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That "white = bad/evil" mindset hold back the black community a lot. There's that very toxic culture that those who work hard in their studies and are good at school are just "playing the white game". So to be accepted, the guy just give up school or dumb himself down, ruining his future.

Funny that those who refuse to buy into this and work despite being rejected by their peers actually succeed in society.

This next segment illustrate this perfectly. But I'm sure some people will still do mental gymnastics to justify that woman's insane racist beliefs.

ShadowKatt wrote:The whole thing is **** stupid.

The whole thing? You seem to be taking it very personally. Since this is displayed in a museum, is that not the correct place to put things to be studied within an appropriate context?

Anyway no need to labour the point. It is what it is and none of us think it's all that great. I say it has a few good points to make in asking people to re-evaluate but other points it gets wrong or are self-contradictory.

I am reminded of a book I once read which tried to define Englishness, as opposed to Britishness (which includes the Scots and Welsh who have fairly strong self-identities). It concluded that seperating English identity from a wider British one was quite difficult and the auther was unable to form any strong conclusions. Lumping people together into homogeneous groups with clearly defined characteristics is very tricky and often you find contradictory traits.

Sometimes what matters more are shared experiences that allow people who have not met before to have something in common. Steering wildly back on topic, regardless what you think of their methods or motivations, these BLM protests are a major shared experience going on right now, one that everyone is experiencing regardless of which side they're on.

Right now the BLM "protests" are just RIOTS made by anarchists and criminals. The "cause" no longer have the support of the average Joe.

There's also some place where they are doing a literal PROTECTION RACKET towards local businesses.




No matter how the cause was noble at the start and how much support it had from the public at the beginning, the BLM movement is no longer about police brutality. It's been either exposed as, or being hijacked by Marxists, criminals, and anarchists.

The original message is now lost among all that violence.

So you (and 30 mins of YouTube) say.

I say they're all lovely and handing out kittens and puppies to everyone. That's not true but nor is your statement of them all being criminals.

Alternative view: increasing police brutality to make protests against police brutality go away is a poor tactic.

High Command wrote:Alternative view: increasing police brutality to make protests against police brutality go away is a poor tactic.

Agreed. However, this mess has stopped being a protest a long time ago. I understand a large part of the protesters are peaceful, but a seemingly equally large part are not. If the peaceful protesters want their voices heard and not be smeared by these thugs, vandals and murderers, they need to separate themselves from those people. If they see them amongst them while marching, kick them out, push them out, get away from them, so the police, who have the duty to respond to public disturbances, can tell the difference.

Rodimus Prime wrote:However, this mess has stopped being a protest a long time ago. I understand a large part of the protesters are peaceful, but a seemingly equally large part are not.

That "seemingly equally large" line is doing more work than you think it is, and shows this comment says a lot more about you than the protestors.

AcademyofDrX wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:However, this mess has stopped being a protest a long time ago. I understand a large part of the protesters are peaceful, but a seemingly equally large part are not.

That "seemingly equally large" line is doing more work than you think it is, and shows this comment says a lot more about you than the protestors.

I'm not interested in what anyone thinks about me. I made a statement and you didn't (couldn't?) refute it so you attempted a deliberately vague personal insult.

What percentage of protests include destruction of property? How many protesters participate in that? What are your sources for following the protests? If you don't think those questions are relevant, then you've made up your mind.

I do think they're relevant. The answers determine the true effects of the protests. However, they're not relevant to the previous statement I made, because regardless of whether the percentage is 2, 20 or 100, as long as peaceful protesters tolerate the violent punks and thugs among them, their message will be tainted.

So your rhetoric says protests are almost always violent, which isn't true, but anyway that doesn't matter because any amount of violence undermines the cause. To meet your standard, Black Lives Matter protests should also be All Property Matters protests, and civilians need to be responsible for deescalation and controlling property damage even as police show themselves incapable of the same. Sorry, I believe Black Lives Matter is the more important cause, and you're not persuadable until you question your values.

AcademyofDrX wrote:So your rhetoric says protests are almost always violent,

Can you please highlight where in my statements I said that? Because I'm certain I did not.

which isn't true, but anyway that doesn't matter because any amount of violence undermines the cause.

Any amount tolerated by the protesters who want to be heard. I did say that. Because by tolerating violence you condone it, and it becomes part of your message. Inaction is complicity according to your message, remember?

To meet your standard, Black Lives Matter protests should also be All Property Matters protests,

Destroying other civilians' property is not an effective way to convey the message if they want to be heard properly. Actions will always be louder than words and those on the other side will pay attention to the loudest form of communication. The protesters need to realize that if they want to get anything accomplished, otherwise other cities will end up like Seattle.

and civilians need to be responsible for deescalation and controlling property damage even as police show themselves incapable of the same.

They need to be responsible for their own actions, juat like the police do. When the police act unjustly, which is what started this whole thing, civilians can't do the same because then they just lower themselves to the corrupt police officers' level, which is what has happened.

Sorry, I believe Black Lives Matter is the more important cause, and you're not persuadable until you question your values.

I don't need to be persuadable because I don't agree with your destructive method of communication, nor do I need to question my values, because obviously they don't align with yours and until you take off your blinders to what's really going on, they never will.

AcademyofDrX wrote:(...).

You will sing a whole different tune if/when your house or your livelihood get burned down. Oh you will sing a lot when the mob come to YOUR house with threats. And you will stop doing mental gymnastics altogether when someone close to you get murdered simply for saying "all lives matter" or for "supporting Trump."

A friendly reminder:



That was back in May. Now it this times hundreds.
Believe what you want. If you live in the USA, especially near one of the "hot zones", reality will catch up to you sooner or later. Maybe then you will get some empathy.

"To what's really going on." Black lives matter, that's what's really going on, the rest is whataboutism. Honestly? I wish that there was less violence during the protests, because every conversation about property destruction is one less conversation about more important topics. Unfortunately, arguments like these remind me that there will always be something else that invalidates the struggle for racial justice. I don't think there's anything valuable we have to say to each other at this point. As a site mod I can't mute you, so I'll just need to ignore you.

-Kanrabat- wrote:Right now the BLM "protests" are just RIOTS made by anarchists and criminals. The "cause" no longer have the support of the average Joe.

There's also some place where they are doing a literal PROTECTION RACKET towards local businesses.




No matter how the cause was noble at the start and how much support it had from the public at the beginning, the BLM movement is no longer about police brutality. It's been either exposed as, or being hijacked by Marxists, criminals, and anarchists.

The original message is now lost among all that violence.

please stop pretending that posting a tim pool video is anything other than an admittance of ignorance at best

AcademyofDrX wrote:"To what's really going on." Black lives matter, that's what's really going on, the rest is whataboutism. Honestly? I wish that there was less violence during the protests, because every conversation about property destruction is one less conversation about more important topics.

My point exactly. If the violence wasn't part of the protests, the actual problems could be discussed and maybe even solved. But the message is distorted because it is allowed to be. And you can't expect the destruction to be just ignored because that makes the people who had everything destroyed even bigger victims.

Unfortunately, arguments like these remind me that there will always be something else that invalidates the struggle for racial justice. I don't think there's anything valuable we have to say to each other at this point. As a site mod I can't mute you, so I'll just need to ignore you.

Yes, keep your head in the sand just because you're not hearing your own rhetoric from everyone else. Such lack of willingness to move forward is what invalidates your message. Hopefully others who actually have open minds for solutions and can make a difference will listen. You're right, there's nothing else that can be said.

So I've been reading everyone's thoughts on BLM over the past (roughly) two months this thread has been active (no matter how unpleasant it's gotten. From all sides), mostly because I like seeing and thinking about political discourse. I'm often too cowardly to engage with it myself but for right now at least I've decided to stop keeping myself silent and throw my hat into the ring here. More specifically I wanted to draw attention to the fact that rioting in relation to civil unrest is nothing new and shouldn't be unexpected (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_United_States. take particular note of how the amount of riots ratchets up in the 60's). Do I personally advocate for violence or agree with its use? No. But I can certainly see where those who have engaged in it are coming from. And the problem with the image of BLM isn't going to go away even if every single non-violent protester were to hold up signs saying "non-violence is the way" or BLM's website puts up a banner saying "We hereby disavow every use of violence in the name of the George Floyd". Even Martin Luther King Jr, Mr. Nonviolent-protest himself, was a controversial figure in his time and was met with repeated (and baseless) accusations by his opponents of preaching non violence but inciting violence, as demonstrated by this political cartoon that was sent straight to the man himself

No matter what Black Lives Matters or the people who support it do, they are going to be vilified. Even if there wasn't violence/looting, it would have been vilified for other reasons (probably because of the whole "BUT MUH STATUES" thing or edgy teenagers spray painting BLM on stuff). Heck every time a nonviolent protester gets killed you hear someone trying to justify the motives of the killer. Here's a video about some of the vehicular instances (seemed particularly appropriate given transformers and everything).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KRs2MWfM4E

BLM don't need someone else to "vilify" them. They do a pretty fine job doing so themselves.



Black Lives Matter Chicago Publicly Defends Rioters and Looters.

BLM is now perfectly honest with what they are.

Why do you feel the need to keep resurrecting this thread just to shove your opinion onto everyone else?

You are literally adding nothing new to the conversation, you're just regurgatating the same **** again and again.

I'm really not shocked by either of these incidents. That is not to say I do not feel deeply bad for those who were in the Ronald McDonald house at the time and those who may not get the support they need because of this, because of course I do. I wish stuff like this wouldn't happen, but as I said before it is an unfortunate reality that in times of civil unrest such incidences are bound to happen. As for the second incident I do agree that BLM Chicago were a bit too enthusiastic with their support of looting, but I am with them on their message there. People are going to continue rioting and looting as long as officials refuse to make substantive changes to how we handle policing, because they now have ample reason to believe that the peaceful alternative can and will be ignored (keep in mind protests have been going on for over two months now and Chicago is the largest city in the country to not see substantive results). In fact, I'd argue the incident this statement is in reference to was caused by a lack of police accountability, namely their lack of body cameras. If the police had any actual evidence that the suspect both had possession of and discharged a weapon before he was shot, there wouldn't have been much of a cause for outrage or ammo for a social media disinformation campaign (as the article that was cited alleged). But despite belonging to a department that has a 1.8 billion dollar budget and having been called in under the suspicion that the suspect was armed, both officers somehow either didn't have body cameras equipped or for some reason didn't turn their body cameras on.
Also, I want to ask. What exactly is your solution here?
Is it to just stop the protests? Well okay ignoring the ethics of the methods that would need to be undertaken to do something like that, it's not going to make the problem go away. History is just going to repeat itself whenever another instance of police brutality goes viral. Because believe it or not ignoring the problem and hoping it'll just magically go away won't do anything.
The only real solution here is to actually address the problem by making the necessary changes to policing and from there address systemic racism at large (I'm willing to talk about that if you want to actually have a conversation instead of just posting whatever YouTube clip popped up in your feed and made you angry today).

Burn wrote:Why do you feel the need to keep resurrecting this thread just to shove your opinion onto everyone else?

You are literally adding nothing new to the conversation, you're just regurgatating the same **** again and again.

Because people keep denying reality, despite things getting worse and worse by the minute. This is no longer just "an opinion" when cities are getting burned to the ground, and the mob actually bgoing to the homes of people to terrorize them. I've seen the raw videos. Things are turning into a literal civil war out there.

The protests at the start were commandable despite the obligatory violence hot spots here and there. But now, those are no longer protests. Terror acts are being made by the BLM activists. How would you feel if your favorite site had a banner supporting HAMAS?

I urge the people that live in those hot cities or in their suburbs to move out for their own safety.

As it was clearly demonstrated, defunding the police is NOT the solution. Police need MORE funding so they they are properly trained and equipped. Some guy who just played Crash Bandicootjust got shot and killed in a botched "swatting" incident because the cops who intervened were dumb greenhorns. So what the family of that guy who got killed should do? Burn down the convenience store the next street over?


Anyway, the only way to truly end this thread is to lock it, burry it down, and remove the banner from the main page. Because the terror is far from over.

Or you could ban the racists. If that's not going to happen, it probably should be locked.

Rioting and looting places and businesses that have nothing to do with the issues at hand is not going to make those in law enforcement address any changes needed. All they're going to do is use it as reasoning for more police and tougher treatment of those who break the law. Giving in to these thugs would be saying they condone their behavior. You think that's going to make the violence and stealing stop?

All large cities need substantive changes, not just Chicago. The police need to be reformed, but even more the people in charge of government need to be reformed. You know, the people who keep getting reelected to city council or mayor term after term and either do nothing but line their own pockets or pass laws that hinder the progress of the citizens, especially minorities. Look at the same decades-long leadership in these cities and tell me they're not to blame.

Ironically, all the people drinking the kool aid and calling for defunding the police in all these places might just get what they want, but not because it will help anywhere else but because all the citizens who are collateral damage in this will be fed up with the violence and will leave, taking tax dollars with them, and the majority who will be left will be those who live on government assistance already or just simply don't care to have a job if they know they can steal everything they need because there's no police, so the city government will no longer have the financial means to keep things in order, and the whole place will sink down into being a wasteland. And when that happens, the city government will ask for money from the state (putting yet another unfair burden on the citizens who had nothing to do with this) or the federal government, and that won't turn out well either. Unless the leftists win big in November, in which case I'm sure they will begin doling out the money the rest of the country works for, and then we'll have a true revolution. Hardworking people won't take these scumbags stealing from them just to appease these dregs of society. Or if they do then they deserve their money taken from them for being stupid enough to allow it to happen. Just look at Seattle and the "autonomous zone" their idiot mayor allowed. How did that turn out?

Rodimus Prime wrote:Rioting and looting places and businesses that have nothing to do with the issues at hand is not going to make those in law enforcement address any changes needed. All they're going to do is use it as reasoning for more police and tougher treatment of those who break the law. Giving in to these thugs would be saying they condone their behavior. You think that's going to make the violence and stealing stop?

I never argued for this. All I said is that the violence isn't going to stop until the necessary changes are made and the longer we go without substantive changes the more likely we are to see people getting angry and acting out with rioting and looting. It's an unfortunate truth that when you have civil unrest, violence committed in the name of that unrest is going to happen. It happened with the civil rights movement, and it's happening now.

Rodimus Prime wrote: All large cities need substantive changes, not just Chicago. The police need to be reformed, but even more the people in charge of government need to be reformed. You know, the people who keep getting reelected to city council or mayor term after term and either do nothing but line their own pockets or pass laws that hinder the progress of the citizens, especially minorities. Take a look at the leadership in these cities and tell me they're not to blame.

I fully agree that every city needs substantive change, the only reason I was focusing on Chicago is because we were discussing an incident that occurred in Chicago. A good first step would be to get big money out of politics, incentivizing politicians to actually represent the policies of their base instead of just doing nothing or doing as little as possible so they can give off the appearance of change while not upsetting their donors. Granted that wouldn't solve all of the problems with our political system and politicians are famous liars, but it would still help.

Rodimus Prime wrote: Unless the leftists win big in November, in which case I'm sure they will begin doling out the money the rest of the country works for, and then we'll have a true revolution. Hardworking people won't take these scumbags stealing from them just to appease these dregs of society. Or if they do then they deserve their money taken from them for being stupid enough to allow ot to happen.

I'm pretty sure I myself never advocated for cutting the funding of police in my posts (the most I said was I thought it was ridiculous that the officers either didn't have body cameras in a department with a $1.8 billion dollar budget or didn't turn them on when engaging a reportedly armed suspect), but okay I'll talk about that I guess. I myself am relatively ambivalent on defunding the police. I have heard good arguments for cutting police budgets and then re-investing that money into parts of the community that would arguably help deter future criminality in said communities, and as far as I can tell nobody is arguing we should cut their budgets so much to the point of them being ineffectual. I more argue for reframing police training more around de-escalation than instilling a "warrior" mentality in them (I'm not saying you should tell officers to never use violence but more that violence isn't always the answer), but I'm open to re-examining police budgets to figure out how much they actually need. Not even people who go even further and advocate abolishing police are arguing we should not have any policing at all, but rather that we replace the current policing institutions with other forms of public safety protection (I'm iffy on that and would need to see data on alternative models). Joe Biden has not (and probably won't) come out in favor of defunding the police. As for the whole "DEMONRATS ARE COMING TO TAKE OUR TAX DOLLARS" That's wholly irrelevant to the conversation of Black Lives Matter. I would not be opposed to discussing Joe Biden's tax policy vs Trump's tax policy (I would have to read up on it a bit because I'm not too familiar with the nitty gritty of their tax proposals) but I really don't feel like this is the time or place for it. Unless you're talking about addressing systemic racism and the use of tax dollars in that, in which case that's a really weird way to frame it. But because this post is already long enough (I know I tend to ramble I'm sorry) I won't get into it unless that is actually what you're arguing and you clarify your position.

Notimus Crime wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:Rioting and looting places and businesses that have nothing to do with the issues at hand is not going to make those in law enforcement address any changes needed. All they're going to do is use it as reasoning for more police and tougher treatment of those who break the law. Giving in to these thugs would be saying they condone their behavior. You think that's going to make the violence and stealing stop?

I never argued for this. All I said is that the violence isn't going to stop until the necessary changes are made and the longer we go without substantive changes the more likely we are to see people getting angry and acting out with rioting and looting. It's an unfortunate truth that when you have civil unrest, violence committed in the name of that unrest is going to happen. It happened with the civil rights movement, and it's happening now.

Rodimus Prime wrote: All large cities need substantive changes, not just Chicago. The police need to be reformed, but even more the people in charge of government need to be reformed. You know, the people who keep getting reelected to city council or mayor term after term and either do nothing but line their own pockets or pass laws that hinder the progress of the citizens, especially minorities. Take a look at the leadership in these cities and tell me they're not to blame.

I fully agree that every city needs substantive change, the only reason I was focusing on Chicago is because we were discussing an incident that occurred in Chicago. A good first step would be to get big money out of politics, incentivizing politicians to actually represent the policies of their base instead of just doing nothing or doing as little as possible so they can give off the appearance of change while not upsetting their donors. Granted that wouldn't solve all of the problems with our political system and politicians are famous liars, but it would still help.

I wasn't trying to insinuate that I was responding specificalky to your points, even if your post got me to respond. I quoted the above parts because I agree on everything, and I would go as far as to say the elevtion system in the US needs to be revamped beyond just the fibancial aspects.

Rodimus Prime wrote: Unless the leftists win big in November, in which case I'm sure they will begin doling out the money the rest of the country works for, and then we'll have a true revolution. Hardworking people won't take these scumbags stealing from them just to appease these dregs of society. Or if they do then they deserve their money taken from them for being stupid enough to allow ot to happen.

I'm pretty sure I myself never advocated for cutting the funding of police in my posts (the most I said was I thought it was ridiculous that the officers either didn't have body cameras in a department with a $1.8 billion dollar budget or didn't turn them on when engaging a reportedly armed suspect), but okay I'll talk about that I guess. I myself am relatively ambivalent on defunding the police. I have heard good arguments for cutting police budgets and then re-investing that money into parts of the community that would arguably help deter future criminality in said communities, and as far as I can tell nobody is arguing we should cut their budgets so much to the point of them being ineffectual. I more argue for reframing police training more around de-escalation than instilling a "warrior" mentality in them (I'm not saying you should tell officers to never use violence but more that violence isn't always the answer), but I'm open to re-examining police budgets to figure out how much they actually need. Not even people who go even further and advocate abolishing police are arguing we should not have any policing at all, but rather that we replace the current policing institutions with other forms of public safety protection (I'm iffy on that and would need to see data on alternative models). Joe Biden has not (and probably won't) come out in favor of defunding the police.

Again I'm in agreement here, policing systems on all levels need to be dissected and either replaced or put back together differently. Obviously the wsy it is is not worling well. Just like politics, it's become corrupt and non-effective. However, I place the blame mainly on the government's that train and employ the police, as well as the upper levels of the police systems such as commissiobers, chiefs and city councils. We can only blame individual officers for their individual actions. Just because that scumbag in Minneapolis did what he did it doesn't mean ALL other officers across the country are like that and they shouldn't be punished.

Afor the whole "DEMONRATS ARE COMING TO TAKE OUR TAX DOLLARS" That's wholly irrelevant to the conversation of Black Lives Matter.

I disagree. I believe the entire mindset of 'left vs. right' in this country is preventing the effective changes that are needed, and until both sides come to a compromise, both politicians and regular citizens, nothing will move forward. What a lot of staunch extremists on both sides don't realize thst is that they can't have it their way 100% because there are too many members of the opposition. That's why compromise is key. This is of course in terms of bringing changes through laws and reforms that politicians and citizens have to approve of.

I would not be opposed to discussing Joe Biden's tax policy vs Trump's tax policy (I would have to read up on it a bit because I'm not too familiar with the nitty gritty of their tax proposals) but I really don't feel like this is the time or place for it. Unless you're talking about addressing systemic racism and the use of tax dollars in that, in which case that's a really weird way to frame it. But because this post is already long enough (I know I tend to ramble I'm sorry) I won't get into it unless that is actually what you're arguing and you clarify your position.

Don't worry about it going on long enough, as long as you're making valid points in a civil way, length is irrelevant. And yes, I was trying to say that the best way to attack this problem is through financial means, because everyone (from billionaires down to the common citizen) cares about their bottom line. It's 1 way to try to bring us all together to agree in something, giving some kind of financial incentive to do so. It's unfortunate it has to come down to that, but it's reality. And my commemt regarding the election this November wasn't meant to say that I agree with what's going on now, I just think that when it comes to fiscal responsibility leftists ate a lot worse than conservatives. But that's just my opinion, and I don't want to see the tax dollars of people who actually work go to those who have done nothing to earn it.

Rodimus Prime wrote:

Notimus Crime wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote: Unless the leftists win big in November, in which case I'm sure they will begin doling out the money the rest of the country works for, and then we'll have a true revolution. Hardworking people won't take these scumbags stealing from them just to appease these dregs of society. Or if they do then they deserve their money taken from them for being stupid enough to allow ot to happen.

I'm pretty sure I myself never advocated for cutting the funding of police in my posts (the most I said was I thought it was ridiculous that the officers either didn't have body cameras in a department with a $1.8 billion dollar budget or didn't turn them on when engaging a reportedly armed suspect), but okay I'll talk about that I guess. I myself am relatively ambivalent on defunding the police. I have heard good arguments for cutting police budgets and then re-investing that money into parts of the community that would arguably help deter future criminality in said communities, and as far as I can tell nobody is arguing we should cut their budgets so much to the point of them being ineffectual. I more argue for reframing police training more around de-escalation than instilling a "warrior" mentality in them (I'm not saying you should tell officers to never use violence but more that violence isn't always the answer), but I'm open to re-examining police budgets to figure out how much they actually need. Not even people who go even further and advocate abolishing police are arguing we should not have any policing at all, but rather that we replace the current policing institutions with other forms of public safety protection (I'm iffy on that and would need to see data on alternative models). Joe Biden has not (and probably won't) come out in favor of defunding the police.

Again I'm in agreement here, policing systems on all levels need to be dissected and either replaced or put back together differently. Obviously the wsy it is is not worling well. Just like politics, it's become corrupt and non-effective. However, I place the blame mainly on the government's that train and employ the police, as well as the upper levels of the police systems such as commissiobers, chiefs and city councils. We can only blame individual officers for their individual actions. Just because that scumbag in Minneapolis did what he did it doesn't mean ALL other officers across the country are like that and they shouldn't be punished.

I agree that we shouldn't punish all officers for the death of George Floyd, and don't think it's proper to fault them for the current injustices in policing. Sure they are the enforcers that carry it out, but they are not the root of the problem. Individual officers should only really be criticized if they personally engage in police brutality or otherwise abuse the power they wield (as should be the case with all government officials). If I could guess why officers are so often vilified before they do anything it's because they're a more immediate and easy to target/relate to symbol of the system and it probably feels better to vent your anger on a person than impotently yelling at a governor's office or waiting until the next local or state elections. Or they misunderstood the meaning of ACAB and think it actually means every individual cop is bad instead of meaning that the system too often protects bad cops and encourages that sort of behavior with their training so in effect every cop is bad. I admit it can be a bit of a misleading slogan at face value but it's probably more catchy than "TSOPICAEBAVBIC" (The System Of Policing Is Corrupt And Encourages Bad And Violent Behavior In Cops). I don't know maybe I'm just bad at acronyms.

Afor the whole "DEMONRATS ARE COMING TO TAKE OUR TAX DOLLARS" That's wholly irrelevant to the conversation of Black Lives Matter.

I disagree. I believe the entire mindset of 'left vs. right' in this country is preventing the effective changes that are needed, and until both sides come to a compromise, both politicians and regular citizens, nothing will move forward. What a lot of staunch extremists on both sides don't realize thst is that they can't have it their way 100% because there are too many members of the opposition. That's why compromise is key. This is of course in terms of bringing changes through laws and reforms that politicians and citizens have to approve of.

Okay that makes a lot more sense to me than what you originally wrote. I am in agreeance that too many people are unwilling to compromise and that's a big reason why big change is so hard to accomplish. My thoughts on that is that it's good to go into it with your more radical position, and then bargain down to a more agreeable solution. Don't entirely concede to your opponent but convince them on a more agreeable version of the policy you want. This helps to influence the country in the direction you want and opens the door to expanding the resulting policy to be more of what you want later without totally losing out on getting anything accomplished.

I would not be opposed to discussing Joe Biden's tax policy vs Trump's tax policy (I would have to read up on it a bit because I'm not too familiar with the nitty gritty of their tax proposals) but I really don't feel like this is the time or place for it. Unless you're talking about addressing systemic racism and the use of tax dollars in that, in which case that's a really weird way to frame it. But because this post is already long enough (I know I tend to ramble I'm sorry) I won't get into it unless that is actually what you're arguing and you clarify your position.

Don't worry about it going on long enough, as long as you're making valid points in a civil way, length is irrelevant. And yes, I was trying to say that the best way to attack this problem is through financial means, because everyone (from billionaires down to the common citizen) cares about their bottom line. It's 1 way to try to bring us all together to agree in something, giving some kind of financial incentive to do so. It's unfortunate it has to come down to that, but it's reality. And my commemt regarding the election this November wasn't meant to say that I agree with what's going on now, I just think that when it comes to fiscal responsibility leftists ate a lot worse than conservatives. But that's just my opinion, and I don't want to see the tax dollars of people who actually work go to those who have done nothing to earn it.

I guess I can see where you're coming from with the concern there, but I don't feel like the economic front to addressing systematic racism would fall into that category. When people talk about that (at least in the circles I frequent) they aren't talking about the weird and vacuous reparations form of it where you give every black person a check and somehow that helps them out of poverty. They're more talking about investing in communities than individuals. More equality of opportunity than equality of outcome. So like investing in education, more specifically funding grade schools, which tend to be underfunded in urban or inner city communities due to a lack of available funding from property taxes. And of course a lack of education tends to correlate with higher rates of criminality and poverty, so making sure every child is getting a proper education would go a long way to help lower these things. Of course this is just an example of one thing that needs to be done there's other aspects of society that need to be addressed as well and this won't by any means be a quick transition but I feel like investing in poor or otherwise struggling communities in this sort of way would be a worthwhile investment.