General US Politics

[Lord Raven]

4 hours ago, SullyMcGully said:

The government can't (or at least shouldn't) do anything about the above situation.

Then we would still have segregation. Are you saying the government should stop enforcing the Civil Rights act?

1 hour ago, Sias said:

Being homosexual/black/trans/etc however are static attributes of a person and therefore can't be changed.

This is also the argument in favor of allowing a Jewish bakery to not serve nazi-based confections, for instance. Most people choose to be Nazis over the alternative.

[Moblin Major General]

37 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

This is also the argument in favor of allowing a Jewish bakery to not serve nazi-based confections, for instance. Most people choose to be Nazis over the alternative.

If a Jewish bakery was forced to serve swastika cupkakes, I would be contacting both the ACLU and the Anti-defamation league. There would be, and should be, lawsuits out the ass.

[Dark Holy Elf]

6 hours ago, SullyMcGully said:

Like it or not, the Constitution protects your right to be a jerk. The government can't (or at least shouldn't) do anything about the above situation.

Shobongloo already alluded this, but I'll make it explicit: if you're living in America, the Civil Rights Act outlaws certain methods of being a jerk, one of which is forbidding businesses from refusing to serve customers on the basis of race, religion, and nationality. It is arguably the most important/beneficial piece of legislation the US has passed in the least century, and is the principal reason Johnson generally ranks high on presidential rankings despite getting the US mired in the quagmire of Vietnam (and thus arguably causing hundreds of thousands of needless deaths).

You can debate whether the particular example being discussed here should be treated differently from the cases enumerated in the Civil Rights Act (which as mentioned, does not make a provision for sexual identity, although the equivalent law in some other countries, such as Canada, does), but be sure, a business's freedom to be a jerk is not unlimited.

[Shoblongoo]

5 hours ago, Sias said:

A dress code or buying something are both things a customer can freely choose to change through their actions. Being homosexual/black/trans/etc however are static attributes of a person and therefore can't be changed.

...That's not even a baseline standard. Because if the threshold for [protected class] vs. [unprotected class] under antidiscrimination law is is it a static attribute or something you can freely choose to change?, then religion shouldn't be a protected class.  And all forms of religious discrimination should be completely legal. (i.e. "Ohhhhhhhh; you believe Jesus is Lord and Savior? That's cute. I believe you can get-the-hell out of my store. Hail Satan, ya dumb goober!")

Religion isn't a static attribute; its a choice.

...You can be brought up as a believer and then choose to leave your faith.
...You can be brought up as a non-believer and then join a religion.
...You can be brought up following one religion and then choose to convert to another.

If you're one religion your entire life, its because you chose to be.

A Jew can become a Catholic. A Catholic can become a Muslim. A Muslim can become an atheist. An atheist can become a Sikh or a Buddhist or a Hindu. There's nothing immutable about it.

And yet we still hold religious discrimination to be wrongful + religion to be a protected class.

So the standard is literally just whatever we  deem worthy of protection from popular prejudice in an open, pluralistic society.

And its telling as to where we are morally as a society that we've just flat out refused to acknowledge the LGBT community in that regard (we deem it more important we respect and protect the reasons WHY people discriminate against homosexuals). And still get pissy at the suggestion that discrimination against gays should be treated the same way as discrimination against Jews or Blacks or Catholics, or any other protected group.
 

2 hours ago, Hylian Air Force said:

If a Jewish bakery was forced to serve swastika cupkakes, I would be contacting both the ACLU and the Anti-defamation league. There would be, and should be, lawsuits out the ass.

Good thing [Nazi] isn't a protected class!

Edited October 16, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[eclipse]

On 10/15/2017 at 5:53 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

In this case it's mostly harmless because the customers have other options and (I would hope?) most of the community agrees that the business's stance is ridiculous so it will suffer.

When the business is the only one in the customer's area, or its bigotry is supported by the general population (so that businesses are rewarded for pursuing similar policies), then you have a problem, and one that won't solve itself. I'm fine with letting the market solve the problems it can, but it can't solve all of them; it absolutely has rewarded discrimination in the past (less so now, thankfully). And protecting the minority from discrimination by the majority is one of the things we have a government and constitution for.

The couple was able to find another bakery.  That, along with the fact that the first bakery is run out of a house suggests that this is an anomaly, rather than the norm.  Hence why letting capitalism do its thing would work in this situation.

On 10/15/2017 at 10:09 AM, Shoblongoo said:

Black man walks into a bakery. Baker says "We don't serve your kind. Find yerself a colored bakery, boy" and refuses service. Capitalism at work and something the general economy should take care of, or something that should be against the law?

Society's greater acceptance of different races means that said black man can probably find another bakery to do business with.

I'd argue that the laws were needed in the past, where the military was needed to make sure black students could go to school.  Perhaps the laws can be modified such that discrimination based on protected classes should be called as such if there's no reasonable alternative (and let the lawyers argue what is "reasonable").

[Lord Raven]

16 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Society's greater acceptance of different races means that said black man can probably find another bakery to do business with.

I'm not so sure that this is correct. Society has a greater acceptance of different races but it's still not quite there that we can remove legislation.

I don't see any reason why the free market would correct bigotry nor is there anything wrong with the current law aside from the fact that it's not broad enough. The Civil Rights Act is little over 50 years old; the south still hasn't gotten over the confederacy.

[eclipse]

5 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

I'm not so sure that this is correct. Society has a greater acceptance of different races but it's still not quite there that we can remove legislation.

I don't see any reason why the free market would correct bigotry nor is there anything wrong with the current law aside from the fact that it's not broad enough. The Civil Rights Act is little over 50 years old; the south still hasn't gotten over the confederacy.

Maybe it's because I live somewhere where such an attitude is completely out of left field.  Yes, there's racial tensions here, but no one in their right mind would deny service based on that (or any other protected class), because they'd be out of business within the month.  Word of mouth is how businesses survive here, and being a shithead in a place where the locals are six degrees of each other is a Bad Thing.  Plus, competition is high.

I find it really hard to believe that there's places in the US where it's literally impossible to do things based on race.  Besides, it's better than denying service with no explanation (which is allowed, IIRC).  At least it answers the lingering question of "why", which can then be addressed.

Edited October 16, 2017 by eclipse

[SullyMcGully]

30 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

I'm not so sure that this is correct. Society has a greater acceptance of different races but it's still not quite there that we can remove legislation.

I don't see any reason why the free market would correct bigotry nor is there anything wrong with the current law aside from the fact that it's not broad enough. The Civil Rights Act is little over 50 years old; the south still hasn't gotten over the confederacy.

I've lived in the South my entire life and never met or even heard of anyone who wished they could stop serving blacks. While such people probably exist, they are such an unpopular minority that they wouldn't be able to make it anywhere if they tried to run a business that way.  I don't think the South is really that much more racist than the North, but many people are confused because a lot of Southern tradition has its beginnings in a racist system. Just because there are Confederate flags waving doesn't mean we all hate black people and northerners.

[Res]

See, I'm not black so from my perspective I don't see the racism against black people, either. But I do listen to the hundreds of reports from black people detailing the racism they face in society, including in the work place and from businesses. I have no doubt that laws are still necessary, and not just in the south.

How many people have witnessed the MeToo hashtag trending on social media right now and still think sexual harassment isn't a problem, either?

And harking back to the Pence discussion, this is a long piece by the New Yorker but it sums the issues up very well. 

 

[eclipse]

1 minute ago, Res said:

See, I'm not black so from my perspective I don't see the racism against black people, either. But I do listen to the hundreds of reports from black people detailing the racism they face in society, including in the work place and from businesses. I have no doubt that laws are still necessary, and not just in the south.

How many people have witnessed the MeToo hashtag trending on social media right now and still think sexual harassment isn't a problem, either?

And harking back to the Pence discussion, this is a long piece by the New Yorker but it sums the issues up very well. 

 

. . .hundreds of reports?

[Res]

'Reports' not in the journalistic sense, but from friends, anti-racism groups and a few people I follow on social media, so yes. Sure, maybe some are made-up, or exaggerated, but the quantity is enough that I certainly can't doubt that experiencing racism is a frequent occurrence for many.

[eclipse]

3 minutes ago, Res said:

'Reports' not in the journalistic sense, but from friends, anti-racism groups and a few people I follow on social media, so yes. Sure, maybe some are made-up, or exaggerated, but the quantity is enough that I certainly can't doubt that experiencing racism is a frequent occurrence for many.

I'd be wary of anti-racism group's reports.  There will be a bias towards showcasing racism.  "I walked into a bar and was thrown out because I was black" could be "I walked into a bar and picked a fight, but didn't want to include that part".  Hawaii has its own racial issues, albeit a lot less blatant.  I'm pretty sure the girl I saw last week at the local arcade will pass off a certain incident as "I was treated like this because I was white", not "I was treated like this because I wanted to cut in line in front of a ten-year-old".

[Tryhard]

I think the bigger concern would really be employment discrimination - for example, either covertly or overtly firing someone when you found out their sexual orientation or religious affiliation (for example), or skipping over job applications if a person's identity is obvious from it. I don't think it is uncommon for minority applicants to be looked over despite them having the required skills.

Yes, there would be a loss if the company had to train another person but it is a lot more devastating when you are powerless against a position of authority as opposed to someone not selling you goods at this one shop which amounts to bad business practice.  I think laws definitely make sense in this area, but unfortunately it's unlikely they would come out and say they are firing you because of your identity, but if it could be proven it absolutely should be something that can be brought up in a court of law.

4 minutes ago, Res said:

Delayed double post, thanks phone! 

it's probably not your phone, SF has had an issue with posts being sent multiple times on accident whenever you refresh a page usually as it will have saved your last reply.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Tryhard

[Res]

@Tryhard yes, hiring discrimination is easier to quanitify and is backed up by studies and lawsuits. It's not a leap from there to imagine that biases are carried into service.

It's also not uncommon to find biases in things like healthcare, too. 

[SullyMcGully]

Interestingly, employment discrimination can work the other way too. My father used to work in construction. There, they would primarily employ Hispanic men because they tended to work harder than white men with the same wages. However, promotions usually only went to whites and blacks who spoke good English and were in the country legally. 

[eclipse]

The tl;dr is that stereotypes suck.  However, I doubt I'll see the death of them in my lifetime.

[Lord Raven]

4 hours ago, eclipse said:

Maybe it's because I live somewhere where such an attitude is completely out of left field.  Yes, there's racial tensions here, but no one in their right mind would deny service based on that (or any other protected class), because they'd be out of business within the month.  Word of mouth is how businesses survive here, and being a shithead in a place where the locals are six degrees of each other is a Bad Thing.  Plus, competition is high.

I find it really hard to believe that there's places in the US where it's literally impossible to do things based on race.  Besides, it's better than denying service with no explanation (which is allowed, IIRC).  At least it answers the lingering question of "why", which can then be addressed.

I've grown up in multiple places, and racism was a thing in one of those places. In fact, I lived near a Civil War Monument - John Wilkes Booth's house to be precise, in a highly red county in a highly blue state.

But we should not pretend that your experiences extrapolate to a greater population density, a metropolitan area, or a rural area. In fact, segregation still exists in our schooling, and it's pretty much due to parents feeling uncomfortable that their students are getting a reduced education due to the number of minority kids entering with theirs.

I'm not confident at all that the ability to discriminate won't be abused unless the exceptions are made crystal clear. If the exceptions that exist are "well, if you can prove that you have to drive more than 50 miles out to get to the next nearest, then it's against the law." Congratulations, in the time you're fighting this lawsuit, your situation that you're trying to fix has either gotten worse, and people are highly inconveniencing you with no guarantee of people not discriminating against you.

The free market tends to only work at its best with some degree of government intervention.

4 hours ago, SullyMcGully said:

I've lived in the South my entire life and never met or even heard of anyone who wished they could stop serving blacks. While such people probably exist, they are such an unpopular minority that they wouldn't be able to make it anywhere if they tried to run a business that way.  I don't think the South is really that much more racist than the North, but many people are confused because a lot of Southern tradition has its beginnings in a racist system.

I've lived in rural Maryland for the first half of my life (so basically the south) and I can tell you that there's people who would say "those people are making me uncomfortable and I want them to leave." Often addressed at minorities, but also a few boisterous people here and there.

If you've lived in a place that is majority white, then the thought doesn't cross their mind because there's so few minorities there. Repealing the Civil Rights Act causes more problems than it would fix, is all I'm saying, and the fact that you're effectively in favor of free-reign discrimination from private businesses towards gays pretty much shows that we've missed the point of the Civil Rights movement. The fact that this keeps happening towards a class of people means that we do need legislation to correct it because the privilege is abused.

Do you believe the free market would've corrected segregation in the 50s and 60s? If not, then why would you think it would correct discriminatory practices in the modern era? Because gays are still not very well tolerated in the US, given that our previous president was lukewarm on it until around 2012 and our current president definitely does not approve of homosexuality (and his VP does not either).

And yes, the South is more racist than the north, 

4 hours ago, SullyMcGully said:

Just because there are Confederate flags waving doesn't mean we all hate black people and northerners.

The point is that the Civil Rights act is only 50 years old. If the South still can't stop waving the rebel flag and still takes pride in their heritage from 150 years ago, there's no way in hell that this country is over a major movement to end segregation from 50 years ago.

Edited October 17, 2017 by Lord Raven

[Shoblongoo]

6 hours ago, eclipse said:

Society's greater acceptance of different races means that said black man can probably find another bakery to do business with.

I'd argue that the laws were needed in the past, where the military was needed to make sure black students could go to school.  Perhaps the laws can be modified such that discrimination based on protected classes should be called as such if there's no reasonable alternative (and let the lawyers argue what is "reasonable").

...so this is basically the approach that the Supreme Court took in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 2 (2013); a case involving a constitutional challenge to one of the landmark pieces of antidiscrimination law to come out of the Civil Rights Movement. Specifically, the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Shelby County (Alabama) challenged a provision of The Act banning the Southern States or any political subdivision thereof (counties, cities, townships...) from changing their voting laws, without first receiving federal approval from the Department of Justice. And directing the Department of Justice, as the threshold issue for approval or disapproval, to evaluate whether the change of law was intended as a form of voter suppression or discrimination against minority voters.

In a party-line split 5-4 opinion, the majority held that such laws had been Constitutional at the time of their passage. Given the clear and pressing need for them in the Jim Crow era South. However, they were only Constitutional so long as there was a reasonable need for them. And there was no longer a reasonable need for them, because institutional racism was a thing of the past. It wasn't a problem that still existed or that the law in modern 21st century America was needed to fix.

...with that ruling, the court gutted key provisions of the law that had been protecting minority communities since the 1960s.

Anddddddd almost immediately, the usual suspects started pushing through changes to their voting laws ahead of the 2016 elections; changes that had previously been disallowed without federal oversight and proof of non-discriminatory intent.

...Alabama.
...North Carolina.
...Texas. 

Alabama in particular is a slap-in-the-face visual illustration of the kind of the shenanigans going on here:



...prior to the 2014 redistricting in Alabama, you had two (2) majority black congressional districts electing Alabama representative so send to Congress, in District 32 and District 36.

What Alabama did in 2014--after the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby took away federal oversight--was redraw the district map, so that District 32 would be majority black by higher margins (53% vs 60%). District 36 would be majority white.

And now--just like that; same population; different voting laws--you have one (1) majority white district sending an elected representatives to Congress and one (1) super-majority black district sending an elected representative to Congress, instead of two (2) majority black districts sending elected representatives to Congress.

There is absolutely no reason you make that change-of-law unless you are trying to fuck minority communities out of representation in Congress. And in a state with the civil rights record of ALABAMA. That's immediately suspect.

But it went through. It went through by-and-with-the-aid of a Supreme Court that ruled that Voter Rights Laws are no longer necessary--States don't try to disenfranchise minority voters anymore.

And surprise, surprise: it wasn't that racism disappeared. It was that it was constrained by a robust set of laws, and the moment those laws were lifted, racists once again set about the work of imposing racism as a public policy to every extent permitted by law.   

...and we want to start getting rid of

So I would argue that the changes we've seen in government and business today as compared to the 1960s isn't proof that antidiscrimination laws are no longer reasonably necessary.

The changes we've seen in government and business today as compared to the 1960s are proof that antidiscrimination laws work.

Edited October 17, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[eclipse]

1 hour ago, Lord Raven said:

I've grown up in multiple places, and racism was a thing in one of those places. In fact, I lived near a Civil War Monument - John Wilkes Booth's house to be precise, in a highly red county in a highly blue state.

But we should not pretend that your experiences extrapolate to a greater population density, a metropolitan area, or a rural area. In fact, segregation still exists in our schooling, and it's pretty much due to parents feeling uncomfortable that their students are getting a reduced education due to the number of minority kids entering with theirs.

I'm not confident at all that the ability to discriminate won't be abused unless the exceptions are made crystal clear. If the exceptions that exist are "well, if you can prove that you have to drive more than 50 miles out to get to the next nearest, then it's against the law." Congratulations, in the time you're fighting this lawsuit, your situation that you're trying to fix has either gotten worse, and people are highly inconveniencing you with no guarantee of people not discriminating against you.

The free market tends to only work at its best with some degree of government intervention.

When it comes to optional things like wedding cakes, the free market can do its thing.  If the discrimination happened at the courthouse, that's another matter.  But a bakery refusing to bake a wedding cake doesn't prevent someone from getting legally married.  Likewise, schools/hospitals are a lot more vital than securing a venue for your marriage.  I believe that the church and government should stay the hell away from each other - thus, the government shouldn't stop same-sex marriage, but let the places that offer services for weddings decide whether or not they want to do so.  The government should allow the marriage, no more, no less.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the lower-funded schools also tend to be in lower-income areas.  That's a whole 'nother beast.

13 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

(snip)

That's democracy at work, and IMO the problem is squarely at the feet of the people who voted those representatives in.  Was there any giant impacts in their government because of the change?  For example, Hawaii is largely democratic (62% in this last election). . .but it means fuck-all in the grand scheme of things because we have four electoral votes.

Then again, I don't have a high opinion of Alabama due to some things that have happened.

EDIT: Oh great, more anthem controversy.  That's another thing the government can STFU about - it's up to the people to decide what they do during the national anthem.

Edited October 17, 2017 by eclipse

[Shoblongoo]

19 minutes ago, eclipse said:

That's democracy at work

thats...debatable...

There is another case pending before the Supreme Court--Gill v. Whitford.

The Supreme Court has long taken your position; that districting is a political issue for lawmakers. Not a question of law for judges. To that extent, they have never directly ruled on whether or not gerrymandering is a violation of civil rights for persons in affected districts.

Now for the first time, however, they have agreed to hear a case on this very issue. The Court is expected to issue a ruling either by the end of its 2017 term, or sometime in early 2018. 

The argument in favor of intervention by the Courts is that where a state enacts a law that has the purpose and effect of subjecting a group of voters to disfavored treatment, the state has violated fundamental principles of equal protection at law. 

...We'll see...

Precedent says this case will probably go the way you think it should, and that I'm probably going to be disappointed.

You never know though.

 

Edited October 17, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[eclipse]

3 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

(snip again)
 

Who elects the officials who makes the laws?  While the Supreme Court is appointed, part of the reason why Trump was unpopular here was because he'd probably choose a really conservative justice.

[Shoblongoo]

43 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Who elects the officials who makes the laws?  While the Supreme Court is appointed, part of the reason why Trump was unpopular here was because he'd probably choose a really conservative justice.

Well that's an interesting question now, isn't it?

When lawmakers can make their own districts: do voters choose their elected officials, or do elected officials choose their voters?

...what can I even say here about Trump...

Trump's unpopularity stems more from his character than from his positions or policies; first-and-foremost, the man is despised because he is a petty, emotionally-damaged narcissist who built his career on tragically marketable talents for lying, exaggerating, and turning his own pathological ego into an industry brand. Everything beyond that is just words from a man whose proven time and again that his word means nothing.

...but the idea that he was going to appoint conservative judges...

That helped him. That definitely helped him.

That helped him because at the end of the day, Republicans came home for Trump in the general. Even the ones that didn't like him, didn't support him in the primaries, and were disturbed by his lack of presidential behavior on the campaign trail--they were willing to be single issue voters on the issue of 4-4 split without Scalia--our conservative champion on the bench--who do I want to fill that seat?

For movement conservatives, that was the single most important issue up for vote in 2016. And even if they could not in any other way rationalize a vote for Trump, the promise of a Republican president filling that seat instead of Hillary was enough to get them there.

Edited October 17, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Phoenix Wright]

1 hour ago, eclipse said:

That's democracy at work, and IMO the problem is squarely at the feet of the people who voted those representatives in.  Was there any giant impacts in their government because of the change?  For example, Hawaii is largely democratic (62% in this last election). . .but it means fuck-all in the grand scheme of things because we have four electoral votes.

Then again, I don't have a high opinion of Alabama due to some things that have happened.

EDIT: Oh great, more anthem controversy.  That's another thing the government can STFU about - it's up to the people to decide what they do during the national anthem.

that's really not democracy at work. gerrymandering usually acts as a cancer to democracy. laying the blame on people who elect this representatives is foolish because even you, someone who probably considers herself educated, doesn't understand the very negative and undemocratic impacts of gerrymandering. this is an issue that the people can fix, but not an issue that we should be blamed for.

Edited October 17, 2017 by Phoenix Wright

[eclipse]

29 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

(sorry dude you have really long quotes)

IIRC, part of the push against Trump was because he'd elect a conservative justice. . .among a ton of other things.  But that was one of the worries.

4 minutes ago, Phoenix Wright said:

that's really not democracy at work. gerrymandering usually acts as a cancer to democracy. laying the blame on people who elect this representatives is foolish because even you, someone who probably considers herself educated, doesn't understand the very negative and undemocratic impacts of gerrymandering. this is an issue that the people can fix, but not an issue that we should be blamed for.

Oh, yes, this is something that the greater population SHOULD be held responsible for.  This affects who is eligible to vote for a certain candidate.  And if it's seen as a good thing by the voters, that's a huge problem.  IMO any candidate that pulls shit like this should be immediately impeached - voting lines should only be moved if something drastic happens (like a hurricane takes out a community).  But alas, this will never happen.

[Shoblongoo]

26 minutes ago, eclipse said:

IMO any candidate that pulls shit like this should be immediately impeached - voting lines should only be moved if something drastic happens (like a hurricane takes out a community). 

It happens so often though. North Carolina is the worst offender. You were asking earlier if any of the redistricting actually effects the make-up government--ohhhhhhh yes it does.

• 49.3% vote for Republicans vs. 46.2% vote for Democrats in the 2016 election
• 10 North Carolina Seats in the US House of Representatives to the Republicans vs. 3 North Carolina Seats to the Democrats

How in the hell does that happen???

This is how...look at this shit...

^^^
Forget Paid Trolls and Russian Collusion. That's how you rig an election. 
 

Edited October 17, 2017 by Shoblongoo