@sammydog01 I spent the last few paragraphs being slightly confused until I read the author’s bio at the end. When I read that he’s a pastor it all made sense.
I’ve seen lots of articles written on the subject, from damn near every angle, cause it’s low hanging fruit and you gotta get them page views if ya wanna stay afloat, but I have yet to see anything I would call legitimate outrage, just a lotta people killin’ time mostly. Is it actually out there and I’ve simply done a better than average job of preemptively steering clear, or am I just lookin’ at another apple on the edge of rotten?
@sammydog01 Boo-hoo, won’t someone think of the monuments
to one of the most shameful chapters of our history
(and physical reminders to millions that they still live in the shadows of what they represent)
@trisk That’s right, the Civil War was all about slavery, not about states rights, not about tariffs imposed on foreign goods forcing southerners to buy more expensive goods from the north, and not at all about farm boys fighting for their country. And the only reason the north was against slavery was human rights, not at all because slaves weren’t needed because of industrialization.
Non of the other issues would have brought us anywhere close to secession and war, they would have just been the usual political nastiness with each side vying for advantage.
That war over slavery had been foreseen by Southerners and Northerners and everyone else including interested Europeans since the Revolution.
Tho only a smallish percentage of soldiers for the South personally owned slaves, a very high percentage of soldiers were part of economically connected tight families where the head of the family owned slaves. And many other soldiers’ families were closely economically tied into businesses where slave labor was how the hard work was done.
There were also the moral and religious factors. A large number of Southern partisans who were not economically connected to slavery strongly felt that they should be able to look down on African-Americans, who should be legally profoundly inferior. They felt that slavery was right and just, and that their “moral honor” depended on the superiority of the white people.
They did not want to live in a land where black people were they equals. And they said as much.
All this is so well documented … Including by means of interview after interview with Southern soldiers and with Southern families thirty or more years after the war. They admitted it straight out. The non-slave holders agreed and said as much.
I am descended from Southerners who owned slaves, who fought for the South. (Relatives fought in both sides). I am a relative of a certain person named Lee.
It’s time for the public monuments in the South to celebrate and honor everyone, including the victims of horror whose names are lost.
And for the terrible moral failings of that time to be clearly and publicly reflected in monuments.
General Lee was a man of his time. According to the standards of his time, he was a man of honor. But he owned slaves, and he made a terrible choice, when he had to choose sides. It’s time for public monuments to reflect that.
“The South went to war on account of slavery.”
-John S. Mosby
Confederate Army officer
If one searches the actual recorded words and writings of all sorts of soldiers (ordinary and great), one can find that sentiment and belief expressed again and again and again. Especially afterwards. Especially long afterwards.
The other issues were real enough issues. But as excuses for secession and war, they were just so many fig leaves for political cover.
@sammydog01 Have you read the official documents from states and leaders at that time? Yes the economics of slavery were motivating both sides- not just ethics, but the war was primarily about slavery.
@Pantheist@f00l I took my daughter to the American Civil War Center this summer (state park)- she had to go to museums for school. I wandered around and played Pokemon Go. I guess I need to go back after school starts and read everything there. (In my defense there were lots of Pokestops.)
If someone hasn’t really read the history, and has heard the myths alongside, it can all get a little obscured.
At the time, all those extra arguments were thrown into the mix as justification. And those rationales persisted publicly for a while after the war, as cover for an evil than otherwise good people did not wish to admit they were culpable of.
But nobody really believed it. Even then.
everything else in the list was resolvable thru ordinary political methods.
If the South had not been tied to slavery, it would have industrialised for economic gain, as the North did.
There would have been far more economic and social and industrial parity between North and South in 1860 with no slavery. zero cause for secession and war.
Sometimes you still hear people strongly make those arguments nowadays. in my acquaintance, it’s people who like the idea of hanging a Confederate Battle Flag, and dont wanna own up to what that means to the general public.
“You can’t tell me what to do” state of mind.
But the truth was in the letters, the interviews, the memoirs, the recorded conversations and family remarks that were written down once people in the South had accepted the outcome and mostly gotten over the war.
And the truth is that there was only one state’s rights issue that mattered: Slavery.
Some - plenty - of participants said so up front, openly. for many other participants - they said so, once they emotionally got to a place where they could bear to live with the open admission.
They thought of themselves as good people. They went along. They mostly were good people. And they committed a terrible evil that was at variance with what they believed about themselves ethically and morally.
Even there ones from border states with little slavery: Tennessee, etc - had these beliefs. It’s in the memoirs.
I don’t hate them now, or think they were worse many other humans. They went along. They excused. They profited. They looked the other way. They did terrible things they could not admit even to themselves.
All my life I’ve heard that “The South Will Rise Again.” Usually spoken as a form of gentle running humor. Self-teasing. Am ongoing in-joke.
But if the people of the traditional South - historically, my people, my family, me I guess - really want to maker that true, it’s time we - all of is - open the books and put everything in display and own it all. monuments that cover everything that happened. Leave nothing out.
Monuments to the memory of an evil we all admit to and disavow.
Monuments to the memory of the suffering and abuse that were. Monuments to the lost and the forgotten. Monument to the memory of the rapes, tortures, murders, lies, torn apart families. Monuments to the invisible, unnamed persons.
monuments against the idea there one human could ever own another. monuments against the idea that’s it’s OK to ignore this.
Germany and Japan kinda figured out how to do this. The South is still struggling with the idea that we have to really, totally, come publicly clean and stay clean. that we can’t just keep our existing memorials with no highly visible offsetting commentary.
when the South completely does that, without reservation: that’s how the South will really rise again.
I personality suspect that REL would, if alive today, be in favor of doing exactly that.
Outrage isn’t making us stupid, The Federalist is.
My sister-in-law works at Google. She was very upset about that memo. She’s glad that guy was fired. Google benefits from having happy employees. Mr. Memo Writer wasn’t happy at Google (that’s very clear in the memo, which I read). So keeping my sister-in-law happy was in Google’s best interests. That’s how capitalism works. The Federalist loves capitalism. So The Federalist really thinks Google did the right thing. It just decided to get some page hits by publishing an article that was outraged about outrage.
Some of you who know me know I’m a conservative registered independent. I stand behind my beliefs and values without apology.
Let me say I firmly believe Mr. Damore had every right to author and distribute his memo. He was expressing his opinion on a very touchy matter. He was exercising his right as an American to have and express his opinion.
With that said Google had every right to fire his dumb ass. The problem rests with the fact it was an internal memo which implies he used Google’s property (computer & network?) to produce and distribute his ten-page memo. BTW: can a ten page memo still be called a memo? Asking for a friend. While California isn’t a right-to-work state (AKA right-to-fire-for-any-reason-whatsoever state) Silicon Valley is very anti-union. For Mr. Damore to buck the system was at his own risk because he did not have union protection.
A side note here: I am a very conservative person who believes in labor unions and no, I do not see a contradiction.
And now for my rant on Free Speech.
If it wasn’t for free speech we wouldn’t know MLK even had a dream.
I served proudly in the US Navy to protect your right to disagree with my beliefs, values, faith, and what I wear in public. You should be free to express those words of disagreement on any public street corner without fear of harm as long as you are nonviolent and not impeding the flow of traffic. But you have to remember that your rights stop at the tip of my nose. ANY organization that violently promotes its own race, color, creed, or gender over another race, color, creed, or gender is wrong. Speech is only violent if it’s so loud, measured in Db not content, it literally does damage to one’s ears. Sticks and stones people! What happens afterward is on the individual(s) committing the acts of violence not the speaker.
IMHO we should pass the following laws:
Prohibit the wearing of anything covering the face while demonstrating or protesting. That includes hoods, balaclavas, burkas, … anything.
Write anything you want on your poster but you have to carry it without a stick. No weapons of any kind allowed. You really don’t need your signage stapled to an axe handle. Carrying rocks should be viewed as intent and dealt with accordingly. If you really need that big belt buckle to hold your pants up then it needs to stay on your pants. Take it off and it becomes a weapon.
ENFORCE THE FRIGGIN’ LAWS we already have! We are a nation based on the rule of laws: The rule of law is the legal principle that law should govern a nation, as opposed to being governed by arbitrary decisions of individual government officials. (Thank you Wiki) And here’s the important part; enforcement should be based on illegal actions regardless of the message of the individual. If you crack open someone’s skull it should not matter one iota whether you’re wearing a white hooded robe or a black hoodie and balacava; you go to jail.
TLDR: Damore was a dumbass for writing the memo on Google property giving Google the right to fire him.
Also, you should have the right to tell me I’m incorrect and I have the right (and arguably the duty) to tell you you’re totally fucked up without fear of bodily harm for either of us.
@Mehrocco_Mole Virginia has an open carry law so the protesters here were armed with guns, not sticks. And the racist assholes had homemade shields too. I’m surprised no one got shot.
@sammydog01 They were armed with both. And they used the sticks, bottles, shields, and pepper spray with impunity. Masks, however, are against the law there, but that didn’t really matter very much either.
@PurplePawprints@sammydog01
It appears both sides came ready for action. When the car that insane murderer stopped on his forward run someone came up and smashed the rear window. Whatever he was swinging sliced through that window like a knife through butter. Imagine what it would have done to a human body. Why did he have something like that at a “peaceful” protest?
If there were guns openly carried one would think the news would be all over it. Especially if it were the supremacists carrying the guns. The only gun arrest reported, that I could find at least, was a Florida man (go figure) for carrying concealed. Florida and Virginia have concealed carry reciprocity or mutual recognition so didn’t this guy have a permit? What’s interesting is nothing I could find stated what side of the protest he was on. But if you come to a protest locked and loaded you will get no sympathy from me when you get hurt because the other side was ready for you.
And there are racist assholes on both sides of this protest. Racism is not black or white. It is black AND white AND yellow AND green ad nauseam. The point is it doesn’t matter what end of the political spectrum you are, if you think your race is superior to any other race you are a racist.
All this violence has got to stop.
You want an effective counter-protest? A protest needs an audience. Surround them with people 100 deep. Turn your back and ignore them. No yelling. No throwing stuff. No violence. If you take away their validation you take away any power they may think they have.
@Mehrocco_Mole I’m getting ready to go to bed and have to be up in a couple hours so I’m not giving this response the attention it deserves, but the “alt right” had heavily armed militia there with AR-15s and the like in addition to hand guns. The militia claims to not be affiliated with the protesters and say they were only there to protect free speech, but the reason they were requested was for intimidation. This has been reported on, there are news articles about it, and I’ve seen firsthand photos from friends who were there. This is my home town and I have quite a few friends who were there and witnessed a lot of what happened. I’ll try to be more coherent tomorrow and more detailed or whatever, but I wanted to respond about the gun thing. Also, VA is open carry, and semiautomatic long guns are legal, but you can’t conceal without a permit.
@PurplePawprints I had searched for the gun info but came up blank. Links if you would please? I also have to be up in 5 hours to take my youngest to school so I understand. Goodnight!
@Mehrocco_Mole The gun thing was reported in our local news right after the violence started but I couldn’t find any photos so it was probably wrong. The press reporting rumor as fact? No, it couldn’t be. The photos I found of weapons were mostly counter protesters- including a guy using an aerosol can as a flame thrower. Lots of folks on both sides had batons.
In Richmond there was a demonstration at midnight where anti-fascist protesters attacked a guy filming them with a cell phone- he needed stitches.
As for open carry, this photo is from 2014 and is in Richmond- this is a group of open carry proponents that liked to wander around a shopping district on Saturdays with their semi-automatics.
They were peaceful and were all killed in a car accident on the way to a rally. But scary.
This tweet includes one of many pictures that I’ve seen of the militia’s men in attendance.
The author of that tweet is the same guy who captured the video of Fields ramming the crowd with his car.
As for Fields, I haven’t seen a single reputable site that says/shows the attack on his car that you’re talking about, but the guy had just plowed into a crowd of people. I don’t think I can judge the intent of the person who may have hit his back window and say that they would have used that on a person instead. There were early reports on how heavily armed the protesters were and I don’t blame any of the counter protesters who may have also brought sticks for protection. As the photos of Deandre Harris’s attack show, many on the protesters’ side weren’t afraid to use what they brought.
I won’t deny that there are those on both sides who came prepared to fight. But, one side came with hate for entire swaths of people and the other side came to protest hate, racism, bigotry, and the idea that one group of people is inherently better than any other. I have plenty of other thoughts, especially re your definition of racism and how it applies here, but this is already getting pretty long and rambling for this early in the morning.
@PurplePawprints These guys have abhorrent views but without a violent backlash from counter protesters this would have been just a bunch of assholes looking like idiots. Their Friday night impromptu torchlit march through UVA was non-violent as far as I know.
I also applaud the effort to get photos of these guys out on social media and publicly shame them- one guy has already been fired.
From what I have read the guys with the assault weapons stood on the side and didn’t participate in the violence.
And yes, the militia that attended, as far as I’m aware, did not contribute to the physical violence. I didn’t say that they did and was only providing proof that they were there since that seemed to be in question.
@PurplePawprints Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound argumentative- they were there and I can’t think of a single reason why that seemed like a good idea to anyone. Those guys scare the crap out of me.
Just one last thought- the price we pay as Americans for freedom of speech is having to let douchebags say douchebag things in public. The day we start to censor them is the day one more civil right goes down the crapper.
@sammydog01 Sorry here, too. After seeing this happen to my friends and hometown this weekend I’m a bit touchy.
I get and understand what you’re saying re free speech. I don’t agree with censorship in general, and I really do appreciate the service of @Mehrocco_Mole (meant to mention that earlier; thank you for your service and sacrifices!) and others who have served our country with good intentions. However, I think the time is long past for us to continue giving racists, bigots, Nazis, KKK, (adding this back in as a nod to the original topic~~~>) misogynists etc. a free pass under the guise of free speech. Yes, they, up to a point, have the right to say whatever they want, but every other person who is not actively acting as an agent for the government has the right to literally shout them down if they so choose.
We tried to pretend they no longer existed and quietly hoped they’d die off with the oldest generations and hoped that we’d eventually reach a point in our country where there is true equality and people no longer believed that by virtue of birth they were better than others. This was a huge error on the part of progressives and those striving for equality.
By passively waiting we let young people get indoctrinated and brainwashed behind closed doors and now they are coming out in force. This is not a point in our history where you (general you here) can sit in the middle and not choose a side. Silence and inaction is still choosing a side and it’s the wrong one.
And there are racist assholes on both sides of this protest.
Aside from a few crazies who come out for the excitement (those always show up): what racist assholes were out in organized or numeric strength on the “counterprotest” side"?
I had not seen confirmed info on that.
Admitedly I have not followed all the details.
I do not excuse violence or attempted strong intimidation from everyone.
They are some people in history who figured out how to protest evil non-violently and effectively.
At least non-violence can be effective at least when the country isnt fascist or protecting fascists and letting them get violent without punishment.
@Mehrocco_Mole You can hear them say “that’s antifa over there” at the start of the UVA video above. They were definitely active at the rally. And at the Richmond midnight demonstration people were chanting “cops and the Klan go hand in hand”.
You mean like the antifa (Anti-First-Amendment) in Oakland?
I am unaware of having said or implied anything that supports the Antifa.
I don’t support groups who come out armed.
That said:
And there are racist assholes on both sides of this protest.
I am unaware of whom on the counterprotest side was a racist asshole? (Of course there may be a few deranged left-and-racist individuals out; no one can stop the clearly deranged individuals who are not part of a community or movement from coming out for something like this on their own.)
Were there well organized or loosely organized racists assholes clearly present on the counterprotest side?
@Mehrocco_Mole I found this ad in the paper at breakfast and can’t decide which to buy:
or
The Seekins has that tactical look but the auto-ordinance is retro, holds 50 rounds, and comes in a violin case. My daughter is turning 17 next month and I haven’t bought a gift yet- which do you think will look better hanging from her shoulder?
You mean like the antifa (Anti-First-Amendment) in Oakland?
Not sure if you’re being pithy here, but Anti-Fa is short for Anti-Fascists.
I’m not going to jump into the politics here, because I think my status as an employee means my views and comments can be misconstrued as representing the company. I would like to say the well rounded, calm, open discussion happening here is a refreshing break.
@Thumperchick So far it seems most participants have been trying hard to avoid the name calling that usually happens with this type thread. Well, aside from the occasional snarky comment that hopefully brings a smile and a groan to everyone.
I can say for certain I’ve picked up a few facts I didn’t know about.
BTW: Yes I do know that. But I think my version is more accurate.
@sammydog01
I’m going to treat this as a serious question because there is no way YOU could be trolling me. Also because it will allow me to address a few things.
I personally own the top one, a M&P 15 Sport II rifle. I love shooting it. It is very reliable and accurate firearm out to about 200 yards. It’s also easy to break down for cleaning. But it may be too much for a teenager. If this is her first firearm I would recommend a 22LR such as a Mossberg 802 Plinkster.
Excuse me for a sec while I get my soapbox in position.
Shooting is a highly disciplined sport not a fashion show. You will not see a bunch of fools parading around showing off their equipment. The guys in the pictures above are the 0.000000000000001% of gun owners. Most gun owners don’t like to advertise they even have guns. I sure don’t.
As a matter of fact at every gun club I’ve been a member of or visited, strutting around like that would be a fast way to be asked to leave. There are rules in place and you had better know and follow them. You will soon learn the Range Master (the person in charge) does not have a sense of humor while on the range. At my club the Range Master is a totally different person when she is on the range as compared to off range.
If you are serious about your daughter learning to shoot, find a NRA certified instructor to instruct her. They will teach her the range rules and how to safely handle her firearm before she is even allowed to load it. It’s worth the money.
Don’t get her a pink camo firearm. It is not a toy and should not look like one. To me this is a safety issue.
Get a gun safe. Rule #1 for serious gun owners is safety first and foremost. As a matter of fact rules #1 through #10 are all safety first and foremost.
Join a club (range). They hold competitions, arrange lessons, and maintain a safe and family friendly sporting area for all. BTW: I’ve NEVER been to a range that allowed alcohol. Never.
My daughter was introduced to firearms at about the same age as your daughter is now. She decided when she was ready. It made me feel better that she could hit what she was aiming at without shooting her own foot.
@Mehrocco_Mole I almost bought her a class at the local indoor gun range for Christmas last year. I’m fine with her target shooting- she would probably enjoy it. I was kidding about buying her a semi-automatic and it freaks me out to see them on sale in the local paper.
The Federalist sometimes publishes good stuff, or excellent stuff. Sometimes they are purely partisan. Sometimes they troll. Sometimes they troll big-time. Usually, when they troll, it’s more or less highly literate, well-read trolling. So possibly worth the reading, even if the stated reasoning is “selective” (shall we say), and quite vapid in a given case. But still trolling.
So this writer offers an article condemning recent events at Google as supposedly being the results of the (unfortunately real) outrage industry, and arguing that the discussion over the diversity issues involved mischaracterizing and the ignoring the facts in favor of upping the outrage temperature.
They might be a plausible case to be discussed there. He doesn’t do that. He just asserts.
and he ups the temperature by intellectually cheap arguments in the course of his own essay. He plays to his own biases.
Only he does it in a high-time, literate, respectible way. It’s still cheap thinking and cheap reasoning though.
He’s not throwing fuel in a fire. But he’s is piling on “literate spin” and selectively blind talking points into a controversy already drowning in them. Nice one, Federalist.
And the writer ignores that Google made a decent business decision, and that there are solid arguments for Google’s decision, when Google was confronted with a less-than-wonderful set of choices; and that little in this engineer’s conduct appears to be that which would exemplify a person seeking mutual understanding.
The Google engineer knew what he was doing when he published his memo. He wasn’t seeking truth or productivity or fairness. He was seeking a platform for a cause. And he got one. And now he’s unemployed and aggrieved and is, I suppose, going to to sue or something. He is now among the victims. I encourage the engineer to make his case. Or his career.
The world is a very unfair place, isn’t it? To lots of people.
Outrage outrage outrage. Addiction addiction addiction. Sure. Here comes more.
Lots of the commentariat and more than a few politicians get their careers off of it. From every POV, they come, they come.
And the more consistently successful and powerful practitioners of the art of perinneal outrage tend to be among those on the political right and alt-right.
By comparison the outraged professionals from the more left end of things are just kids playing around.
Whether the the practitioner is a rag-rah slogan-monger, or an Ivy League master of graceful phrases, when the writer does not demand the deepest allegiance to intellectual honor, the results are sophistry. Some forms are just obviously nastier and cheaper than others. If the writer then baits the argument with customary beliefs about who is guilty and who is clean, hello outrage!
The attitude of this minister (who somewhat subtly practices what he accuses others of) pointing at non-conservatives as the source of toxic outrage, gives me some pause.
He could have thought well enough and been honest enough not to offer corrupted arguments about outrage that point to “the other side” as being the perps. He could have forced himself to be as intellectually and morally honest as possible before he started writing. He didn’t.
If I were grading his essay, he’s decent on style. But his arguments … I guess a C or C- on the reasoning and substance, because you have to save the F’s for stuff that’s far worse. He does go to a few good points here and there, before he loses his way again.
This has nothing to do with conservative vs progressive or whatever. There are plenty of conservative writers who would never have offered up such shallow arguments blaming “the other side” for what the writer’s side and the writer himself in this case are thoroughly tarnished by and often utterly corrupted by. They would have tried far harder to understand and learn before they composed.
He’s right about the dopamine pathways getting habituated tho. We all carry that vulnerability.
We are a long, long way from our better angels this weekend.
California has a law about sexual harassment. It has two parts. The part that could be applied here is that he created a hostile work environment. This is aptly demonstrated by women who stayed home from work and others.
It’s tricky, because he does have the right to his opinion, and to express it, but he does not have the right within the workplace to do so in a way that makes the target, women, so uncomfortable that they cannot work. He does not have the right to make them feel that he will downgrade their performance on an annual review based on their gender.
It’s a fine thin line. He crossed it. Saying it created a hostile work environment is not the sensation the press is picking up on. But it should be.
Guys, conservative or other wise, how would you feel if I as a female nurse leader said to you that you can never be as a good of a nurse as a woman because you just don’t have the biology to be caring and compassionate?
@Cerridwyn I don’t think thats what he said, although I may be (and often am) wrong. I think his point is that women are less likely to want high stress management positions, not that those that do want them are less capable. A goal of 50/50 male/female employees just isn’t reasonable in certain fields, including nursing.
@sammydog01 He said a lot Some of it valid, some of it not. The part that was charged included the following statements:
On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just
socially constructed because:
● They’re universal across human cultures
● They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone
● Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify
and act like males
● The underlying traits are highly heritable
● They’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective
He then goes on to say women are more neurotic, more prone to anxiety, and a lot more that he says are biological differences.
It’s somewhat the nature vs. nurture argument of which the correct answer is almost always both.
I ask you though, would you want your performance rated by someone who you felt was labeling you as neurotic just because of your gender? It’s like saying you are always violent because you are male. Neither are correct.
Should they have fired him, probably not. Should they have treated the feelings of those who he made uncomfortable seriously yes. Might that have still lead to his termination? Yep. But it was not handled right.
Hostile work environment. … In United States labor law, a hostile work environment exists when one’s behavior within a workplace creates an environment that is difficult or uncomfortable for another person to work in. - He did that. There is no question. And that is the direction google should have taken.
@Cerridwyn Yep, I found that part in the document online (assuming I’m looking at something correct). Right after that he says:
“Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these differences are “just.” I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.”
So maybe the guy’s a douchebag but he is recommending treating people as individuals and not trying to force 50/50 gender distributions.
@Cerridwyn
There’s a detailed response on Quora from an evolutionary biologist which clarifies the document’s supporting evidence for biological differences impacting specific behavioural traits and also analyses aspects which the responder believes are in bad faith. This is followed by is an equally lengthy civil debate over whether the author’s intent was correctly interpreted.
Others have pointed out that even accepting the (loosely supported) premises that these behavioural traits have a large impact on preference (and, the author implies, performance), does not account for the magnitude of the disparity that is being addressed by the recruitment and hiring practices the author emphatically rejects.
What’s most troubling are his suggestions explicitly based on the belief that morality and empathy are detrimental to rational decision-making, and the literal shout-out to fascism as an apparent ideal.
Meanwhile this is a topic, butter ball Un threatening to shoot Russian supplied missiles at Guam is a topic, Russian ally Syrians killing a team of red crescents is a topic, Russian proxy white nationalists are kicking up shit. Russia massing 100000 troops on the border of Berarus is not a topic. Trump is getting set to hand over Belarus with more crying like a little girl and maybe a foot stomp.
Russia massing 100000 troops on the border of Berarus is not a topic. Trump is getting set to hand over Belarus with more crying like a little girl and maybe a foot stomp.
Perhaps Trump thinks the problem is “on many sides”.
I have never been happy about some areas of Obama’s foreign policy. Perhaps due to his own nature and failure to weight counsel well, or perhaps as an overreaction to the GWB era, he repeatedly talked himself into ineffectuality.
I don’t think his over-passivity when themore decent parts of the world order were attacked or under threat was good for us; any more than the serious GWB errors of judgement were.
Any thing he does will be wrong in the eyes of the media.
And in the eyes of many long term conservatives and elected Republicans and veterans, tho many with active political careers will only speak off the record.
For being seen as always or nearly always wrong by the media (including many traditionally conservatives voice), Trump is a special case.
Apart from that, there might be things a President who had enormous domestic and international respect might be able to do, or at least to attempt and to be taken quite seriously by foreign leaders, including adversaries.
There have been past quiet successes in phone-call diplomacy.
@Mehrocco_Mole So NATO scheduling war games at the same time as was done in the past is beyond your comprehension?
Oh wait, our Russian overlord might be offended and call in loans.
@f00l I can see how acting the wrong way might affect his bottom line. Maybe Belarus needs to retain a penthouse room at the Trump DC pay for play hotel.
@Mehrocco_Mole Since when have the Clintons owned a hotel in Washington DC? This is 2017 not 2007 the Clintons have no dog in this. Wake up and smell the Republican payola.
@Pantheist I’m on Android, no right click. With click and hold or selecting “share”, I can’t get “copy image address” only “copy link address” or “share image” with specific apps. Thanks for the help, though.
@moondrake on android, how i do it is long press on the gif and choose open image in new tab. Then go to that tab and copy the address from the address bar.
What some of these people think is very disturbing to me. Especially since everyone in my family are relatively recent immigrants, and my mom’s side is all Jews.
@Pantheist Interesting. The Blood and Soil thing is especially ironic coming from American Nazis, given that the original peoples of the Americas were quite brown. At least the German Nazis’ fervent loyalty to their bond to the Fatherland made sense. White people’s ties to American soil may be blood-won and deep, but they are new and not indiginous. Our true roots are set deep into other continents.
@moondrake I had the exact same thought on that one. Part of me wanted to go to some unsavory forum and ask, then I decided I didn’t want to try to reason with those people.
Interesting article. It kind of veered off at the end though.
@sammydog01 I spent the last few paragraphs being slightly confused until I read the author’s bio at the end. When I read that he’s a pastor it all made sense.
@djslack So you might have a bias then huh.
I’ve seen lots of articles written on the subject, from damn near every angle, cause it’s low hanging fruit and you gotta get them page views if ya wanna stay afloat, but I have yet to see anything I would call legitimate outrage, just a lotta people killin’ time mostly. Is it actually out there and I’ve simply done a better than average job of preemptively steering clear, or am I just lookin’ at another apple on the edge of rotten?
@nogoodwithnames We have protesters tonight threatening confederate monuments. Roads are closed. Yep, major outrage over big chunks of metal.
@sammydog01 Long as Google didn’t fire said chunks of metal we’re still in the clear.
@sammydog01 Boo-hoo, won’t someone think of the monuments
to one of the most shameful chapters of our history
(and physical reminders to millions that they still live in the shadows of what they represent)
@trisk That’s right, the Civil War was all about slavery, not about states rights, not about tariffs imposed on foreign goods forcing southerners to buy more expensive goods from the north, and not at all about farm boys fighting for their country. And the only reason the north was against slavery was human rights, not at all because slaves weren’t needed because of industrialization.
@sammydog01 Feigned outrage.
@lseeber I’m actually pretty meh about the whole thing but I like accuracy.
@sammydog01
That is exactly accurate.
Non of the other issues would have brought us anywhere close to secession and war, they would have just been the usual political nastiness with each side vying for advantage.
That war over slavery had been foreseen by Southerners and Northerners and everyone else including interested Europeans since the Revolution.
Tho only a smallish percentage of soldiers for the South personally owned slaves, a very high percentage of soldiers were part of economically connected tight families where the head of the family owned slaves. And many other soldiers’ families were closely economically tied into businesses where slave labor was how the hard work was done.
There were also the moral and religious factors. A large number of Southern partisans who were not economically connected to slavery strongly felt that they should be able to look down on African-Americans, who should be legally profoundly inferior. They felt that slavery was right and just, and that their “moral honor” depended on the superiority of the white people.
They did not want to live in a land where black people were they equals. And they said as much.
All this is so well documented … Including by means of interview after interview with Southern soldiers and with Southern families thirty or more years after the war. They admitted it straight out. The non-slave holders agreed and said as much.
I am descended from Southerners who owned slaves, who fought for the South. (Relatives fought in both sides). I am a relative of a certain person named Lee.
It’s time for the public monuments in the South to celebrate and honor everyone, including the victims of horror whose names are lost.
And for the terrible moral failings of that time to be clearly and publicly reflected in monuments.
General Lee was a man of his time. According to the standards of his time, he was a man of honor. But he owned slaves, and he made a terrible choice, when he had to choose sides. It’s time for public monuments to reflect that.
-John S. Mosby
Confederate Army officer
If one searches the actual recorded words and writings of all sorts of soldiers (ordinary and great), one can find that sentiment and belief expressed again and again and again. Especially afterwards. Especially long afterwards.
The other issues were real enough issues. But as excuses for secession and war, they were just so many fig leaves for political cover.
@sammydog01 Have you read the official documents from states and leaders at that time? Yes the economics of slavery were motivating both sides- not just ethics, but the war was primarily about slavery.
@Pantheist @f00l I took my daughter to the American Civil War Center this summer (state park)- she had to go to museums for school. I wandered around and played Pokemon Go. I guess I need to go back after school starts and read everything there. (In my defense there were lots of Pokestops.)
@sammydog01
If someone hasn’t really read the history, and has heard the myths alongside, it can all get a little obscured.
At the time, all those extra arguments were thrown into the mix as justification. And those rationales persisted publicly for a while after the war, as cover for an evil than otherwise good people did not wish to admit they were culpable of.
But nobody really believed it. Even then.
everything else in the list was resolvable thru ordinary political methods.
If the South had not been tied to slavery, it would have industrialised for economic gain, as the North did.
There would have been far more economic and social and industrial parity between North and South in 1860 with no slavery. zero cause for secession and war.
Sometimes you still hear people strongly make those arguments nowadays. in my acquaintance, it’s people who like the idea of hanging a Confederate Battle Flag, and dont wanna own up to what that means to the general public.
“You can’t tell me what to do” state of mind.
But the truth was in the letters, the interviews, the memoirs, the recorded conversations and family remarks that were written down once people in the South had accepted the outcome and mostly gotten over the war.
And the truth is that there was only one state’s rights issue that mattered: Slavery.
Some - plenty - of participants said so up front, openly. for many other participants - they said so, once they emotionally got to a place where they could bear to live with the open admission.
They thought of themselves as good people. They went along. They mostly were good people. And they committed a terrible evil that was at variance with what they believed about themselves ethically and morally.
Even there ones from border states with little slavery: Tennessee, etc - had these beliefs. It’s in the memoirs.
I don’t hate them now, or think they were worse many other humans. They went along. They excused. They profited. They looked the other way. They did terrible things they could not admit even to themselves.
All my life I’ve heard that “The South Will Rise Again.” Usually spoken as a form of gentle running humor. Self-teasing. Am ongoing in-joke.
But if the people of the traditional South - historically, my people, my family, me I guess - really want to maker that true, it’s time we - all of is - open the books and put everything in display and own it all. monuments that cover everything that happened. Leave nothing out.
Monuments to the memory of an evil we all admit to and disavow.
Monuments to the memory of the suffering and abuse that were. Monuments to the lost and the forgotten. Monument to the memory of the rapes, tortures, murders, lies, torn apart families. Monuments to the invisible, unnamed persons.
monuments against the idea there one human could ever own another. monuments against the idea that’s it’s OK to ignore this.
Germany and Japan kinda figured out how to do this. The South is still struggling with the idea that we have to really, totally, come publicly clean and stay clean. that we can’t just keep our existing memorials with no highly visible offsetting commentary.
when the South completely does that, without reservation: that’s how the South will really rise again.
I personality suspect that REL would, if alive today, be in favor of doing exactly that.
Here’s the best possible commentary (it’s an oldie, but I still love it):
@Shrdlu Great lyrics. All 5 words.
Outrage isn’t making us stupid, The Federalist is.
My sister-in-law works at Google. She was very upset about that memo. She’s glad that guy was fired. Google benefits from having happy employees. Mr. Memo Writer wasn’t happy at Google (that’s very clear in the memo, which I read). So keeping my sister-in-law happy was in Google’s best interests. That’s how capitalism works. The Federalist loves capitalism. So The Federalist really thinks Google did the right thing. It just decided to get some page hits by publishing an article that was outraged about outrage.
I am entirely onboard with that article’s first two paragraphs.
Some of you who know me know I’m a conservative registered independent. I stand behind my beliefs and values without apology.
Let me say I firmly believe Mr. Damore had every right to author and distribute his memo. He was expressing his opinion on a very touchy matter. He was exercising his right as an American to have and express his opinion.
With that said Google had every right to fire his dumb ass. The problem rests with the fact it was an internal memo which implies he used Google’s property (computer & network?) to produce and distribute his ten-page memo. BTW: can a ten page memo still be called a memo? Asking for a friend. While California isn’t a right-to-work state (AKA right-to-fire-for-any-reason-whatsoever state) Silicon Valley is very anti-union. For Mr. Damore to buck the system was at his own risk because he did not have union protection.
A side note here: I am a very conservative person who believes in labor unions and no, I do not see a contradiction.
And now for my rant on Free Speech.
If it wasn’t for free speech we wouldn’t know MLK even had a dream.
I served proudly in the US Navy to protect your right to disagree with my beliefs, values, faith, and what I wear in public. You should be free to express those words of disagreement on any public street corner without fear of harm as long as you are nonviolent and not impeding the flow of traffic. But you have to remember that your rights stop at the tip of my nose. ANY organization that violently promotes its own race, color, creed, or gender over another race, color, creed, or gender is wrong. Speech is only violent if it’s so loud, measured in Db not content, it literally does damage to one’s ears. Sticks and stones people! What happens afterward is on the individual(s) committing the acts of violence not the speaker.
IMHO we should pass the following laws:
TLDR: Damore was a dumbass for writing the memo on Google property giving Google the right to fire him.
Also, you should have the right to tell me I’m incorrect and I have the right (and arguably the duty) to tell you you’re totally fucked up without fear of bodily harm for either of us.
@Mehrocco_Mole Concise, clear and correct.
@Mehrocco_Mole Virginia has an open carry law so the protesters here were armed with guns, not sticks. And the racist assholes had homemade shields too. I’m surprised no one got shot.
@sammydog01 They were armed with both. And they used the sticks, bottles, shields, and pepper spray with impunity. Masks, however, are against the law there, but that didn’t really matter very much either.
@PurplePawprints @sammydog01
It appears both sides came ready for action. When the car that insane murderer stopped on his forward run someone came up and smashed the rear window. Whatever he was swinging sliced through that window like a knife through butter. Imagine what it would have done to a human body. Why did he have something like that at a “peaceful” protest?
If there were guns openly carried one would think the news would be all over it. Especially if it were the supremacists carrying the guns. The only gun arrest reported, that I could find at least, was a Florida man (go figure) for carrying concealed. Florida and Virginia have concealed carry reciprocity or mutual recognition so didn’t this guy have a permit? What’s interesting is nothing I could find stated what side of the protest he was on. But if you come to a protest locked and loaded you will get no sympathy from me when you get hurt because the other side was ready for you.
And there are racist assholes on both sides of this protest. Racism is not black or white. It is black AND white AND yellow AND green ad nauseam. The point is it doesn’t matter what end of the political spectrum you are, if you think your race is superior to any other race you are a racist.
All this violence has got to stop.
You want an effective counter-protest? A protest needs an audience. Surround them with people 100 deep. Turn your back and ignore them. No yelling. No throwing stuff. No violence. If you take away their validation you take away any power they may think they have.
@Mehrocco_Mole I’m getting ready to go to bed and have to be up in a couple hours so I’m not giving this response the attention it deserves, but the “alt right” had heavily armed militia there with AR-15s and the like in addition to hand guns. The militia claims to not be affiliated with the protesters and say they were only there to protect free speech, but the reason they were requested was for intimidation. This has been reported on, there are news articles about it, and I’ve seen firsthand photos from friends who were there. This is my home town and I have quite a few friends who were there and witnessed a lot of what happened. I’ll try to be more coherent tomorrow and more detailed or whatever, but I wanted to respond about the gun thing. Also, VA is open carry, and semiautomatic long guns are legal, but you can’t conceal without a permit.
@PurplePawprints I had searched for the gun info but came up blank. Links if you would please? I also have to be up in 5 hours to take my youngest to school so I understand. Goodnight!
@Mehrocco_Mole The gun thing was reported in our local news right after the violence started but I couldn’t find any photos so it was probably wrong. The press reporting rumor as fact? No, it couldn’t be. The photos I found of weapons were mostly counter protesters- including a guy using an aerosol can as a flame thrower. Lots of folks on both sides had batons.
In Richmond there was a demonstration at midnight where anti-fascist protesters attacked a guy filming them with a cell phone- he needed stitches.
As for open carry, this photo is from 2014 and is in Richmond- this is a group of open carry proponents that liked to wander around a shopping district on Saturdays with their semi-automatics.
They were peaceful and were all killed in a car accident on the way to a rally. But scary.
@Mehrocco_Mole Here’s an article on antifa- the violent anti-terrorism guys. I’m linking one from the BBC because I don’t believe anything printed in the US anymore.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40930831
Found an article that has a photo supposedly taken in Charlottesville of armed right wing assholes.
http://www.amny.com/news/car-plows-into-crowd-at-charlottesville-rally-causing-multiple-injuries-authorities-say-1.14010172
@Mehrocco_Mole This is an article from the local paper in C’ville about the militia who attended.http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/militia-chief-says-his-group-sought-to-guard-free-speech/article_ade57b76-8089-11e7-91cf-076d72ee5cf1.html
This tweet includes one of many pictures that I’ve seen of the militia’s men in attendance.
The author of that tweet is the same guy who captured the video of Fields ramming the crowd with his car.
As for Fields, I haven’t seen a single reputable site that says/shows the attack on his car that you’re talking about, but the guy had just plowed into a crowd of people. I don’t think I can judge the intent of the person who may have hit his back window and say that they would have used that on a person instead. There were early reports on how heavily armed the protesters were and I don’t blame any of the counter protesters who may have also brought sticks for protection. As the photos of Deandre Harris’s attack show, many on the protesters’ side weren’t afraid to use what they brought.
I won’t deny that there are those on both sides who came prepared to fight. But, one side came with hate for entire swaths of people and the other side came to protest hate, racism, bigotry, and the idea that one group of people is inherently better than any other. I have plenty of other thoughts, especially re your definition of racism and how it applies here, but this is already getting pretty long and rambling for this early in the morning.
@PurplePawprints These guys have abhorrent views but without a violent backlash from counter protesters this would have been just a bunch of assholes looking like idiots. Their Friday night impromptu torchlit march through UVA was non-violent as far as I know.
I also applaud the effort to get photos of these guys out on social media and publicly shame them- one guy has already been fired.
From what I have read the guys with the assault weapons stood on the side and didn’t participate in the violence.
@sammydog01 Friday night was not non-violent. UVA students were hit with lit tiki torches, and according to some local reports (can’t remember the original sources and they’ve been buried in my feed by Saturday’s events) torch oil was also thrown on some of the counter protesters that were surrounded by torch wielding marchers at the base of Jefferson’s statue on the Rotunda. http://www.roanoke.com/news/virginia/unite-the-right-torch-rally-ends-in-violence-at-the/article_c009b930-04d2-5ef1-9d0f-e14f6adc80d3.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/us/white-nationalists-rally-charlottesville-virginia.html?_r=0
And yes, the militia that attended, as far as I’m aware, did not contribute to the physical violence. I didn’t say that they did and was only providing proof that they were there since that seemed to be in question.
@PurplePawprints Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound argumentative- they were there and I can’t think of a single reason why that seemed like a good idea to anyone. Those guys scare the crap out of me.
Just one last thought- the price we pay as Americans for freedom of speech is having to let douchebags say douchebag things in public. The day we start to censor them is the day one more civil right goes down the crapper.
@sammydog01 Sorry here, too. After seeing this happen to my friends and hometown this weekend I’m a bit touchy.
I get and understand what you’re saying re free speech. I don’t agree with censorship in general, and I really do appreciate the service of @Mehrocco_Mole (meant to mention that earlier; thank you for your service and sacrifices!) and others who have served our country with good intentions. However, I think the time is long past for us to continue giving racists, bigots, Nazis, KKK, (adding this back in as a nod to the original topic~~~>) misogynists etc. a free pass under the guise of free speech. Yes, they, up to a point, have the right to say whatever they want, but every other person who is not actively acting as an agent for the government has the right to literally shout them down if they so choose.
We tried to pretend they no longer existed and quietly hoped they’d die off with the oldest generations and hoped that we’d eventually reach a point in our country where there is true equality and people no longer believed that by virtue of birth they were better than others. This was a huge error on the part of progressives and those striving for equality.
By passively waiting we let young people get indoctrinated and brainwashed behind closed doors and now they are coming out in force. This is not a point in our history where you (general you here) can sit in the middle and not choose a side. Silence and inaction is still choosing a side and it’s the wrong one.
@sammydog01 I just ran across this from Friday night on the Rotunda.
@Mehrocco_Mole
Aside from a few crazies who come out for the excitement (those always show up): what racist assholes were out in organized or numeric strength on the “counterprotest” side"?
I had not seen confirmed info on that.
Admitedly I have not followed all the details.
I do not excuse violence or attempted strong intimidation from everyone.
They are some people in history who figured out how to protest evil non-violently and effectively.
At least non-violence can be effective at least when the country isnt fascist or protecting fascists and letting them get violent without punishment.
@f00l
You mean like the antifa (Anti-First-Amendment) in Oakland?
@Mehrocco_Mole You can hear them say “that’s antifa over there” at the start of the UVA video above. They were definitely active at the rally. And at the Richmond midnight demonstration people were chanting “cops and the Klan go hand in hand”.
@Mehrocco_Mole
I am unaware of having said or implied anything that supports the Antifa.
I don’t support groups who come out armed.
That said:
I am unaware of whom on the counterprotest side was a racist asshole? (Of course there may be a few deranged left-and-racist individuals out; no one can stop the clearly deranged individuals who are not part of a community or movement from coming out for something like this on their own.)
Were there well organized or loosely organized racists assholes clearly present on the counterprotest side?
@Mehrocco_Mole I found this ad in the paper at breakfast and can’t decide which to buy:
or
The Seekins has that tactical look but the auto-ordinance is retro, holds 50 rounds, and comes in a violin case. My daughter is turning 17 next month and I haven’t bought a gift yet- which do you think will look better hanging from her shoulder?
@sammydog01 Auto-ordinance, hands down. Plus she can take it to orchestra practice at school easily.
@Mehrocco_Mole
Not sure if you’re being pithy here, but Anti-Fa is short for Anti-Fascists.
I’m not going to jump into the politics here, because I think my status as an employee means my views and comments can be misconstrued as representing the company. I would like to say the well rounded, calm, open discussion happening here is a refreshing break.
Thank you. (That’s for everyone.)
@sammydog01 I’d go with an Eastern European AK-47. Cheaper to shoot and range time is everything.
@Thumperchick Well spoken, especially in the context of the thread’s original subject.
@Thumperchick So far it seems most participants have been trying hard to avoid the name calling that usually happens with this type thread. Well, aside from the occasional snarky comment that hopefully brings a smile and a groan to everyone.
I can say for certain I’ve picked up a few facts I didn’t know about.
BTW: Yes I do know that. But I think my version is more accurate.
@sammydog01
I’m going to treat this as a serious question because there is no way YOU could be trolling me. Also because it will allow me to address a few things.
I personally own the top one, a M&P 15 Sport II rifle. I love shooting it. It is very reliable and accurate firearm out to about 200 yards. It’s also easy to break down for cleaning. But it may be too much for a teenager. If this is her first firearm I would recommend a 22LR such as a Mossberg 802 Plinkster.
Excuse me for a sec while I get my soapbox in position.
Shooting is a highly disciplined sport not a fashion show. You will not see a bunch of fools parading around showing off their equipment. The guys in the pictures above are the 0.000000000000001% of gun owners. Most gun owners don’t like to advertise they even have guns. I sure don’t.
As a matter of fact at every gun club I’ve been a member of or visited, strutting around like that would be a fast way to be asked to leave. There are rules in place and you had better know and follow them. You will soon learn the Range Master (the person in charge) does not have a sense of humor while on the range. At my club the Range Master is a totally different person when she is on the range as compared to off range.
If you are serious about your daughter learning to shoot, find a NRA certified instructor to instruct her. They will teach her the range rules and how to safely handle her firearm before she is even allowed to load it. It’s worth the money.
Don’t get her a pink camo firearm. It is not a toy and should not look like one. To me this is a safety issue.
Get a gun safe. Rule #1 for serious gun owners is safety first and foremost. As a matter of fact rules #1 through #10 are all safety first and foremost.
Join a club (range). They hold competitions, arrange lessons, and maintain a safe and family friendly sporting area for all. BTW: I’ve NEVER been to a range that allowed alcohol. Never.
My daughter was introduced to firearms at about the same age as your daughter is now. She decided when she was ready. It made me feel better that she could hit what she was aiming at without shooting her own foot.
I hope this helps.
@Mehrocco_Mole I almost bought her a class at the local indoor gun range for Christmas last year. I’m fine with her target shooting- she would probably enjoy it. I was kidding about buying her a semi-automatic and it freaks me out to see them on sale in the local paper.
The Federalist sometimes publishes good stuff, or excellent stuff. Sometimes they are purely partisan. Sometimes they troll. Sometimes they troll big-time. Usually, when they troll, it’s more or less highly literate, well-read trolling. So possibly worth the reading, even if the stated reasoning is “selective” (shall we say), and quite vapid in a given case. But still trolling.
So this writer offers an article condemning recent events at Google as supposedly being the results of the (unfortunately real) outrage industry, and arguing that the discussion over the diversity issues involved mischaracterizing and the ignoring the facts in favor of upping the outrage temperature.
They might be a plausible case to be discussed there. He doesn’t do that. He just asserts.
and he ups the temperature by intellectually cheap arguments in the course of his own essay. He plays to his own biases.
Only he does it in a high-time, literate, respectible way. It’s still cheap thinking and cheap reasoning though.
He’s not throwing fuel in a fire. But he’s is piling on “literate spin” and selectively blind talking points into a controversy already drowning in them. Nice one, Federalist.
And the writer ignores that Google made a decent business decision, and that there are solid arguments for Google’s decision, when Google was confronted with a less-than-wonderful set of choices; and that little in this engineer’s conduct appears to be that which would exemplify a person seeking mutual understanding.
The Google engineer knew what he was doing when he published his memo. He wasn’t seeking truth or productivity or fairness. He was seeking a platform for a cause. And he got one. And now he’s unemployed and aggrieved and is, I suppose, going to to sue or something. He is now among the victims. I encourage the engineer to make his case. Or his career.
The world is a very unfair place, isn’t it? To lots of people.
Outrage outrage outrage. Addiction addiction addiction. Sure. Here comes more.
Lots of the commentariat and more than a few politicians get their careers off of it. From every POV, they come, they come.
And the more consistently successful and powerful practitioners of the art of perinneal outrage tend to be among those on the political right and alt-right.
By comparison the outraged professionals from the more left end of things are just kids playing around.
Whether the the practitioner is a rag-rah slogan-monger, or an Ivy League master of graceful phrases, when the writer does not demand the deepest allegiance to intellectual honor, the results are sophistry. Some forms are just obviously nastier and cheaper than others. If the writer then baits the argument with customary beliefs about who is guilty and who is clean, hello outrage!
The attitude of this minister (who somewhat subtly practices what he accuses others of) pointing at non-conservatives as the source of toxic outrage, gives me some pause.
He could have thought well enough and been honest enough not to offer corrupted arguments about outrage that point to “the other side” as being the perps. He could have forced himself to be as intellectually and morally honest as possible before he started writing. He didn’t.
If I were grading his essay, he’s decent on style. But his arguments … I guess a C or C- on the reasoning and substance, because you have to save the F’s for stuff that’s far worse. He does go to a few good points here and there, before he loses his way again.
This has nothing to do with conservative vs progressive or whatever. There are plenty of conservative writers who would never have offered up such shallow arguments blaming “the other side” for what the writer’s side and the writer himself in this case are thoroughly tarnished by and often utterly corrupted by. They would have tried far harder to understand and learn before they composed.
He’s right about the dopamine pathways getting habituated tho. We all carry that vulnerability.
We are a long, long way from our better angels this weekend.
It’s been stupid for 30 years, there’s just more public outlets for the stuipidity now.
California has a law about sexual harassment. It has two parts. The part that could be applied here is that he created a hostile work environment. This is aptly demonstrated by women who stayed home from work and others.
It’s tricky, because he does have the right to his opinion, and to express it, but he does not have the right within the workplace to do so in a way that makes the target, women, so uncomfortable that they cannot work. He does not have the right to make them feel that he will downgrade their performance on an annual review based on their gender.
It’s a fine thin line. He crossed it. Saying it created a hostile work environment is not the sensation the press is picking up on. But it should be.
Guys, conservative or other wise, how would you feel if I as a female nurse leader said to you that you can never be as a good of a nurse as a woman because you just don’t have the biology to be caring and compassionate?
@Cerridwyn Personally, I don’t, but then I didn’t choose to be a nurse…
@Cerridwyn I don’t think thats what he said, although I may be (and often am) wrong. I think his point is that women are less likely to want high stress management positions, not that those that do want them are less capable. A goal of 50/50 male/female employees just isn’t reasonable in certain fields, including nursing.
@Cerridwyn Yup. He should’ve just posted it on social media like everyone else and kept it out of the workplace.
@sammydog01 He said a lot Some of it valid, some of it not. The part that was charged included the following statements:
On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just
socially constructed because:
● They’re universal across human cultures
● They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone
● Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify
and act like males
● The underlying traits are highly heritable
● They’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective
He then goes on to say women are more neurotic, more prone to anxiety, and a lot more that he says are biological differences.
It’s somewhat the nature vs. nurture argument of which the correct answer is almost always both.
I ask you though, would you want your performance rated by someone who you felt was labeling you as neurotic just because of your gender? It’s like saying you are always violent because you are male. Neither are correct.
Should they have fired him, probably not. Should they have treated the feelings of those who he made uncomfortable seriously yes. Might that have still lead to his termination? Yep. But it was not handled right.
Hostile work environment. … In United States labor law, a hostile work environment exists when one’s behavior within a workplace creates an environment that is difficult or uncomfortable for another person to work in. - He did that. There is no question. And that is the direction google should have taken.
@Cerridwyn Yep, I found that part in the document online (assuming I’m looking at something correct). Right after that he says:
“Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these differences are “just.” I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.”
So maybe the guy’s a douchebag but he is recommending treating people as individuals and not trying to force 50/50 gender distributions.
@sammydog01
@Cerridwyn
There’s a detailed response on Quora from an evolutionary biologist which clarifies the document’s supporting evidence for biological differences impacting specific behavioural traits and also analyses aspects which the responder believes are in bad faith. This is followed by is an equally lengthy civil debate over whether the author’s intent was correctly interpreted.
https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-biological-claims-made-in-the-document-about-diversity-written-by-a-Google-employee-in-August-2017/answer/Suzanne-Sadedin
Others have pointed out that even accepting the (loosely supported) premises that these behavioural traits have a large impact on preference (and, the author implies, performance), does not account for the magnitude of the disparity that is being addressed by the recruitment and hiring practices the author emphatically rejects.
What’s most troubling are his suggestions explicitly based on the belief that morality and empathy are detrimental to rational decision-making, and the literal shout-out to fascism as an apparent ideal.
@trisk
I’m sure that engineer is quite rational in the context of his technical work and product
Not necessarily so in the context of his beliefs and overt or subtle interpersonal conduct, though.
That guy doesn’t do “rational thought” within a political context. He plays at it and spins it. He may not know the difference.
Don’t discuss politics at work. Problem solved.
Meanwhile this is a topic, butter ball Un threatening to shoot Russian supplied missiles at Guam is a topic, Russian ally Syrians killing a team of red crescents is a topic, Russian proxy white nationalists are kicking up shit. Russia massing 100000 troops on the border of Berarus is not a topic. Trump is getting set to hand over Belarus with more crying like a little girl and maybe a foot stomp.
@cranky1950
/giphy "ain’t it fun?"
@cranky1950
Perhaps Trump thinks the problem is “on many sides”.
@cranky1950
I believe that was President Obama and the Ukraine.
And what would you suggest he do about it? Any thing he does will be wrong in the eyes of the media.
@Mehrocco_Mole
I have never been happy about some areas of Obama’s foreign policy. Perhaps due to his own nature and failure to weight counsel well, or perhaps as an overreaction to the GWB era, he repeatedly talked himself into ineffectuality.
I don’t think his over-passivity when themore decent parts of the world order were attacked or under threat was good for us; any more than the serious GWB errors of judgement were.
@Mehrocco_Mole
And in the eyes of many long term conservatives and elected Republicans and veterans, tho many with active political careers will only speak off the record.
For being seen as always or nearly always wrong by the media (including many traditionally conservatives voice), Trump is a special case.
Apart from that, there might be things a President who had enormous domestic and international respect might be able to do, or at least to attempt and to be taken quite seriously by foreign leaders, including adversaries.
There have been past quiet successes in phone-call diplomacy.
@Mehrocco_Mole So NATO scheduling war games at the same time as was done in the past is beyond your comprehension?
Oh wait, our Russian overlord might be offended and call in loans.
@f00l I can see how acting the wrong way might affect his bottom line. Maybe Belarus needs to retain a penthouse room at the Trump DC pay for play hotel.
@cranky1950 Have you taken your meds today? What do the Clintons have to do with this?
@Mehrocco_Mole Since when have the Clintons owned a hotel in Washington DC? This is 2017 not 2007 the Clintons have no dog in this. Wake up and smell the Republican payola.
@cranky1950 Yeah, that whole “but the Clinton’s!” thing always makes me think of the “squirrel!” From Up.
https://goo.gl/images/ed34kq
Why don’t my gifs work?
@moondrake you have to click the image from the google page you linked, then right click the image in imgur and select copy image address
@Pantheist I’m on Android, no right click. With click and hold or selecting “share”, I can’t get “copy image address” only “copy link address” or “share image” with specific apps. Thanks for the help, though.
@moondrake on android, how i do it is long press on the gif and choose open image in new tab. Then go to that tab and copy the address from the address bar.
I didn’t recognize some of the terms being thrown around in this thread so I read this: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/alt-left-alt-right-glossary.html
What some of these people think is very disturbing to me. Especially since everyone in my family are relatively recent immigrants, and my mom’s side is all Jews.
@Pantheist Interesting. The Blood and Soil thing is especially ironic coming from American Nazis, given that the original peoples of the Americas were quite brown. At least the German Nazis’ fervent loyalty to their bond to the Fatherland made sense. White people’s ties to American soil may be blood-won and deep, but they are new and not indiginous. Our true roots are set deep into other continents.
@moondrake I had the exact same thought on that one. Part of me wanted to go to some unsavory forum and ask, then I decided I didn’t want to try to reason with those people.