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[mainiac]

And that's one of the better, reasonable arguments against Sanders that I've seen. I will take it into consideration. I doubt I will come around to Clinton, but I could be persuaded to strategic voting to stop the world from burning.

You seem to like long winded policy explorations.  If you want more of them, you should make long winded open inquiries into policy.

Yeah, but US (then) = cheap and expendable troops (and big dakka) and Germany = relatively expensive troops that hurt when you lose them (the loss of experienced troops hurt more than just the loss of numbers as the war went on).

But that's pretty much it.  Germany by nature of their attempt to fight against overwhelming numbers scraped the bottom of the barrel pretty quickly.  Germany was facing the kind of manpower shortages in 1941 (first winter after they invaded Russia) that the US was facing at the end of the war.  The US had only like a million men, less then 1% of the population, go through the really dangerous frontline infantry positions.  Everyone else was standing behind them keeping the supply lines running from Michigan to Europe.  Germany rotated an entire generation through the frontlines as everyone at the front died or got PTSD and got buried or got shifted into the back.  So the US is definitely the one warping in just the zealots while Germany empties the prisons.

[sluissa]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm a Clinton supporter. I don't intend to argue about it, but here are my opinions below so that you can think about them, I guess, and so you can see that it's not just "people being unfamiliar with Bernie."
My biggest personal issues are Having a Non-Fascist Government, abortion rights, Guantanamo Bay, and income equality (especially reworking the federal minimum wage), in that order. After that there's a lot of other things like climate change, carcerality, no more drone wars, trans rights, and stuff.
It's true that she's a credentialed candidate, which is another way to say that she's developed support with established institutions. She's established in some ways, not in others. I don't think that any woman with Bernie's "maverickhood" and lack of polish would have a prayer of getting into the White house. Any woman who has any kind of chance is going to be an "establishment candidate." Period.
I do not think that Bernie Sanders is diplomatic enough to deal with the likes of Vladimir Putin. I'm not even talking about his lack of experience in foreign policy; I'm just talking about his directness and lack of subtlety, which are excellent in a renegade senator, but not so great in a president. Biden would have been a terrible president in terms of foreign policy.
I also think that Clinton has been smeared a lot by the media circus, usually in misogynistic ways. The media is getting a big kick out of Trump saying outrageous things. I am sure that she has many flaws. However, I have not yet seen any arguments against her that were not, in large part, made of misogyny. I don't feel comfortable considering any argument that on its foundation deals with her being shrill, unlikeable, scoldy, too loud, whatever, or which seems to treat her like a monster. So far these are all of the arguments I have seen. For me, a precondition to considering someone's argument against her is that they attack her policies, rather than using sexist dogwhistles. The statements that she's too pro-business are, I think, very legitimate criticisms--not because she takes money from corporations, which I think is reasonable, but because I'm not sure she'll actually start taxing the snot out of rich people, which I would like for her to do. I'm also not sure that she'll be able to be tough enough on corporations when it comes to climate issues. Again, that safe fracking thing... >_>
On the other hand, Bill ran a budget surplus, so I'm hoping that she'll raise taxes.

Damn straight. People are forgetting that when Obama needed something done on the world stage in Libya or Ukraine he went to Clinton to get it done, and her Benghazi scandal she recovered in remarkable time with dignity and composure. And instead of attacking her policies, people say she is nothing more than a puppet for her donors; can it not be that a woman seeks donors for her policies, and is not just an extension of wealthy multinational men? One thing I would say is that I think Clinton is giving up real power by seeking to become president, as anything that goes wrong will become blamed on her (thanks Obama) but best of luck you know, she is certainly a competent executor of foreign policy (even if her advisors like Kissinger will need replacement).

Obama depended on Clinton. Clinton screwed up and got fired and now Obama depends on Kerry.

[Lord Shonus]

Therefore I can't say that his single issue is "income inequality." His single greatest concern is income inequality in white men. This is a meaningful concern. My family has poor white, straight, cis men in it who need help.

However, it also has poor lesbians and poor Latinas and poor people with disabilities in it, who in fact constitute the majority of my family members. I have a black family member. I understand he has intimated that working on class inequality will take racism and sexism with it. It will help, but there are other concerns which I think are completely off his radar. He even said lately that he didn't understand the black experience because he wasn't poor, hadn't grown up in "the ghetto"; but then, I feel like he must implicitly not understand income inequality in his interest group, poor white men, either.

Have you ever read his campaign page?

We are not going back to the days when women had to risk their lives to end an unwanted pregnancy. The decision about abortion must remain a decision for the woman and her doctor to make, not the government.

We are not going to allow the extreme right-wing to defund Planned Parenthood, we are going to expand it. Planned Parenthood provides vital healthcare services for millions of women, who rely on its clinics every year for affordable, quality health care services including cancer prevention, STI and HIV testing and general primary health care services. The current attempt to malign Planned Parenthood is part of a long-term smear campaign by people who want to deny women in this country the right to control their own bodies.

You and I are about as far apart on the abortion issue as it is possible to be, but it looks to me like Sanders is making it a plank in the platform.

Let us not forget: It was the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street that nearly drove the economy off of a cliff seven years ago. While millions of Americans lost their jobs, homes, life savings and ability to send their kids to college, African-Americans who were steered into expensive subprime mortgages were the hardest hit.

Most black and Latino households have less than $350 in savings. The black unemployment rate has remained roughly twice as high as the white rate over the last 40 years, regardless of education. Real African-American youth unemployment is over 50 percent. African-American women earn 64 cents for every dollar white men make. This is unacceptable. The American people in general want change — they want a better deal. A fairer deal. A new deal. They want an America with laws and policies that truly reward hard work with economic mobility. They want an America that affords all of its citizens with the economic security to take risks and the opportunity to realize their full potential.

Doesn't sound like he's ignoring minorities either.

As President, Sen. Sanders will:

    Sign into law the Equality Act, the Every Child Deserves a Family Act, and any other bill that prohibits discrimination against LGBT people.
    Work with HHS to ensure LGBT Americans have access to comprehensive health insurance which provides appropriate coverage and do not have to fear discrimination or mistreatment from providers.
    Continue the great work of the State Department’s Special Envoy for LGBT Rights and ensure the United States helps protect the rights of LGBT people around the world.
    Advance policies to ensure students can attend school without fear of bullying, and work to reduce suicides.
    Require police departments to adopt policies to ensure fairer interactions with transgender people, especially transgender women of color who are often targeted by police unfairly, and institute training programs to promote compliance with fair policies.
    Bar discrimination against LGBT people by creditors and banks so that people will not be unfairly denied mortgages, credit cards, or student loans.
    Veto any legislation that purports to “protect” religious liberty at the expense of others’ rights.

LGBT issues? These sound like LGBT issues.

[mainiac]

Lord Shonus, stop trolling.

[Helgoland]

re: Libya, there were a lot of people (myself included) cheering for the Libyan rebels. And while there were a few voices saying "Umm, what's going to fill the void?" it was difficult to elaborate on that point without sounding like an apologist for Qaddafi and being opposed to ordinary people fighting back with everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) at their disposal. It was hard not to cheer for them.

That's because most of the folks asking 'Who will fill that void?' were heavily implying 'We need Qaddafi to stay, a couple thousand Libyans or not.' They were apologists in the truest sense of the word: 'Yes, he's doing bad things, buuuuuuuuut...'

The question itself is valid, of course, and still deserves an answer - why the hell are we not supporting the Tobruk government more heavily? - but it can only be asked in the context of Qaddafi not being an option.

So, this sort of reeks of hypocrisy. We can't really endorse how the 77 cents in the dollar figure is derived, while at the same time picking and choosing what methodology we will accept when it comes back to bite someone on our own side of politics: if we use the exact same criteria as the "77 cents" figure on Clinton's employees and it comes back to say that she has a gender-gap according to that criteria, then she has a gender gap: if we allow the "yeah, but..." for Clinton, we need to apply that same caveat for the overall gender gap too, if it is to be a fair comparison.

Who still honestly spouts that '77 cents to the dollar' myth? Are people really expecting employers to pay women more for the same job just so the statistics look nice in the end?

Not that I want to suggest that there are no social, economic, educational, and reproductive factors keeping women from pursuing the same type of career as men - but '77 cents to the dollar' is a) not a good shorthand for that problem and b) is alienating a lot of folks from feminist issues because of its blatant dishonesty.

[mainiac]

77 cents isn't dishonest, it's true.

If I say that median income for households in the US was $53,657 in the 2014 census report that is factually true.  I said nothing about cost of living adjustments for where people are living.  I said nothing about education.  I said nothing about average household size.  I have said nothing about wage income versus capital income.  And if I say median income for chinese households is under $4000 I am omitting all these things and it's still true. 

These two figures can tell us a lot.  It's not bigoted or deceptive to point them out.  I could certainly use them in bigoted or deceptive ways but you cant assume I'm doing that every time I use them.  It would be very foolish to ignore such figures.  The comparison of median incomes namely points us in the direction of a very significant fact, american households are much more affluent then chinese ones.  Likewise the $.77 figure points us in the direction of a very significant fact, female incomes are much lower then male ones in the US.

The is a triple damned infuriating trend where mainstream progressives are expected to make both sides of an argument while their detractors just take pot shots from the side. It's expected that if you want to say $0.77 you are immediately suppossed to assuage the feelings of all offended parties and leap to reassure them that you didn't mean mandate communist income laws immediately.  I'm gonna say the problem is with the people who cant make reasonable conclusions from straightforward facts.  $0.77 doesn't mean kill all the men.  It means YO HERE IS A PROBLEM.  Some of it is due to straight up sexism.  Some of it is due to other stuff that needs to be fixed.  Objecting to pointing out the problem doesn't help the first OR the second part.

[Helgoland]

77 cents isn't dishonest, it's true.

Those two aren't contradictory at all.

Sure, the statistic '77 cents to the dollar' is an indicator that somewhere something is going on. Lookee:

Not that I want to suggest that there are no social, economic, educational, and reproductive factors keeping women from pursuing the same type of career as men

But the battlecry '77 cents to the dollar' is a different beast entirely, because it insinuates that we're a) looking at a purely economic problem that b) can be fixed by simply increasing women's wages. Both of these are wrong, and both of these actively hurt women's rights. It's not employed as 'Look, here's an indicator that somewhere something is wrong', it's employed as 'Women aren't being paid fairly!'. Pointing to the indicator is pointless when it distracts from the issues the indicator indicates. And 'Women work X hours less per day' is just as catchy, and doesn't invoke easy pot-shots from right-wingers pointing to the rather small 'true' wage gap. Or  upwards-turned eyes from other sections of the progressive populace, for that matter.

[Lord Shonus]

The problem is that the 77 cents figure tells us nothing, and leads to useless solutions. It is technically correct, but that isn't really the best kind of correct. Just a few of the causes of the gap are the fact that women make up a tiny percentage of the applicants for the lucrative building trades (among the highest paying blue-collar work), the fact that far too many women take largely useless majors such as Communications or Sociology (interesting, but useless for seeking employment) instead of engineering or accounting (where the money is), or the simple fact that most of the country's income goes to a fairly small group at the top in which women are underrepresented.

NONE of these can be addressed by the most popular proposed solutions (laws preventing unequal pay won't help when the pay gap is between professions rather than individuals within that profession, laws mandating X percentage of new hires be women won't help if women make up less than X percentage of applicants, etc), and the only solid solution (a concerted attempt to push the notion that building things and figuring out how they work is just as much for girls as being a nurse or teacher, particularly in media aimed at children) to the first two will take years to take effect even though it has already been implemented at least on a limited scale.

Now, there's avenues to reduce the areas of real discrimination - requiring employers to post the wages of every employee in the break room, for example, would go a long way. These just won't make that much of a dent in the 77 cents figure.

[sluissa]

77 cents isn't dishonest, it's true.

If I say that median income for households in the US was $53,657 in the 2014 census report that is factually true.  I said nothing about cost of living adjustments for where people are living.  I said nothing about education.  I said nothing about average household size.  I have said nothing about wage income versus capital income.  And if I say median income for chinese households is under $4000 I am omitting all these things and it's still true. 

These two figures can tell us a lot.  It's not bigoted or deceptive to point them out.  I could certainly use them in bigoted or deceptive ways but you cant assume I'm doing that every time I use them.  It would be very foolish to ignore such figures.  The comparison of median incomes namely points us in the direction of a very significant fact, american households are much more affluent then chinese ones.  Likewise the $.77 figure points us in the direction of a very significant fact, female incomes are much lower then male ones in the US.

The is a triple damned infuriating trend where mainstream progressives are expected to make both sides of an argument while their detractors just take pot shots from the side. It's expected that if you want to say $0.77 you are immediately suppossed to assuage the feelings of all offended parties and leap to reassure them that you didn't mean mandate communist income laws immediately.  I'm gonna say the problem is with the people who cant make reasonable conclusions from straightforward facts.  $0.77 doesn't mean kill all the men.  It means YO HERE IS A PROBLEM.  Some of it is due to straight up sexism.  Some of it is due to other stuff that needs to be fixed.  Objecting to pointing out the problem doesn't help the first OR the second part.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/jul/15/politifact-sheet-gender-pay-gap/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/04/09/president-obamas-persistent-77-cent-claim-on-the-wage-gap-gets-a-new-pinocchio-rating/

http://time.com/3222543/5-feminist-myths-that-will-not-die/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html

And I will note, those articles don't even fully agree with each other on the details of how or why. A couple point out that when looking from a certain perspective it's even worse than 77 cents. But the point is that the procedures that reached that 77 cent number are too simplistic and just flat out flawed and it's ignorant to keep spouting that number. If you want to say there's a pay gap, that's fine. If you want equal pay for equal work, that's fine. But other societal factors aren't taken into account when you mention that 77 cent number and the rallying cry behind it "Women need higher wages!" is just plain unfair when you take into account things like "Unmarried women have almost no pay gap." (Down to a 4 cent difference based on one source.) And I have a hard time respecting anyone who continues to shout that number despite the evidence against it. Just the same as I have a hard time respecting anyone who pulled the "Trump supports the KKK" despite the evidence against it. (And I'm no Trump supporter, but lies won't help anyone.)

[mainiac]

But the battlecry '77 cents to the dollar' is a different beast entirely, because it insinuates

Isn't this exactly the attitude I just talked about?  Imagine if we started applying this to a few other places:

But the battlecry 'global warming' is a different beast entirely, because it insinuates...
But the battlecry 'je suis Charlie' is a different beast entirely, because it insinuates...
But the battlecry "Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world," is a different beast entirely, because it insinuates...
But the battlecry "Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost"  is a different beast entirely, because it insinuates...

But I really doubt that you are a fascist who wants to silence all opposition and pump the atmosphere full of carbon.

And I will note, those articles don't even fully agree with each other on the details of how or why. A couple point out that when looking from a certain perspective it's even worse than 77 cents. But the point is that the procedures that reached that 77 cent number are too simplistic and just flat out flawed and it's ignorant to keep spouting that number.

They're welcome to their opinion.  I'll stand by my assertion that it's a problem of people blaming the statistic for their own failures as journalists.  I mean you quoted fucking politifact for christ sakes.  Politifact is like that "smart" kid sitting at the front of history class saying "well actually" every five minutes.  And I should know, I was that kid.

Food for thought: http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm

[sluissa]

Politifact... and 3 other sources which you apparently ignored.

That kid might be annoying when he's the only one in class doing it, but when the whole class is standing up and saying "You're wrong." You can't just point at that kid and say to the rest of them. "You want to agree with this loser?"

[mainiac]

Politifact... and 3 other sources which you apparently ignored.

Politifact is doing the smartass in the front row thing.  If three other sources are doing the same thing as politifact then by the transitive property of smartassery, the critique applies to all four.

The interesting thing about voicing an opinion that goes against the conventional wisdom is that you can kinda guess where the entire herd stands in relation to you.

[Bauglir]

Attacking the statistic for being "misleading" is admitting that you don't know how to contextualize statistics. If you think the number is wrong because it inspires solutions that aren't productive, that's kind of baffling. You don't discard that information because you can come up with a different measurement, for instance by accounting for part- vs full-time work, that you think captures the real problem better. That's the "damned lies plus" of Twain-popularized fame. You keep the original statistic because it tells you "Yes, something weird is going on here, maybe that's something we should try to fix", and you also keep the other because it tells you "And it isn't that having a cock gets you an automatic pay raise for any given job."

Short version: "There's no pay gap once you adjust the measurement" isn't a counterargument. It's just more information.

[Helgoland]

But the battlecry 'global warming' is a different beast entirely, because it insinuates...
But the battlecry 'je suis Charlie' is a different beast entirely, because it insinuates...
But the battlecry "Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world," is a different beast entirely, because it insinuates...
But the battlecry "Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost"  is a different beast entirely, because it insinuates...

Lemme call you out there: How would you continue each of these statements after the three dots? Nevermind that none of the examples you gave are statistics.

Attacking the statistic for being "misleading" is admitting that you don't know how to contextualize statistics. If you think the number is wrong because it inspires solutions that aren't productive, that's kind of baffling.

Read carefully: I'm not attacking the statistic - indeed I agreed that it does tell us that something is wrong. I'm attacking the way the statistic is used - I do hope you're not flat-out claiming that there is no way to use technically correct statistics to mislead people.

[Lord Shonus]

Attacking the statistic for being "misleading" is admitting that you don't know how to contextualize statistics. If you think the number is wrong because it inspires solutions that aren't productive, that's kind of baffling. You don't discard that information because you can come up with a different measurement, for instance by accounting for part- vs full-time work, that you think captures the real problem better. That's the "damned lies plus" of Twain-popularized fame. You keep the original statistic because it tells you "Yes, something weird is going on here, maybe that's something we should try to fix", and you also keep the other because it tells you "And it isn't that having a cock gets you an automatic pay raise for any given job."

Short version: "There's no pay gap once you adjust the measurement" isn't a counterargument. It's just more information.

The trouble is that every time the statistic crops up, it is in the context "Not having a penis means you automatically make less money! We should make this illegal!" It is this interpretation of the statistic that we are attacking.