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[scriver]

Except the solution with your popular metaphor would again be to target everyone who is that much behind. If a demography is disproportionally overrepresented within those who are behind, they disproportionally benefit from that too. A demographic having had a generally "worse start" historically does not make individuals of it less behind than other individuals who are equally behind now. Why would anyone be okay with leaving people behind because they are a statistically smaller percentage of their demographic?

This kind of thinking is inherently anti-socialist.

[Rolan7]

Yeah, good point. The only long term solution to generational inequality is to eliminate generational wealth, and I supported that long before I had any real understanding of socialism. It's obviously arbitrary and harmful. There just seem to be these powerful vested systems in place to perpetuate it.

Trying to "rehabilitate" impoverished families into productive wage-slaves is pretty liberal. I guess I still support it for now, with the caveat that it's damage mitigation, because working to somewhat reverse racist policies is one of the least unethical policies under capitalism.

[Doomblade187]

The issue with institutimg a "race-blind" assistance program in whatever field is that minorities get denied a lot from federal programs, for a wide variety of things. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/business/paycheck-protection-program-bias.html) To truly address discrimination, you need to make it impossible to turn help away from victims of discrimination. This means NO MEANS TESTING, among other things.

[McTraveller]

I don't think I understand the bit about no means testing.

I mean, if your family has a combined income of $50k or more a year per working adult, I don't think you really should be getting the same kind of assistance as those with income of say $10k a year per working adult.

Or are you talking about not being able to deny loans if income is too low?

If you mean that assistance needs to scale linearly with income and not have benefit cliffs then yes I'm all for that.  I think it also needs to go both ways - I think companies need to pay benefits regardless of number of hours worked per week; the abuses that come from "part time" classification would be a great start.  But that wasn't in the health-care reform legislation, was it?

[KittyTac]

Yeah what scriver said. I'm not saying not to help disadvantaged black people (I am a democratic socialist, would be weird if I did). I'm saying to specifically find black people and white people who are in dire straits and help them. Of course a lot of that will be black people but at least you're not basing it racially.

[Frumple]

Yeah, that'd probably be ideal if there weren't problems with who's doing the distribution and whatnot, regularly leading to significantly unbalanced assistance. If.

Unfortunately, we've kinda' found repeatedly if we actually try that without specifying unusually disadvantaged demographics get help, somehow just somehow they're going to be missing out to ~inexplicable~* degrees.

* (*narrator voice* the explanation is bigotry)

[KittyTac]

Yeah, that'd probably be ideal if there weren't problems with who's doing the distribution and whatnot, regularly leading to significantly unbalanced assistance. If.

Unfortunately, we've kinda' found repeatedly if we actually try that without specifying unusually disadvantaged demographics get help, somehow just somehow they're going to be missing out to ~inexplicable~* degrees.

* (*narrator voice* the explanation is bigotry)

Then deal with bigotry. Doing otherwise is in the end a band-aid.

[MrRoboto75]

I remember the Civil War narrative swapping to "states' rights" when I hit high school history.

[Doomblade187]

I don't think I understand the bit about no means testing.

I mean, if your family has a combined income of $50k or more a year per working adult, I don't think you really should be getting the same kind of assistance as those with income of say $10k a year per working adult.

Or are you talking about not being able to deny loans if income is too low?

If you mean that assistance needs to scale linearly with income and not have benefit cliffs then yes I'm all for that.  I think it also needs to go both ways - I think companies need to pay benefits regardless of number of hours worked per week; the abuses that come from "part time" classification would be a great start.  But that wasn't in the health-care reform legislation, was it?

Means testing is what causes benefit cliffs, largely speaking. There is no real harm to society for giving someone who makes 6 figures EBT cards, so long as the program is properly funded. Incidentally, there a lot fewer people who make 6 figures than those who don't. And you save money by not having to actually means test, which takes staff and such.

[KittyTac]

May I introduce aid for the socially disadvantaged to deal with bigotry?

Sure if it was just them who had problems.

Farmers in general are lowkey fucked so I'd say the bill doesn't cover enough.

[dragdeler]

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[Iduno]

May I introduce aid for the socially disadvantaged to deal with bigotry?

Sure if it was just them who had problems.

Farmers in general are lowkey fucked so I'd say the bill doesn't cover enough.

I keep hearing that, and I've yet to meet a farmer who didn't have over a million dollars in assets, or who had to pay taxes (you aren't a person, you're a business. Everything you buy is a business loss). You can't buy stuff directly with assets, but it's a lot better than having no money or assets like most of us.

[dragdeler]

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[ChairmanPoo]

I remember the Civil War narrative swapping to "states' rights" when I hit high school history.

I wasnt too familiar with the American Civil War and I heard it thrown around.

Then I did some reading out of curiosity and found that it was outrageously  99.9% about slavery and *not* about states' rights. As it turns out the South was kind of against states rights (because it included the right to harbor runaway slaves) until they got worried about the federal goverment abolishing slavery. Its so obvious and so glaring that I dont get how conservative managed to distort the narrative.

[dragdeler]

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