Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Strife26]

only having landholding white men able to vote

This is often cited, but a gross oversimplification. Property requirements were common in the early US, but not universal - some states never had them. It was not unusual for the vote to be restricted to men - but at least three states didn't do so until after they abolished property requirements entirely, as women were allowed to vote as long as they had the requisite property or paid the requisite amount of tax. Prohibiting non-whites was common - except in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and (somewhat oddly) North Carolina, all of which allowed free blacks to vote immediately after the Revolution.

There was never a time when "white landowning males" were the only group allowed to vote.

It's better to think about the early US as a confederacy instead of the much more monolithic US of today. States did whatever the hell they wanted on their level, some of that still exists today, especially gerrymandering.

[misko27]

Results are slowly coming in for Georgia's elections, and it looks super close.

[EnigmaticHat]

only having landholding white men able to vote

This is often cited, but a gross oversimplification. Property requirements were common in the early US, but not universal - some states never had them. It was not unusual for the vote to be restricted to men - but at least three states didn't do so until after they abolished property requirements entirely, as women were allowed to vote as long as they had the requisite property or paid the requisite amount of tax. Prohibiting non-whites was common - except in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and (somewhat oddly) North Carolina, all of which allowed free blacks to vote immediately after the Revolution.

There was never a time when "white landowning males" were the only group allowed to vote.

...yeah and the 13th amendment didn't actually abolish slavery because the slave trade was already illegal for 60 years and slavery was illegal in half the states.

No federally guaranteed right to vote, inability to effectively wield voting power at any level of government even in the small number of places where they actually could vote.  So four states with a tiny fraction of the slave population, and only a portion of those are even freed.  I doubt that came to even a single percentage point of the African American population.  And 3 states let white women vote until poor white men could vote and then the poor white women lost the right.  That doesn't seem like it changes anything.  I dunno, my statement seems like less of a simplification and more of an accurate summary.

[Wolfhunter107]

And it looks like Handal is going to  pull off a win, and by a ok margin, too.

[Frumple]

Yeah. Shame, it would have been more interesting with a loss or close margin.

... though it'll be a bigger one if it turns out those shooting ads were the deciding factor. Lotta' folks in the US don't exactly want another nail put in the coffin of even vague attempts at a principled runoff.

[Gizogin]

According to the A.P., Handel has won Georgia 6. Not really a surprise, though the margin is incredibly close for that (usually very solidly Republican) district. The gap between the Republican representative and the closest competitor has typically been more than twenty percentage points; to go from that to five percentage points is pretty significant. Of course, what that means is that both sides will claim it as a victory, and nothing substantial will result.

Oh, and Norman (R) won South Carolina 5 by an even narrower margin, though again, no-one seems to have really cared.

Edit: I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow now to see exactly what the voting numbers are. I'll be paying attention, but it's unlikely to be significantly different to what we're seeing now.

EditEdit: Nope, the numbers are actually in already, and it's the same as it was.

[Reelya]

So, ContraPoints did a new video, this time regarding the meaning of freedom, safe spaces and trigger warnings.

Personally I think the big problem with safe spaces and trigger warnings at college, is that college is meant to prepare you for dealing with the real world. And in the real world, those things don't exist. Sure, some people come from modern colleges into the realm of private enterprise and want to try and force them to have all the trigger warning / safe space bullshit, but. that. is. bullshit. Private business is a competitive enterprise, by definition. By wrapping students in cotton wool, you fail to prepare them for the real world. And notice that the college students who have the least cotton-wool padding support end up going the furthest in  society.

And trigger warnings will always be bullshit, as long as there's an "approved list" of things you're "allowed" to be upset about. And if something not on the list causes you emotional discomfort, then "fuck you" basically. That attitude shows there's another layer of agenda here. In actuality there are countless things that could upset someone. But "trigger warnings" are only "allowed" to be applied to a small subset of people's things that upset them. I've met quite a few "safe space" types who enjoy being bullies about anything that's not in the "trigger warning approved list". They're not nice people.

Playing devil's advocate but imagine if someone had a bad experience with a same-sex assault and said they were "triggered" by seeing two guys kissing, and can you please not do that in front of me because i'm "triggered" by that and want a "safe space" where I don't have to see it.  Would the "safe space" people respect that? Probably not. They'd probably verbally attack that person and shove gay imagery in their face. The thing is this has almost nothing to do with respecting people's right to not encounter things that upset them, and everything to do with campus advocates expanding a political sphere which pushes the whole (approved) victim's advocacy machinery. And it's very little about actual victims, but about pushing the cultural power of "allies". i.e. usually white, often male, usually cis, college professors and students, who "ally" with all those things despite being none of them.

e.g. I had one friend of a friend who's all "safe spacy" pull "ageist" shit on me, because to them age wasn't a protected category. So they felt it was perfectly fine to bully me about being older than them. This person was full SJW but decided it's ok to be rude and demeaning about things that aren't in the "official SJW black list". I also had a college professors for a postmodernism class I needed to take, and that guy was super-SJW but then he was ridiculing and insulting the subcultures that different people in the class belonged to such as goths, punks, and one girl who was into sports, he demeaned that, too. If someone is up the front taking the piss out of the group identity / lifestyle of a large number of my friends then those are punching words, but mr cis-white middle class college professor thought it was totally ok to take the piss out of working class subcultures because they're not in his precious LGBT/women/non-white "protected" classes. This guy was like the walking stereotype. e.g. would happily abuse christians sitting right in the class, but if you said the same about muslims (who aren't in the class) he'd probably go all holier-than-thou on yer ass.

So. fuck. those. people. Being nice and respectful should be a "whitelist" situation, where you look at each person as an individual and try to accomodate their feelings. It should not be a "blacklist" situation where you can say anything abusive to anyone you want, but just check you're not accidentaly saying it about something on "the list".

[origamiscienceguy]

Well said, Reeyla, but when you said you were playing "devil's advocate" was that just the part about the gay people, or the whole argument?

[Reelya]

That was about the specific example, because it was just showing a hypothetical. someone indeed could be triggered by seeing a gay kiss (say they were abused as a child by someone of the sex), but it would be virtually a taboo for them to bring it up, and they'd most likely be hounded with abuse for bringing it up in an sjw context, with accusations of being homophobic.

It's a good thought experiment because it shows that there might be possible triggers and safe-space stuff that conflicts with each other, due to one person's safe space behaviour being the exact trigger for another person.

[Neonivek]

Safe Spaces and Trigger Warnings are important and vital... But I feel like they are misapplied.

Originally, at least when I saw them first being used, is it typically is used in a clinical healing environment and that the people who are listening to you will not judge you.

Going to a drug meeting and going "Wow, you took drugs off the bathroom floor? Your a loser!" is a huge no-no. Sure criticism has a place but it is unhealthy and unwanted in that environment. It isn't like these are unheard of in other places (You can't say Bomb at the airport), for example my school wouldn't allow advertisers into our highschool under that premise, nor would they tolerate harassment.

Likewise Trigger Warnings were usually polite or just warnings incase someone didn't want to see something. "Warning Cat actually explodes in this video!".

---

Yet I feel like people are taking positive tools meant to help people... and using them as a way of controlling information and criticism.

HOWEVER! just like the "Friend Zone" people are latching onto the incorrect use of it, and trying to turn it into "The use" of it. (Luckily the term "Friend Zone" hasn't died)

[Dalriad]

Honestly if you unironically say you're "triggered" by anything short of actual violence and/or gore, and you haven't been diagnosed with for-realsies PTSD, you're as bad a person as, I don't know... Someone claiming they have cancer just for the patronage.

Part of being an adult is facing situations that make you uncomfortable. Deal with it. And yes, college students are adults.

[misko27]

Hey Escaped Lunatic! Interesting choice for first post. I see you have about a day worth of lurking under your belt, that's, um, interesting...

[Egan_BW]

Welcome to the ameripol thread! There are better places to hang out here.

[Dalriad]

Honestly I picked the top thread to gauge the activity level of these forums. I'm probably not going to be posting in this thread very often, it moves a bit fast for me, but I thought I would throw my .02 in to the 'argument' at hand (although there doesn't seem to be much of one on this subject).

As for the lurking, that time was spent just getting admin approval. vov

Thanks for the forewarning, by the way. I've been on the sidelines of some nasty internet arguments and not many can get nastier than American politics, that's for sure!

[Reelya]

One interesting point is that campus sjw's seem to almost never highlight young-adult suicide rates, which you'd think would be a prime area for advocacy and care.

That's because the demographics on campus suicide ... don't fit the narrative.
http://www.collegedegreesearch.net/student-suicides/