TRoaches

No. Imagine if they had done this in the mid 1800's by passing legislation against the advances in manufacturing made during that period and requiring that all consumer goods continue to be made by hand. The same argument could have been made back then by, for example, the textile weavers that were reduced and eventually replaced by automated machinery. People are perfectly capable of adapting.

I responded to each of your points, and never quoted you out of context (a moot point anyway considering that anyone who wants the full context can scroll up a bit). I do not believe that anything that I wrote was misleading in any way, and think that describing my statements as "misleading" without explaining what you found misleading about them is tantamount to simply shouting "LIAR!". I don't mind you doing this, but you should know that its not an effective method of debate. I am not concerned with the demographic composition of the electorate. Demographics are irrelevant to anyone who desires progress.

If border security is paranoia then every nation on the planet, now and throughout the entirety of written history, is and has been paranoid. Have you ever traveled to that bastion of paranoia called Canada? Those loony paranoid Canadians insist on searching my car and inspecting my documents every time I cross their secure border. If you try to cross Lake Huron in a boat you will likely be tracked by an airplane and intercepted by their coast guard. They are so paranoid! Lets look at how the poll was structured: "The questionnaire was administered in the following way: respondents were first read a number of immigration proposals that have been a part of the policy debate over the last few months and asked whether they favored or opposed each of them; they were then asked to pick the “best way to deal with illegal immigration” from a list of three proposals: the McCain/Kennedy proposal (… calls for temporary work permits for illegal immigrants and then after waiting six years, paying a fine and learning English, for them to be able to apply for green cards), the House of Representatives bill (… criminalizes illegal immigrants, calls for deporting them and for building a wall along the border with Mexico) and President Bush’s proposal ( … calls for issuing temporary work visas for illegal immigrants followed by a mandatory return to their home country). The McCain-Kennedy proposal was favored by more than three-quarters of legal immigrants from Latin America, three-fifths of those from Africa and Europe and by a majority of those from Asia." Seems legit. It suggests that most legal immigrants want illegal immigrants to be processed into legal status, not granted amnesty or deported. It is a nice middle ground, but it only works if the illegal immigrants in question are willing to become citizens and accept all of the good and bad that comes with that (i.e. taxes). This refutes your premise immigration controls "doesn't settle well with people of the same ethnicity who are legal citizens." I am familiar with that law, and consider it to be an inherently sexist piece of legislation because it grants legal rights and protections based on gender. The ACLU, a truly principled advocacy group not afraid to take unpopular positions on controversial issues, disputed it as well. The bill was not without its merits, such as the various assistance services and prevention programs, but allowing an alleged victim to sue their alleged attacker after the attacker has been acquitted of the allegation, and allowing them to do so based entirely on the genders of those involved and the nature of the allegation, is antithetical to justice. The Supreme Court agreed. This and other flaws were why the bill was not reauthorized. To say that it was simply because of anti-woman prejudice is to ignore these issues. Invoking prejudice against women while defending bad legislation is an appeal to emotion, not logic. The scenario you describe makes no sense: If someone chooses a lower-paying profession they are not "doing the same jobs". They are doing the lower paying jobs, by choice. Do female attorneys bill their clients at a universally lower rate? Of course not. Also, as a man who has done this very thing (chosen lower paying work) I do not feel denigrated. I could earn much more than I do, but I trade higher pay for lower stress and greater fulfillment. No denigration to be found here, just a happy guy scraping by on a tiny wage at a job that allows me the freedom that I desire. The issues of long wait times and voter ID laws are intertwined. The longest waits occurred at early voting polls, and the situation in Florida was largely blamed on the reduction of early voting period from 14 days to 8 days. The proposed solution is to extend the number of days that those polls are open. You disregarded my concern about people fraudulently casting multiple votes, but it is a very real concern especially in a close election in a "swing state". It becomes an even bigger issue if the polls are open for 14 days. Imagine the possibilities if, lets say, a paltry 100 people in a state voted 10 times per day for 14 days. Without any form of voter ID this would be very possible. That comes to 13900 fraudulent votes, enough to impact any election at any level. It would not that difficult to find 100 dedicated people out of millions who would be willing to do this to see their candidate elected, and even easier to do if you paid them. If we are going to keep the polls open for that period of time there must be some check against this type of fraud, and the only check that I can imagine that would be effective is to identify the voters. You say that there is no evidence that such fraud happens on a significant scale but we don't really know if that is true because there is no way to collect such evidence. Elections currently run on what amounts to an "honor system", but we both know that there is no honor to be found when it comes to winning a political campaign. There is too much money and influence at stake. Our political leaders have in recent years become so fond of electronic voting machines and strongly opposed proposals that such machines should produce a corresponding paper record. I can't think of any reason why one would oppose a paper record to back up the electronic results except to enable fraud. The machines could easily be linked to a database of who has already voted to nearly eliminate the possibility of multiple-vote fraud. I doubt it will happen, though, for the same reasons that paper records of electronic votes will not be produced: because the people who control the machines rely on the potentially fraudulent results to stay in power.

Does Atlas dream of electric sheep?

Border security is a larger issue than immigration, and the reasons for border security go beyond simply controlling immigration. Polls indicate that the majority of legal immigrants oppose illegal immigration and amnesty, support stronger immigration controls and improved paths to legal status to address illegal immigration, and stronger penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants. There is no form of violence, against anyone, that is tolerated under the existing laws. This negates the need for further legislation to address violence against women. Violence against humans is illegal. Inequity of pay is tricky because it is based on statistics, and statistics can be massaged to indicate nearly anything. The often quoted numbers are that women earn 72-77% of what men do, but these numbers do not account for the multitude of factors that essentially boil down to choice. Women statistically work less overtime, are more likely to pursue degrees and careers that are less lucrative but more personally satisfying, and are less likely to perform work that is hazardous or laborious. Source In other words, legislation is not required to fix this, and efforts against such unnecessary legislation do not equate to an anti-woman bias. Furthermore, if a person must agree to a particular sum of payment for their labor, so their level of compensation is ultimately up to them to decide or reject. I agree, but the doctor-patient relationship is another aspect of our lives that both parties are fond of intruding into. I won't make any excuses for the any legislation that forces or prohibits any medical procedure and would oppose any such measures, regardless of which party is pushing them. That said, the Democrats of recent times have been pushing harder for government intrusion into health care than any party at any point in our history. If protection against government intrusion into matters of health care is a priority for you then you should be looking critically at both parties, not placing the blame on one while defending the other. Prior to this change the food stamp program accounted for 80% of the farm bill's cost. Stripping the food stamp program out of the farm bill made sense, in that the program has nothing to do with farm subsidies. It deserves its own legislation, and should be written and passed on its own merits. Combining unrelated issues into a single bill makes no sense, and doing so is a dirty political trick. It forces a congressperson who opposes farm subsidies but supports food stamps to compromise. They can either stand firm on the issue of farm subsidies and be attacked as an "enemy of the poor", or they can compromise by voting to support both. It works the other way as well, in that a congressperson who opposes food stamps but supports farm subsidies must compromise their position to avoid becoming an "enemy of farmers". You are falling hard for this dirty trick, and are ignoring the fact that a new and likely much better food stamp bill will be passed as a result of this cut. Where did this happen? Should a person be allowed to vote more than once? If not, how do you propose that they be stopped from doing so? I'm not really sure where I stand as far as voter ID laws are concerned, but at least in theory it seems like it could be a good idea. That does not mean that I would support just any voter ID law, as such a law could certainly be poorly constructed or even detrimental to democracy, but it could also be a good way to avoid election fraud especially given the recent adoption of electronic voting machines, which I consider to be a terrible threat to our democracy. It seemed like you did, given that you accused them of "rebranding" their image. I think they have stayed more true to their ideals than the Democrats, who are the real masters of rebranding. Imagine two people: Person 1 has always been opposed to racism and sexism, and has actively fought against it. Person 2 has always been a racist and sexist, but has recently decided to change their ways and now promises that they are neither racist nor sexist yet continue to describe a worldview that is based largely on division of people into categories of race and gender. If you had to choose which one to be friends, and wanted to make sure that you were choosing the less racist and less sexist of the two, which would you choose?

What "anti-immigration legislation" have they pushed? Bear in mind that legislation intended to curb illegal immigration is not the same as "anti-immigration legislation". In what way have they denigrated women or opposed women's rights? Bear in mind that anti-abortion legislation is not the same as "anti-women's rights" and does not inherently "denigrate women". I agree that the Texas abortion bill that prompted this topic was bad legislation but it does not represent the majority viewpoint within the party. In what way have they attacked the poor? Bear in mind that the welfare system is broken and bankrupt, many people are receiving welfare who should not qualify in comparison to the truly needy, and attempting to change by making it harder for some to acquire while making it easier for others is not the same as "attacking the poor". Redistricting is only as effective as the electorate allows it to be. In what way have they pushed to "shrink the electorate"? While I don't agree with the current state of law regarding or practice regarding political redistricting I don't see how it would be possible to prevent people from voting. Also, the assumption that redistricting is done along racial lines is flawed, as is the belief that it is a Republican trait. If a racial grouping consistently votes for a particular party based on their racial allegiance and the gerrymandered district lines are drawn according to party affiliation then they will also reflect the racial composition of those districts. This again speaks to the problem of racial allegiances that translate into political allegiances, something that the Democrats thrive on. They participate in district gerrymandering to at least the same extent that Republicans do. This does not excuse the Republican's participation in gerrymandering, but it does mean that it is not a strictly Republican trait. The Republican party has represented the limitations of government with regards to the infringement of natural rights (aka conservatism). It is the Democratic party that has always promoted the idea of liberal application of government power (aka liberalism). It is ironic to accuse the Republicans of rebranding considering the history of the Dixiecrats and their opposition to human rights. As soon as the groups that they once tried so hard to repress politically (women, minorities, etc) were able to acquire voting rights they instantly began opportunistically courting them and were effective in this rebranding propaganda, to the point that many people don't even know the history of the two parties or where they stood on the most influential events in our history, such as slavery or universal suffrage. (spoiler alert: the Republicans supported universal suffrage at every turn, while the Democrats opposed it). Rebranding indeed!

Why are you attacking the group that is attempting move beyond race and gender politics, and specifically attacking them for that effort, while defending the group that maintains the race and gender politics status quo, and specifically defending them for their continued support of race and gender politics? This seems antithetical to social and political progress.

Perhaps they consider race-based politics to be a lower form, and avoid appealing to people based on their perceived racial allegiances. A lack of race-based "outreach" does not indicate a lack of desire to include people all races. Using race as a method of targeting voters is an inherently racist practice, and one that the Democrats are happy to utilize to their advantage. They have always thrived on concepts of racial division, going all the way back to the "Dixiecrat" days. It is abhorrent strategy that stifles social progress. A strategist is a person who is paid to plan a campaign. A pundit is a person who is paid to talk about a subject. Neither position indicates any level of loyalty to a any particular set of principles, but you can at least assume that a strategist is saying and doing things that they hope will help their client because that is their job. When they stop working as strategists and start working as pundits that assumption must be reevaluated. When a person is being paid to express an "opinion" it ceases to be an honest opinion. When a celebrity is paid to endorse a product you can safely assume that they are not doing it because they really love that product. They are doing it because they are sufficiently rewarded. Shaq only loves his Buick because of the large checks that Buick is cutting him. Neither Rove, Schmidt, or any other pundit hold any credibility if they are being paid to speak on an entertainment news network. Such networks lack anything that resembles a respectable level of journalistic integrity. If you really believe that the opinions expressed by their pundits are unfiltered and honest assessments then you may as well believe that every celebrity endorser is giving an honest assessment of the products that they endorse. The firm that creates the advertisement featuring the celebrity endorsing the product is not doing so because they want to help their target audience by providing them with the most honest possible assessment of the product. They simply want their target audience to buy the product, regardless of its true merits. A news network's agenda is no different from that of the advertising firm. Schmidt and Rove both serve their clients by providing a paid opinion, just like Shaq does for Buick. Schmidt's client is Jeffrey Immelt. Rove's client is Rupert Murdoch.

I see no evidence of this being true. This cannot possibly be true. Why would "almost all political strategists" in the Republican party push a strategy that they feel is "on the wrong side of history"? More likely, when you say "political strategists" what you really mean is "political pundits" aka actors on cable news who pretend to be experts on the subject and have the gall to assume to speak on behalf of others.

It always bothers me when people talk about the political leanings of an entire ethnicity or gender as if the people of that ethnicity or gender are a politically homogenized group. There are plenty of conservative Hispanics and conservative women in Texas. Your assumption that Hispanics or women constituting a population majority would lead to any particular political party assuming power is based on an assumption that there is no diversity of political thought within the Hispanic or female populations. I think a party that courts voters based on demographics of race and gender is being racist and sexist. Both parties are guilty of this to some extent, but one party devotes much more energy to the practice.

The Vietnamese people who avoided being carpet-bombed because of Ellsberg's leak would probably disagree.

Both Felt and Ellsberg attempted to remain anonymous. Is this, in your opinion, less "cowardly" than fleeing the country? If Snowden had anonymously released his information would you still consider him a coward? You avoided answering the question: Were Felt and Ellsberg Cowards?

What legislation "blocks" minority voters, and in what way?

@colourwheel: Was Mark Felt a coward? What about Daniel Ellsberg? According to your definition of "coward" they both are because they both attempted to avoid prosecution for their whistleblowing. In fact, they both tried to remain anonymous, while Snowden has never tried to hide his identity. If Snowden is a coward then Felt and Ellsberg are both even bigger cowards, right? Martyrdom is not a prerequisite for heroism. Saying that someone who avoids prosecution is a coward makes no sense at all. Felt and Ellsberg both were responsible for leaks that changed the course of history at great risk to themselves, and they were attacked in the same ways that Snowden is being attacked now.

57% of Texans voted Republican in the last presidential election, which indicates that the simple majority of Texans are Republican-leaning. This casts some doubt on your theory that the "whole reason" the state has been Republican controlled is due to gerrymandering. Perhaps the voting public has something to do with it as well?

Do you really think this is comparable to Naziism? "Dispossession" occurs in every single government in the world. If you "disagree" with (violate) many of our laws your property will dispossessed. The IRS and DEA both do it every day to people who "disagree" with the laws that they enforce. Communism is a terribly flawed system, but association with communism does not put one in the same category as a mass murderer. Earlier in the thread you compared Mandela to Lenin, Hitler, and Pol Pot. No, but you did say "I don't see Reagan arm in arm with these people doing political salutes" implying that a photo-op and political salute were somehow worse than directly assisting mass murderers. Goodnight!

Why? Communism itself does not advocate any of the bad things that Communist regimes have done. It is an economic theory, nothing more. Blaming communism for the atrocities of self-described communists is no different than blaming capitalism for the slavery committed by self-described capitalists. It is a flawed premise based on irrational fear instead of logic. If you want to, but I don't think anyone has disputed that Mandela was a communist, or at least had communist leanings. He gave them free weapons and intelligence aid paid for with our taxes, which they used for the mass murder of civilians and the pursuit of personal gain and power consolidation. I consider this much more deplorable and immoral than hugs, hand shakes, or salutes.

So your logic goes something like this: A) Castro was a bad guy B) Mandela met with Castro, and was photographed with him. C) Castro == Mandela D) Mandela was a bad guy http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/online/2013/7/3/1372849142471/President-Ronald-Reagan-w-007.jpg A) Hissene Habre was a bad guy B) Reagan met with Habre, and was photographed with him (and aided him while he committed mass murder) C) Reagan == Habre D) Reagan was a bad guy Lets do another one! http://antiwar.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/reaganmontt-e1369142686632.jpg A) Efrain Rio Montt was a bad guy B) Reagan met with Montt, and was photographed with him (and aided him while he committed mass murder) C) Reagan == Montt D) Reagan was a bad guy Note that I don't really think these photos prove that Reagan was a bad guy. I'm just illustrating the silliness of posting a picture of someone meeting Castro and pretending like that means something significant. What about the excerpts from his autobiography? What if that "someone" is the son of the Republican pastor himself, by his own hand in his autobiography?

The topic was about the way that people were utilizing and/or abusing Mandela's legacy. Some are tripping over themselves trying to attach themselves to him for personal gain. Others are jumping at the chance to ridicule or denounce him. You would be an example of the latter. The "facts" that you are sharing are more editorial than factual. His flaws, many and varied though they may be, do not negate his sacrifice or historical significance. You are claiming that they do, and that he is unworthy of any form of admiration. You even stooped to such a level of intellectual dishonesty that you compared him to mass-murdering tyrants and cult leaders. You are entitled to hold that opinion, but when you express it in a debate forum you are inviting others to dispute it. Your statement was not that King's father was a Republican or that the march was organized by Republicans. It was that King himself was a Republican. This is easily demonstrated to be false. source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4 source 5 Notice that 4 of 5 of those references are to text that was written by King himself. Source 1 was not written by him, but does quote him. Can you produce a source that quotes him as saying anything even remotely similar to "lol j/k I'm Republican!" to dispute those five?

@Platton: Your post sounds an awful lot like "I am unable to produce an example of someone who, by my own standards, is an historical figure worthy of praise and is not a fraud". I didn't criticize anyone, and you have not expressed a positive opinion about anyone or mentioned anyone who had a positive influence. You did not debunk any myths, but you did create a few new ones (i.e. King was an anti-communist Republican, etc). Well done!

I asked you to name an example. Can you do that? Bear in mind that if you do name one of these imaginary, untouchably pious people that you seem to believe actually exist I am going to rip them to pieces just to demonstrate that NOBODY has ever been perfect. Choose wisely!

@Platton: Has any person ever lived who, in your opinion, deserves recognition and praise for their political or social achievements? eta: King was at least sympathetic to communism, expressed admiration for several communists, and worked closely with members of the Communist Party so, by the standard of perfection that you are setting to qualify for historical admiration, he did not deserve it either. He also never expressed any support for Republicans in general, and in fact said "In the past I have always voted for Democrats" when he was considering voting for Eisenhower. He was highly critical of both parties and never endorsed anyone from either party for President. He did say that he voted for Kennedy, and that he would have endorsed Kennedy had he been able to run for reelection.

This is equivalent to stating "they were better off under apartheid". That sounds like a defense of apartheid to me. By most accounts the former colonial citizens in the US were worse off in many ways for some time following the American revolution. Does this make the American revolution an entirely bad thing? I don't think so, but it is a matter of opinion of course. I don't think anyone would claim that South Africa was transformed into a utopia following the end of apartheid, but I do believe that the good outweighed the bad.

Saying "at least its not slavery" or "at least its not communism" is hardly a solid defense of apartheid. Apartheid was about as far from true capitalism as you can get. If you are defending apartheid you are not a capitalist. This is simply not true. It was the very definition of a race-based class system. Communism's flaws do not excuse apartheid's immorality any more so than apartheid's immorality excuses communism's flaws. The Nazis came to power in part under an anti-communist platform, but it didn't make them good guys.

Communism, for all of its flaws, is not inherently evil in the same way that true race-based class separation is. It is natural that people who live under a system that is obsessed with a class separation would be drawn towards a philosophy that, at its most fundamental core, seeks to end class divisions. I don't fault them for that. The rest of the stuff that you are blaming on Mandela (crimes against whites, etc) was not Mandela's fault any more so than the atrocities committed against native Americans were the fault of George Washington.