>When I see Trump rallies today full of angry people complaining their country has been 'taken from them' I can't help but think of that song.

Give me a break. "Taking our country back" is talking about wrestling power back from the political and cultural elite that has emerged in the last half-century. This elite formed when 1) all of the smart kids started going off to college together and forming their own social bubble, 2) they began invariably marrying people they went to college or work with (while in earlier times, the successful were typically married to very average middle-class people they grew up around), and 3) the economy shifted to highly rewarding intelligence while wages for lower-skill work collapsed. This has led to the splintering of American society. It has nothing to do with race.

I recommend Charles Murray's book Coming Apart, which is a thorough sociological study of this phenomenon and its effects.

> Give me a break. "Taking our country back" is talking about wrestling power back from the political and cultural elite that has emerged in the last half-century.

You mean people like Trump?

No not really. Going back millennia, there has always been an elite within a society. The difference that is recent to emerge is that there is a growing disconnect between the interests of the elite and the societies to which they supposedly belong.

Nationalist vs Globalist is a pretty good summarization.

The globalists seem primarily interested in using their positions of power to enrich themselves and gratify their egos, and they perhaps feel they are doing something right in their policy prescriptions, but it is driven by complete lack of understanding of human nature.

The nationalists understand that humans have concentric (genetic) loyalties, from self, to family, to nation/race. These are just facts of nature, fighting against them is a losing battle and arranging our societies along these natural lines will produce the best outcomes.

The nationalists want the best for the whole world, not just a tiny trans-national elite.

Trump is a nationalist.

(Yes I know this seems antithetical to the experience of many in SV, elite universities, etc. What these supposedly smart people fail to understand is that they are among outliers of outliers. Exceptions to rules are not unknown, but basing our policy on exceptions is an invitation to disaster.)

There's nothing new about the current 'disconnect' between American elite and others; people pull out the same rhetoric every few years, it seems. And there is no long-term adherence of others to populism (which is being expressed by you as nationalism).

It's not a social truth, despite attempts to raise above reproach its horrible behavior and worse consequences, it's just an old political technique used by some political leaders for their own purposes, as Bob Dylan pointed out, a brushfire they set which now has turn into a raging, out of control forest fire. We can do something about it.

> These are just facts of nature

We can say murder and rape are facts of nature; is it 'elitist' to outlaw them? I don't feel they are 'facts' of my nature, in that they somehow inevitable, and neither is racism.

There are far better angels of our nature, and America was founded on them. 'All men are created equal' and liberty for those men (and women), not just people you happen to like. That has resonated with people's natures for centuries now; I think we can say it's not longer an 'experiment', as Lincoln called it, and it's attracted immigrants from every culture and inspired many more around the world. A lot of those populist 'white' people, as they call themselves, used to hate each other as Irish and Italians and Germans and Poles, Catholics and Protestants and Jews. It turned out those divisions weren't in their natures after all.

Nicely said -- however I would disagree with the claim that our best achievable society is no longer an experiment. To remove beta status and pretend it is an understood phenomenon leads to thinking like the parent's more so than thinking like the rest of your comment ...

>Yes I know this seems antithetical to the experience of many in SV, elite universities, etc. What these supposedly smart people fail to understand is that they are among outliers of outliers. Exceptions to rules are not unknown, but basing our policy on exceptions is an invitation to disaster.

I think you're giving them too much credit even. Their world view is ultimately incoherent, based more in "niceness" than in any consistent belief system. Contemptuous of Middle America for valuing cultural unity[1], they viciously demand adherence to their own rigid moral precepts, while also seeking to import mass numbers from populations that don't share one bit in those precepts.

[1] One of the wonderful aspects of American nationalism is that this unity is not racial, but cultural.

> The nationalists want the best for the whole world

That's not even remotey accurate.

I too can wholeheartedly recommend Coming Apart. I think Mr. Murrays synopsis of why we've had a splintering post WWII is great and probably pretty accurate. I just wish I knew an easy solution to fix it. But there is definitely a loss of shared values among Americans. I'd also recommend Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam as a starter on this topic.

To say it has nothing to do with race, you'd need to prove race has no effect on whether you go to college and become a member of the elite.

Or am I misunderstanding the "it"? Do you mean "taking the country back" has nothing to do with race? For you, it sounds like that's true, so that's good. That's all I can conclude however. I can conclude nothing about Trump. Literally nobody has any idea what Trump's really about. He's juuuust incoherent enough that he never manages to actually, successfully say anything. In that way he succeeds at being all things to all people. Anyone can project anything onto him without fear of being contradicted. Including his opponents. You say he's about SOCIAL EQUALITY. His opponents say he's about RACISM. Who's right? Nobody knows.

Edit: Same is true of Clinton, for different reasons. The words are more coherent, but they're so vague and full of platitudes you can't really say what she's about either.

It's possible that incidental racial correlations exist. He obviously meant "race is not a driving factor". By your logic, it would also be anti-male, because fewer men go to college than women.

"Nothing to do with" means no correlation.

Edit: And note that "by my logic" you cannot conclude any thing is anti- any other thing. That was your logic.

>This elite formed when all of the smart kids started going off to college together and forming their own social bubble.

You say that as if it's a bad thing.

It is. When a society is splintered and the elites try to rule as if they understand the masses, you will have greater strife.

Can you blame them? A large portion of the masses have aligned themselves with a con man.

The Republican Party failed to field a credible candidate that spoke to Middle America. They, too, were blinded by the elite bubble. Trump saw the weakness and jumped on it.

The Republican Party has failed to field a credible candidate for quite some time. If you believe in science and equal rights for women and minorities, those damn "elites" are all we have.

For what it's worth, most HNers would be considered part of the "elite" (college-educated, a good portion have graduate degrees, employed and in the top 10% of the income bracket) by most people out there. So it makes sense that people on HN would support the policy of other elites in general.

Mitt Romney was a very good candidate, except for his ultimate lack of fight.

If you really believe that women and minorities don't have equal rights, then I can only urge you to dig a little deeper. Gender wage discrimination is a made-up problem, the statistics that you hear don't control for career choice, hours-worked, positions-sought, etc. The problem with our police force is that it's not professionalized once you get below the federal level. Police are too aggressive and quick to use force, but it's not a racial issue.

SJWism is a cancer on Western civilization and it's one of the most pressing problems we face, because it prevents us from having honest conversations about any other problem. Debates these days always devolve into accusations of racism/sexism/"ableism", or whatever the latest boogeyman "ism" is.

I agree with you, Romney has been relatively much more sane than other Republicans. I would have even voted for him if he was able to run as Massachusetts Governor Romney and not Pandering to the Insane Right Wing Romney. But he's certainly an outlier among the present class of Republicans.

I think the Republican Party's pro-life position to be discriminatory against women. No one can force you to be an organ donor. Even if donating your organs would save someone's life, you have autonomy over your body and you are allowed to decline to be an organ donor. How is abortion any different? Even if you could save the baby's life, a woman should have complete autonomy over her body, period.

Immigration is a huge issue, and I really thought the GOP was turning the corner on it, but it's all fallen apart since the GOP decided it would rather pander to an angry white base. Hopefully Trump will lose big and the GOP will actually follow the research they did in 2012.

You sound like a reasonable person. I agree that wage discrimination and police violence aren't black and white issues. I agree that SJWism stifles honest debate. But I believe that climate change is real. I believe that marijuana has medicinal benefits and that the War on Drugs has been a colossal waste. I believe that religion has no place in government or political discourse. I believe that it doesn't matter what your sexual orientation or gender identity is. These aren't partisan issues in my mind; it's reality. Romney seems to understand this. But I'm from East Texas, and I know for every one of him, there's a dozen Louie Gohmerts. The GOP needs to get its shit together and jettison the insane branch of its tent before we end up with a de facto one party political system.

>Immigration is a huge issue, and I really thought the GOP was turning the corner on it, but it's all fallen apart since the GOP decided it would rather pander to an angry white base.

Amnesty for current illegal immigrants + improved border security and visa enforcement, so that it never happens again, is the obvious answer to the immigration problem. What many people don't know is that the American people were sold on just that in 1986. It was a great compromise, a great humanitarian action, worthy of a great nation.

Too bad it was a total lie. Amnesty was granted, but the improved enforcement never came. The Democrats were happy to keep importing voters and keep a hot-button issue alive. The Republicans were happy to keep importing cheap labor. The people, who wanted an end to uncontrolled immigration, were the suckers. Sanctuary cities that refuse to hand over dangerous criminals for deportation, and a federal government that usually declines deportation anyway, have only added fuel to the fire.

The people are totally right to refuse to be fooled again.

>But I believe that climate change is real.

The funny thing is that the people beating the drums of climate panic tend to be the same ones that are opposed to nuclear power, which is the easiest and most obvious solution that doesn't require crippling our economy.

>I believe that religion has no place in government or political discourse.

I disagree completely. The government should certainly not favor one religion over another, but the religions are the source of our moral values, even for most of the non-believers among us. We take for granted just how much Christianity has shaped our secular culture and morality. If you believe in your heart that abortion is the taking of a human life, then you have a duty to fight to end it.

>I believe that marijuana has medicinal benefits and that the War on Drugs has been a colossal waste.

I agree for the most part, but I've lately had doubts about my previous position that we should just legalize all drugs. Drugs like heroin and meth and cocaine rob people of their agency, of the will to direct their own lives. They should not be available for purchase.

> The people are totally right to refuse to be fooled again.

So are you saying we should just give up on the issue? We tried something and it didn't work. We should try again. The solution isn't "build a wall".

> The funny thing is that the people beating the drums of climate panic tend to be the same ones that are opposed to nuclear power, which is the easiest and most obvious solution that doesn't require crippling our economy.

I agree, I think it's idiotic to vilify nuclear power. Catastrophes have happened, we learned from them.

> The government should certainly not favor one religion over another, but the religions are the source of our moral values, even for most of the non-believers among us.

We agree to disagree then. I believe religion is a highly personal issue that has no place in public discourse. I do not see Christianity's influence on our culture and morality as a positive thing.

> Drugs like heroin and meth and cocaine rob people of their agency, of the will to direct their own lives. They should not be available for purchase.

I agree. When I rail against the War on Drugs, I specifically refer to the stance of incarceration rather than rehabilitation as a solution to the drug problem.

>So are you saying we should just give up on the issue? We tried something and it didn't work. We should try again. The solution isn't "build a wall".

Part of the solution is certainly to build a barrier. Mind you, this was once uncontroversial when it was just a flimsy "border fence", which is already authorized by law with bipartisan support. Now it seems that some are scared that a proper barrier, combined with real internal enforcement, might actually work.

Now that the trust is gone, the government must prove itself on border security and immigration enforcement. Amnesty should only be considered when the people are convinced that this crisis will never happen again, that we will never again have millions of people enter the country against the democratic will of citizens.

>I agree, I think it's idiotic to vilify nuclear power. Catastrophes have happened, we learned from them.

I suggest then that you base your vote on this issue not so much on who "believes" in climate change or not, but who supports the actual policies that can actually solve it.

>When I rail against the War on Drugs, I specifically refer to the stance of incarceration rather than rehabilitation as a solution to the drug problem.

Yes, I agree that we should stop imprisoning people for possession. But I do think that trafficking should remain a serious crime. I think you'll find that the prison population won't change much under this arrangement.

And even if you did stop imprisoning for trafficking, it wouldn't necessarily change much either. Most people in prison for "non-violent drug offenses" don't have that as their most serious charge.

> I suggest then that you base your vote on this issue not so much on who "believes" in climate change or not, but who supports the actual policies that can actually solve it.

How is the GOP going to put out an actual policy to solve climate change if they don't believe it's even a problem in the first place?

Nuclear power. What we were talking about.

>the religions are the source of our moral values, even for most of the non-believers among us.

I disagree in absolute. In my view religions do far more harm than good, and to claim religious thought is the basis of morality even for non believers is somewhere between condescending and insulting.

I say this as a non-believer myself. I don't mean that modern western atheists are picking up their moral code directly from religions, I'm saying that the secular western moral code largely grew from Christianity.

Anyhow, my broader point is that religions are a source of moral conviction for people. And moral conviction is totally legitimate basis for political conviction.

> but the religions are the source of our moral values

The US government is not founded on enforcing morals, but guaranteeing rights. For example, the 10 Commandments and the Bill of Rights are at distinct odds with each other.

> The Democrats were happy to keep importing voters

I think it's important not to discount the difficulty of securing the border because of the size of it. And as you mention, American companies (like Smithfield) are happy to create incentives for border hopping because they can use the threat of calling INS to keep wages low and prevent unions from forming.

The problem with the idea of widespread voting fraud is the data doesn't support it, at all. Bush's DOJ came up with an estimate of %0.00000132 of fraudulent votes in federal elections, for instance. Note that by then it was explicitly illegal for aliens to vote in federal elections.

> We take for granted just how much Christianity has shaped our secular culture and morality.

I'd argue that across peoples and times you see more variation in theological doctrine than moral teachings in the various religions. Hinduism, for instance, is practiced by different people differently and encompasses polytheistic, monotheistic, and even atheistic traditions. But morality remains a feature, specifically the concept of karma. Sweden is by some counts 85% atheist, but I'm not aware of anyone calling it a den of iniquity. Certainly my Muslim-American friends are moral.

In other words, people tend to be recognizably moral regardless of their very divergent beliefs about other things. That points to a general human capacity for morality, rather than one specific to any one religion (that the others, even those predating it, were presumably lucky enough to develop independently).

Certainly moral codes differ. But they also differ within the same religion across time -- for instance, the modern Christian view of divorce vs. the ancient one.

Christian orthodoxy varies. Ancestor worship is common in African Christian sects. Protestant and Orthodox churches abhor the Roman Catholic practice of praying to statues. Unitarians discount the trinity. Sure, there's a common thread of Christian morals there, but I'd argue that it's the same thread you find everywhere, modulo views on homosexuality and a couple of other things.

I don't mean to be cruel but I find the assertion that America gets its morals from Christianity to be somewhat narrow in that it presupposes that Christians got theirs from on high, and ignores the similar moral teachings you find throughout the world and throughout history.

It also runs contrary to the founders' explicit intentions for the role of religion in government, and I would argue that it does a large disservice to your fellow Americans who aren't Christian.

I'm not talking about fraudulent voting by illegal immigrants, I'm talking about the fact that they eventually become citizens when amnesty rolls around, and their kids become citizens automatically by birthright.

But the children who are citizens automatically by birth, you don't think they're more predisposed to want to stay here and to improve their communities if they end up staying? Are you suggesting that their allegiances ultimately lie elsewhere? Does that extend to children of immigrants born here legally?

If so, this is the same rhetoric used to discriminate or marginalize the early generations of immigrants in NY last century; my grandparents went through it. Not a lot of fun.

And if this is a ploy to gain sympathy to a particular party, I think that party deserves that continued support. Trust extended to the outsider begets trust as that outsider lays downs roots, and those children and their children would be likely to vote the same way by gratitude or tradition. Even if it distorts the way they would vote without that influence, I think the country overall benefits when immigrant communities feel supported, looking forward, participating in society, not isolated from it. It's how our country changes, grows, adapts.

How is the pro-life position discriminatory against women? The question is one of line drawing of when life begins that needs to be protected. The pro-life position believes that life should be protected earlier than the pro-choice position. That is not discriminatory against women.

We are obviously setting side abortion in cases of rape. So the pro-life position is equal in it's belief about women's autonomy over their bodies. It's only that the pro-life position believe the fetus should be proetect earlier the women's autonomy over her body is equally protected.

> How is the pro-life position discriminatory against women?

In that you don't already comprehend, I doubt I'll be able to aid in your understanding, but here goes nothing.

The state allows men to exercise control over their own reproductive systems more completely than women.

It really is that simple.

Men have all options available e.g. vasectomy, wearing condoms, etc. Women on the other hand see the "party of small government" lead the charge into their hospital rooms, dictating to them what rights they have insofar as control of their own reproductive systems goes.

If men also could get pregnant, it wouldn't be discriminatory. That the only reproductive control technique to be denied women is a technique only available to women, any laws to restrict such techniques are inherently discriminatory toward women.

The attempts to restrict abortion effect women's rights directly, far more so than men, many of whom vanish before a child is even carried to term.

Does that help clear it up?

>If men also could get pregnant, it wouldn't be discriminatory. That the only reproductive control technique to be denied women is a technique only available to women, any laws to restrict such techniques are inherently discriminatory toward women.

This is preposterous logic. Women have the same access to birth control than men do. In fact, as it stands now, the options available to women are vastly superior, i.e. the pill.

The fact that only women can bear children does not make the regulation of abortion "discrimination". Discrimination would be if both sexes could bear children, but only abortion by females was banned.

Do you think that abortion on the day before birth should be legal?

> Women have the same access to birth control than men do ...

As it stands the opinions of people who have zero involvement in a woman's reproductive cycle easily exert legislative and legal control over the options available to women.

Can you provide even a single instance of male reproductive regulation subjected to similar legislative control?

> In fact, as it stands now, the options available to women are vastly superior

You think of abortion as a form of birth control because your involvement in the process is essentially binary. Either you want a child or you don't. Either you wear a condom or you don't. For women exercising control over their reproductive rights isn't restricted to the timespan of a sexual encounter. An association between birth control and abortion in the greater context of reproductive rights seems to me indicative of a singular and fairly rigid perspective.

> The fact that only women can bear children does not make the regulation of abortion "discrimination".

Perhaps you should study the definition of discrimination. My OED lists two definitions to include: "the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex" and "recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another". In its most neutral definition, that is in the sense of differentiating two things, discrimination is rendered necessary by laws regulating abortion specifically as a direct result of the fact that women are the only ones who can become pregnant. The definition with more negative connotations makes reference to prejudice. The Wizards of Ox define prejudice as "preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience", or alternatively "harm or injury that results or may result from some action or judgment". Give that anti-abortion laws are passed, in part, by men whom by definition have no actual experience with the subject of legislation, it doesn't seem much of a leap to interpret such behavior as being prejudicial and thus discriminatory.

> Do you think that abortion on the day before birth should be legal?

In some cases, absolutely. Consider a premature baby born five months before it should be with no hope to survive, or the case of last minute complications that threaten a woman's life, or last minute discovery of terminal congenital defects.

>Are you for real?

Quite.

> I don't think access to contraceptives for adult men and women has been a real political controversy for at least 40 or 50 years.

Contraceptives? I was talking about abortion, not about contraceptives.

contraceptive |ˌkäntrəˈseptiv| adjective (of a method or device) serving to prevent pregnancy: the contraceptive pill.

Abortions don't prevent pregnancies from occurring, they terminate pregnancies that have already occurred. Clearly not the same thing. This would by why abortion isn't listed under Oxford's definition for contraception.

To wit: "contraception |ˌkäntrəˈsepSH(ə)n|noun the deliberate use of artificial methods or other techniques to prevent pregnancy as a consequence of sexual intercourse. The major forms of artificial contraception are barrier methods, of which the most common is the condom; the contraceptive pill, which contains synthetic sex hormones that prevent ovulation in the female; intrauterine devices, such as the coil, which prevent the fertilized ovum from implanting in the uterus; and male or female sterilization."

To say that women have access to "contraceptives" as if such is a viable response to my comments about abortion illustrates your own ignorance of the facts.

Still if you consider abortion to be a form of contraceptive, I'll happily refer you to Roe v. Wade, countless bombings and arsons of abortion clinics, assault and murder of personnel at abortion clinics, etc.

Once again you're looking at things through a male perspective and seeing abortion as a contraceptive as that's the only aspect of reproductive control that you understand.

What you think carries little weight compared to what I know for fact. I've actually volunteered for non-profits that have distributed contraceptives and I know exactly what kind of challenges such organizations face.

The fact of the matter is, as I said before: "As it stands the opinions of people who have zero involvement in a woman's reproductive cycle easily exert legislative and legal control over the options available to women."

You respond to comments about abortions (termination of pregnancy) with talk about contraceptives (used to prevent pregnancies).

Such a retort is little more than a straw-man.

> By your definition of discrimination

I'm pretty sure I used Oxford's definitions and I'm pretty sure that was made clear. I'm also pretty sure I'm not an editor at Oxford ergo those aren't my definitions, but rather a standard on which the world for the most part agrees.

I saw what you tried to do there, and I didn't like it.

> regulation of any industry is discrimination

Not at all. People aren't corporations. They don't have gender or ethnicity. I can't say that I'm surprised that you equate women with corporations given the need of corporations for external entities i.e. executives, staff, etc, to direct their function. It says a lot about how you think of women, i.e. that they need somebody to control them and make decisions for them.

> Property tax is also discriminatory.

Once again the negative definition of discriminate is to "make an unjust or prejudicial distinction in the treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, sex, or age".

Discrimination in the first sense, that is of differentiation, does apply to property tax as the law must differentiate between those that own property and those that do not.

Discrimination in the second sense, with its associated negative connotations, is a bit more difficult to argue for in the case of property tax as the courts have found the laws as regards such taxation to be just, that is to say, not prejudicial.

You're ignoring a crucial aspect of the negative definition of discriminate, that referring to which is unjust or prejudicial, just for the sake of the argument that you want to make.

Once again there are two definitions to include one that is neutral from the perspective of morals and values and another which is not. You're using one definition where it is convenient for your argument, and ignoring another, again where it is convenient for your argument.

Adding to that, you respond to statements about abortion with off-topic comments about contraception?

And you dare call my logic puerile?

> The pro-life position believes that life should be protected earlier than the pro-choice position. That is not discriminatory against women.

I disagree. I think it's absolutely insulting to say that an unborn, memoryless fetus/embryo/cell cluster has more of a right to life than the living, breathing, self-aware woman its inside.

> We are obviously setting side abortion in cases of rape.

This isn't obvious. Many conservatives believe abortion should be universally disallowed, including pregnancies resulting from rape.

>I disagree. I think it's absolutely insulting to say that an unborn, memoryless fetus/embryo/cell cluster has more of a right to life than the living, breathing, self-aware woman its inside.

I think it's telling that instead of defending the core of your position, that abortion should always be allowed, you're falling back to periphery issues, such as what to do when the life of the pregnant woman is threatened by the pregnancy. Many (most?) pro-life people would agree with allowing abortion in such cases, and it's really a sideshow to the main question.

What I'm saying is that no matter what, a woman gets the final say over what happens to the undeveloped fetus that's inside of her. At the extreme end of that position, if one of them has to die, the woman gets to make the choice who, not the fetus, not the state. But even if the woman's life isn't at risk, the choice should still be her's.

> Many (most?) pro-life people would agree with allowing abortion in such cases

It doesn't matter, because they are many more who want to ban it entirely. Many religions, such as the Catholic Church, teach that there are no circumstances in which abortion is acceptable. Women have died in Catholic hospitals because of this doctrine. If we say some abortions are allowed, and some aren't, then we're politicizing what should be a medical decision between a woman and her doctor.

Are you saying that race/racism does not have a meaningful effect on a person's opportunities in life?

Race does. There's no doubt that being born into a inner-city black community is a devastating hand to be dealt. Such children are likely to be raised by single mothers, surrounded by violent crime, in schools with rampant gang activity, and in a culture that devalues success as an act of racial betrayal.

But racism is not a significant factor these days. In fact, minorities who do escape the fatalism of these communities are advantaged by widespread affirmative action, not just in school admissions, but in hiring, business loans, professional recognition, etc.

I disagree. The reason that being born into an inner city black community is a devastating hand is precisely because of racism.

Race does not exist in a vacuum. Look at the legislation that makes possession a crime. Look at the way selective enforcement results in blacks being over represented in prison systems.

Look at the way the urban school districts are underfunded. You can pretend that the system is not racist, but when one racial group suffers disproportionately from legislation that is regressive, unfair and has not been repealed or changed since the era when Jim Crow was wakking, you have a racist system.

We can put feel good bandaids over some college admission laws and we can even elect a black president, but until we fundamentally rework the laws and institutions of this country, we cannot call racism dead. That is the opinion of someone who has not been pulled over for driving through the wrong neighbourhood.

>SJWism is a cancer on Western civilization and it's one of the most pressing problems we face, because it prevents us from having honest conversations about any other problem. Debates these days always devolve into accusations of racism/sexism/"ableism", or whatever the latest boogeyman "ism" is.

Maybe if you look outside your bubble aka in the internet you can come to realise in the real world this isn't nearly a big and widespread of a problem as some people make it out to be.

>Maybe if you look outside your bubble aka in the internet you can come to realise in the real world this isn't nearly a big and widespread of a problem as some people make it out to be.

Ah, but it was in meatspace that I became alarmed by them. I saw them ruin my alma mater, go after freedom of association, smear everyone who dared oppose them racist. I saw the spinelessness of leaders who instead of fighting back would just capitulate. I saw the Obama administration embrace their cause and turn college sexual assault tribunals into modern Salem witch trials, where a mere accusation is enough to ruin a life forever.

This has spread beyond academia. I saw what they did to Brendan Eich in Mozilla, I saw the chill that has set in among my conservative friends, who dare not speak their opinions lest they be outcast from their industries.

Maybe it's you who needs to step out of whatever bubble you're in.

You suggest that the mechanism by which honesty is removed from debate is by dishonest application of a highly sensitive mechanism for measuring social missteps. This does occur in real life scenarios but you are wrong to attribute SJWism as the cause for the lack of honesty in debate. The dishonesty did not get applied to the situation as a result of the existence of social justice causes -- it got added because of the nature of tribal political blocks. Removing social justice issues won't remove the effects of tribal motivations from the debate.

Furthermore, your position is self inconsistent -- any attempt to wield your highly sensitive SJWism sensor will lead to the same variety of dishonesty that you claim of others holding similar sensors for other social topics.

You are right that there are specific instances where tribally motivated groups explicitly misuse social arguments in a way that disadvantages their opponents -- you are wrong to imply that all occurrences of disadvantage based on this pattern are misuse.

You've attributed a lot to me that I never said. I do not call for a purge of SJWs, as you seem to imply that I do. I'm happy with winning the argument. I see no need to try to ruin people's personal and professional lives.

The plural form is "con men"

It is if they run your country and you're outside the bubble.

Who would you rather have running the country? The alternatives aren't even viable.

If that is the case, we should consider splitting the country up into more homogenous chunks

Yes, some kind of federal system perhaps, with free movement between them, and a small national government to bind them together, so people can vote with both their ballots and feet. Too bad the progressive elite decided that system was too much of an obstacle to their agenda.

It's not so much the "progressive elite" as a general fact of human politics that in Federal systems power inexorably moves to the center as anything going wrong in the provinces will be taken over by the centralised state, but never vice versa. Nationhood is the only thing that seems able to resist this tendency at the present time.

I would have people running their own lives.

Humanity decided long ago that running our own lives as hunters and gatherers wasn't the best we could do, and we came together to form societies and governments. No matter how you feel about it, you live in a society and have benefited from its public services, and there has to be some group of people to administer those public services.

Agree. Good article on The Guardian about this[0]

If this was about racism, then why Trump now? Why were Republican nominees so conventional the last 50+ years?

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/13/liberal-media-...

I've often though Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changing was analogous to Barlow's 1996 A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace[1] (not that I thought that was a great document, but it is a convenient symbol).

The optimism and feeling of change was the same.

The Altamont concert[2] was the end of that feeling in the 60's, just as the 2016 US election campaign has been the end of it now.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Declaration_of_the_Independe...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altamont_Free_Concert

Randy Newman says that racism and bigotry are not just limited to southern politicians and that it is a universal problem, at least that's what he says with 'rednecks'; i think that Randy would really deserve the price, but you can't get one for humour/satire, as satire is considered to be a minor muse.

My guess is that Dylan got the price because his generation is aging and they want a statement of that it all really mattered in the larger sense.

It did matter in a larger sense. This is a so much better world than it was 60 years ago.

We still have a long way to go, but imagine if we wouldn't have taken all the small steps that actually were taken, and imagine if we wouldn't have had the leaders and singers that gave us a direction.

the counterculture was very vocal and very interesting phenomenon, did a majority of the young people of the day subscribe to it? I don't think so. Did they really change things in a larger sense? Don't know, might be 'too early to say'.

It is about time to officially introduce the 'Reductio ad Trumperum'.

Not quite - as a strategy by Republican politicians (and Democrats before that) it predates Trump by quite a long way.

Not for nothing has "demagogue" been in use for hundreds of years...

> it predates Trump by quite a long way

Are you suggesting history existed before I was born?

I hear a whooshing sound. Reductio ad Trumperum or something similar (I'm not real 'up' on my Latin grammar) would presumably mean "reduce to Trump." You know, like summing up a complex & nuanced issue in terms of how it supposedly relates to Trump. You're saying people have been doing this -- as a -strategy- mind you -- since before Trump existed?

> Reductio ad 'X' means assigning guilt by association to X.

Not really. Reductio ad absurdum is a common proof strategy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

I think what 1337biz was trying to point out is that mentioning trump sullied your point. Perhaps it was impossible to make your original comment without mentioning trump, but now you have "Godwin'd" your argument in a way, and have precluded any room for nuance in either discussing Bob Dylan, or the current political environment. Now it's all Southern Strategy -> Bob Dylan -> Trump.

Sure, Trump has tapped into a certain political current that has long existed in American life (since at least Andrew Jackson), but there are other reasons for his (un)popularity and are worth understanding in their own right.

It's funny because when I think of "politicians who sow hatred, insecurity, fear and division for their own ends and don't care what mess they leave behind" I would first think of the Democrats.

So you just roll a 20-sided die to come up with your opinions, then?

?

He's pointing out that the Republicans are objectively the more divisive party in 2016. To be fair, it goes back and forth - 10 years ago I would have agreed with you.

Within the context of the song in 1964, Dylan was also objectively talking about Republicans (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy).

But, as you say, it goes back and forth and in the 19th Century it was the Democrats who were known for this. Neither party has a great history with race.

that is objectively false.

Is it? Tell me what has objectively improved for blacks in the last 8 years.

Wow... that's an easy one, but since you asked.

Black US unemployment went from 15% (peaking at 16% a year later) in 2008 back down to 9.1% in 2016 (close to the 2007 pre-recession low).

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm

http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2011/ted_20111005.htm

I encourage your fact based discovery of the economic condition of this country and it's citizens.

Alternatively, we can all live in total fear of ISIS taking over the country.

http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-isis-will-take-over-us-...

Black unemployment peaked at 16 when the national rate was 10. It dropped to 9.1 when the national rate is 5 so blacks did significantly worse than society as a whole.

Depends on how you look at it.

Going from 84% to 90.9% employment rate represents an 8.21% increase in the proportion of black people who are employed.

Going from 90% to 95% employment rate represents a 5.55% increase in the proportion of Americans who are employed.

I am confused. How can a decrease in unemployment from 16% to 9 not be an objective improvement for american blacks in years?

Do they look back from todays "hellscape" recovery and remember the wonder days when we wondered how many people would lose their jobs or homes to foreclosure? Or did they rejoice when black RNC head Michael Steele was forced to kowtow Rush Limbaugh after Obama was elected?

It dropped ~6.9% for blacks, ~5% for the population as a whole.

Prior to the financial crisis it was 4.6% overall, 8.3% for blacks[1].

So now it is 8.9% worse that the per-crisis number for all employment (ie, (5-4.6)/4.6) vs 8.5% worse for blacks (ie (9-8.3)/8.3).

Sure, I'm sure you can play with the numbers to give it the spin you want, and I can spin them the other way.

But it's pretty difficult to argue that it is significantly worse now than it was before.

[1] http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/race-and-ethnicity/archive/r...

Do you understand the difference between speed and acceleration?

Fake promises, and dreams.

I like that pithy statement, Facts can't stay hidden forever. I have big dreams about big data proving various forms of rhetoric false and enumerating all the counter examples. For the time being I think we'll have to manually aggregate the examples like Heather MacDonald often does.