Can the country be unified?

[Diesel]

And there diesel goes

Cementing the idea that Americans can never heal


Embraces lies I proved were lies


Refuses cold hard facts and refuses to offer PROOF of his crap

You know what, evince? Go fuck yourself. I'm done with your game. Don't talk to me about healing when you call me a liar a hundred times and a Russian bot for saying (to someone who isn't even you) that Democrats gerrymander. You're a dishonest partisan. You're a Republican with a different team jersey.

[evince]

Are you insane or high? Gerrymandering isn't illegal unless it's done racially. That's the problem. Whichever party controls redistricting can do whatever the hell it wants and the other party has no recourse. It's one of many, many flaws in the American political system. Some states have formed nonpartisan redistricting commissions, but "nonpartisan" is hardly a thing when we're talking about human behavior and decisions.

Oh really


Bullshit


Gerrymandering to quash voter intentions is illegal


Prove it’s not

[evince]

You know what, evince? Go fuck yourself. I'm done with your game. Don't talk to me about healing when you call me a liar a hundred times and a Russian bot for saying (to someone who isn't even you) that Democrats gerrymander. You're a dishonest partisan. You're a Republican with a different team jersey.

If you don’t want to be called a liar then don’t lie


You have completely failed to offer proof of your claims repeatedly



I offered facts to prove you wrong


You have entirely dismiss those facts

[Doc Dutch]

I believe it's because most (or is it all now?) have degrees. That is certainly true of my son, who enlisted in the Navy and was sent to officer's school because he came with a BS in engineering. He served on a boomer as a lieutenant.

That's my guess: higher education. The piece of paper is only documentation for job-hunting, but the education itself is mind-opening. However, that education doesn't always translate into voting Democrat as the links below note. Like with Bill Clinton, the officer corps had a significantly lower view of Trump than enlisted personnel.

2012
https://swampland.time.com/2012/11/0...an-republican/
The officers by and large are more conservative,” says an Army sergeant just back from Afghanistan. “But the enlisted tend to be more liberal.” Of course, with fewer than one in five of those in uniform an officer, there’s a lot more enlisted voters.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/p...ks-poll-shows/
Troops surveyed had a 44 percent favorable view of Trump against a 43 percent unfavorable view. Women, minorities and officers had significantly lower opinions of his tenure, and men and enlisted service members offered more support.


https://www.militarytimes.com/news/p...ew-poll-shows/
“The general rule of thumb with the military is that it moves along with public opinion but lags conservative,” said Peter Feaver, a former adviser to former President George W. Bush who is now a political science professor at Duke University and an author of several books on military culture...

...As has been the case in the past, the poll shows that officers are less enamored with Trump than enlisted troops. More than half have an unfavorable view of his presidency, against 41 percent who have a favorable view.

Still, that’s an improvement for Trump, who saw only a 31 percent favorable rating from officers in the poll one year ago...

[Diesel]

Oh really


Bullshit


Gerrymandering to quash voter intentions is illegal


Prove it’s not

Good luck with that. Exactly one gerrymandered district has ever been overturned by a court.

"In the 20th century and afterwards, federal courts have deemed extreme cases of gerrymandering to be unconstitutional but have struggled with how to define the types of gerrymandering and the standards that should be used to determine which redistricting maps are unconstitutional. The US Supreme Court has affirmed in Miller v. Johnson (1995) that racial gerrymandering is a violation of constitutional rights and upheld decisions against redistricting that is purposely devised based on race. However, the Supreme Court has struggled as to when partisan gerrymandering occurs (Vieth v. Jubelirer (2004) and Gill v. Whitford (2018)) and a landmark decision, Rucho v. Common Cause (2019), ultimately decided that questions of partisan gerrymandering represent a nonjusticiable political question, which cannot be dealt with by the federal court system. That decision leaves it to states and to Congress to develop remedies to challenge and to prevent partisan gerrymandering. . . .

"The Supreme Court had ruled in Davis v. Bandemer (1986) that partisan gerrymandering violates the Equal Protection Clause and is a justiciable matter. However, in its decision, the Court could not agree on the appropriate constitutional standard against which legal claims of partisan gerrymandering should be evaluated. Writing for a plurality of the Court, Justice White said that partisan gerrymandering occurred when a redistricting plan was enacted with both the intent and the effect of discriminating against an identifiable political group. Justices Powell and Stevens said that partisan gerrymandering should be identified based on multiple factors, such as electoral district shape and adherence to local government boundaries. Justices O'Connor, Burger, and Rehnquist disagreed with the view that partisan gerrymandering claims were justiciable and would have held that such claims should not be recognized by courts.[23]:777–779 Lower courts found it difficult to apply Bandemer, and only in one subsequent case, Party of North Carolina v. Martin (1992),[24] did a lower court strike down a redistricting plan on partisan gerrymandering grounds.[23]:783

"The Supreme Court revisited the concept of partisan gerrymandering claims in Vieth v. Jubelirer (2004).[25] While the Court upheld that partisan gerrymandering could be justiciable, the justices were divided in this specific case as no clear standard against which to evaluate partisan gerrymandering claims emerged. Writing for a plurality, Justice Scalia said that partisan gerrymandering claims were nonjusticiable. A majority of the court would continue to allow partisan gerrymandering claims to be considered justiciable, but those justices had divergent views on how such claims should be evaluated.[26] Justice Anthony Kennedy, in a concurrence with the plurality, offered that a manageable means to determine when partisan gerrymandering occurred could be developed, and challenged lower courts to find such means.[23]:819–821 The Court again upheld that partisan gerrymandering could be justiciable in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry (2006). While the specific case reached no conclusion of whether there was partisan gerrymandering, Justice John Paul Stevens's concurrence with the plurality added the notion of partisan symmetry, in that the electoral system should translate votes to representative seats with the same efficiency regardless of party.[27]"

From the Wikipedia page that you linked.

[Diesel]

If you don’t want to be called a liar then don’t lie


You have completely failed to offer proof of your claims repeatedly



I offered facts to prove you wrong


You have entirely dismiss those facts

You have never provided a single source that says that Democrats have never gerrymandered. That's because they have. All you've offered is evidence that Republicans have gerrymandered. Well, no shit. To prove that Republicans do gerrymander does not disprove that Democrats also gerrymander. I think you aren't very bright.

[cawacko]

That's really cool. Linguistics is fascinating. Is that word under your user name Anishinaabemowin? I don't know anything about Ojibwe.

I think conservatives have two main reasons for hating universities: 1.) They didn't go and think people more educated than they are are elitist. I think it's a form of jealousy. 2.) People tend to become more liberal with the more education they receive. That's not a hard rule obviously, but it is an observable trend. It's better for their political causes if people stay dumb.

Conservatives aren't wrong about how illiberal Universities have become. I'm dating myself but when I was a kid college was a place we were told you would be challenged. You would be exposed to new people and new ideas. It was to be a place of growth and the world was essentially your oyster.

That isn't the world many college kids occupy today. From safe spaces to the denying of speakers based on disliking the content to debate being shut down in the classroom etc. etc. This isn't stuff coming from Alex Jones or Gateway Pundit, this is all real.

So yes, there are those who dislike the educated elite. No question. But they are not wrong about what's happening in our education system.

[evince]

Struggled with


Get it


That means it is Not legal


The voters rights only matter if the crime has a racial component?


Voters right are paramount


The constitution clearly states that

[evince]

Conservatives aren't wrong about how illiberal Universities have become. I'm dating myself but when I was a kid college was a place we were told you would be challenged. You would be exposed to new people and new ideas. It was to be a place of growth and the world was essentially your oyster.

That isn't the world many college kids occupy today. From safe spaces to the denying of speakers based on disliking the content to debate being shut down in the classroom etc. etc. This isn't stuff coming from Alex Jones or Gateway Pundit, this is all real.

So yes, there are those who dislike the educated elite. No question. But they are not wrong about what's happening in our education system.

You hate higher education because they won’t teach your political lies as fact


Fuck you

[evince]

You have never provided a single source that says that Democrats have never gerrymandered. That's because they have. All you've offered is evidence that Republicans have gerrymandered. Well, no shit. To prove that Republicans do gerrymander does not disprove that Democrats also gerrymander. I think you aren't very bright.

How can I do that?


By asking you to provide cases that prove they have



How do I prove the cracken doesn’t exist


By asking those who say it does exist to prove it exists


You trying to use that asshole argument further proves who you really are



Get proof of your claim or admit you will believe anything without proof and are a fool or a liar

[evince]

Go get the case that convinced you the Democrats gerrymander as a party and made you so forceful in your claims about my beloved party


Why do you keep refusing to bring me a case?

[Peace n Safety]

You still believe in Pizzagate, don't you?

Never heard of it


Blessings

[Peace n Safety]

Is it possible that dogs walk around on their hind legs when no humans are around?

You have to prove that there was fraud, not ask a rhetorical question about it. That's why 27 lawsuits have already been thrown out of court.

The motion filed is asking to be heard in court based on reasonable doubt. It’s going to the scotie


Blessings

[evince]

Is it possible that dogs walk around on their hind legs when no humans are around?

You have to prove that there was fraud, not ask a rhetorical question about it. That's why 27 lawsuits have already been thrown out of court.

Hmmmmm


This is pretty hypocritical huh

[Diesel]

Conservatives aren't wrong about how illiberal Universities have become. I'm dating myself but when I was a kid college was a place we were told you would be challenged. You would be exposed to new people and new ideas. It was to be a place of growth and the world was essentially your oyster.

That isn't the world many college kids occupy today. From safe spaces to the denying of speakers based on disliking the content to debate being shut down in the classroom etc. etc. This isn't stuff coming from Alex Jones or Gateway Pundit, this is all real.

So yes, there are those who dislike the educated elite. No question. But they are not wrong about what's happening in our education system.

"Safe space" was not a negative term before conservative media ridiculed it to death. I used to be a teacher. We were taught to assure students that they were in a "safe space" if they wanted to discuss something that was difficult or uncomfortable to discuss: Knowing that someone had cheated on a test or assignment; knowing that someone had illicit paraphernalia on school property; being abused, neglected, or bullied; having thoughts related to self harm or being LGBTQ; etc. In fact, my nephew has been caught engaging in some unacceptable behaviors recently. When I talked to him about it, I started with, "You know you can trust me, right? I'm not going to be angry with you about anything you say to me. You're in a safe place." The only difference now is that a lot of these "safe spaces" have been formalized. They're regularly scheduled meetings of a support group or in the most extreme cases, a room or a place where a person can seclude himself to cope with a traumatic experience. The concept is probably overextended, but it should not be controversial that victims of trauma have "safe spaces" to process their feelings. What constitutes a traumatic experience seems to have been widened significantly in recent decades, but I'm not in a position to tell someone else when they have been harmed. That's between them, the person that did it to them, authorities, and medical professionals. I have been told more times than I could ever count that racism doesn't exist and that my perception of racism is invalid. It's a hurtful and frustrating experience. I haven't felt the need to seek out a support group, but I do have my own self-constructed "safe spaces", which are nothing more than close friends and family with whom I feel comfortable discussing those things.

I go back and forth about canceling or preventing certain speakers. I'm also dating myself, but I was a student at CU-Boulder when Ward Churchill's essay about 9/11 gained international attention. It was three and a half years after the attacks, but he published it on September 12, 2001, before the bodies were even cold. In it, Churchill claimed that the attacks were the consequence of illegal American international intervention. He also criticized the people who worked in the World Trade Center and the systems that they represented. The outrage was deafening. On campus, I am happy to admit that feelings were conflicted. The administration, faculty, students, alumni, and community were all torn. A person should be allowed to express views as long as they do not incite violence or put life or safety in jeopardy. It took two years for the university to fire Churchill. Then his appeals process took another six years until ultimately the SCOTUS refused to hear his case. He was censored, but at the time, when so many people were still hurting so badly about 9/11, I can't say that I felt too badly for him. So, although people like Ann Coulter and Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon are relatively evil in my estimation, I don't begrudge them their platforms. Universities should allow different viewpoints to be presented. The consumers' (students') option is to vote with their feet and let the Ann Coulters of the world talk to an empty auditorium.