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Author Topic: Reconciliation  (Read 40322 times)

Willmark

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Re: Reconciliation
« Reply #210 on: December 07, 2022, 05:41:12 PM »
I don't think reconciliation is possible no.

Where would the left even start?

Would they apologize for the 2020 riots? The people they murdered?
Would they admit to spending the entirety of Donald Trump's presidency lying about him? What would they do to atone for the propaganda and fear mongering?
Are the voter base going to stop voting for the Democratic politicians that has become nothing but woke progressive liars?
Are those politicians going to resign?
Are they going to dismantle their own propaganda machine? Will they rise up against deplatforming and suppression?
Will they actually start caring about left wing issues again as something more than just a pretense?

Obviously not. I think if there is one thing the left actually wants it is to retain things as they are. They're not going to wake up, go 'oh gods what have we become' and try to atone. Those who do will do like Tulsi and leave. Any hope of reconciliation requires reforming the modern left into something that isn't just a lie, and any hope of that died in 2020.

But you just hit the nail on the head.  Tulsi Gabbard is, to the left, worse than a traitor, because she can clearly articulate to the public just exactly how fucked up their agenda is.

But let's be clear.  It isn't that there are all these leftists who organically just want to be activists for bledding-heart causes. They are useful idiots for a ChiCom (primarily) communist agenda.  The CCP owns many US politicians and business leaders - across the political spectrum.  Ask yourself who benefits from an agenda that proposes that sexually confused teens take hormone blockers and chop off body parts and don't engage in traditional gender roles. Ask yourself who benefits from having a citizenry divided amongst itself. Or that allows an unchecked horde of non-loyal immigrants. Or that allows foreign holding companies to buy real estate and businesses, including farmland and facilities in the food and energy sectors? How many other "10% to the big guy" criminal activities are going on that haven't come to light?  Why did a group of both Dem and Rep senators try to stifle the SEC investigation of FTX?  How many pols of both parties continue to miraculous beat the S&P 500? Follow the money.

How many other countries tolerate any of this?  Go ahead and try dissenting in China and see how quickly you end up in a reeducation prison.

We are a nation divided, led by an administrative state that is not loyal to the principles the country was founded on, and society is in moral decay.  The US *is* the Roman Empire under Caligula and Nero.

You nailed it on the head 100%. I've been saying this for twenty years now. the comparisons to the late Roman empire are frightening:
-a politically divided population: in the late Roman Empire it was the supporters of the Senate vs the Emperor. In the USA today, it's the extremes of left and right vying for control of the center.
-borders that are not under control: late Roman empire is was invasions of Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, etc. Today in the US: illegal immigration from Mexico , Central America, and Caribbean.
- fighting several costly wars: late Roman Empire: fighting barbarian invasions. USA today: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.
- over-taxed citizens
there are others, but I think these are the ones that are key. Ultimately, the Roman Empire decayed from the inside, and pressures from outside dealt the death blow. Mind you, this didn't happen all at once. The Roman Empire's decline took several hundred years. IMO, the decline of the US is already in progress and been in decline since the late 60s. I would say in the next 50 years, the United States as it is today will no longer exist. It will be a dim shadow of itself. but this is the way of the world since the beginning of time. Empires and nations rise and fall. It's inevitable.

And sad.

At least for me. Most of my life I believed in the American Dream. A good portion of that was also spent defending those beliefs, the Constitution, and freedom. Now? This nation is slowly falling apart. Too much extremes. Nobody willing to take the center road for the common good of all. Corruption, greed, and loss of it's moral center. "A house divided cannot stand". Well, let it fall. Let it burn. Let it come crashing down. I'm ready. My family is ready. We've been ready for the coming shit storm for years. If neither one of you extreme assholes out there aren't willing to swallow your pride and come to a common ground with each other, well, I got news for ya. BOTH of you are screwed. We're all screwed.

Let. It. Burn.
Petty much accurate and a lot of ways, with you 100% on your last paragraph. America is too far gone, I've heard it said on other topics "its all over accept for the crying". Pretty much.

America it could be argued peaked in December 1972 when we left the moon and has been on a long slow decline ever since. No need to rehash every single event we all know them from the end of the post warm boom, oil embargo to the present day, etc.

I also think your pointing out of Rome is accurate as it mirrors my own thoughts on the matter. I'll add the people called themselves (likely) Roman for a period of time after the Empire fell. Its not likely they realized it all at once. Just like we are doing now, calling ourselves American but many not realizing that doesn't mean anything anymore.

Now we have one side of the political spectrum saying that "America was never great". It was, (likely not for all) but it was great, it always strove for an idea of being better, of being great and living up to the ideals of our founding.

That has vanished when you have the left side of politics looking to remake us into some Americanized version of Europe? No thanks. Every bit that they finger wag at us about not having like "free healthcare". Yeah its free alright, subsidized by the American tax payer since the end of WW2. The problem isn't the US isn't like Europe enough, the problem is the US isn't like the US enough.

Like you I suspect I just want to be left alone. For the longest time I've tried to stay out of politics (to a degree) and live my life freely. Unfortunately that upsets the Left so be default I'm forced to at least ally with the Republicans. Even that is a losing game in my opinion.

I don't foresee any path forward that doesn't end badly.
« Last Edit: December 07, 2022, 05:44:36 PM by Willmark »

3catcircus

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Re: Reconciliation
« Reply #211 on: December 07, 2022, 07:06:28 PM »
I'm generally all for compromise, but compromise implies a give and take situation.  I can't see that leftists ever give anything, they just take.  We give them an inch, they take a mile. 

Let's take as an example - one of many I could use - the Civil Rights movement, specifically school integration.  American Blacks and their white liberal allies had become convinced that the only way black kids would ever get equal educational resources was by integrating white schools.  And in fact, "separate but equal" really was  a lie, since in no way were facilities for black children, salaries for black schoolteachers, etc. equal to the white ones (at least in the South).  Most Americans, including the white majority, agreed with this and so the compromise of public school integration eventually happened, albeit over resistance.

When the test scores of black children didn't get any better, then liberals argued that we needed more black teachers, as the black kids needed black role models.

By the phrase "give an inch and they'll take a mile" -- you're implying that the 1950s racial integration was a mistake, and there should have been even greater resistance. That equalizing resources without integration would have been a reasonable route. I think this is spurious. After school integration, there was a marked improvement in black student scores. It's just that it did not bring score all the way to parity, which is not surprising given that there remain many disparities outside of school.

U.S. schools continue to be primarily locally funded, so schools in rich neighborhoods have much better resources than schools in poor neighborhoods.

Here's a graph from NAEP data. You'll see that black scores have gone up more rapidly than white score since 1971 when NAEP was started.


Source: https://huebler.blogspot.com/2009/05/usa.html

In the bigger narrative, the American school system of the 1950s was not particularly good. It was a factory drill-and-kill system from the early 1900s that emphasized memorization over understanding. It was just better than its competition in WWII-devastated Europe and East Asia at the time. Since the 1950s, many countries in Europe and East Asia have put major effort into improving their school systems, while the U.S. has not. There are some U.S. states, like Massachusetts, that have a top-notch education systems. But it is state-by-state, and most states have not put in the effort.

We have slight improvement over time as shown by the NAEP scores, but other countries have shown much more improvement.

In particular, I would dispute these:

But black graduation rates and test scores still didn't rise, so then it was argued that we had to dumb down the curriculum.  This too happened, as the politicians making the decisions and the influential journalists pushing for them sent their kids to private schools or public schools in rich, all-white areas anyway.

Then it was argued that black children, especially boys, didn't react to discipline well and needed to be able to "act out" (i.e., misbehave without any negative consequences).  Again, this happened.

I already mention test scores, and I also disagree about graduation rates. Since the 1950s, black student graduation rates have improved even more markedly than test scores.



I also do not agree that nationwide schools were dumbed down and reduced in discipline in order to accommodate black students. As shown above, compared to the 1950s, we now have greater percentage of low-income students of all races who are completing high school. Comparing apples to apples, these are students who before had less overall education, and educational attainment has improved among all races.

To the degree that there has been anything like this, it hasn't come from liberals. The biggest push for leveling has come from conservatives - specifically George H.W. Bush and the "No Child Left Behind" policy, that pushed on metrics to equalize test scores for all races. This did lead to attempts to normalize test scores by any means, which usually means muddying the stats.

Completing high school and going to college at higher rates *isn't* a success story when the increase is due to lower standards and social promotion for minority students and "the poors" with a simultaneous sense of entitlement with grade inflation and participation trophies for the suburban white kids.  Minimal effort doesn't breed success except for those willing to cheat their way there - which is how we get businesses and government run by crooks who cheated their way through school and continued doing so afterwards - not smart enough to actually do the job, but just cunning and devious enough to slither their way into the job.

Brad

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Re: Reconciliation
« Reply #212 on: December 07, 2022, 07:50:30 PM »
Leave it to people in academia to claim academia isn't worse than it used to be.
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

Daztur

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Re: Reconciliation
« Reply #213 on: December 07, 2022, 08:59:12 PM »
If things are as bad as some seem to think, the time to fight is now.  Otherwise, they'll round you up before you ever get around to it based on your internet posts.

Exactly, except of course, they won't. They are a bunch of keyboard warriors. They know that if they actually fight they have already lost, particularly when considering that the moderates are also on the shit list, and that they themselves (the "warriors" here) aren't exactly unified either (also notice the chaotic bunch that was the Jan 6 crowd)  ;D

What gives me the most hope for the future is, whatever you can say about the original fascists a whole lot of them were hardass veterans of WW I trench warfare. 21st century fascists though? 99% of them are a bunch of angry idiots shouting on the internet who'll never actually do anything. It's important for sane people to arm themselves as the current crop of fascists are generally cowardly loudmouths who would never ever get involved in a fair fight.

  First the fascists are imaginary.   There are pretty much a non population in the USA.  Second, if you think there are no people who can and will fight in the USA over some of the bullshit going on (or is it fascist to not be instantly on board with boys in the girls locker rooms and letting trannies hang around elementary school kids) you are going to FAFO.   Thanks to the global american empire policy of bombing everyone into democracy for decades now there are A LOT of combat veterans in the USA.  A lot of them are being demonized in society openly for just being white.   Good luck on how that turns out once dip shits go too far.

I'm sure I'm just imagining all of the unhinged rhetoric in this very thread, including support for segregation and one poster wanting to kill half of the population of the US. But I guess I should just believe you and not my lying eyes.

I don't see any problem with trans people being teachers or whatnot, far better to keep priests and other groups with a proven track record of going after kids, and I'm not going to FAFO because the modern far right are cowards. They're going to shout at clouds a lot, become increasingly irrelevant, and then get old, die, and be forgotten. I hope that sane people in the US continue to arm themselves at increasing rates as modern fascists can easily be scared off by a few guns.

Brad

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Re: Reconciliation
« Reply #214 on: December 07, 2022, 09:09:00 PM »
I don't see any problem with trans people being teachers or whatnot

Your attitude is exactly why the public school system is failing. No "sane person" with small children wants demonspawn teaching their kids. Oh look, more "extreme rhetoric," right? If I don't like pedophiles teaching my kids, just means I'm a bigot.
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

Mistwell

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Re: Reconciliation
« Reply #215 on: December 07, 2022, 09:25:39 PM »
“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” -Trump

"The 19th Amendment [giving women the right to vote] was a mistake." -Brad

"support for segregation and one poster wanting to kill half of the population of the US" - Daztur quoting two other posters here.

Look, guys, it's gonna be harder and harder to deny fascism when it's "terminate the rules of the Constitution for my cause" and "women shouldn't be able to vote" and "re-segregate the population based on race" and "kill the half of the population I disagree with."  And I've NEVER been one of those guys claiming the right is fascist in America. But this shit is crossing that line rapidly.

Zelen

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Re: Reconciliation
« Reply #216 on: December 07, 2022, 09:25:53 PM »
I don't see any problem with trans people being teachers or whatnot

Your attitude is exactly why the public school system is failing. No "sane person" with small children wants demonspawn teaching their kids. Oh look, more "extreme rhetoric," right? If I don't like pedophiles teaching my kids, just means I'm a bigot.

There's nothing extreme about it, you have a very sensible, centrist position.
The idea that you should accept children being exposed to mentally-ill perverts is clearly an extremist position.

Eirikrautha

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Re: Reconciliation
« Reply #217 on: December 07, 2022, 09:26:16 PM »
No dumbass moderates are as principled as anyone else they just don't fit in the perfect little model you fit yourself in. They can be pro-choice and pro-gun-control but against higher taxes and business regulations, etc.. Saying you have to line up exactly with all the conservative issues or else you're unprincipled is nonsense. Your principles are no more or less valuable and consistent as a moderates, you just have a unified label for yours that you're satisfied-enough with.

Thank you for proving my point.  Those are policy positions, not principles  A principle is an overarching belief that informs all of your policy positions.  Please elucidate the overarching principle that manifests as "pro-choice and pro-gun-control but against higher taxes and business regulations."  You don't even recognize how badly you played yourself.

P.S.  So called "socially liberal, but fiscally conservative" folks are the very worst, the lowest of the low.  They want to be liberal, but they actually made (or inherited) money, so, unlike their "eat the rich" compatriots, they don't even have the integrity to reject their own wealth.  They want their money, but their liberal values at the same time.  Truly principle-less...

Mistwell

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Re: Reconciliation
« Reply #218 on: December 07, 2022, 09:31:23 PM »
No dumbass moderates are as principled as anyone else they just don't fit in the perfect little model you fit yourself in. They can be pro-choice and pro-gun-control but against higher taxes and business regulations, etc.. Saying you have to line up exactly with all the conservative issues or else you're unprincipled is nonsense. Your principles are no more or less valuable and consistent as a moderates, you just have a unified label for yours that you're satisfied-enough with.

Thank you for proving my point.  Those are policy positions, not principles

There are consistent principals behind every one of those policy positions. Obviously.

Quote
A principle is an overarching belief that informs all of your policy positions. 

No you extremist twat, it's not ONE principal which is overarching all your beliefs. Most humans have multiple principals which guide their beliefs.

Quote
Please elucidate the overarching principle that manifests as "pro-choice and pro-gun-control but against higher taxes and business regulations."  You don't even recognize how badly you played yourself.

That's not how principals work. You don't have just one and that's it, and if stuff doesn't fit in that one principal then it's an ignored issue or you try and force it into that principal even when it doesn't fit. Traditionally, the chief principles are accountability, justice, nonmaleficence, autonomy, beneficence, fidelity, and veracity., though even that list has expanded over time.


DocJones

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Re: Reconciliation
« Reply #219 on: December 07, 2022, 09:50:33 PM »
I'm sure I'm just imagining all of the unhinged rhetoric in this very thread, including support for segregation and one poster wanting to kill half of the population of the US. But I guess I should just believe you and not my lying eyes.

The left seems to be much more obsessed with segregation.  Surely you've heard of black-only spaces at universities because the presence of white faces in black spaces is harmful.  Black-only dorms for the same reason.  GenCon had a room for BIPOC only creators. 

I don't see any problem with trans people being teachers or whatnot, far better to keep priests and other groups with a proven track record of going after kids, and I'm not going to FAFO because the modern far right are cowards. They're going to shout at clouds a lot, become increasingly irrelevant, and then get old, die, and be forgotten. I hope that sane people in the US continue to arm themselves at increasing rates as modern fascists can easily be scared off by a few guns.
It's a statistical fact that children are 3 times more likely to be molested by a teacher than a priest.  Allowing blatant sexual deviants/exhibitionists into class rooms will surely make it worse.

Mistwell

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Re: Reconciliation
« Reply #220 on: December 08, 2022, 12:59:55 AM »
Allowing blatant sexual deviants/exhibitionists

Being transgendered isn't in itself related to having sex of any kind.

jhkim

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Re: Reconciliation
« Reply #221 on: December 08, 2022, 03:18:57 AM »
Completing high school and going to college at higher rates *isn't* a success story when the increase is due to lower standards and social promotion for minority students and "the poors" with a simultaneous sense of entitlement with grade inflation and participation trophies for the suburban white kids.  Minimal effort doesn't breed success except for those willing to cheat their way there - which is how we get businesses and government run by crooks who cheated their way through school and continued doing so afterwards - not smart enough to actually do the job, but just cunning and devious enough to slither their way into the job.

According to poster "I", black students' unchanged high school test scores and dropout rate after 1950s school integration was proof of failure. I (jhkim) pointed out that this wasn't true - that black students' test scores and dropout rate improved. But you (3catcircus) claim that this evidence doesn't mean anything.

This seems like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't". If black students' don't show improvement (as "I" claimed), it shows that 1950s school integration was a failure. If they do show improvement, it shows the dumbing down and cheating crooks, you say.

I'd agree that there are businesses and government run by crooks and cheats - but I don't think that 1950s school integration caused any increase in this. From my reading of history, there was rampant corruption in businesses and government in the 1920s, 1930s, and other decades well before the 1950s school integration.

Brad

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Re: Reconciliation
« Reply #222 on: December 08, 2022, 06:27:58 AM »
don't think that 1950s school integration caused any increase in this.

There's this dude named Thomas Sowell who directly addresses these problems in many of his books. Considering he lived in Harlem pre-desegregation and considers his education superior to that after the segregationists "improved" schooling, I'd tend to take his direct experience and research more seriously than some race grifters who've been pushing a bunch of complete bullshit since the 1960s. YMMV.
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

Eirikrautha

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Re: Reconciliation
« Reply #223 on: December 08, 2022, 06:52:35 AM »
No dumbass moderates are as principled as anyone else they just don't fit in the perfect little model you fit yourself in. They can be pro-choice and pro-gun-control but against higher taxes and business regulations, etc.. Saying you have to line up exactly with all the conservative issues or else you're unprincipled is nonsense. Your principles are no more or less valuable and consistent as a moderates, you just have a unified label for yours that you're satisfied-enough with.

Thank you for proving my point.  Those are policy positions, not principles

There are consistent principals behind every one of those policy positions. Obviously.

Quote
A principle is an overarching belief that informs all of your policy positions. 

No you extremist twat, it's not ONE principal which is overarching all your beliefs. Most humans have multiple principals which guide their beliefs.

Quote
Please elucidate the overarching principle that manifests as "pro-choice and pro-gun-control but against higher taxes and business regulations."  You don't even recognize how badly you played yourself.

That's not how principals work. You don't have just one and that's it, and if stuff doesn't fit in that one principal then it's an ignored issue or you try and force it into that principal even when it doesn't fit. Traditionally, the chief principles are accountability, justice, nonmaleficence, autonomy, beneficence, fidelity, and veracity., though even that list has expanded over time.

Every time you type, you make it worse.  Nowhere did i say that people have only one principle.   What I stated was that a principle affects every policy you have.  So, if you believe in freedom,  every policy should maximize freedom,  along with any other principles that you have being maximized in that policy as well.  Only a squishy principle-less moderate could assert that people should have dozens of principles which only affect certain policies where  convenient.   I'm still waiting for the overarching principle that fits with your stealth liberal examples...

Chris24601

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Re: Reconciliation
« Reply #224 on: December 08, 2022, 07:46:24 AM »
No dumbass moderates are as principled as anyone else they just don't fit in the perfect little model you fit yourself in. They can be pro-choice and pro-gun-control but against higher taxes and business regulations, etc.. Saying you have to line up exactly with all the conservative issues or else you're unprincipled is nonsense. Your principles are no more or less valuable and consistent as a moderates, you just have a unified label for yours that you're satisfied-enough with.

Thank you for proving my point.  Those are policy positions, not principles

There are consistent principals behind every one of those policy positions. Obviously.

Quote
A principle is an overarching belief that informs all of your policy positions. 

No you extremist twat, it's not ONE principal which is overarching all your beliefs. Most humans have multiple principals which guide their beliefs.

Quote
Please elucidate the overarching principle that manifests as "pro-choice and pro-gun-control but against higher taxes and business regulations."  You don't even recognize how badly you played yourself.

That's not how principals work. You don't have just one and that's it, and if stuff doesn't fit in that one principal then it's an ignored issue or you try and force it into that principal even when it doesn't fit. Traditionally, the chief principles are accountability, justice, nonmaleficence, autonomy, beneficence, fidelity, and veracity., though even that list has expanded over time.

Every time you type, you make it worse.  Nowhere did i say that people have only one principle.   What I stated was that a principle affects every policy you have.  So, if you believe in freedom,  every policy should maximize freedom,  along with any other principles that you have being maximized in that policy as well.  Only a squishy principle-less moderate could assert that people should have dozens of principles which only affect certain policies where  convenient.   I'm still waiting for the overarching principle that fits with your stealth liberal examples...
I would suggest their overarching principle is either “doesn’t want to be harassed by the radical woke” or “wants to be liked by a social circle that is already partially woke.”