged that argument. Whatever LBJ said about it making “no difference,” it’s pretty clear that ending what was essentially an apartheid system in the South did have a substantially beneficial effect for black people in the South, so this is one instance where the words of LBJ don’t match the outcome. You can call it hollow, but it’s certainly not insubstantial in its effects. I’d say that trading direct subjugation (through policies that placed black people lower than others under the law) for indirect subjugation (through policies that keep black people in poverty, making them dependent on the government) is, at the very least, not a clear intention to push subjugation further or enhance it, and that’s assuming that LBJ aimed to keep black people in poverty through this and other policies. At best, what you’ve established here is that he was intent on getting the black vote and intent on giving them a minor victory to string them along, though that doesn’t prove your point. Your point is that LBJ specifically endeavored to keep black people in poverty to subjugate them. Even if I believe that the policies that started with LBJ, including all of the welfare aspects, have led to the expansion of poverty among black people, it doesn’t establish that that was his intention from the outset.

  • brontoraptorbrontoraptor 123 Pts   -  
    @Vaulk

    ...started labeling illiberal black.people "Uncle Toms"...

    I think of the Democrat Party political system like a centuries old template. 

    1)Demonize a group of people as "bad". 

    2)Shout them down or use violence and intimidation if they attempt to speak out or oppose you.

    3)Threaten to secede from the union.

    4)Wear masks to conceal their identity when invoking violence.

    5)Appeal to the darkest side of humanity and convince them it is US who are victims here.
  • CYDdhartaCYDdharta 1823 Pts   -   edited June 2018
    @Vaulk

    I’ll start by clarifying something. I’ve been assuming from the start that the quote you’ve been using has been entirely accurate. After looking into it, the main quote you’ve been using (“I’ll have them n*****s voting Democratic for two hundred years.”) is not a validated quote. It appears that he might have said it, and that he did say some similarly racist things, but this appears to be an uncorroborated quote from a former Air Force One steward posted by Ronald Kessler, a right wing author who stood to gain from making LBJ look about as bad as could be. I don’t say this to dismiss the other quotes you’ve used, only to clarify that the use of this specific quote is probably not all that helpful to your case. [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-voting-democratic/]

    OTOH, Snopes isn't particularly credible either, as it allows its bias to influence its findings.

    It must not have occurred to Snopes that many people would “flatly deny” such a claim. The fact-checking outfit, which has a notable left-leaning tilt, seems primarily concerned with defending the idea that LBJ’s action on civil rights was anything but “genuine idealism.” They ignore or overlook the following facts to reach this conclusion:



    1) Kessler’s source is historically sound (a firsthand account from an eyewitness).

    2) LBJ’s paternal and racist rhetoric toward African Americans (his fondness for the use of the word “nigger” is well documented) casts some doubt on the idea that his motivations on civil rights were altruistic.

    3) Luci Baines Johnson, who likely heard her father use racial epithets, would have motivation to deny any racist utterances she might have made.

    4) Goodwin’s quote confirms that LBJ possessed a well-honed political calculus on the issue of civil rights.

    5) If LBJ said what MacMillan claimed, MacMillan's “editorializing” comments, which Snopes frowned upon, make sense. (MacMillan used the words “phony” and “ploy” to characterize LBJ’s motivations on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.)

    6) Numerous historians have LBJ on the record referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1957 as “the nigger bill,” a phrase that runs counter to altruism on civil rights.

    7) One can imagine LBJ saying what MacMillan claims he said, especially if LBJ was trying to whip up support for his bill among reluctant Democrats.
    http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/did-lbj-say-ill-have-those-nggers-voting-democratic-200-years

  • whiteflamewhiteflame 689 Pts   -  
    @CYDdharta

    Alright, two things.

    First, the responses that this guy gives still don't prove that LBJ actually said these words in this specific order at any given time. At best, he slightly raises the probability that LBJ said this. However, it comes down to the same basic problems, which even this author acknowledges: it's from a single source who claims to have overheard it in a conversation (it's a firsthand account, but it's not verifiable, despite other people having supposedly heard it), it has not been corroborated by any other source, and both Kessler and MacMillan clearly has a bias and propensity for editorializing, regardless of the perceived accuracy of those statements. Considering my only purpose in citing this article here was to point out that this was one quote that could not be adequately verified, even the author of your citation would probably agree with me that it's not altogether certain.

    Second, many of these issues are actually brought up by the Snopes article, despite the claims of bias in that. They clearly acknowledge LBJ's usage of racist and paternalistic language directed towards African Americans, acknowledge that he had non-altruistic motivations, that he likely said much of this for politically-calculated reasons, that he called it a "n****r bill", and that his aim was to recruit reluctant Democrats. I'm not sure why he's pointing all of this out when the article doesn't even seem to be claiming anything regarding why he passed the Civil Rights Act in the first place, much less claiming that he did it all because he was trying to be altruistic. That hasn't been my argument, either. In fact, this author appears to be supporting my point that he made these statements specifically to draw in Democratic votes.
  • brontoraptorbrontoraptor 123 Pts   -  
    The Democratic Party is responsible for many negative events such as slavery, the civil war, etc. Although, this is clearly known in history, the Democrats do not claim to have done those things. Abraham Lincoln, a Republican President, abolished slavery. This freed many African-Americans. The GOP should recieve more African-American votes opposed to African-Americans voting for the Democratic Party.
    The problem is that African Americans vote Democrat culturally. In reality most blacks have conservative beliefs but keep passing down the lie that "conservatives hate you", so they vote against the "hate".
  • VaulkVaulk 813 Pts   -  
    The point in bringing up LBJ (And what he did or didn't say) is largely to further support the referenced evidence that the Civil Rights Act was largely ineffective at solving any of the real issues plaguing Black Americans and that furthermore could easily have been (And depending on perspective...appears to be) a reversal by the Democrat Party to change roles.  In effect, I'm arguing that Democrats realized they could no longer keep Black people from voting or obtaining rights alongside White Americans and so they decided to shift from oppressive superiors to pandering puppeteers.  This is further substantiated by the creation of the Welfare state which almost simultaneously began at the passing of the Civil Rights Act and now serves as an almost impossible to escape system of dependence upon the Federal Government.  Following this is the creation of the School to Prison pipeline created by yet again another Democrat.

    I don't personally subscribe to relinquishing responsibility for one's own livelihood by making poor choices...influenced or not.  That said I think the aim and focus of the Black community as a whole is off target in regards to righting the wrongs of the past.  As a whole I think Black people are suffering from falling prey to a convenient system put in place to maintain a perpetual cycle of injustice but also simultaneously are led to believe that the one's who are actually responsible for their suffering are somehow the champions of their cause.  

    Now I'm not saying that Republicans are the sanctimonious champions that Black people deserve...in hind sight neither side did very well with making right what was wrong.  It's worth considering though that while Republicans should have done more...they didn't create the systems that are currently in place that account for a great deal of injustice in the Black community.  The Republican party was created to end slavery and bring Black people alongside the rest of Americans in equality...Democrats did, have and (it certainly seems like) still do to this day.  If you need any proof that the Democrat party is hurting Black Americans as a whole...take a good look at the bastions of Democracy today.
    "If there's no such thing as a question then what kind of questions do people ask"?

    "There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".

    "Oh, you don't like my sarcasm?  Well I don't much appreciate your stup!d".


  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5967 Pts   -  
    @Vaulk

    I do not think the connection you made is correct. The argument against it is that the welfare system does not target a particular race, but applies to all citizens equally. Civil Rights Act was not just about ending systematic racism, it was about protecting human rights in general, and the demand for it was dictated by the nation-wide liberalization movements who saw the system controlled by historical biases and traditions as an outdated concept - and creation of the welfare system was dictated by the same factors.

    Dependency on the welfare system of those who have used it, of course, is important to note - but, again, it does not apply to any particular race. Welfare system is a free help from the government, and receiving free help is very addictive. The fact that the black population has to use this system much more often than most other racial populations is simply a result of certain historical trends, not something caused by the welfare system in the first place.

    Today mostly the ideals of the Republican Party correspond to those of the Founding Fathers, with traditionalist social outlook and promotion of the free market economy. Democratic Party, on the other hand, is leaning more towards the model prevalent in Europe, where heavy governmental involvement in the economy and the society is the basis for guaranteeing people fulfillment of their rights and basic needs. Both approaches neglect the needs of minorities in different ways: the former approach tries to ignore the fact that their initial conditions are rougher and they cannot hope to compete equally on the free market without some form of societal support, while the latter provides an easy way out of unbearable poverty, making it more unlikely that the individuals will choose the harder path of career and economical growth through hard labor, perpetuating the cycle of poverty in minorities.

    Which one is more harmful for black people? I do not think this is a relevant question. What is important is that neither party offers anything that can change the status-quo for the better: Republicans want to maintain it, while Democrats want to shift the problem to a different category, instead of solving it. That said, the Republican approach is probably better long-term: free market provides opportunities for disadvantaged people to escape poverty through hard work, while the "nanny state" approach is a dead end.
  • AmpersandAmpersand 858 Pts   -  
    It would be harder to put forward a better argument for left-wing values than has been unwittingly done by people in this thread.

    Left wing values refers to: "social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. It typically involves a concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others (prioritarianism) as well as a belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished (by advocating for social justice)" while "Right-wing politics hold that certain social orders and hierarchies are inevitable, natural, normal or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics or tradition. Hierarchy and inequality may be viewed as natural results of traditional social differences or the competition in market economies."

    By the basic definitions people go by, the ideals that the Republicans of the 19th century fought for were left-wing and the Democratic ideals were right-wing, the entire opening post being a great argument for right-wing politics being regressive and backwards. Vaulk seems to be operating under the delusion that because a party is right-wing now, it was obviously always right-wing even when all of its acts he mentions are by definition left-wing.

    The idea that parties never change and that obviously there must be some kind of conspiracy going on rather than the leanings of a political party changing over the years is absurd. Even during the civil war you had the Copperhead Republicans who wanted to make peace rather than fight out the civil war and during Reconstruction you had Republicans breaking away as the support for racial equality ebbed away a fair deal (e.g. the liberal republican party that stood in 1872 to oppose the main Republican party). The historical record makes it clear that even at the time there was no consensus behind racial inequality in the Republican party; the idea that this should automatically be considered to have survived 150 years is absurd.

    Of course where the argument gets really bad is where Vaulk tries to use evidence and in fact just manages to shoot himself in the foot again and again and again. He did it so many times he must be in a wheelchair at this point. 

    Vaulk states "The Moynihan Report clearly outlines the relationship between the decline of in-tact Black families and the rise of Black Single Mother Welfare enrollment." Of course if you actually check The Moynihan Report it makes clear that there is no relationship - or rather there is no relationship like Vaulk suggest and the reality is the opposite. Rather than welfare being responsible for the disintegration of black families the report states the disintegration of black families (due to a wide ranging array of issues dating back to even the times of slavery) is what is causing more welfare, specifically stating "The Breakdown of the Negro Family Has Led to a Startling Increase in Welfare Dependency". So the exact opposite of Vaulk's claims! In fact the report derides the lack of work for black people and the low paying nature of the work, calling for an increased minimum wage, more comprehensive welfare like european countries and stating that the Federal Government should dedicate its programs to directly and indirectly helping increase the resources of black families.

    In terms of Vaulk's argument that he tries to make with this evidence that welfare is bad and harmful and should be stopped, it shows the clear opposite.

    His next evidence is a quote from Barnard Rustin, stating "People have to understand that although the civil-rights bill was good and something for which I worked arduously, there was nothing in it that had any effect whatsoever on the three major problems Negroes face in the North: housing, jobs, and integrated schools…the civil-rights bill, because of this failure, has caused an even deeper frustration in the North" Baynard Rustin is not saying that the Civil rights movement was bad, he helped organise it and was an influential figure in it. What he's saying is that it was limited and should have gone even further in addressing issues, for instance the government spending massively to create millions of new jobs and guarantee full employment rather than leaving employment to the vagaries of the market (as was suggested in his Freedom Budget) is verging on socialist. While Vaulk tries to portray the Civil rights movement as wrong, in fact the issue raised by his only piece of evidence is that it didn't go far enough; again the exact opposite of the point he tries to make.

    Lastly he quotes Michelle Alexander stating of Bill Clinton's crime bills "“It is difficult to overstate the damage that’s been done,"  "Generations have been lost to the prison system; countless families have been torn apart or rendered homeless; and a school-to-prison pipeline has been born that shuttles young people from their decrepit, underfunded schools to brand-new high-tech prisons.” If you actually read her argument she characterises this as right-wing politics having become normalised in US politics to the extent that Clinton's crime bill which harmed black people was him "capitulat(ing) to right-wing demagoguery" and she calls for people to start a new progressive party which would be even more left-wing than the Democrats.

    At this point I think the only fair assessment is that Vaulk is a fool who's completely bought into his ideology and looks for evidence to support it because he's already a believer rather than the intellectually honest and smart approach of looking at evidence and and then putting together an informed opinion. The big issue though that he's not intelligent enough to do that properly so has ended up quoting sources which say welfare and left-wing politics are good when he's actually trying to argue the opposite.
  • VaulkVaulk 813 Pts   -  
    At this point, you should charge me rent for all that space I'm taking up in your mind.  I'm honored you think about me so often and with such strong conviction that it drives you to speak the way you do about me.  I'm urged to simply not respond further to your vitriol and so I'll oblige.

    I leave it to others who I admit are better at articulating disgust at the hatred you spew.

    Ampersand said:
    "Also please end welfare to black people so that they are so poor they have to choose between self determination and poverty. Vote Trump 2020!"
    MayCaesar said:
    Assuming that cutting down social spending targets specifically black people is bad enough... But claiming that black people can only get out of poverty or secession activities by getting welfare from the government is probably more racist than anything our dear president has ever mumbled.
    "If there's no such thing as a question then what kind of questions do people ask"?

    "There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".

    "Oh, you don't like my sarcasm?  Well I don't much appreciate your stup!d".


  • AmpersandAmpersand 858 Pts   -  
    Vaulk said:
    At this point, you should charge me rent for all that space I'm taking up in your mind.  I'm honored you think about me so often and with such strong conviction that it drives you to speak the way you do about me.  I'm urged to simply not respond further to your vitriol and so I'll oblige.

    I leave it to others who I admit are better at articulating disgust at the hatred you spew.

    Ampersand said:
    "Also please end welfare to black people so that they are so poor they have to choose between self determination and poverty. Vote Trump 2020!"
    MayCaesar said:
    Assuming that cutting down social spending targets specifically black people is bad enough... But claiming that black people can only get out of poverty or secession activities by getting welfare from the government is probably more racist than anything our dear president has ever mumbled.
    This is a debate website and you seem surprised and to think yourself special when someone disagrees and forms arguments against you.

    I'll note that you can offer absolutely no rebuttal for my evidence backed argument showing you were completely dishonest in your argument and used sources and quotes which actually blew up your own position.

    Thanks for providing a final laugh with your stupidity though. Notice the quotation marks in my post? And how that section was attributed to "A Republican"? That's because I was summarising your point ov view, not putting forward my own! Congratulations on identifying your own point of view as racist and commiserations that rather than this being a moment of self-awakening and growth on your part it was just yet another blunder.
  • kmelkevolution17kmelkevolution17 95 Pts   -  
    The Democratic Party could have been historically for slavery existing in the United States. Abraham Lincoln, a Republican President abolished slavery, not a Democratic President. Democrats may be more racist then some Republicans due to their discrimination of Caucasians.
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