QUOTE(droop224 @ Oct 31 2020, 08:21 PM)
Lets get to this debate, welcome back Net........"
Thanks for waiting for this, it took a while to put together. As I said, this reply is very long so it's probably better to read it on a tablet or computer. This reply can be referred back to later as well because I consolidated many sources here. I'll be addressing the points you gave and the question you asked me with a detailed overview to give you substantiation and hopefully some information that'll give you a different perspective. I think this topic is very important. I'll be shortening future replies but am willing to look at any information you present.
To comment on the Republican Jesus video that you shared here...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ2L-R8NgrA&t=7sI thought parts of this were funny. Obviously, this is satire and is a view of the GOP as seen through the eyes of a skeptic but overall it wasn't bad. I'm not religious, I defend Christians primarily on the grounds of religious liberty which I believe is important. From what I understand though, Christians describe Jesus as someone who did believe in taking personal responsibility as well. In other words, they describe him as very giving but not to the extent that he was foolish.
I'll address your quote below before getting into the heart of the topic....QUOTE
Here is my issue, you got enough wiggle room in here to mix and match to make your point.
Individuals. As individuals your political party won't determine your level of compassion to people you know or your level of generosity to people you don't know. It's impossible to answer.
Politicians. Well again a politician is an individual. You can easily find a Republican that did something compassionate and a Democrat that did something horrific.
It's cherry picking heaven and one thing about you Net you LOVE to cherry pick!!
Cherry-pick by comparison to who though Droop? In my opening post, I shared three examples of the left and Democrat politicians blaming others for the same types of things
they do, three examples of personal debates I had to show both projection and personal attacks, and six examples of Joe Biden using the same type of insults that people dislike when it comes from Trump and most what I mentioned came with either direct quotes or links, including the personal experiences I've had. I figure that you'll disagree with some of what I share, that's fine but you made claims and characterizations of your own without substantiating them. That not uncommon in debates and I don't believe that every debate even needs souces. You've also shared substantiation in the past so I'm pointing this out primarily because of the charge you're making against me.
Also, believe it or not, I respect the fact that you're willing to debate these topics. I don't always agree with the points you make and we've had our share of heated discussions but you have the guts to engage with those you disagree with for more than a couple of minutes. If you've meant what you've told me in the past, there might be more that we agree on than you realize. You once told me that you don't believe in evil, neither do I. You're quick to point out that morals and preferences can vary and that what's considered exceptional to Americans, may not be considered exceptional to others and I can understand those arguments. We disagree on a lot but more than anything I think we disagree on which political party is more productive, empathetic, and willing to reach across the aisle.
As I said in my opening post, I wrote a lot of it on Quora.com originally and I'm lucky if I can get the left-wing members their to read three paragraphs, let alone an answer where I show
every example I know of to substantiate my arguments. I think classical liberals and moderate Democrats are often very thoughtful and intelligent. I'll maintain that the majority of Americans on both sides of the political aisle mean well and try to be rational but those types generally don't have the desire to discuss politics because there's too much b*******.
The individuals I've spoken with online over the last couple of decades who are on the far or "modern left" have generally had short attention spans. Many of them have been
rude, emotional, and unintelligent so I can only go so far with examples if I have any hope of my answers there being read. Now, I may come across as hypocritical because I sound rather
rude myself right now but I'm not a stranger to throwing a few jabs during a debate. There have been moments where I haven't been polite and I've engaged in my fair share of banter but I pick and choose my moments and don't do that out of necessity.
Take a quick look at the different approaches I used in the Quora debates that I shared in the opening post if you want. In one of them, I was more willing to rustle some feathers. The other two, not nearly as much. Especially in this exchange...
https://www.quora.com/Are-conservatives-les...nswer/Al-NelsonI've done this for nearly 20 years now and regardless of the tone that's taken, I see these kinds of responses on a regular basis and they don't exactly scream compassion or empathy.
I'd much rather have a nice conversation where individuals with opposing viewpoints can at least make a genuine effort to understand where others are coming from and perhaps every now and then acknowledge if they make a good point.
Even if two participants in a conversation ended in complete disagreement if, at a minimum, there was clarity on why there was disagreement, that'd account for something but many of the individuals I've spoken to on the modern left don't seem to be debating the conservative they're engaged with. It's as if they're debating a caricature of conservatives that they're learning about from those who dislike conservatives.
To move on, don't get me wrong because I agree with the point that you made here...
QUOTE
Well again a politician is an individual. You can easily find a Republican that did something compassionate and a Democrat that did something horrific.
You're alluding to the fact that individual examples can only get us so far. I agree, in fact, I've made that point myself many times. I could reveal a lot of nasty and divisive rhetoric on the modern left and within the Democrat party, more than you might realize but none of that would negate the fact that this behavior happens frequently on the political right as well. So I don't think my examples are representative of most people who vote for Democrats or who identify with liberalism.
My primary argument and motivation in the opening post was to dispel the common stereotype that conservatives lack empathy. I did that by showing that the character traits that some people associate with the political right are actually common human traits that are not hard to find on the left and within the Democrat party. That's where I was coming from
however I do hold the view that the radical left is larger and more organized than the radical right. For that reason, I also believe that violence and intolerance is more common on the left overall but regardless, that idea should be open for debate.
If that's something you want to debate, I'm open to that but we've been in this spot before. I've offered to explain some of the best evidence for this with you because the substantiation I'm talking about now goes far beyond individual examples. I'm not talking about the violent rioting or a lack of civility in online discussions, I think that's relevant circumstantial evidence but this is quite different. I put together some statistics from non-partisan sources that together reveal something important. To the best of my knowledge, this hasn't been pieced together by the media whether it be mainstream or alternative news sources.
These statistics are a bit involved but I'll get into detail on this later if you request this information.
Keep the last paragraph in mind because it's quite important if you're under the impression that there's no evidence of what I'm saying beyond individual examples.QUOTE
See due to the immense rationalization abilities of the Conservative it's difficult proceed in this debate earnestly. See Conservatives live the code "if we do it and we think we should... it's good!! But if you do it and we don't want you to....it's bad"
9/11/2001 killed 3,000 Americans. How many human beings have died as a result of our actions? Is the number proportionate? But here comes good ol Conservative rationalization process. "How many human beings would die if we don't act?" How is this answered? The answer: However the conservative wants. They can make any number they want. They'll probably bring up the holocaust.
I've had debates on this board with Conservatives that have argued that dropping NUKES on Japan was the more compassionate option because the other option would have to be kill millions.
I mean as a group, a political platform, what are the compassionate political programs/platforms that conservatives(Republicans) stand for that liberals(Democrats) stand against? Excluding abortion, name just three(3).
I understand the points you're making about 9/11 and how opinions on dropping nuclear weapons could come across as unempathetic. I obviously can't read the conversations you're speaking of to determine exactly how these "conservatives" were behaving but in the case of dropping bombs on Japan, whoever you're talking about was essentially debating the morality of a decision that was made by a Democrat president. Putting aside the fact that atomic bombs were dropped under Harry Truman's administration when Democrats had control of the House and Senate, In recent decades Republicans have been more willing to support the wars we fight
although I think that dynamic is starting to change. Regardless, I have no doubt that there are conservatives who lack empathy and I know of conservative policies where empathy isn't a significant factor. With that said,
more than anything I think many Republican politicians do a poor job of emphasizing the importance of empathy and are less prone to making emotional pleas to the public. This is also a trend with many conservative speakers. For example one of Ben Shapiro's catchphrases is...
QUOTE
"Facts don't care about your feelings"
From what I've seen, Democrats and the left are often more prone to talk about "feelings" or "empathy" but sometimes they do this to a fault by making emotional arguments in situations where the facts don't support their narrative. I think emotions can easily be manipulated as well so I keep that in mind. I'll give you a perfect example...
Joe Biden asked this question when he was being interviewed on CNN...
QUOTE
"Have you ever heard this president say one negative thing about white supremacists? Have you ever heard it?"
https://www.politicususa.com/2020/08/28/joe...premacists.htmlOne one the ways you can tell the media and Democrat politicians are on the same page is that they repeat many of the same talking points. Media pundits have repeatedly claimed that
"Trump refuses to denounce white supremacy"... https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/51887...and-stand-by-onMore recently some have switched to saying that Trump
"finally" condemned white supremacy. Here's a quote from CNN's Jim Acosta...
QUOTE
"Trump has finally condemned white supremacists... on Hannity."
https://twitter.com/acosta/status/1311846345674829825Similar talking points have come from left-wing alternative media. For example, The Young Turks have also made this claim...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkqqY-tq_VAThis would be important on the topic of empathy because,
If taken at face value, these Democrats and left-wing journalists are essentially looking out for us by ensuring that our president isn't supporting hate groups. I'm not going to argue that there aren't Democrat voters and liberal Americans who genuinely believe that Trump hasn't denounced white supremacy but the Democrat party leadership and journalists should, and probably do know better in most cases.
So, here's a compilation video of Trump denouncing either white supremacy, neo-nazis, the KKK, or David Duke..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JmOSsv-KSg (It's over 8 minutes long so I don't expect you to watch all of this but I'd encourage you to watch at least a couple minutes of it.)
I'm looking into these things on my own and don't have a research team to help me figure all of this out. Democrat Party politicians and media pundits have the resources and staff necessary to do proper research and the responsibility of being honest and forthcoming with the public. The way they've spun this topic is one of countless examples that has led me to disagree with the type of answer you gave here...
QUOTE
3. Does the news media and social media give a poor representation of the mindset of your average American?
No. Except Fox News. They are awful.
I can't say that I understand these kinds of positions unless you're saying that the news media is in touch with what you and other liberals believe. I still like to ask questions like this to get a feel for where online debaters stand compared to what polling and surveys are revealing. Sometimes I still hear opinions like yours but I think the public's take on the MSM has been shifting on this for quite a while. Classical and moderate liberals will often call out the media, even some left-wingers and progressives who are frustrated with establishment government and media are starting to call them out, although it's still rare.
I generally don't like Cenk Uygur or Bill Maher for that matter but sometimes they hit the nail on the head...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzG-Gi94hogWhat Cenk Uygur is getting right here is that the media and "corporate Democrats" work together and "suppress" information that they feel works against them. I believe he's wrong on some of his other assumptions though. For example, the idea that the media has taught "generations of Democrats to whisper" I don't believe that holds water at all.
He has his moments though. For example, he condemned election polling for being wildly inaccurate
again. Have you considered the polls and how they reflect on the media? From what I understand, the polls were off in this election more than in 2016 in some states with one poll even having Trump losing by 17 points in Wisconsin and Susan Collins losing by 12 Maine. Yet Trump got within a point in Wisconsin and to update the left-wing source below, Susan Collins won Maine by nearly 9 points...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/no...-repeats-itselfThose are 17 and 21 point polling errors with numerous other polls also being far less accurate than they should have been. Do you not feel that this is a sign that the MSM poorly represents the mindset of your average American? From my perspective, this is just one of
many signs demonstrating that the MSM is out of touch.
I've seen a lot of statistical data that points towards a biased and untrustworthy mainstream media but it's not hard to witness this problem by turning on one of these networks either.
However, perhaps the nail in the coffin on this is the success of Fox News. I get that you don't like them but here's what I'm getting at. Fox News was created specifically because Rupert Murdoch saw an opening in the market for a conservative news network. In the 80's CBS, NBC, and ABC, (also known as The Big Three), were dominant. Murdoch recognized that these networks had a liberal bias so he capitalized on that by creating Fox News.
Fox News doesn't attract more viewers than their competitors because they get everything right or avoid highering biased news anchors. They attract more viewers because Murdoch was right and the bias that he spotted then has only gotten worse with time. Think of it this way, today the liberal viewers in America are dispersed between multiple networks like CNN, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, and CBS while conservative viewers usually funnel to the only mainstream network that'll give substantial coverage to topics that are relatable to them and that's exactly why Fox News has crushed the competition in the ratings for so long.
I'm not saying that Fox News doesn't have its share of problems, I think they're more successful simply because they've lacked serious conservative competition in the MSM. This could be changing though because Newsmax is starting to get a lot of attention from those who feel that Fox News isn't conservative enough but at the end of the day, perhaps any network that has a strong liberal or conservative bias is going to be out of touch in the eyes of many Americans.
To move on, I want to answer your question from before more directly. The rest of my reply here will be the most crucial and bring in the most substantiation...QUOTE
I mean as a group, a political platform, what are the compassionate political programs/platforms that conservatives(Republicans) stand for that liberals(Democrats) stand against? Excluding abortion, name just three(3).
I think in order to answer that, we'd have to acknowledge that a policy can work for some people while working against others. We probably agree on that much so to address your question, there aren't as many policies where there's absolute support by one party and total opposition from another, as people would think but I can certainly show you examples where Republicans are giving much more support to policies or programs that could be considered compassionate.
I'll get to the kinds of examples you might be after here soon but first I'd like to show an example where some people
assume that Democrats are taking the compassionate position.
On the topic of border security, Democrats often claim that they're on the side of showing concern about the wellbeing of the poor and disadvantaged. In some cases I believe they are trying to be compassionate but this topic has many layers. The conservative position on border security isn't strictly about balancing economics. As far as I'm concerned, economics are a distant consideration in this case. I think it could easily be considered incompassionate to allow deadly drugs to cross the border with the current opioid epidemic we're in but more than anything, I think that those who are wanting to cross our southern border illegally are being used.
This is a human rights issue in more ways than what far-left Democrats are letting on. Immigrants are often used by drug cartels, young women and girls are often either sexually abused or get sold by sex traffickers, and the trip itself is dangerous. I've seen immigrants who are severely dehydrated, swimming across rivers, and even toddlers getting dropped from the top of border fencing and as all of this is taking place, we have some on the left who insist on incentivizing Immigrants to cross the border illegally.
I'd like to think we could fix that by taking care of
every immigrant who wants to come here but that's where economics do come into play. Perhaps we could make the naturalization process less time-consuming and legalize those who are already here but Democrats want taxpayer-funded healthcare and college for all American citizens
AND the expensive proposals laid out in the Green New Deal
AND want many of these taxpayer-funded services for virtually any undocumented immigrant who comes here, etc. etc. At a certain point the money runs out and the promises become empty ones.
So to me, incentivizing people to cross the border illegally when the left knows the dangers involved and knows that promises are being made that can't be kept, isn't compassionate or empathetic. Even if I were to assume that these promises could be kept, theirs no doubt that America isn't in a position now to handle large influxes of immigrants so what does that mean? It means that many on the left have been luring immigrants right into the hands of understaffed border patrol agents during an administration that's intent on deporting them only to point the finger elsewhere when the situation gets out of control. So this topic isn't one where the left dominates in compassion or empathy. Politicians on both sides of the political aisle have often failed to consider the impact of their words and actions.
In short, I don't assume that a left-leaning policy or idea is based on empathy just because they say it is. Same applies to conservatives, I disagree with and think they oversimply quite a few things. I view myself as a pragmatist and in my case, that's put me on a path to agree with conservatives more often. Dedicated ideologues can get to where they defend their political movement of choice even if it means ignoring inconsistencies or facts that they feel threaten that movement.
This section will directly go over policies and ideas with compassionate elements that have high Republican support
Under the Trump administration, Republicans have generally been on board with these kinds of programs. Many Democrats have tried to depict this as an effort to undermine public schools but that comes despite the fact that school choice has bipartisan support from the general public and the fact that some media sources, that aren't conservative, are supportive of the idea...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020...umn/4831964002/For more information, here are some details on the Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunity Act, a bill that was sponsored by Ted Cruz in the Senate....
https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=4343QUOTE
"I believe every student has the fundamental right to a quality education, as a quality education is the gateway to the American dream and stable, family-sustaining employment," Sen. Cruz said. "I introduced the Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunity Act, which will drive increased investment in our students, by creating a federal tax credit for taxpayers that donate to scholarship organizations supporting elementary and secondary education as well as secondary and post-secondary workforce training
......
"Every student in America deserves to learn in an engaging, meaningful and personalized way," Secretary DeVos said. "No student should be denied that opportunity simply because of where they live or their family income."
A similar bill was sponsored by House Republican Bradley Byrne, not to mention that all of the 110 cosponsers were Republicans as well...
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congres...1434/cosponsorsThis is a policy where Republicans are givng
all of the support to a bill that has compassionate elements but the broader topic of School Choice has had support from within the Democrat party, especially in the past. However, it's a struggle to get bills passed because of the partisanship and Democrat party indecision. Now, I'm sure that you can come up with a source where a Democrat or someone from a teachers union doesn't like this bill but that goes without saying. You can find Democrats who frame nearly everything Republicans want to do as wrong but those who are interested in the truth should be getting both sides of the story. Speaking of framing, let's look at the next issue...
- Covid-19 Stimulus Packages
Look at how Democrats in Congress have dragged their feet on stimulus packages. For the most part Democrat politicians have been complacent in this but finally, more of them have started to voice frustration over Nancy Pelosi's unwillingness to work with Republicans. Even CNN started taking aim at Pelosi and not for 30 seconds either. Wolf Blitzer actually pressed Pelosi in a similar way that the media does with Trump nearly every time he speaks...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqPltMpWIwo (Full CNN Video)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvV7IUVhb5Q (Body Language Review)Here's one quote...
QUOTE
"1.8 Trillion Dollars and the President just tweeted, "stimulus, go big or go home", he wants even more right now so why not work out a deal with him and don't let the perfect, as they say here in Washington, be the enemy of the good?"
Pelosi generally didn't have good answers or excuses here because she was continuously asked follow-up questions and that's key when someone is dodging or resorting to character attacks. You can look at either video above, but I'd recommend looking at the body language video at some point. Mandy does body language readings but is half comedian as well and does some poking.
Nothing that you haven't seen before or done yourself so you might find it amusing if you can take some jokes at Nancy Pelosi's expense. Mandy's points about Nancy Pelosi are solid if you look closely at how she's behaving here.
To continue, Trump had to sign an executive order just to get unemployment benefits extended. As I mentioned in my first post, Democrats have been more aggressive with shutdowns so if they're forcing Americans to lose income by staying locked down at the same time they're refusing to pass another stimulus package to make up the difference, would you personally consider that to be compassionate? Republicans have made concessions and have been willing to spend a lot of money here, even going against the wishes of many fiscal conservatives so I'm sure Democrats could have made concessions of their own.
This raises the question of whether or not Democrats were trying to stall this latest bill until after the election to make sure Trump didn't get credit just before the election because Democrats helped to pass previous bills. They dragged their feet but at least they eventually did something. Besides, Nancy Pelosi suggested in this CNN interview that she wouldn't like the optics of Trump being able to sign another check so it's a fair assumption that they stalled on this for political reasons. If that's the case, they're essentially playing with the lives of Americans who are in desperate situations to score political points.
- The Republican parties policies on civil rights (This section is crucial because it explains why we have the GOP)
Due, in large part to Trump, the Republican party has been far more apprehensive about having a large military presence overseas so if you want to go back as far as 9/11/2001 and talk about WW2 to make a lack of compassion argument, that opens the door for a lot of history.
To talk about slavery, I can guarantee you that it wasn't Republicans who were responsible for that. The first Republican president was Abraham Lincoln and the party was founded only a few years prior to that as an anti-slavery party. To briefly explain this, prior to the Republican party, there was the Whig Party. It was more diverse than the Democrat party but very conflicted. Disagreements over slavery is what led to the downfall of the Whig Party. In short, members of the Whigs who were opposed to slavery broke away from the Whigs to form the Republican party and they made slavery illegal as soon as they had the political power to do so. Republicans even tried to abolish slavery before they had the political power to pull it off.
The KKK has also been described by some as the domestic terrorist arm of the Democrat party and for good reason.
I'm not trying to suggest that the Democrat party simply supported slavery, segregation, and the KKK. I'm telling you that KKK members were Democrat party delegates and politicians, that slave owners were disproportionately Democrats and it wasn't even close, that Democrats were opposed to abolishing slavery, and that the Democrat party wrote segregation laws and gave the majority of the opposition to overturning them in the 1960s.
For substantiation of my claim that Democrats opposed abolishing slavery (and more)... - Democrats blocked the 13th Amendment which Abolished slavery. It later passed with only 23% support from Democrats and 100% Support from Republicans.
- The 14th Amendment which granted citizenship to former slaves passed with 0% support from Democrats and 94% support from Republicans.
- The 15th Amendment which prohibited denying the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" passed with 0% support from Democrats and 100% support from Republicans.
I will say that our fight to make these amendments stick was ongoing after these amendments were passed, especially in regards to The 15th Amendment but the opposition from Democrats at the time should speak for itself....
https://www.cop.senate.gov/artandhistory/hi...h_Amendment.htmhttps://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factche...ext/3456606001/The USA Today article is a left of center source I threw in there just to look at how they're framing these historical facts. They rate this claim as true although they say it's lacking in context. They don't say exactly why it's lacking in context other than to point out that there weren't many Democrats in office when the 14th and 15th Amendments were passed to be able to cast yae votes, but who cares? Democrats didn't have as many politicians in the U.S. because several states with Democrat politicians decided to secede to form the confederacy,
in part because they wanted slavery so there's no way that they would have cast yae votes anyway.
In fact, if we look at the 14th Amendment, it was passed under the 39th Congress and while it's true that Republicans outnumbered Democrats 136 to
38 consider the following. Even after Democrat controlled states in the south seceded, the remaining
38 Democrats who still served in the U.S. still wouldn't vote with Republicans to amend the constitution. In other words, Democrats in the north and south supported slavery. So what other context USA Today is looking for is beyond me. They probably just wanted to put something vague in their fact-checker to raise doubts. 38 Democrats had just witnessed their own party get crushed in the south in large part because America was rejecting slavery, yet they still didn't want to give rights to former slaves. In my eyes, that speaks volumes.
https://history.house.gov/Congressional-Ove.../Profiles/39th/For substantiation on my claim that Democrats gave more opposition to various civil rights acts in the 60's, you can look at the following links...https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/12/17/fact...-democrats-did/https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/20...vil_rights.htmlhttps://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/85-1957/s75https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/88-1964/h182https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/s78https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/90-1968/s346All of these bills were aimed at racial discrimination and every one of them got more opposition from Democrats. In a couple of these bills, there were more yae votes cast by Democrats in raw numbers but only because Democrats were in the majority. By percentages, Republicans were more in favor of these bills which is corroborated by the fact-checker above.
Bear with me on some of this scrutiny. When I look at how Democrats handled all of this foul history, it was very much the same way they handle things today in many cases, by simply projecting problems that they're largely responsible for themselves, onto others. In the 50's and 60's Democrats were very divided over civil rights. More or less the party was trying to process its history with some politicians wanting to adjust tactics and others wanting to stick with the ways of the past.
I'm not going to say that this was a one-sided issue where there weren't Republicans with the same motivations as Democrats but, in a nutshell, the Democrat party repeatedly suffered crushing defeats in regards to both slavery and other civil rights concerns that still divided white and black Americans later on.
Ultimately, the Democrat party was faced with either evolving or going the way of the Whigs. Clearly, they did evolve and eventually did everything they could to disassociate themselves from slavery, the KKK, and other civil rights atrocities. I don't think most Democrat politicians today would support those kinds of horrific injustices but I also don't believe they've shaken all of their authoritarian roots either. They also still try to do what they can to mask their history.
They've done this by saying that slavery is America's problem, the problem of the white man, or the problem of the south. They've even described the Republican Party of the past as progressive or liberal and push the narrative that our political parties really just switched sides in the 1960s. They say
A LOT to direct attention away from their own party but most of these narratives fall apart on
NUMEROUS levels. For example, are Democrats right when they say Republicans used to be progressive or liberal? Well, this is where we have to define conservatism. Abraham Lincoln described himself as a conservative and viewed conservatism in a similar way that many conservatives do today. To
conserve the principles that were laid out in the U.S. constitution. In Lincoln's case, slavery and other civil rights injustices were a threat to the principles that were laid out by our founding fathers.
To quote one of Lincoln's speeches...
QUOTE
"What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live"
....
You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary
....
Again, you say we have made the slavery question more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded the old policy of the fathers."
For the full quote and speech, you can go here...
https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historycultu...nionaddress.htmClearly, Democrats are leaving a lot out. I do think that Lincoln could be described as a liberal in the sense that he was highly supportive of individual liberty and that brings us back to a debate we've already had. Here's one of the most common definitions of liberalism...
QUOTE
"A political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise."
Perhaps valid examples can be shown by members of both parties of how they're supporting individual liberty but one thing is crystal clear to me. The Democrat party is no more supportive of individual rights than the Republican party and I don't think that many people would argue that Democrats are more friendly to "free enterprise". To explain my position on this
Droop, I believe that Democrats who are in positions of power and influence are less about individual rights than they have been in
VERY long time.
Left-leaning colleges do things like ban speakers who they disagree with and create free speech zones, we see trends to where conservatives are commonly censored, banned, or fired for exercising their free speech rights, etc. etc. I've seen no shortage of evidence that Democrats are trending towards collectivism rather than individualism. In large part that's why I wasn't surprised by the national survey that was released by the Cato Institute...
https://www.cato.org/publications/survey-re...re-afraid-shareQUOTE
"50% of strong liberals support firing Trump donors, 36% of strong conservatives support firing Biden donors; 32% are worried about missing out on job opportunities because of their political opinions.
These fears cross partisan lines. Majorities of Democrats (52%) independents (59%) and Republicans (77%) all agree they have political opinions they are afraid to share.
Strong liberals stand out, however, as the only political group who feel they can express themselves. Nearly 6 in 10 (58%) of staunch liberals feel they can say what they believe. However, centrist liberals feel differently."
It shouldn't be surprising that the group who is most in favor of firing someone simply over who they support for president are also suggesting in the same poll that they feel the most comfortable expressing their political beliefs.
Lastly, look at the lockdowns. I think there's a healthy debate to be had as to how much lockdowns are helping but it is undoubtedly the largest infringement on individual liberties that we've seen in a long time and Democrats have been far more prone to pushing them. So, while I don't doubt that many liberal citizens and Democratic party voters value individual liberty, I don't believe that those who are in positions of power and influence in the Democrat party are more liberal than Republicans, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. Terms like "the left" and "leftism" are on the rise because the word liberal doesn't accurately describe everyone who's in the Democratic party.
So for Democrats to try to suggest Republicans
used to be liberal is a disingenuous way to try to disassociate today's Republican Party with the Republican party of 1860 because what we're talking about is classical liberalism first and foremost. In other words, the Republican Party believed in individual liberty early in its formation, so the question is; does that still hold water today? There's diversity of thought in the Republican party and corrupt rhinos for sure but Republicans still tend to have classical liberal beliefs on issues like free speech, individual liberties, and free enterprise, while being a bit more economically conservative and conservative in the sense that they're more interested in conserving the principals that were laid out in the U.S. Constitution, as Abraham Lincoln was suggesting.
As for Democrats who are attributing slavery to the south while suggesting that our political parties switched sides, here are a couple of videos from Dinesh D'Souza who articulates this better than I can. I highly recommend that you look at these videos, they're not long..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma5PT1uwvj0 (Commentary on the southern switch narrative)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol7OMGBDMao (Commentary on the southern switch narrative)
And here's a video where D'Souza is commenting on some of what I mentioned before...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3g7yEB1KsM (Commentary on Abraham Lincoln as a self-described conservative and defining the word conservative as it applies to American politics)
Almost done with the civil rights portion of this reply. If you're still reading this then kudos to you for sure, I know this is a long reply and that you're not going to be in agreement with everything you're reading.D'souza can be a polarizing figure and he's gotten a fact wrong here or there but is generally spot-on. So...
to help substantiate my claim that Democrats were disproportionately slave ownersD'souza once made the following argument..
QUOTE
"The year before the civil war, no Republican in the United States owned a slave"
D'Souza wasn't just including politicians in that statement, he was including the entire U.S. population so needless to say, his comment caused quite a stir. It triggered a lot of research on behalf of left-wing professors and historians. His claim was eventually debunked but apparently, it took 150 historians over a year to finally come up with the names of about a dozen Republicans and keep in mind that there were about four million slaves in America at the time. That's how lopsided the Republican and Democrat parties were on civil rights at a time when we saw some of the worst civil rights atrocities.
The following link helps verify that historians could only find about a dozen examples of Republicans who owned slaves....https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/...ght_140756.html QUOTE
"No. 1 Elder: "Republicans did not own slaves. Democrats owned slaves."
PolitiFact: "The claim that Republicans did not own slaves is false, and Elder corrected the record on Twitter the next day. ... 'As to no Republicans ever owning slaves, I was wrong, and I've corrected it on social media,' Elder said in a statement to PolitiFact. 'There were at least 10.'"
PolitiFact noted: "'Republicans were obviously the party of abolition, but there were in fact Republicans who owned slaves,' Kruse told us. ... [Slave owners Francis P. Blair and Benjamin Burton] were not the only two. After conservative filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza made a similar claim on Twitter, Kruse and other historians on Twitter identified eight more prominent Republicans who also owned slaves in 1860."
If historians struggle to find just a dozen examples of Republicans in the entire U.S. owning slaves then it's not accurate or fair to put the burden of slavery on all Americans. There was slavery when America was founded and that shouldn't be understated but slavery in America persisted and the number of slaves skyrocketed in large part due to the Democrat party. Our history reveals that we had some Americans who wanted slavery and other Americans who did everything they could to abolish slavery.
To wrap this section up, the trend where Democrats project problems that they're contributing to onto others didn't start recently with the kinds of examples I shared in the opening post, they've been doing it for decades. Journalists and politicians have done this for a long time and progressive historians assist them by simply leave
A LOT out in their teachings. The left is dominant in the MSM, academia, and when it comes to big tech. These industries are
very good at framing the argument. For one last example on civil rights to further show how they're doing this...
In 1924 KKK members, some of whom were Democratic party delegates, gathered, marched, and burned crosses as the Democratic National Convention took place. They were supportive of Democrat William Gibbs McAdoo who did not repudiate the KKK. Take a look at these two Wikipedia articles, one of which covers William Gibbs McAdoo, and one of which covers Donald Trump...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibbs_McAdoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_TrumpAt a minimum, the Wikipedia article
briefly mentions that McAdoo didn't denounce the KKK but they praise him on more than one occasion, going as far as to say...
QUOTE
"McAdoo was enormously appealing with his handsome looks, obvious enthusiasm, and boundless energy. He had an uncomplex personality that was always persuasive, optimistic and self-assured."
On the other hand, the Wikipedia article on Trump repeatedly covers him in the most negative way possible. Nearly every section mentioned something negative or controversial. Even on topics where classical and moderate liberals often give Trump credit, this Wiki page fails to do so. I get that Trump is controversial and I don't think that any outlet should give him a pass when he's in the wrong, but they should at least pretend to show some balance if they're to be taken as anything more than left-wing activist.
Wikipedia even tries to go to a similar argument on the KKK as they did with McAdoo by saying that Trump...
QUOTE
"repeatedly refused to condemn David Duke, the Ku Klux Klan or white supremacists"
I already demonstrated how misleading this claim is earlier, so to explain how messed up this is. The politician who refused to denounce the KKK at a time when they were at their worst, Wikipedia described as appealing and handsome but the President who actually did repeatedly denounce the KKK and white supremacists, Wikipedia claims he repeatedly
refused to do so.
Wikipedia may not be mainstream and Wiki pages are indeed written by volunteers but I can't say I entirely blame those who get misled.
If people see the same misinformation on Wikipedia that they see on networks like CNN, later to read something similar in papers like the New York Times, it can become very easy to believe that they're looking at corroborating evidence when in reality they're just witnessing people spread a rumor that's no more complex than when busy body neighbors exchange gossip. D'Souza makes a similar argument on how different media and big tech outlets often exchange the same misinformation.
To move on before wrapping up, If you want to look into more policies and ideas that have high support from within the Republican party, you could look into... And...
Prison reform is far from being a policy idea that only has support from Republicans. Democrats have been talking about it for years but it took a Republican president to get it though. In fact, the bill I'm referencing is The First Step Act and it was introduced by Ranking Member Doug Collins, that's the Republican who often sits next to Jerry Nadler. We would have had police reform legislation passed as well if it weren't for Democrats blocking it. Here's a speech that Senator Tim Scott gave on the Senate floor about this..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMlmHZv2bRI (Speech Highlights)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZdXwWpYFA8 (Full Speech)These videos are important. Tim Scott gives a very impassioned speech about personal racial discrimination, George Floyd, and highlights how Democrats negotiate with Republicans. I've watched many of these House and Senate hearings in their entirety and have seen how Democrats on the floor of the House and Senate often behave so I have no reason to doubt Tim Scott here. The full speech is 33 minutes long, it's well worth a watch if you ever have the time because the highlight video leaves a lot out.
After Tim Scott introduced The Justice Act and after his speech, he received racist phone calls and threats from those who were also hating on other Republicans which makes it probable that Tim Scott is right that these attacks came from the left. Even Senator Dick Durban called this legislation a...
QUOTE
"token, half-hearted approach."
https://www.foxnews.com/media/tim-scott-lib...racist-messageshttps://www.cnn.com/2020/06/24/politics/tim...sing/index.html (To CNN's credit they did cover this story as well. I just wish they had far more balance in primetime when the majority of people are watching)
You can also look below for proof that Democrats disproportionately voted against holding a final vote on this police reform legislation, which ultimately led to the bill dying...
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/116-2020/s126Democrats claimed that the bill didn't go far enough but it's just like what Wolf Blitzer said to Nancy Pelosi..
QUOTE
"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good"
There's no perfect bill and neither side is going to get everything they want in most cases. Personally, I think that there was a lot in this bill that could have helped. You're free to take a look at the details to judge for yourself...
https://www.scott.senate.gov/media-center/p...d-states-senateEnd of Examples
Again, I don't think that the examples I shared here are representative of most Democratic party voters or liberals. I just think the politicians and journalists on that side are far more corrupt than they were 15 years ago and that the radical left is getting worse. If you want, take your time and do more research on what I presented here before replying. If you think that something I said needs to be picked apart you could always do that a bit later.
I will say this, if you were to do research by simply looking for reasons to dismiss any idea or policy that has support from conservatives, you're sure to find them. Some sources and journalists are going to disagree with almost anything conservatives say or present and it's as simple as that. There are many fair and understandable counterarguments to conservative positions but also no shortage of hyperpartisan Americans out there who are in a position to influence others.
I don't think that these types of people generally give a damn about you, the problems you face, or the information you receive as long as you're supportive of them and skeptical of outside opinions and facts. I read your America on Fire thread and took notice of where you said...
QUOTE
"Most impressive thing I've seen. More Whites in my social media feeds speaking out. Not the perfunctory admission that there are "bad apples" but Whites coming to the conclusion of the systemic racism and racial biases in our law enforcement strategies."
And....
QUOTE
"Fair to say, left wing puts more weight on the system, while right wing tends to see problems as generally a bad apple here and there."
I think there's
A LOT more information that could surprise you but trust takes a long time to build. If you're in a position where you believe wholeheartedly that conservatives and Republicans, as well as their policies, are lacking in empathy by comparison to what the Democrats are offering and you've believed that for decades, then it can take years or decades for that viewpoint to change. It's also not my job to convince you because you may be very content with where you're at. I'm just hoping I'm presenting some information that you haven't seen before.
For instance, I believe there's a wide range of systemic discrimination issues, it's yet another area where we agree. I may disagree with you in the sense that I believe left-wing politicians and institutions do a lot more to contribute to this problem than they let on and discriminate on more issues than race alone
but, at a minimum, we agree on some basic concepts which means we could potentially find more common ground. Just a thought.
This post has been edited by net2007: Dec 2 2020, 12:30 PM
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Oct 31 2020, 10:15 AM
are experienced so I wouldn't doubt most of the members here understand this already but for informational purposes, Republicans are filling vacancies to the Supreme Court for existing open seats. Court-packing is the act of increasing the number of seats on a court. Imagine if a football game were to end with the score 14 -17 and someone decided to come along and add a 5th quarter to the game to give the losing team a chance to catch up. Essentially that's what Democrats have been suggesting when they talk about court-packing.
