The Ongoing 2020 Election: Maricopa County Recount

[PhaelixWW]

Weird point of contention to take up if you didn’t believe it was in someway valid.

Sorry, did I need a /s there for obvious sarcasm? I guess so.

And VPs don’t so shit under any President, not just Trump.

Except... no.

Biden was a very active VP. So was Cheney, for that matter.

Again. It doesn't matter, because Abrams is not VP, so I'm done with this ridiculous tangent.

EDIT: And just realized it was a cross-tangent from a different thread, too. Yikes.

[cubby]

Point of contention, here.

It should only be 74,224,059 people, if you consider the 260 votes that didn't actually vote for Trump, at least according to the AZ audit.

I stand corrected.

That's hardly a foregone conclusion.

It's not, but the fact that's it's not only remotely possible, but a distinct possibility, if truly terrifying.

[Fugus]

The stress of being held accountable must have been too much for him,

Well, he wasn't really held accountable at that point.

If he defrauded $135,000 and only had to repay $68,000 then he still made $67,000. Many people out here would gladly serve 6 months in prison to walk out with 67k free and clear afterward given what their jobs want to pay and the fact that they don't have any bills while in either.

They should have forced him to pay the full $135,000 along with a 33% fine on top of it. AND going to prison.

[Fugus]

He was in the process and knew what was coming. I don’t want to debate punishments because they’re so fucked up in this country it’s hard to get across. I will say this. For some people even $5000 would be enough to ruin them for years. Let alone having the record going forward.

Yeah, our stuff is really messed up. You steal $1,000, you might get locked up for years, you steal a million you get a slap on the wrist. Reminds me of the stories where you have a drug dealer getting more time than a rapist, child molester or outright murderer.

It's like the punishment isn't about the crime, its about the social status of the ones you are committing that crime against.

- - - Updated - - -

Related, the latest Episode of Last Week Tonight about Voting Rights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN9OdruH_qM

[Elegiac]

That's our legal system in a nutshell. My only issue with BLM has always been that I feel police brutality is less about race and more about class.

Cool, your feelings go against the statistical evidence.

[Fugus]

Cool, your feelings go against the statistical evidence.

Until Trump came along, I actually felt the same way here did. I personally felt that the police weren't targeting them specifically because they were black, they were being targeted because they wanted people who they knew weren't financially capable of fighting the charges. At which point targeting blacks were statistically most likely to be poor. Same as when they went after poor white people who were visibly poor versus when they were around well off white people who were visibly well off. At least outside of places like Alabama and stuff.

But then Trump came along and we got to see just how racist members of the police really were when the masks could come off.

Doubly so after looking at how we are treating the January 6th traitors with kid gloves, if those had been BLM people doing that crap, they would be under the prison if left alive at all.

[Elegiac]

Until Trump came along, I actually felt the same way here did.

That's nice.

Again; it's an opinion that goes against the statistical evidence and is deeply reflective of how normalized white supremacy is in this country.

[Fugus]

That's nice.

Again; it's an opinion that goes against the statistical evidence and is deeply reflective of how normalized white supremacy is in this country.

You are half right.

You are right that it was an opinion, you are incorrect in saying that it went against evidence as it took that evidence of how many are targeted and gave an explanation to that evidence as they were also statistically among the most vulnerable and easily targeted by said officers trying to pad their resumes with people not able to fight back financially through the court systems.

The opinion was proven wrong by the actions since Trump in full public view, but the opinion did take into account the statistical evidence.

[draynay]

There are plenty people who didn't see or didn't want to see, at least they are represented here.

[Fugus]

We saw all that long before Trump came along. You were just wearing blinders and ear muffs.

I wasn't wearing my blinders and ear muffs, I just didn't live in the middle of Tennessee or anything like that and my times I have had to deal with the police before were as a poor man and they targeted me as well.

Had police lie to give me tickets for stuff I haven't done, couldn't change a flat tire without a police officer pulling up behind me and circling my car hoping to find drugs, but I called the cops because someone tried to break into a house and the police wouldn't get 5 feet from their cars to look at the damage let alone the crowbar they dropped trying to pry the door open, or when I tried to call the cops because of someone stealing something for the police to tell me that unless it was worth over $1,000 it wasn't even worth it to assign it to an officer even though I had the guys name, phone number, with witnesses and on camera.

I figured I was getting treated like that for the same reason they were, because I was visibly poor and an easy mark but they stopped the moment the target looked difficult for them.

[Fugus]

It wasn’t exactly a secret. You were just narrowly looking at the issue instead of the massive wealthy of evidence. Hence wearing blinders. People were calling it out for decades, but you didn’t listen. Hence ear muffs.

Blinders and ear muffs implies that I was trying to avoid looking at it, I was not. I was looking at the situation around me and trying to put it into context and I wasn't being treated any better than them with my white ass locally.

I personally WAS looking, just not outside of the local stuff and the overall statistics actually could be explained by the observation I had made.

The observation I made that they were targeting blacks not because of their color specifically but more their inability to afford a legal fight very well also fit the overall statistics I looked at outside of the obvious places like Alabama and stuff like that. I never had any illusions that the KKK wasn't alive and kicking there. I just didn't see it nationally until Trump at which point they dropped their masks even in places where that stuff isn't seen as acceptable.

[Fugus]

No, it implies the information was readily available but you weren’t seeing or hearing it.

I guess.

I was looking at the statistics on how blacks where being targeted at disproportionate rates to whites and all, I just saw it as them targeting people they thought were too poor to fight back overall. Was still a screwed up condemnation of the police and how they were being used as a profit center and fit into the fact how the social mobility in this nation died a long time ago leaving them stranded at the bottom.

My conclusion was just based on the numbers and arrest rates combined with the financial situations and the profit motives many police have and drew it all based on that.

I saw the stuff about shit going on in Texas and other overtly racist areas, just didn't see it so much locally or hear about it much outside of those places. But this is North Carolina, so a good chance you HAVE to go out of your way to get the information many times.

Oh well, either way, what Trump revealed blew that out of the water. Why I have told a few of my friends who were surprised, "Trump didn't change the Republican party, he revealed it for what it really was".

[Edge-]

I never said it wasn't about race at all, just that I feel class is more of a determining factor in the treatment of citizens by the legal system. Perhaps I should not have specified "brutality" as that seems to be what set you off on your little passive-aggressive comment. I cheerfully withdraw "brutality" and substitute "legal system".

Oh boy, is this where we stop to talk about the historical ties between race and class that have been systematically put in place for generations? Or point out that a focus on class like this ignores the makeup of said class, where people in poverty are disproportionately more likely to be people of color?

Not to criticize you specifically or anything, but there's been a lot more focus on "class" as an abstract as if it's not connected to anything else in recent years. And while I like the move towards a bit more class consciousness and all, I hate that it's being done in a way that's less than truthful to newer folks.

[Elegiac]

I never said it wasn't about race at all, just that I feel class is more of a determining factor in the treatment of citizens by the legal system.

Which, again, is not reflected by the statistical evidence. No one cares what "you feel" if you can't substantiate it.

[Elegiac]

I've not seen your statistical evidence that shows race is a greater factor in legal outcomes than class

You are welcome to go and visit the police brutality thread, then.

[Shadowferal]

Hmf...he's on the good side of the argument. How he got there...well, at least he's not on the "other" side.

[Elegiac]

First, that's not what you said in the post of yours that I quoted.

Second, provide the evidence that race is a greater factor than class in legal outcomes if you have it. I'm willing to be corrected, if wrong, but so far all anyone is doing is trying to earn snarky internet asshole points rather than carry on a conversation or try to convince someone of a what you believe to be an error.

Could also be because of the fact that this is not the thread to be discussing police brutality. Zzz.

[Endus]

I never said it wasn't about race at all, just that I feel class is more of a determining factor in the treatment of citizens by the legal system. Perhaps I should not have specified "brutality" as that seems to be what set you off on your little passive-aggressive comment. I cheerfully withdraw "brutality" and substitute "legal system".

The root issue here is that it's impossible to separate race and class in the USA. The class divides have been deliberately crafted along racial lines, for centuries. And attacks on the lower classes have long been used by racists to try and conceal their true motives. I don't really see any point in trying to separate the two, unless you're trying to play defense for racism somehow.

That's kind of the point of intersectionality, as a body of theory. A poor black citizen is not directly comparable to a poor white citizen, because of inherent prejudices and discriminations and legacies and so on that affect each differently. Ignoring that isn't helpful, and is arguably itself an expression of prejudice.

[Fugus]

Yeah, you were turning a blind eye. I’m not trying to shame you, but you were making assumptions in the face of a mountain of contradictory data. I’m glad Trump woke you up. If only it hadn’t made an entire other segment sink deeper into that shit.

No, I was not turning a blind eye, I was using the evidence I had on hand. I had the statistics on their targeting of minorities, I had the stuff on how they were statistically more likely to be poor of no fault of their own and I had what I had seen personally where they would target poor white people here just as they did the minorities so long as they knew they were poor.

I didn't turn a blind eye to the places that we KNOW are racist in their stuff just like I didn't turn a blind eye to how the GOP has been trying to keep them from voting. The part I didn't realize until Trump brought it out was just how many actual racists were among the ranks.

I take no shame in my views as I wasn't turning a blind eye, I just drew the wrong potential conclusion with the evidence I had at the time.

But I wasn't turning a blind eye to anything. Turning a blind eye actually means you are taking the time to not notice stuff which I was not. Otherwise I would have been avoiding the stats that said they were targeted more or how overtly racist they are in a few places around the nation.

But believe what you want, you can claim I turned a blind eye, but you would be wrong.

What mountain of contradictory evidence was I ignoring?

The evidence saying they were targeted more? Nope, I took them into account. Targets who can't fight back make for good ways to pad cops resumes.

Stop and Frisk? Nope, took that into account to, racist politicians along with cops who target people they know can't fight back. Good way for cops to pad resumes.

Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia? Nope, I agreed they were racist places, calling them racist is like calling water wet. Wasn't talking about them when I was mentioning this stuff. Was mentioning like where I live where being poor got my white butt targeted multiple times as a high school graduate who didn't drink, smoke or do any drugs with zero criminal record, but I was poor. The cops here were equal opportunity when it came to targeting poor people when I was in my teenage and early adult years.

I figured there were maybe a few in their ranks just by the shear law of averages but overall, I didn't think so many would be outside of the obvious places, but I was wrong. But it wasn't because I turned a blind eye to anything.

[Santti]

I see you are also uninterested in productive conversation, in favor of insults. Have fun with that.

There is awfully little conversation to be had. It's been talked to death, and the way you mentioned BLM, just seems dishonest. You might not have meant it, but it just doesn't look good. Smells like Blue/White Lives Matter garbage.