By ending the PC madness, do you mean causing a new wave of bigotry madness? One extreme does not cancel out the other. I guess politics doesn't see it that way though.
We do have a right to offend.
It's an accepted, dare I say integral, part of freedom of speech.
It's probably why abortion, gay marriage, and other formerly "frowned-upon" social issues are legal now. Because, even though the society at large may have considered them wrong in many ways, they weren't legally allowed to silence those who voiced those opinions.
I lost a relatively long response I don't feel like retyping up. Here's a summary of what I wrote I can expand on if needed.
1. Yes. I agree its similar.
2. I actually don't like Clinton much and have hunted for reasons not to vote for her. I have a long list of things I dislike. Some of these things make me wander if the Democratic party would be better served by losing this race and Hillary not being allowed to run the party. But, that voice is tempered by the next point.
3. When I go down the list and try to objectively analyze each claim I find I don't like either person; but there's on the whole a greater sum of substantiated illegal, unethical and immoral behavior from Trump. Trump on the face of it all feels like a greater threat to our democracy based on the values that I hold and the wrongs I'm sure he's committed (which do not include the allegations of rape).
4. Innocent until proven guilty is only a mandate for the way our justice system should work. It is not something we require citizens to live by, though there are cases where certain types of discrimination which we say is ok for not working with felons is not ok for people you perceive as being guilty of a felony.
5. This doesn't ultimately get down to the fact that both I and people of the right have constructed a circumstantial and unproven case against our opponents and we're willing to vote based on that perceived construction. But, since I'm asked to vote, and I feel I've done my due-diligence in researching both candidates full sum of positions, strengths, and faults I am ultimately allowed to vote for whatever reasons I want to, and so is everyone else.
6. Raping Children is definitely awful and I can't convince myself that Donald Trump hasn't done it. I couldn't say that if I was on a jury right now that I could say he did it and needed to go to jail with my current set of data. But, I can withhold any vote I would potentially cast for him due to this and feel justified in that decision. It's not at odds with my world view. And I'd argue, it's not at odds with the American system.
7. Conservatives can and do use this logic when they chose not to vote for Clinton. But I think there's a mountain of evidence that they aren't apply the same sort of logic to Trump. And I think I have been willing to apply the standards I'm holding Trump to to the Clintons.
8. The big unresolved question mark that people have brought up to my response to this historically is whether Bill is guilty of some of the same types of behavior and whether that should disqualify Hillary in some manner. It's possible. I don't deny it. But, there's a part of me that thinks that's on Bill and not on Hillary. I think Hillary should have dumped his butt in the 90s, but she didn't. I'm not convinced that voting for her is voting for him, but I can see how others make that leap when she says things like "I'm going to put Bill to work on fixing the economy". She clearly thinks he'll be an active part of her administration. But, while I think it may be that Bill has violated many of the things I think Trump has violated, he's not the one running for office and my choice is between Hillary & Trump. Bill is part of that calculation, but he's not on the ballot.
9. I really am in many ways voting for the lesser of 2 evils. But I voted for Sanders in the Primary and I didn't vote for the lesser of 2 evils when I voted for Obama. If I'd been given a viable candidate (Jill Stein is not this and neither are the libertarian or conservative 3rd party candidates) I would not be voting for Clinton. I don't feel like I'm being a hypocrite here, but I have been accused of it.
There appears to be a caching issue; I've got 9 points in my edit, but only 6 display. If you're quoting this you may find I've said more than you've read.
I don't think it was necessary for you to justify why you feel so.
I wanted to address this largely because I am of the opinion that there can be no objective-minded individual, and actually believe that the very phrase can be an oxymoron!
(I am fully aware that this post doesn't address anything you wrote above =D )
Y'know, for those of us talking about whether or not the Republican party is finished, we should bear in mind that we're talking about this in a post-Ronald Reagan world. Ronald Reagan being the guy that won with the highest electoral college total ever after having won every state except Minnesota. You will notice the Democrats are still around.
So yeah, I think to speculate the Republican party is finished is a little premature to say the least. Clinton won't win by a landslide victory, even if she won every battleground state.
Right, but the Democratic Party didn't have a series of primaries and other events showing a great divide between the actual party elites and those that said elites thought were a big part of their base during that election either.
And neither did you have the Democratic Presidential nominee proclaim to his die-hard loyalists that, if he lost, then it would be the fault of the elites and the DNC itself for not supporting him hard enough.
All of this is circumstantial. On every point you can draw the line and say this isn't proof. But, it points in a direction all the same, one which says the argument that he did this is not outside of his potential nature. And that speculation is warranted, but that perhaps it's not true. It'd be a pretty easy avenue to "swift-boat" him on, but for all we know it's like Cosby and he really is just horrible underneath it all.
This is similar to the rationale that leads many conservatives to detest Bill and Hillary Clinton.
It's not just the e-mails. Its the stuff that they've been accused of for close to 30 years.
Innocent until proven guilty IS innocent until proven guilty.
The thing is, bias doesn't even mean that you're being dishonest or intend to deceive people or such.
It could simply be that the person who chooses what goes on the news decides what goes on the news, and so what that person considers important ultimately dominates said news.
People nowadays are starting to make a big deal about things like unintentional racism or prejudice and such, or at least what they perceive to be unintentional racism and prejudice and such.
I think there's no particular reason why this cannot apply to the situation in the OP as well, in that one either unintentionally shows a liberal bias to the world, or at least acts in a manner such that people think you are.
And, honestly, this kind of concept can apply to a lot of things.
See my above response. You don't have to accept their identity, and you don't have to use their pronouns: You just can't misgender them. If you wish, debate with them, or use no pronouns at all. The right to 'live by your opinions' is not universal; a radical religious terrorist may believe that acts of terror are right, but if they commit them they are justly punished by law.
This seems contradictory.
How am I suppose to "not misgender" someone while simutaneously not using the pronoun of their choice?
It depends on what you mean by 'slightly disparaging'- those aren't exactly the clearest words. My point is that word is far from being considered always offensive by everybody. It's not exactly an inherently racist remark, it just has a very strong association with racism- people do use it differently.
No.
At this point the word is effectively a death sentence to your character if you using it gets out to social media.
What exactly are you afraid they'll do? Make you use a really long annoying word to refer to them? This isn't just a word; it's their identity, and any person has the right to decide their own identity. Saying someone can't choose pronouns isn't far off from saying they can't trust themselves to determine their identity.
For the sake of the argument, let's assume that people do have the right to decide their own identity (For the record, I am ambivalent on this).
Now, why does this mean that anyone else has to accept whatever identity that person chose?
Counting the number of Red states on one column versus the number of Blue states in the other is meaningless. You are comparing states like Wyoming and Kentucky to California and Delaware. About the most important state consistently leaning Right is Texas, and even there, it is mostly because of rural conservatism overshadowing what centers of prosperity there are in the state.
You want to learn a skill to be profitable in the economy, and the learning of that skill will incline you away from a long list of backward ideas. Same thing with the court systems, and other important institutions. Every one of them that is critical leans left.
I should point out that Brock Turner did not get off scot-free. He was forced to register as a sexual offender for life. You can make the argument that is far worse than serving only a few months in jail. Being a registered sex offender is society's equivalent of a scarlet letter and completely ruins your life in so many ways imaginable.
At this point, I don't even understand the purpose behind our system of punishment.
Is it meant to deliver justice for the victims by punishing the criminal? Is it meant to be rehabilitation?
The Democrats have presented themselves nationally as the party of inclusiveness, and virtually all elements of their policies converge on this.
Since their positions are all connected under a single umbrella, it's fairly easy to present a unified front.
The Republicans are not unified. It's hard to unify when your party is increasingly nothing more than conservatism towards everything under the sun.
Here's the thing though- social liberals have to understand that, as far as state politics are concerned, the Republicans tend to win. It's fairly easy to lose sight of this, what with social media and the fact that the random media you see on aggregate sites these days seem to do nothing but endorse some form of social liberalism, but the fact of the matter is-
Except that it entirely sends a message that "you are allowed to take control of government buildings, threaten the entire US government, advise others in treason, all with the threats of violence and a variety of firearms, and that is totally okay."
This wasn't a peaceful protest. This was an extremely dangerous armed militia group seizing a building by force. And they just got off with absolutely zero consequences.
Zero consequences?
Zero consequences would have been if they were never even charged with a crime to begin with.
They were charged with several crimes. They (I presume) were judged by impartial jurors who took all available evidence and determined that they weren't guilty of said charges.
Unless evidence shows up that-
1- The jurors were not impartial.
2- The defense did something illegal and so skewed the trial in their favor.
then this is the best you can do.
You can't go about saying the system needs to change just because it doesn't do things in your favor.
That's the sort of ***** that Trump claims he wants to do.
Do away with the first-past-the-post system in favor of proportional delegate winnings, make it easier for third parties to get federal funding and onto debate platforms, move to a more uniform paper ballot system, give out free voter ids to all citizens and require them for voting. That would be a tremendous start.
What do you hope to accomplish with these? What do you think will happen?
We do have a right to offend.
It's an accepted, dare I say integral, part of freedom of speech.
It's probably why abortion, gay marriage, and other formerly "frowned-upon" social issues are legal now. Because, even though the society at large may have considered them wrong in many ways, they weren't legally allowed to silence those who voiced those opinions.
I don't think it was necessary for you to justify why you feel so.
I wanted to address this largely because I am of the opinion that there can be no objective-minded individual, and actually believe that the very phrase can be an oxymoron!
(I am fully aware that this post doesn't address anything you wrote above =D )
Right, but the Democratic Party didn't have a series of primaries and other events showing a great divide between the actual party elites and those that said elites thought were a big part of their base during that election either.
And neither did you have the Democratic Presidential nominee proclaim to his die-hard loyalists that, if he lost, then it would be the fault of the elites and the DNC itself for not supporting him hard enough.
This doesn't seem like a very helpful definition.
The first thought that came into my mind when I read this is "relative to whose behavior or thinking?"
If we define it relative to the average human being, then we can potentially get into really murky waters, socially speaking.
This is similar to the rationale that leads many conservatives to detest Bill and Hillary Clinton.
It's not just the e-mails. Its the stuff that they've been accused of for close to 30 years.
Innocent until proven guilty IS innocent until proven guilty.
It could simply be that the person who chooses what goes on the news decides what goes on the news, and so what that person considers important ultimately dominates said news.
People nowadays are starting to make a big deal about things like unintentional racism or prejudice and such, or at least what they perceive to be unintentional racism and prejudice and such.
I think there's no particular reason why this cannot apply to the situation in the OP as well, in that one either unintentionally shows a liberal bias to the world, or at least acts in a manner such that people think you are.
And, honestly, this kind of concept can apply to a lot of things.
This seems contradictory.
How am I suppose to "not misgender" someone while simutaneously not using the pronoun of their choice?
No.
At this point the word is effectively a death sentence to your character if you using it gets out to social media.
For the sake of the argument, let's assume that people do have the right to decide their own identity (For the record, I am ambivalent on this).
Now, why does this mean that anyone else has to accept whatever identity that person chose?
You elitist bastard.
At this point, I don't even understand the purpose behind our system of punishment.
Is it meant to deliver justice for the victims by punishing the criminal? Is it meant to be rehabilitation?
Since their positions are all connected under a single umbrella, it's fairly easy to present a unified front.
The Republicans are not unified. It's hard to unify when your party is increasingly nothing more than conservatism towards everything under the sun.
Here's the thing though- social liberals have to understand that, as far as state politics are concerned, the Republicans tend to win. It's fairly easy to lose sight of this, what with social media and the fact that the random media you see on aggregate sites these days seem to do nothing but endorse some form of social liberalism, but the fact of the matter is-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_governors
As far as the sentiment in the OP is concerned-
I'm sure there are plenty of people who express the same opinion as you, except the opposite as far as the positions are concerned.
I say this because I think that means some important things.
Zero consequences?
Zero consequences would have been if they were never even charged with a crime to begin with.
They were charged with several crimes. They (I presume) were judged by impartial jurors who took all available evidence and determined that they weren't guilty of said charges.
Unless evidence shows up that-
1- The jurors were not impartial.
2- The defense did something illegal and so skewed the trial in their favor.
then this is the best you can do.
You can't go about saying the system needs to change just because it doesn't do things in your favor.
That's the sort of ***** that Trump claims he wants to do.
Don't be like Trump.
Please go vote for Clinton if you don't want to see Trump win.
What do you hope to accomplish with these? What do you think will happen?