Originally Posted by rhaikh
They do in the context of this thread and the Atlantic article posted.


And I answered to the relevant concern - the moral one. Just because there was an issue in the past with one side, is not reason to passively watch as a deadly cancer metastasizes and spreads on the other side.

Originally Posted by rhaikh
I strongly disagree with this, and this is central to my point, because the actions of the Republican party are not discrete. They build upon a foundation of racist history and racially motivated political power, and without major reversal or acknowledgement of the damage done - universal Rubio-like affirmation - future policies which could reasonably be described as having racist effects might as well have all the moral implications of the racist policies from the civil rights era which they replaced.


Racially motivated political power? I think you assume far too much about peoples motivations, which are generally far more selfish. Most of what you are calling actual racism, is actually just side effects of longstanding social and political jockeying. Just because Politician-A does something that say, impact all poor people in a negative way does not make them a racist, even if some minority groups have a higher percentage of poor people than majority group.

Let me ask you this - if more people who lacked proper ID voted GOP, would the GOP in some areas still be trying to institute voter ID laws? I think not. Therefore, though that policy is one I would agree is shitty, it doesn't follow that it is racially motivated.

Also, and this is the most important point: politics is complex. Many people who vote or voted GOP agree with many on the left about a great many things. However, there are still some things that the left and Democrats in particular wish to do that are drastically unpopular among large swaths of voters. Like Obamacare, anti-gun rights, abortion rights, and so forth. None of which touches of race. Same thing goes for tax policy, which most people will vote on based on reasons that have nothing to do with race.

To wit: just because many people do not put racial concerns as their over-riding issue by which they make political decisions, does not make them racist. (If they did, even the Democrats would look drastically different. For all their talk, it is still mostly that - talk. Minority vote is more or less taken for granted, to be perfectly honest about it. )


Originally Posted by rhaikh
Again, when you remove facts and figures from your policy analysis, you have to accept what is left over. The policies of the current Republican party are about moralistic posturing, not about fixing problems and addressing reality, this is demonstrable. I would rather that all sides agree with the scientists, statisticians, and accountants before they come to the table offering moral posturing; but of all the remedies I've offered here, this seems the most unlikely to occur.


Neither major party has much of anything positive to offer the world at the moment. What is your point? That the Deep South GOP has more recently been racist than an equivalent percentage of Democrats? Ok, fine - point granted. It still doesn't make most contemporary GOPers racist, and it still doesn't make the moralistic flag-waving by the new left any better. Its mostly all cynical posturing and social power-grabbing on both sides.

For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)