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[smjjames]

A question: does the veritable smorgasbord of GOP candidates, relative to the few (Clinton and Sanders?) Democrat candidates, strike anyone as odd?

Perhaps the Democrats not wanting to challenge Clinton? (something I would consider to be quite foolish)

Not really. The republicans don't have a strong/popular leader (or elder statesman as one 583 article put it) for people to rally around while the democrats do. Why do you think democrats kept waiting to see if Hillary was going to run? Any potential candidate would be wise to hold their cards for another time because while she isn't undefeatable, it wouldn't be easy. True, Biden could have joined in and he would actually have been pretty competitive, but the death of his son made it difficult emotionally and he had procrastinated, so....

[Descan]

When the forum renders the topic thread, it simply omits all posts by that person as if they do not exist.

This is useful for people who legitimately have nothing to contribute to the forum-- spambots, and the like.

Sadly, many people use it as a means to sanitize the forums of genuinely human elements they find dis-favorable.

No, their posts still exist, they're just masked by a "You have ignored this user!" dialog that you can unmask with a press of a button.

[Strife26]

Plus every administration we face sees the President gain more and more power and precedent through executive actions

[Flying Dice]

"There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a less -- a slower-track school where they do well," Scalia said, according to the transcript. "One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas."

"They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they're being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them," Scalia said. "I'm just not impressed by the fact that the University of Texas may have fewer. Maybe it ought to have fewer. And maybe some -- you know, when you take more, the number of blacks, really competent blacks, admitted to lesser schools, turns out to be less."

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/09/politics/scalia-black-scientists-scotus/

Man, even the Trump thinks that that's fucked up, and that coming from a guy who literally used the line "I've got lots of black friends" when explaining that he wasn't a racist.


preemptive edit: That's not to say that there can't be data supporting the competition mismatch hypothesis; I haven't seen any either way. But if it were supported by data, one would think that the logical response would be to work to ensure a better, more equal standard of primary and secondary education, rather than putting up metaphorical "Whites Only" signs on better universities.

[Bauglir]

but everyone knows that racial discrimination ended in 1964 and that, therefore, any differences observed in populations is due entirely to inherent genetic differences

kind of like how women earn less than men because they're inherently inferior beings, and any arguments about sexual discrimination and social pressures to pursue less well-paying careers or dedicate extra time to family are just SJW nonsense

EDIT: it has been brought to my attention that the second paragraph/sentence could be construed as offensive

for the sake of clarity, i should indicate that unless you believe women deserve to be paid less because they are women and therefore inherently less valuable, i am not attempting to caricature your beliefs into an easily mocked strawman

[mainiac]

Plus every administration we face sees the President gain more and more power and precedent through executive actions

Well that's only because congress can't govern.  For instance the EPA would immediately stop being able to set the rules on carbon emissions if Congress did that.  However congress has refused to do so for 20 years.  So after 20 years someone noticed "hey, technically the EPA had these powers all along" and McCarthy sprung into action.  The EPA policy would be irrelevant if Congress was doing anything.  The non-compliant states would expect their congresscritters could get them out of any penalties so it wouldn't be anything but a non-binding suggestion.  But because congress wont change the standards in either direction, the standards are law by inertia.

Obamacare had something similar.  The version that passed wasn't the version they were expecting to pass.  The version that passed was the last version suggested in the Senate before Ted Kennedy died.  Normally laws get revised after both houses agree on them but the republicans refused to allow for the reconcillation process so we got stuck in the version in the first draft.  So the people who wrote the first draft had unexpected powers by default.

[smjjames]

Lol! Looks like Cruz pulled a rickroll on Trump: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/ted-cruz-donald-trump-maniac-flashdance-216730

[sluissa]

but everyone knows that racial discrimination ended in 1964 and that, therefore, any differences observed in populations is due entirely to inherent genetic differences

kind of like how women earn less than men because they're inherently inferior beings, and any arguments about sexual discrimination and social pressures to pursue less well-paying careers or dedicate extra time to family are just SJW nonsense

EDIT: it has been brought to my attention that the second paragraph/sentence could be construed as offensive

for the sake of clarity, i should indicate that unless you believe women deserve to be paid less because they are women and therefore inherently less valuable, i am not attempting to caricature your beliefs into an easily mocked strawman

Except that you don't end discrimination, either through race or gender, by forcing more people in to places they don't want to be or don't belong. There are issues, but they aren't at the end point where minorities get into universities or women get paid.

Minorities are less likely to have good education because of where they live and how they live. Minority families have consistently been screwed out of the "real estate investment" trade since the end of WW2. Returning white soldier from WW2 invests in a decent little house in a nice neighborhood and pays it off in a few, maybe 10 years. Lives in it for 50 years and it passes onto kids, who reap the huge property value increase which then goes on to provide for a more comfortable life and pay for the educations of the kids growing up now. Returning black soldier from WW2 tries to do the same, except they're stuck in government created minority zones. Racism still existing in a very harsh way for the next 30-40 years. (Not saying it's gone, but it's nothing like it was) results in property value decreases in those zones. This results in several things, starting with those families losing out on that property investment. Much of the property in those zones will not have gone up in value nearly as much, and in some cases doesn't even keep up with inflation, so it's a net loss.

Lower property value translates to lower wages, lower quality schools, and more work to keep a family running. Children in poor families don't have the same sort of parental support, because the parents are forced to spend a disproportionate amount of time working just to keep the lights on and food on the table. The children are also expected to do more around the house, either house work, or taking care of siblings, or in some cases even working to provide more income for the home. This also cuts into time which might be used for school.

This all results in a group of kids who aren't going to good schools to begin with and fail to see the value of education, who are forced to move into a workforce early by lack of a familial safety net, which further makes education seem like a waste of time and money, and finally simply lack the ability to pay, except through the thorough application of crippling, inescapable, life long debt, to go to a good school, even if they wanted to after all of that.

It may have started out as racism, 50+ years ago, that kept black people and other minorities out of good schools, but now it's just the knock on consequences of those racist decisions that have never really been resolved, or even acknowledged. Classism is the real issue now. It just happens that because of the past, the classes are painted disproportionately in various skin colors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_steering

As for the gender pay comment. As many people have pointed out, it's almost exclusively an issue where women take time to have babies. So again you're treating a symptom rather than the cause if you want just a flat increase in women's pay across the board. Give more options in taking time off for pregnancies, either in government mandated leave, or split leave between parents, or some sort of improved system where you're given a security net while you're gone and guaranteed a job when you return no matter how long you take off (probably reasonably limited to the age of the child with 18 being a likely extreme upper limit and school entry age being a lower limit). Also a better support system to take care of kids from birth to school age would help immensely. Many families are given the choice of a second income + childcare costs which often amount to a large portion of that second income, or simply losing that second income for a parent to stay home for several years. And things simply get more expensive and more inclined to losing that second income if more than one child is in the picture and they're all in that age bracket before they start school.

[Sheb]

Is that the only reason though? There must be some data out there where they compare various racial groups correlating for income.

[sluissa]

It's not the only reason, of course, but it's a very large one that continues to be overlooked, or have attempts to patch it with stopgap measures that are shortsighted or work in the wrong way.

If you want a better summary of the whole picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_inequality_in_the_United_States

That does a pretty good job of outlining the history and the causes.

One section that was interesting to note:

In the United States, funding for public education relies greatly on local property taxes. Local property tax revenues may vary between different neighborhoods and school districts. This variance of property tax revenues amongst neighborhoods and school districts leads to inequality in education. This inequality manifests in the form of available school financial resources which provide educational opportunities, facilities, and programs to students.[4]

Returning to the concept of residential segregation, it is known that affluence and poverty have become both highly segregated and concentrated in relation to race and location.[25] Residential segregation and poverty concentration is most markedly seen in the comparison between urban and suburban populations in which suburbs consist of majority White populations and inner-cities consist of majority minority populations.[25] According to Barnhouse-Walters (2001), the concentration of poor minority populations in inner-cities and the concentration of affluent White populations in the suburbs, "is the main mechanism by which racial inequality in educational resources is reproduced."

I did some searching and couldn't find much that correlated the data from both sets. One stanford article did so, but only in relation to the "most competetive" colleges in the US which wasn't all that helpful.

(https://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/race%20income%20%26%20selective%20college%20enrollment%20august%203%202012.pdf link if you want to look for yourself anyway)

[Sheb]

Thanks. Now I can go back to feeling smugly superior as a European. :p

[Frumple]

Is that the only reason though? There must be some data out there where they compare various racial groups correlating for income.

Can't really be arsed to hunt it up right now, but yeah, it's out there, somewhere. Just (or even primarily, really) classism it damn sure fucking isn't. You can see it in the bloody narrative, even -- you don't get the poor performance concerns near as often when it's poor white folks instead of poor minority ones (the former may still be directed away from higher end colleges, but it's because of cost issues, not capability), and often still see the damned things when the minority students aren't poor or coming out of shitty schools. Sentiment you're seeing about shit like that generally isn't some misattributed concern over the likelihood of class-related capability, it's straight up bloody racism. Mixed with classism, maybe, but still primarily what it is.

Except that you don't end discrimination, either through race or gender, by forcing more people in to places they don't want to be or don't belong.

Also, really? Really? Of all the words in the bloody english language, "don't belong" is what you go with?

Won't lie, the phrasing makes me want to straight up jump down your throat feet first and trailing a jackhammer -- we've been fighting that fucking sentiment in the US for the better part of a century now, and bowing to it instead of jamming people into its craw is damn sure not how I'd want to see the fight continue. Putting people in places where they "don't belong" actually has done a damn lot over the years to work us towards ending discrimination. It's never been a bloody silver bullet, but you can't fix inequality issues by keeping the unequal groups separated, either.

[Reelya]

Another one that shows how people internalize discrimination is heightism. Short people earn less, not just a little less, but a significant amount on par with the race or gender divide. It's about $800/year less earnings for each inch shorter, for men. The figure for the USA is $789/year less per inch shorter, for men. So given a median US income of $26,965 so for a 6' guy vs a 5'5" guy you're looking at around a 20% income deficit, which is on a scale comparable with the major types of discrimination we tend to talk about.

http://www.livescience.com/5552-taller-people-earn-money.html

But the most interesting part of that is that it's almost all internal. It doesn't matter if you were short when you were a kid, and are tall now, you earn less (on average) than people who were tall their whole life. Your childhood height correlates better with future earning potential than your adult height. So, in other words all things being equal, and even if you are treated equally now, previous discrimination affects people their whole life. But it also shows that we need to be careful to determine whether a phenomena is explained by direct discrimination vs this sort of indirect discrimination. For the simple reason that if we get the causation wrong our policies won't work.

[smjjames]

So, aside from somehow making children taller, I'm not sure how we set policies to the causation, especially when it's an internalized thing and is something with our psychological makeup as a species.

[sluissa]

Except that you don't end discrimination, either through race or gender, by forcing more people in to places they don't want to be or don't belong.

Also, really? Really? Of all the words in the bloody english language, "don't belong" is what you go with?

Won't lie, the phrasing makes me want to straight up jump down your throat feet first and trailing a jackhammer -- we've been fighting that fucking sentiment in the US for the better part of a century now, and bowing to it instead of jamming people into its craw is damn sure not how I'd want to see the fight continue. Putting people in places where they "don't belong" actually has done a damn lot over the years to work us towards ending discrimination. It's never been a bloody silver bullet, but you can't fix inequality issues by keeping the unequal groups separated, either.

The sentiment is wrong. Not everyone is equal. Not everyone's time and money is best spent at a college for 4 years of their life. That doesn't make them less valuable, or bad, or less intelligent. It just makes them different. One of the biggest problems with the US educational system is the one size fits all policy. The idea that you can make a curriculum that works equally with every student is flawed and wrong. And the idea that a person can have an easier time of something in order to fill a quota, move their way through what is supposed to be a challenging test to teach them and prove their abilities, to make sure we fill out a chart properly, simply based upon their skin color is in fact racism and does nobody any good.