David Rubin on why todays progressivism has become a faux moral movement

[Theodarzna]

That becomes painfully obvious when a group gets togeather, declares itself to be Anarcho-Communists, but mostly consists of upper class college students who beat up on working class people.

[JohnBrown1917]

Bzzzzzz. Where are we all meeting tonight? Bzzzzz.

At the Illuminati HQ of the lizard people.

[Alteiry]

Liberalism has never been a leftist ideology. No ideology that supports the slavery of capitalism can in any way be described as left.

And David Rubin is a classical liberal aka a conservative who doesn't believe the state should tell people what to smoke, who to fuck and whether or not women should be able to abort.

[JohnBrown1917]

No it points to a wider problem with the electoral system. When democrats get more votes but lose all three branches, it tells you the system is broken. Thankfully one part of that broken system should disappear soon - gerrymandering - after SCOTUS rules against it.

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Half of it is due to gerrymandering the other half is due to small states having too much political power relative to their population.

Even with judges like Gorsuch on it?

[Belize]

Bzzzzzz. Where are we all meeting tonight? Bzzzzz.

I would say the local town hall, but that's being used up by the Right's "Religious Guns to stop Women's and Minority's Rights" weekly meeting so... The local park I guess?

[KrazyK923]

That's a great theory, except the part where the right controls the house and senate as well. Is that because of Hillary too or a wider problem within the democratic party?

I was talking about why the Presidential candidate who won, did.

You do realize that its incredibly common, after a party holds the white house for one or two terms, that the opposing party often gains control of the Senate and/or House next time, right? And Democrats picked up 2 Senate seats? That the Republicans held the house since 2014, right? And Democrats gained a net 6 seats during the 2016 election, right? Even with the common practice, the Republicans held control of both houses and lost seats in each one.

Did you actually pay attention during the election?

And that isn't even including the insane gerrymandering that has happened in the two censuses.

Democrats gained a net 6 House seats and 2 Senate seats and their candidate for President won almost 3 million more votes than the "winner." I find it funny Republicans/conservatives/alt-rightwhateverthefuck pretend there was some huge blowout for the Republicans in 2016. As usual, Republicans are better at manipulating our dumbass broken system to pull out a victory when there shouldn't have been one by any stretch of basic logic and reasoning. And Trump is torpedoing their party in popularity and its barely been 100 days.

[HumbleDuck]

Prager and strawmans go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Pretty much this.
And sadly these types of arguments are not exclusive to one side.

[Kraenen]

Pretty much this.
And sadly these types of arguments are not exclusive to one side.

indeed so sad.


wait why are you shedding tears over this?

[HumbleDuck]

indeed so sad.


wait why are you shedding tears over this?

Would you care to elaborate?

[nyc81991]

All of this grouping people in to hard categories like "Progressive" needs to stop. The world isn't that black and white. Not everyone thinks the same and can be grouped like that.

[Aphrel]

He lost me at his examples of religious freedom. Why should religious people have the right to discriminate against people based on their sexuality? And his examples, baking a fucking cake?

Lets pick a more serious situation, what about hospitals? Should an ambulance driver have the right to refuse to pick up a wounded person based on that persons sexuality aswell?
What about a firefighter not wanting to put out the fire of a house where two women live together?


But then it gets even worse, oh those poor fucking nuns who work at pharmacys or hospitals who has to help the women who wants an abortion. Does he realize how fucking hard it is for women to get an abortion in some states? Its not as if they can just go to another place across the fucking street and get it done during a lunchbreak and be back at work after.

[alexw]

Even with judges like Gorsuch on it?

Yes. The swing voter is Justice Kennedy, and that won't change with Gorsuch. The last time a case came up on gerrymandering he ruled that it was likely unconstitutional, but that he could not agree to make it illegal unless there was some measurable standard by which to determine if a state has been gerrymandered. Some clever professor has created such a standard and a gerrymandering case is now heading back to SCOTUS based on that standard. Its very likely the republican gerrymander under trial will be struck down 5v4, and that will then inform all the lower courts to strike down all the other gerrymanders. If that happens the current large republican advantage would be almost completely wiped out, it would go from 241 Republican v 194 Democrat to something like 221 Republican v 214 Democrat.

[Kraenen]

Would you care to elaborate?

ikd man are you really sad about this shit?


where's @thebigzoman when I'm drunk and feel lik having a good time?

[I Push Buttons]

No it points to a wider problem with the electoral system. When democrats get more votes but lose all three branches, it tells you the system is broken. Thankfully one part of that broken system should disappear soon - gerrymandering - after SCOTUS rules against it.

Gerrymandering may go away some day, but that won't prevent people from being disenfranchised. Even the most bipartisan and neutral committees drawing districts still can't be entirely accurate and there would still be districts that are predominantly conservative or liberal. And where that happens the minority side will have no voice in non-national/non-statewide elections. Democrats in the middle of a hard red district will never get a representative in congress, they may as well not vote in local elections and for congress; vice versa for Republicans in the middle of a city.

What we need to do is get rid of districts all together... They serve almost no purpose anymore... Congressmen don't represent their districts, 99% of the time they aren't even from that district, their party just plucked them from somewhere else and ran them in that race. I bet if you go up to any given person on the street and ask them, they wouldn't even know what district they are in or who their representative in congress is. Hell many don't even know who their senators are...

Short of lobbying to keep military bases in their district so they can get elected again and occasional pork barrel bucks (which the local governments could get themselves with or without the congressman via grants and such), congressmen do nothing for a district. A lot of the time they even hurt the district... GOP districts where large portions of the people are on some form of welfare, for example (aka the entirety of the south)... They elect Republicans to congress who then go and vote against those measures.

---
We need statewide slates. Ohio for example... We get 16 congressional seats which are currently 75/25 in favor of Republicans, despite statewide/national elections being 50/50 most of the time, due to rampant gerrymandering; the most recent election being an exception. By slates I just mean the parties put forward a slate of candidates for those 16 seats and people vote state wide for the party of their choice. At the end say its 50 Republican, 43 Democrat, 7 Libertarian or something like that... Republicans would send 8 of their 16, Democrats would send 7 of their 16, and Libertarians would send 1 of their 16 as Ohio's congressional delegation, for example.

Districts made sense for all of five minutes right at the beginning of the country. Before there were parties and the people of any given district were actually represented at the national level by a representative from their district with their district's interest in mind. With parties, two dominant coalitions, they are irrelevant and serve only to be rigged like they are and to exclude additional parties, like they do. They accomplish nothing else.

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He lost me at his examples of religious freedom. Why should religious people have the right to discriminate against people based on their sexuality? And his examples, baking a fucking cake?

Lets pick a more serious situation, what about hospitals? Should an ambulance driver have the right to refuse to pick up a wounded person based on that persons sexuality aswell?
What about a firefighter not wanting to put out the fire of a house where two women live together?


But then it gets even worse, oh those poor fucking nuns who work at pharmacys or hospitals who has to help the women who wants an abortion. Does he realize how fucking hard it is for women to get an abortion in some states? Its not as if they can just go to another place across the fucking street and get it done during a lunchbreak and be back at work after.

Do the ambulance driver and firefighter have to foster a gay marriage?

[Viconia]

I'll have to watch the video later, but... Prager is a bad medium for your message. They sometimes have a point and their ability to present stuff is exceptional, but often their stuff is sheer propaganda, which always leaves a stain that affects even the times they are legit. People at large like to judge things rather by who says than by what is said, which is of course bullshit, but something we have to deal with in current times.

[purebalance]

Prager and strawmans go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Where is the strawman in this. I'd love to hear it since 90% of mmoc posters don't know what a strawman is and I didn't notice one in the video.

[Dezerte]

Where is the strawman in this. I'd love to hear it since 90% of mmoc posters don't know what a strawman is and I didn't notice one in the video.

The strawman is him attributing various things to the political left, misrepresenting them to some extent, defeating the strawman argument he constructed leading up to him abandoning "the left".

[Edge-]

The strawman is him attributing various things to the political left, misrepresenting them to some extent, defeating the strawman argument he constructed leading up to him abandoning "the left".

I really want to know when the definition of "progressive" became a Beatrice Hall quote. Did progressives get together last weekend and decide that shit and I didn't get the invite or something?

[Nekosom]

Ugh... Here's the thing: It's possible to be on the Left and be an asshole. It's possible to be on the Right and be an asshole. It's possible to be on the Left and be cool. It's possible to be on the Right and be cool.

The reality is that the Left and Right and increasingly defined by the vocal fringe and the far end of the spectrum. The Left isn't about hating Christians and trying to convey white shame. The Right isn't about racism and homephobia wrapped in the umbrella of 'family values'. Elements of these sides are doing this. Saying that the Left is no longer progressive and is a faux moral movement is wrong. A group of assholes that identify as the Left might be, but that is far from the actual majority.

Now see, here is my problem with that line of thinking. Yes, absolutely, there are extremists on both sides. However, only the extreme right actually holds real political power in this country. That's why the backlash against "SJWs" is so overblown. Their political power is so little that they can only resort to bullying on college campuses. They don't matter, and they know it. Other than the occasional lip service, Democrats ignore them. Yet they are treated by many on the right like they control everything.

Then you look at the right in its many forms. Extremists practically control the Republican party. Donald Trump, the champion of the "Alt-right," couldn't pass an Obamacare replacement because IT WASN'T CONSERVATIVE ENOUGH. That's right, the far right politician is being stumped by people even further to the right than him. And the right has the gall to complain about feeling disenfranchised? That's a complete joke.

I fucking hate so-called "SJWs." I hate what they've done to the Progressive movement, I hate their bullying, and I hate that they promote intolerance. Hell, I hate that I even have to use the term "Social Justice Warrior" as an epithet, when fighting for social justice should be considered a laudable trait. But at the end day, all they've ever accomplished is making other liberals look bad. They've never had an ounce of success politically on a national level. They're more our problem then they are that of the right. And I am sick and tired of them being used as an excuse for why people consider the left and the right in this country "the same."

[fluffhead]

That becomes painfully obvious when a group gets togeather, declares itself to be Anarcho-Communists, but mostly consists of upper class college students who beat up on working class people.

[IMG]http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/220/560/5a6.jpg[IMG]

[Infracted]