Bison06

I'll preface by saying I have been wearing a mask when in public. Why has it been so difficult for our public health officials to come to a consensus on this topic? Fauci has said masks don't help, Osterholm has said he actually opposes masks as they give people a false sense of confidence. Even the surgeon general told us not to wear masks in March. Now, some health officials have said they purposely lied to us so people wouldn't hoard N95 masks and save them for the medical community, but that just builds further distrust. If I can ask you as someone who I assume, based on conversations in the past week, leans left. Why are you so pro-mask when even the experts on this topic can't come to a clear consensus?

Non sequitur, but I'm actually of the opinion that Biden will win. Broad characterization of people who vote for Trump isn't helpful at all and IMO is the reason he got elected in the first place.

The stats I've read say it's 20% https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/02/10-facts-about-americans-and-twitter/

Apples and oranges comparison and that is the exact contention the president is making in the link I gave you. If you are going to censor actively, you are a news station and people should be made aware that they aren't posting on an open forum that allows equal rights to both sides of the conversation. Twitter has admitted to censorship of right leaning ideas. Did they fact check Obama the way they have Trump. You seem like an intelligent person. view it without your bias and it will become obvious they go well beyond fact checking. Again, ask yourself, if you'd be ok with this if it was turned the other way. If fox news wielded as much power as twitter, facebook and google, my guess is you'd have something more to say about their influence.

I already admitted I misspoke. But that doesn't nullify that fact that free speech and the foundations of this country are absolutely under attack. BLM is chanting abolish capitalism at all of their rallies. If you don't think that undercuts the foundations of our society, nothing I say will convince you so I'll stop wasting my time. Twitter and facebook and google have the ability to influence elections based on their censorship, would you be ok with that if a right leaning company wielded that power? It doesn't bother you because it isn't your ox being gored...yet.

1. You're correct, I misspoke, it is protected by the first amendment. But if it is up to our left leaning friends that will soon be a thing of the past. 2. Public college campuses do not get to decide who speaks beyond time, place and manner restrictions. This is public property, absolutely a first amendment issue.https://www.aclu.org/other/speech-campus#:~:text=Of course%2C public colleges and,campus on their own initiative. It is people who have been invited by students who have been not allowed to speak, to be clear. 3. This assertion is being rightfully challenged vigorously. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/. They have far too much power as a 'forum' to be allowed to censor in this way. 4/5. Though they may not have been arrested they were treated very differently than the protests involving BLM. A better example would have been churches being forced closed and pastors arrested during lockdown.

First amendment has already been nullified with the use of the term "hate speech" being legally enforceable. Public college campuses have become bastions of censorship. Twitter, facebook, instagram and google are knowingly and admittedly censoring conservative posts. During Covid, the right to peaceably assemble has become a crime, unless you are protesting. But you have to be protesting for BLM, if you protest for being able to open your business at the state capital it's against the law. There is a reason they wrote this one down first, without this one, the rest don't matter.

I realize the "just leave if you don't like it" comments in our country have been vilified as racist and xenophobic over the years, but I believe it's important to discuss what most people I've heard say that actually mean when they say that. The United States is flawed, but it is also the most prosperous, equitable, self improving, welcoming, innovative(I could go on) society in the history of the known world. Note that I didn't say perfect, but what other country would even try the way we do? Our system of governance was developed by geniuses who saw the flaws in each and every other system around the world and built the United States to be different. Fast forward 250 years later and we have people who seem to want to change our country into a type of system that the people who built this country specifically avoided because they simply don't allow the types of freedoms they hoped to create for citizens of the United States. So why are we allowing people to dismantle our country from within when a free person who wants to live under certain types of laws or have a certain way of living can move there. Those systems already exist elsewhere. Live there if you want to live that way, don't ruin this amazing country. People scrimp, save, pinch every penny and scheme for generations figuring out how to get to the United States and live in this great society so they can change their life and the lives of their descendants and we are allowing it to be absolutely ruined from within. It's awful.

As if in today’s society any serious politician would be allowed to propose such a sensical plan. They’d be labeled a racist for even suggesting such a program and we both know it.

Level the playing field means get rid of any overt racism written into law, as was the case in the past. If anything is done beyond that to further any one race than it is by definition racist against the groups that are not included in the program to help. It makes the faulty assumption that because a person is white that they come from a situation where they don’t need any help to rise. People in poverty need help, period, end of sentence, no qualifiers. They need resources, education, they need options.Take race out of it.

We can agree to disagree on who would be better off, but no problem. So if these problems are relics of the past policies as you say, what can be done to correct them? Society seems to think the answer is to give advantages to the grandchildren and great grandchildren of the people who suffered these injustices.(College admissions, federal loan programs earmarked for minorities etc) But by definition, an advantage can’t be given without disadvantaging someone else. Why not just level the playing field and let it play out?

Let me try to clear it up with a question. Does a white American who grows up in poverty and with drug addicts as parents have an advantage over an African American in the exact same circumstances? The ultra wealthy, old money in our country is mostly white people. But ALL white people get somehow lumped in with this “old money, waspy, Ivy League” persona that simply isn’t reality. What I’m saying, is money is what buys privilege in our country. Not skin color.

It’s important to figure out what the root of the problem is if you’re going to find a solution. What I’m saying, is the racist policies of the past have put minorities, specifically African Americans, at a financial disadvantage.(redlining, Jim Crow, war on drugs etc) Those were racist policies, no argument from me. Those racist policies led to a lack of wealth creation as a general rule. Lack of wealth, has lead to many of the current problems that are plaguing the African American community. We are in complete agreement on how this all happened. What I am saying, is that as far as I know, there is nothing currently holding back a American born African American from succeeding financially. So instead of being fed the narrative that they will never succeed because white people are holding them back, I advocate for removing that narrative, which is pushed by the democrats and just allowing them to build their wealth. I believe that is the core of the issue.

And what law is currently on the books that is inherently racist? We have massive sins in the past, no argument from me, but what currently is holding a person back specifically because of their skin color? I have argued since the beginning that it is socioeconomic factors and parental guidance that causes failure in our country, not the color of a persons skin. Which is why people of all colors who are poor and grow up in single family homes struggle to change their destiny for the better. It isn’t a black or white problem, it’s a money and crap circumstances problem. Now, it can be argued that, as a general rule, those sins of the past have put African Americans as a whole more likely to find themselves in poor circumstances than fine. But that doesn’t implicate our current society as systemically racist, IMO.

Actually it seems you’ve missed the point. You have argued that it is the color of their skin that holds them back in our society, the fact that people with the same skin color coming from different circumstances succeed at a high level in our country shows its more about background(money, parents etc) than it is their skin color. Which is what I’ve been saying is the real issue.

If it wasn't obvious before recently, it certainly has become crystal clear that the only goal of the media is to confuse people. Masks are good......................masks make it worse. Herd immunity is important so let people get Covid and contribute to the herd immunity.........Herd immunity is only achievable with a vaccine. Young people aren't at risk..................but we have to keep the schools closed. Covid doesn't live on surfaces...................but we must incessantly clean everything to keep people safe. Asymptomatic carriers are the real threat....................actually your exceedingly unlikely to transmit the disease when asymptomatic. This list could be endless, its maddening.

I agree. As long as a first time offender and a chronic offender are handled differently. Marijuana needs to become equal to alcohol from a legal perspective as soon as possible and that would take care of the majority of the problem.

I disagree with your framing of Republicans position on welfare. "Cutting benefits" is a campaign talking point for the opposition, but Republicans want to cut benefits by providing a way for people not to need those benefits. That is the position I align with.

Those are reasonable solutions, though to be black on white(pun unintended) on that last one is a slippery slope, maybe some nuance to that and I'm on board.

Theory? Ever talked to someone on welfare? I advocate that there is a tiered system of help as you climb your way out of financial hardship and your income rises. Provide real life benefits so people can get to work. I make minimum wage as a single mom with three kids at home, so I get x benefits, as my income rises those benefits should just go away at a certain threshold or if I get married, increasing my household income. They should be reduced by a sensible amount as I rise up and improve my station in life until ultimately I need no help. As it stands, a person going from poverty to rising up will have to take a step back initially from a financial standpoint. Hence, why people don't usually see the benefit to doing it. You have to reward hard work to get people to want to do it, democratic economic policies generally don't fit that description.

One of the main reasons is democratic policies that encourage people to stay single as they receive more benefits from the government.

I don't disagree with any stat you provided. But you provide them without context, the problem I believe still begins with wealth not race. The study has never been done, because nobody's agenda is fulfilled by doing so, but if you took the exact same circumstances of our first two bullet points and then compared them to wealthy vs non-wealthy people, I'd be willing to bet a large some of money those disparities are even wider. To answer your question, I would say again, you are asking the wrong question. Would I rather be black or white? No preference. Would I rather grow up wealthy in a two parent household or poor in a single parent household is the question I think is pertinent.

Why assume that I haven't been properly "informed", as you say? What if I have read those same studies and books you seem to have and simply come a different conclusion? Is race an issue, of course. Many people in our country are racist unfortunately, but as of 2020 I don't see(feel free to correct me, honestly) what laws that are currently on the books that hold people down due to race. I think you nailed it with your link. The problem isn't primarily race, the problem is primarily wealth. So why as a society do we not discuss what the core of the problem is instead of yelling racism at every turn?

With this logic, would it be fair to assume then that if a white person didn't benefit from the transfer of wealth you describe above, that they do not have the privilege that is attributed to anyone with their skin color? Or If a person of color did benefit from this wealth transfer that they aren't being systemically oppressed?

I'm agreeing with your stance here it seems. Reading my post back, I can see that I wasn't as clear as I meant to be. I'm only saying it was a "noose" because it was in the shape of a noose. The evidence from my view suggests and maybe even proves it is simply an unfortunate coincidence as others have said.