Are people in the West being persecuted for their political beliefs?

[Smashian Kassian]

3 hours ago, JoeyJoeJoeJr. Shabadoo said:

Like Rupert, I wasn't aware of this situation until it was posted. I'm not sure if this is the same guy but the "woke" tweet in question was from a guy named Clayburn Griffen who, after googling his name, happens to be a politician and surprisingly enough a republican to boot. He doesn't look old enough to be a gen Z either, not that any of this matters. 

 

To be honest when I first saw it I had a hard time believing it wasn't trolling. 

 

But, amazingly, that doesn't appear to be the case.

 

[Canorth]

2 hours ago, gurn said:

I do not want to be that guy, but I couldn't help noticing you didn't use the extra"o" when spelling too.

Normaly I'd let things like that go, but recently every little thing is begining to bug me.

Not sure why.

Cancel culture strikes again!

 

Nice work @Gnarcore .... whats next.... Beenie babies?

Pfft.... embarrassing 

 

Edited March 17, 2021 by Canorth

[Ilunga]

9 hours ago, KoreanHockeyFan said:

 

Let me re-phrase. 

 

It's harder to have upward financial progress. Standards of living are stagnant and starting to slowly worsen. 

 

Let's take your guys' two examples - it obviously sounds like your families started from very poor living conditions. What I'm saying is that if you were to be in comparably poor living conditions in today's world, you'd be more hard-pressed to dig yourself out of such a situation. If you were to grow up in a middle class family today, you'd be hard-pressed to progress out of the middle class, or better yet, maintain your middle class lifestyle. 

 

So I guess what I'm saying is that quality of life is stagnant. I'd further argue that it's slowly deteriorating, especially for the middle class. 

 

Housing prices compared to stagnating wages and rising household debt are the two critical indicators that sum up my entire point. 

 

 

Maybe if young people made their voices heard putting pressure on the politicians that represent them there would be a greater chance of change.

Youth voter turnout is well below the turnout rate for all other demographic groups.

 

If everyone voter did what I do and write in to  the the politician that represents me-in letters he sends to all voters- I guarantee that there would be some sort of change.

[UnkNuk]

Regarding the title of this thread:  Damn right people are being persecuted for their political beliefs!

 

If even a sports celebrity like former MLB star Johnny Damon can be harrassed by the police simply for being a Trump supporter, is anyone safe?

 

 

(In the event you don't want to watch the whole thing and are wondering about the Trump part, jump to about 7:45.)

[Ilunga]

14 hours ago, RUPERTKBD said:

As a 60 year old, all of my favorite bands have either had members pass away, or have long since broken up.

 

The last "new" bands that I can honestly say I like are Big Wreck and Collective Soul.....there are also a couple of newish Canadian Bands that I enjoy as well. The Sheepdogs out of Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia's The Trews....

I am only a couple of years behind you and my favourite band has just released their 14 th studio Album.

They have been going nearly 40 years and this is right up there with their best.

Also bands like Good Riddance,Propaghandi,The Dropkick Murphys,The Real McKenzies,Flogging Molly,Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine,Bad Religion,The Descendants and The Damned are all still putting out great music.

 

[Tortorella's Rant]

On 3/16/2021 at 9:09 PM, spur1 said:

Ever heard of peer pressure or as we called it in the boomer days, keeping up with the Jones. 

I don't follow.
 

On 3/16/2021 at 9:16 PM, spur1 said:

The problem I have with that opinion is that it infers that somehow the new generations somehow have it harder than previous generations. 

That very much is the case in ways and just because you haven't experienced it from our point of view, obviously, doesn't make it any less true. You certainly didn't refute it but instead suggested young people today are a bunch of financially inept, whiny pussies, which also reflects poorly on the previous generation(s) because who do you think raised this generation of financially inept, whiny pussies. At the minimum the older generation(s) takes some responsibility here for that which they ridicule.

[spur1]

39 minutes ago, Tortorella's Rant said:

I don't follow.
 

That very much is the case in ways and just because you haven't experienced it from our point of view, obviously, doesn't make it any less true. You certainly didn't refute it but instead suggested young people today are a bunch of financially inept, whiny pussies, which also reflects poorly on the previous generation(s) because who do you think raised this generation of financially inept, whiny pussies. At the minimum the older generation(s) takes some responsibility here for that which they ridicule.

You have certainly done a bang up job of reading into what I said to fit your bias when I said nothing of the sort. 
Blaming your problems today on yesterday’s generations is a fool’s game.  

Edited March 19, 2021 by spur1

[Smashian Kassian]

On 3/12/2021 at 5:39 PM, Ilunga said:

This to me is a situation where you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

 

After certain groups within society having been excluded for ever,both the powers that be and those groups want to be represented more in the workings the of the societies they live in.

 

Not sure what to think about this. In principle I don't like the idea we are moving towards racial hiring practices. But on the other hand I can understand representation being important (to a degree), and maybe some more of could be good in the short term - if the outcomes are so vastly unequal. (And I'm not sure if thats true or what it means either)

 

One thing Im questioning is the conceptualization of the problems under this 'systemic racism' umbrella. Is it wrong to say alot of it is really combating implicit biases? To my knowledge things like Redlining (which I would classify as systemic) arent going on anymore, could be wrong.

 

The 'systemic' label just seems to open the door to more radicalism.

 

[JM_]

16 minutes ago, Smashian Kassian said:

 

Not sure what to think about this. In principle I don't like the idea we are moving towards racial hiring practices.

 

I"m seeing calls for colour-blind hiring practices, where you don't know the racial or ethnic characteristics of a hire until all the applicants have been assessed on their skills. I see nothing wrong with moving to something like that. 

[Ilunga]

9 hours ago, Smashian Kassian said:

 

Not sure what to think about this. In principle I don't like the idea we are moving towards racial hiring practices. But on the other hand I can understand representation being important (to a degree), and maybe some more of could be good in the short term - if the outcomes are so vastly unequal. (And I'm not sure if thats true or what it means either)

 

One thing Im questioning is the conceptualization of the problems under this 'systemic racism' umbrella. Is it wrong to say alot of it is really combating implicit biases? To my knowledge things like Redlining (which I would classify as systemic) arent going on anymore, could be wrong.

 

The 'systemic' label just seems to open the door to more radicalism.

 

Great post.

 

Imagine/put yourself in the shoes of people who have been marginalised.

Then you start to receive acknowledgement of that marginalisation.

Wouldn't you be pushing for more representation.

Then if we are truly are moving toward societies that are more representational of all the groups within said societies,shouldn't we placing  more people from these groups in trades/professions/services ?

[Ilunga]

9 hours ago, Jimmy McGill said:

I"m seeing calls for colour-blind hiring practices, where you don't know the racial or ethnic characteristics of a hire until all the applicants have been assessed on their skills. I see nothing wrong with moving to something like that. 

This sounds very reasonable however I will refer you to my reply to SK.

[JM_]

14 hours ago, Ilunga said:

This sounds very reasonable however I will refer you to my reply to SK.

I agree with that reply. Its the "how" part - how do we get to a truly fair system? 

[Ilunga]

14 hours ago, Jimmy McGill said:

I agree with that reply. Its the "how" part - how do we get to a truly fair system? 

I do not think there will ever be a truly fair system Jimmy.

There is far more to this than just placing people in positions that empower them.

One could start with educational opportunities,we know that certain groups do not have the same access to a good education as opposed to other groups with both wealth and the colour of one's skin contributing to this.

Gender still seems to be an issue in many trades/profession's/services.

Brother I am just a farmer,even though I have been studying my species for over 40 years,I have no easy answer to the question you pose.

[JM_]

9 hours ago, Ilunga said:

I do not think there will ever be a truly fair system Jimmy.

There is far more to this than just placing people in positions that empower them.

One could start with educational opportunities,we know that certain groups do not have the same access to a good education as opposed to other groups with both wealth and the colour of one's skin contributing to this.

Gender still seems to be an issue in many trades/profession's/services.

Brother I am just a farmer,even though I have been studying my species for over 40 years,I have no easy answer to the question you pose.

probably, not. Whoever is in power will always abuse it to some degree wherever you are in the world. 

 

But.. I do think we haven't exhausted all our options yet. We have a charter of rights and freedoms that's a good start. We seem to be gaining more awareness of issues in Canada, but I'm still really annoyed how US issues seem to dominate our news when we have so many things we need to fix of our own first. US protests aren't going to help us with our First Nations inequities. Everyone can tell us who George Floyd was, but I bet most people can't name a single person in the MMW inquiry. 

[Ilunga]

8 hours ago, Jimmy McGill said:

probably, not. Whoever is in power will always abuse it to some degree wherever you are in the world. 

 

But.. I do think we haven't exhausted all our options yet. We have a charter of rights and freedoms that's a good start. We seem to be gaining more awareness of issues in Canada, but I'm still really annoyed how US issues seem to dominate our news when we have so many things we need to fix of our own first. US protests aren't going to help us with our First Nations inequities. Everyone can tell us who George Floyd was, but I bet most people can't name a single person in the MMW inquiry. 

It's the same here in Aus.

And we do not have a charter or bill of rights and freedoms.

We still don't even have a treaty with our first nations people.

First nations people deaths while in custody is a big issue.

Dominating our news ATM is sexual abuse towards women and in particular those who are political staffers.

Our Attorney General has been the focus of some of these allegations.

Though the evidence is only circumstantial it is very damning.

Every society has its problems however those problems in our countries seem to be very similar.

[JM_]

1 hour ago, Ilunga said:

It's the same here in Aus.

And we do not have a charter or bill of rights and freedoms.

We still don't even have a treaty with our first nations people.

First nations people deaths while in custody is a big issue.

Dominating our news ATM is sexual abuse towards women and in particular those who are political staffers.

Our Attorney General has been the focus of some of these allegations.

Though the evidence is only circumstantial it is very damning.

Every society has its problems however those problems in our countries seem to be very similar.

I blame the Brits. I'm looking at you @bishopshodan 

[Smashian Kassian]

On 3/21/2021 at 10:32 PM, Ilunga said:

I do not think there will ever be a truly fair system Jimmy.

There is far more to this than just placing people in positions that empower them.

One could start with educational opportunities,we know that certain groups do not have the same access to a good education as opposed to other groups with both wealth and the colour of one's skin contributing to this.

Gender still seems to be an issue in many trades/profession's/services.

Brother I am just a farmer,even though I have been studying my species for over 40 years,I have no easy answer to the question you pose.

 

On 3/21/2021 at 8:09 AM, Jimmy McGill said:

I agree with that reply. Its the "how" part - how do we get to a truly fair system? 

 

The problem is getting into the details, I'd add "what exactly" to the list of questions aswell. How far do we want to push the equity mandate? What jobs need more equity, and which are fine left as unequitable?

 

IMO you want sufficient opportunity to pursue the desired field for all. I'm just curious how far off we really are from a technical standpoint? maybe the problem is more development.

 

I think there are issues in education in alot of areas, beyond just the identity aspect. Is the university system (or atleast parts) becoming outdated? Seems like higher education could be more efficient in some ways. Are kids in regular schools being properly encouraged/mentored to actually strive for something? Are they being taught financial literacy? How much of school is useful & how much is babysitting for kids & adolescents?

[Smashian Kassian]

Does cancel culture actually exist, or is it just people facing consequences? (As the retort goes)

[spur1]

3 hours ago, Smashian Kassian said:

Does cancel culture actually exist, or is it just people facing consequences? (As the retort goes)

How dare someone say NO. 

[thedestroyerofworlds]

The reactions of all the CONservatives and Christians who were lamenting about cancel culture to the Lil Nas X controversy shows that their positions on cancel culture and political correctness: