Current Affairs General US politics (ie, not POTUS related)

[BlueTX]

There wasn't anything to find in a decades-old he-said-she-said cold case. That type of case is notoriously hard to prove in the best of circumstances. Ask my sister. If there had been a pattern, they would have found it. If they had tried to cover that up, someone would have leaked it.

With due and sincere respect to your sister, whether there was anything to find or not regarding Kavanaugh - the FBI chose not to do much investigation at all and it's my guess they will do the same with the SCOTUS leak.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Apart from the horrific nature of this, its certainly going to dissuade ppl from wanting to work/live in america from abroad

This is probably not true for the bulk of those wanting permanent resident status. As measured by new green cards, they hail from places where the culture is such that they are likely to agree with the decision, or flat out not care.

 

[BlueTX]

I would actually argue the converse: someone who is poor and white in America is worse off along most issue areas. They lack organized advocacy, affirmative action and the ability to have injustices perpetrated against them feed into established media storylines.

The big exception to that general trend is the safety issue. A poor black person is more likely to live someplace where the police is functionally a hostile occupying army in their neighborhood, and behaves accordingly.

Which situation is "worse" then depends on your preferences over risk, and is a question that therefore lacks an objective answer.

Are you sure you'd take that position? Affirmative action in this country has disproportionally benefitted one group (white women) and the incarceration rate of poor whites isn't anywhere near the level of rates of poor people of color. That is a massive determining factor in the upward mobility of poor people.

Not at all saying poor white people are loaded with opportunity in the US, mind you.

 

[LostLegend]

Apart from the horrific nature of this, its certainly going to dissuade ppl from wanting to work/live in america from abroad

The abortion thing along with a load of LGTBT+ issues under the spotlight at the moment, is certainly looking grim stateside at the moment.

To be fair, I reckon the only reason we (The UK) haven’t quite caught up yet is down to Christian Fundamentalists not having the same level of influence over here. Plenty in the right wing would love to catch up though and that’s actually terrifying to consider.

 

[BlueTX]

Excellent thread on the history of SCOTUS leaks. What happened yesterday is hardly "unprecedented".

 

[jaspercabbage]

The abortion thing along with a load of LGTBT+ issues under the spotlight at the moment, is certainly looking grim stateside at the moment.

To be fair, I reckon the only reason we (The UK) haven’t quite caught up yet is down to Christian Fundamentalists not having the same level of influence over here. Plenty in the right wing would love to catch up though and that’s actually terrifying to consider.

Rees-Mogg seems to be positioning himself as the leader of Christian Fundamentals over here. They are basically the white Taliban.

 

[Tin-Tin]

In a nutshell. Nothing 'pro life' about them

 

[Tin-Tin]

Not sure what action they will take but hopefully they uncover all sorts

 

[tsubaki]

Rees-Mogg seems to be positioning himself as the leader of Christian Fundamentals over here. They are basically the white Taliban.

It is much different here, there is a completely different form of evangelism that has not been as exposed to the spivs that theirs has.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Are you sure you'd take that position? Affirmative action in this country has disproportionally benefitted one group (white women) and the incarceration rate of poor whites isn't anywhere near the level of rates of poor people of color. That is a massive determining factor in the upward mobility of poor people.

Not at all saying poor white people are loaded with opportunity in the US, mind you.

Crime rates are something like 75% higher in urban areas than in rural areas, and poor people of color disproportionately live in urban areas while poor whites disproportionately live in rural areas, so I would say that what you describe is largely what we would expect from a legal system whose biases are more monetary-based than color-based. If those incarceration rates were equivalent, the conclusion that the legal system was biased against whites would be difficult to escape.

Arrest rate stats unambiguously suggest that the police are biased when it comes to African-Americans specifically, which gets back to both the hostile occupying force thesis and systematic racism in wealthier areas. This then leads to crimes perpetrated by non-African-Americans against African-Americans tending not to be reported due to (rightful) distrust of the police, which also helps explain the disparity in incarceration rates.

Statistics are useful, but they don't work in isolation. It's important to understand how all the forces in play interact. If there's a residual that can't be explained by other statistics, that's when we have identified the effects of racism. For instance, the disparity in the "incarceration penalty" with respect to unemployment is at least partly explained by the observation that employers are less likely to call people with similar experience in their applicant pool with obviously ethnic names than those without. There are problems with the peremptory strike system that involve demographics, monetary factors and overtly racial issues.

As one climbs the economic scale out of poverty, I think that the factors in play quickly stack up to leave someone of color worse off. I don't think it's nearly as clear-cut once we start talking about poverty, though.

 

[BlueTX]

Crime rates are something like 75% higher in urban areas than in rural areas, and poor people of color disproportionately live in urban areas while poor whites disproportionately live in rural areas, so I would say that what you describe is largely what we would expect from a legal system whose biases are more monetary-based than color-based. If those incarceration rates were equivalent, the conclusion that the legal system was biased against whites would be difficult to escape.

Arrest rate stats unambiguously suggest that the police are biased when it comes to African-Americans specifically, which gets back to both the hostile occupying force thesis and systematic racism in wealthier areas. This then leads to crimes perpetrated by non-African-Americans against African-Americans tending not to be reported due to (rightful) distrust of the police, which also helps explain the disparity in incarceration rates.

Statistics are useful, but they don't work in isolation. It's important to understand how all the forces in play interact. If there's a residual that can't be explained by other statistics, that's when we have identified the effects of racism. For instance, the disparity in the "incarceration penalty" with respect to unemployment is at least partly explained by the observation that employers are less likely to call people with similar experience in their applicant pool with obviously ethnic names than those without. There are problems with the peremptory strike system that involve demographics, monetary factors and overtly racial issues.

As one climbs the economic scale out of poverty, I think that the factors in play quickly stack up to leave someone of color worse off. I don't think it's nearly as clear-cut once we start talking about poverty, though.

If I'm not mistaken, the incarceration rate of poor people of color is higher than poor whites in both urban and rural settings.

I'm not attempting to point to a single statistic or isolate a single issue to draw a conclusion. They are part of a discussion as I'm sincerely curious as to how you reach the conclusion poor whites are worse off than poor people of color "along most issue areas".

 

[Tin-Tin]

Yes Elizabeth!!

 

[RAFUH]

Had a conversation with a neighbor earlier. Our kids grew up together and we've remained friends despite her knee-jerk Christofascist politics. Not surprisingly, she is supportive of this opinion. When I noted the philosophic underpinning of this decision could be used to outlaw interracial marriages like hers and like mine, her only retort was... if it ends abortion it's worth it.

Can you imagine?

And it won't end abortion.
Just make it dangerous to women and harder/impossible for low income folks to access

 

[Lobster Johnson]

Yes Elizabeth!!

Go'head!

 

[Lobster Johnson]

And it won't end abortion.
Just make it dangerous to women and harder/impossible for low income folks to access

This is the crux. It's prohibition but on a brutal, inhumane scale that will cost lives. Unless the republican party is all turned around on universal healthcare and other QoL safety nets then this is just religious zealotry.