No, no there isn't. And if holding conservative views makes the workplace "hostile", a ridiculously vague and subjective state of affairs, it's not because of the conservatives.
462 karma · joined October 6, 2016
Even what I just said, that he isn't, you should go look up, investigate, and see what YOU think.
What? I didn't say that it was "fine". I'm just trying to get a handle on the scope here. When I think of things that are morally reprehensible, I think of the things I mentioned in my post.
Clearly, I don't think Uber is there, so I disagree with the notion that they acted in a "morally reprehensible" way.
Do I think that they behaved unethically, even criminally so? Yes, I think that you can make a strong case for that.
Maybe I'm making a semantic argument? If so, I think I'm getting weary of our constant 24/7 media stream of outrage, and for that I apologize since that's neither here nor there...
His films are good and incredibly entertaining, but Kubrick is on a completely different plane.
To me "morally reprehensible" implies something quite extreme, like, say, genocide, callous violent crime, rape, etc.
But, of course, this would mean that the liberal arts would have to actually go back to teaching the Western canon, and not simply using their positions as educators to repudiate Western and European art and culture at any turn, to radicalize students and spew their ideological fantasies, to engage in censorship and stoke racial tensions, and, this should go without saying, stop committing acts of physical assault, such as smashing people in the head with metal bike-locks, when they disagree with you (Eric Clanton, Tariq Khan, Eric Canin..etc).
These are just suggestions of course, I'm sure the enlightened intelligentsia will find its way.
I was painting broadly the social demographic of the people that push this sort of nonsense - it usually is uppity liberals and fringe radicals.
People who actually care about their neighborhoods call the police when there are homicides, drug dealing, and violence occurring.
> there are uppity conservatives and fringe right-wing protestors
Yes, and I'm one of those uppity conservatives. I hold the fringe right-wing guys in contempt, but I don't see the relevance? If you want me to rail on them, I will gladly.
>Do you feel that you're "in the middle" and not a conservative?
Libertarian I guess? Grew up in a poor neighborhood much like the one described in the article, so I feel quite strongly about this sort of stuff. A larger police presence would have been a gift from God.
>Then, you take fault with the author expressing their opinion that the festival had "an overwhelming show of force.
No, I take issue with the authors insinuation that it wasn't warranted, hence:
"overwhelming show of force in response to a comparatively small number of bad actors."
>Is that all the author complained about in this respect?
Have you actually read the article? It's probably one silliest pieces of journalism I've ever read. Just read something of quotes:
>“The gentrifiers are not wanting to share—they’re wanting to take over.” One of the tools they can use to take over public spaces, he argues, is law enforcement.
Yes, law enforcement is a tool of the "gentrifiers" to move poor people out. This is ridiculous.
It's not the crimes that are the problem (homicides, assaults, drug dealing, public intoxication), but rather the "criminalization" of the criminals.
I guess the solution is just stop calling the cops?
>If this is the awful, biased "liberal" media you're worried about, you should probably stick to the Post. That way all of your existing biases can be reinforced.
Okay.
I'm not familiar with Australian politics, but as for the others, what do you mean? We have had both liberal and conservative governments the last 30-40 years. This, again, has little to do with the mainstream culture, which was my original point.
As for explaining to you why neoliberalism has triumphed, well I recommend that you start here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War
>Have you even read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky?
Yes, and it had quite an effect on me when I was in college, and utterly ignorant of history. A lot has changed now, and while much of the book is still good, Chomsky has lost his credibility as a cultural critic following the embarrassment of his analyses about a few corners of the world...:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO1JkjbzvPw
Not to mention the Cambodia/Khmer Rouge situation, which should have tipped me off earlier. But I was naive then.
>You do realise that liberal and liberalism means keeping the government out of people's lives....
I understand well what the words mean, friend-o.
It opens with:
>"But having been marred by gang violence in recent years, this J’ouvert was markedly different, as The New York Times described. The event, which derives its name from a Creole term for “daybreak,” was heavily staffed by the New York City Police Department.....an overwhelming show of force in response to a comparatively small number of bad actors."
The author conveniently omitted the specifics of that "gang violance" - an aide to Gov. Cuomo was murdered at the event a couple years ago, there have been multiple stabbings, there have been homicides the past two years, and just few days before the festival this year, multiple people were shot and killed:
https://nypost.com/2017/09/04/gunfire-erupts-ahead-of-jouver...
Do tell me, how much violence and killing is acceptable for you before you call for, as the author put it, an "overwhelming show of force"?
And guess what, that police presence did nothing but make the event safer, as per the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/04/nyregion/jouvert-brooklyn...
I can go on if you want, but I don't see the point. The article is an absurd framing of the situation, and completely omits the perspective of all the minorities who APPRECIATE the police presence, and who work with the police on a day-to-day basis, serving in community watch groups, and coordinating with and calling the police whenever they see problems. But no, that doesn't fit the narrative, so it's not in there.
I specifically said that the dominant culture is left - and it most certainly is, not the economic order.
Virtually every major newspaper in every major city is left-leaning, almost every single cable news network, and all the major tech giants, who are a gateway to content, are undeniably liberal. And academia...well that goes without saying - half are card carrying communists, while the other half are in the ballpark.
In fact, it's heresy to even be conservative at most major tech companies.
Quite the opposite actually. As the contemporary left has taken over mainstream culture and turned into the de facto "establishment" that it originally railed against, it's grown intellectually soft and dishonest.
Both sides play to populist emotional appeals and sentiments, but the left-wing outrage industry and identity politics has left them intellectually vulnerable.
I mean, if you want a case study on this vulnerability just head on over to the major liberal think-piece sites and read some of the essays (Salon, Slate, The Atlantic).
Last night I read a piece in The Atlantic that bemoaned the fact that some people expect their neighborhoods to be orderly and not riddled with crime, drugs, and gangs, arguing that these attitudes unfairly discriminated against minorities. This, from a "respectable" magazine!
Progressivism works as a sort of pushing against the order of things, for better or worse. Its development being the result of our ability to manipulate and change our environment to an extraordinary degree, much more so than any other animal.
Why I would think what?
>Is the suggestion here that people who are morally sincere can't be bad (whatever their moral views may be)?
No, the suggestion is that morality and ethics are complex cognitive, spiritual, religious, and cultural structures that don't boil down to some silly binary regarding ones stance on one issue.
The point is, saying someone is "bad" on the basis of their view on any one single topic is ridiculous, especially when there is a wide range of opinion on the matter. It's essentialism at its absolute worst. The link I provided shows that 98% of Nigerians have negative views towards homosexuality - do you really think that 98% of Nigerians are bad people? Of course not - there are nuances to these issues.
My greater point is that what I'll call "liberal religiosity" - this idea that if you break in any way from the standard liberal dogma, you are cast as a heretic and judged a "bad" person, like all these supposedly "bad" people in the Midwest who probably go to church every Sunday, help their neighbors out, act decently towards one-another, etc.
>Or is it that you just don't view homophobia as a genuine moral failing?
I'm a live and let live kind of guy.
2. you did, and your illustration provided no such thing; it’s a strawman with no bearing in reality, and your very self-same argument can be used to undermine your own position...
3. what?
You’re not the first person I’ve seen equate the plight and horror of slaves and slavery to the contemporary condition of the LGTB community in a modern, first world, secular society, but I can’t help but wonder at exactly how it is that you arrived at that conviction.
If I’m following you correctly here, because you can’t use whichever public toilet you want, you are denied a fundamental right, stripped of all public personhood, and not allowed to even venture outside at all.
Are you being serious or are you trolling me?
Are all of these people "bad"? Of course not. There is simply a cultural disconnect, and some ideas die hard.
(1) http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/04/the-global-divide-on-hom...
California doesn't fight the culture war? California is the primary exporter of the left-wing culture. It just happens to conform to your political leanings, so you like it there. And THAT'S OKAY, I'm not saying you are wrong, you're just now on the side that you agree with.
>Yeah, I cant buy a house in san jose
Who cares about home ownership when you can use whatever public toilet you want!
There are women in all rungs of the Republican Party, from local to federal levels. The GOP has also followed the general trend of growing diversity (1) and I believe in 2013 were MORE diverse than the Democrats (although this isn't true today).
The Democrats are more diverse, but the idea that the GOP is just some old boys club is outdated.
Also, what do you mean by horrific? Certainly many are not as progressive on the issue as Coastal-Elite-White Democrats (and I'm being very specific there), but homophobia is extremely prevalent among the democratic base, especially among African-Americans (2) and Latino Americans (3).
>Roy Moore overwhelmingly won the white vote despite....
I agree with you, Roy Moore was an absolute disaster.
(1) http://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/1-the-changing-compos...
(2) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2974805/
(3) http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0739986390012400...
So price controls...
> eliminate no-fault eviction
"no-fault eviction" is, quite literally, a made-up magical concept.
A landlord that chooses to not renew your lease is not "evicting" you. Both parties have fulfilled their contractual obligations.
>any new housing production be allocated to existing needy residents by government lottery
OK. Sure, and how long does this go on? Do you really think that this is a feasible long term solution? If the social science and economic literature points to "Yes" then I'm all ears, but I don't think that this is the case.
>Optionally add downzoning to reduce landlord incentives to let buildings die of neglect (no opportunity to build anything more profitable).
This one was just painful to read. I mean....this is the exact OPPOSITE of what you want to do. The entire issue boils down to supply and demand, and their solution is to further reduce density and the supply of housing!?
I'm intimately acquainted with both being poor and poor people. I have never in my life sneered at them and I donate generously to help them when I am in a position to do so. I have been poor for the majority of my life (I am not anymore) and I have seen firsthand what works and what does not.
Your government projects, ideas, and policies are a complete disaster that do nothing but exacerbate the problem.
>You need to consider that telling people to leave the geographic area that is their family home is a shitty response.
It is the only honest response. It is not what people want to hear, and it certainly isn't as comforting as what most liberals will peddle to the poor working class, but it is the honest truth (as I see it, given my experiences and education).
I'm being very blunt in this thread because I am passionate about this issue. I have seen people's lives ruined, people that I grew up with, because they were trapped in a cycle of poverty and crime because their parents refused to do what needed to be done: pack their bags and GTFO and move somewhere where it is cheap to live and where crime is low.
>You need to consider whether, perhaps, there are government policies that can help these people.
Do you realize the scale of redistribution that would have to occur so that poor people could manage to live in SV? This place is too expensive for middle and upper middle class professionals, much less the working class.
What are your great government backed ideas? Publicly subsidized housing? Have you ever lived in a government housing project? Have you been near one? If you haven't, I will gladly share with you my experiences.
My family had strong ties to Yugoslavia, until NATO bombed it, so we moved to Germany. We had strong ties to Germany, until it seemed likely that our temporary refugee visas weren't going to get extended, so we moved to the USA. We had strong ties to Washington DC, but it was too expensive. We ended up in Roanoke, VA.
You do what you need to do for your family. Life is about making choices and sacrifices. It's not anyone's responsibility to improve your life, you need to do that. These people cannot afford to live in one of the most expensive regions in the world, so they need to move.
My proposal is that they do everything they can possibly do to better their position in life. If it means taking a second job, then they should take a second job. Are you asking me for specifics?
Here is how my parents did it when they couldn't afford daycare: My father worked 3rd shift (through the night) and my mother worked 2nd shift (afternoon-evening). This meant that I was alone with my sister in the morning/afternoon - i.e. the hours during which we were at school.
As I understand it, this woman is single, so even less income, which means an even greater reason to GTFO one of the most expensive places in the world.
>"everybody who's poor should just move to an area where minimum wage jobs are sufficient to live"
As opposed to your solution? You realize that California is one of the most liberal states in the US, right? You've been throwing policy at the wall for years now, yet you still have not managed to fix this problem, and it fact it continues to get worse each year.
"Change what they're doing" is far more effective than the vast majority of any government policy position. If you continue to subsidize these people by taxing those on the upper-income brackets and redistributing the wealth, you will simply prolong the problem.
The issue is that SV is far too expensive to live in unless you work in tech, law, finance, etc. If you don't, you need to move to somewhere where you can actually lead at least a semi-comfortable life, and where you can put yourself and your family in a position to succeed.
I sympathize with their situation, I have personally LIVED their situation, but if they cannot afford to live somewhere they need to figure out how to move.
Don't make assumptions.
They can move. My reality is of a first-generation immigrant. My parents did not have degrees and worked minimum wage jobs. They moved multiple times when it became financially unfeasible to live somewhere.
It wasn't fun, it sucked a lot actually, but we did what we had to do, not what we wanted to do.
You scrounge and save up or work odd jobs and get enough to move.
> How do you find a job, when you have literally 0-day you can spend without working?
There are plenty of jobs. They're not very good jobs, or jobs that most people want to do, but life isn't always about doing what you want. If you cannot afford to live somewhere, you need to move.
> And are people who flip burgers in Nebraska so much better?
My parents worked jobs equivalent to that in Washington D.C. It became impossible, so they moved to southern Virginia. You can live in southern Virginia on minimum wage jobs. There was food on the table every night, and a roof above our heads.
It sucked, don't get me wrong, but we managed.