The FRC is terrible, but calling them an "officially designated hate group", and actually relying on a designation from the SPLC, which has completely ruined its own credibility in recent years, will just cause people to ignore the important part of that choice.
I think it represents Trump essentially delegating these decisions to others, probably including Pence.
The SPLC is still the go to source of information for law enforcement in the United States for tracking hate groups. They are an invaluable source of information on organized groups that pose a threat to the public, law enforcement and government. The FBI and Fusion Centers across the country rely on their information to protect the nation.
That ^ sums up what the SPLC has become, from where I sit. They no longer have any credibility whatsoever in terms of what a "hate group" even is. Absolute travesty what they've turned into in the last five years or so after almost a half century of being one of the more important non-government actors in the country.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
^^^^ Maajid Nawaz. What a joke. Sorry, I'll take the word of the FBI and law enforcement of all levels over a self-proclaimed activist who then complains about being identified as an "anti-Muslim activist.".
I frankly don't care where you sit, because you don't know anything on this subject. SPLC publications are required reading for the intelligence organs in law enforcement across the nation, especially for those who deal with organized crime, gangs, and hate groups.
^ Maajid Nawaz. What a joke. Sorry, I'll take the word of the FBI and law enforcement of all levels over a self-proclaimed activist who then complains about being identified as an "anti-Muslim activist."
Ok, well, you have very little credibility as well. Quoting this for posterity. Thanks for showing your true colours here, as if you hadn't before. I'll stick with Maajid.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Ok, well, you have very little credibility as well. Quoting this for posterity. Thanks for showing your true colours here, as if you hadn't before. I'll stick with Maajid.
Please do.
And color me surprised that you would suck up what ever garbage that Nawaz spews. He supports your particular perspective on Islam, so you will accept whatever he has to say on any subject. Knock me over with a feather.
Just wondering, how many Fusion Centers you been in? How many organized crime or gang units have you worked with? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, ZERO. You should not speak of credibility when you have no expertise in this particular realm.
Actually I have worked with a gang task force unit, but that's entirely beside the substance of the matter.
It's equally surprising that you would, first, conduct yourself in this way, and second, dismiss Nawaz and everything he had to say there because it doesn't align with your myopic world view. Really, nothing particularly shocking or interesting about anything you've posted in quite a while in here.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I'm torn about it, because my whole thing right now is that President Trump represents every possible bad outcome up to and including an existential threat to humanity, in my view.
I know it sounds hyperbolic, but I actually think he's so erratic, so unpredictable and so narcissistic that he's completely disconnected from the real world results of his decisions. In other words, I think Mike Pence, or basically anyone else who might have decision making authority, would have a sense of awe and terror at the prospect that they might catastrophically screw up human existence on a total or near total scale. I don't think Trump has that kind of sense, that reality won't weigh on him.
I'm not saying I think there's a significant chance of an extinction event (though he has nukes, so it's not zero either), but what he does could end up seriously damaging our civilization, to a point where what life looks like doesn't much resemble what it looks like at the moment. People are currently failing to process that risk owing to a combination of normalcy bias, a lack of any frame of reference for how terrible things can become with a few major ill-considered decisions, and just not wanting to think about the prospect.
So while Pence is certain to be worse for some peoples' rights - gays and women among them - we're all likely to be alive at the end of the day. To reiterate the metaphor from that video I and Enoch Root posted earlier, if at the end of this Presidency, the plane is on the ground and we're all alive, that's enough for me; I don't care if I've got a concussion from hitting my head during the landing, or even broken an arm.
So if Pence wielding more influence gives us a better chance of walking away from this one, wounded or otherwise, I think the downsides just have to be borne, and fixed to the extent possible under the next President (or next Congress if anything can be done there in the interim).
I get what you're saying, for humanity at large, Trump is obviously the bigger issue. For a straight man living in Canada, obviously Trump is the bigger problem.
For a woman or a gay person or a trans person living in the US, however, we have Mike Pence who tried to take money earmarked for HIV treatment and instead wanted to give it to groups that perform conversion therapy on gay/trans youths. Conversion therapy that leads to a not insignificant amount of suicides, as well as many unsuccessful attempts. He tried to throw gay couples in jail just for attempting to obtain a marriage licence. In his desperate need to punish Planned Parenthood because he doesn't agree with their mission, he managed to spark an HIV outbreak, and I'm sure that will cost lives, because rural Indiana is unlikely to be an easy place to get HIV treatment, especially if the GOP manages to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
While I understand what you mean about Trump and nukes, and that is obviously a massive concern--that he has Pence as his running mate and that he's putting someone else who is blatantly against LGBT rights as the head of his domestic policy is terrifying to people. Because while Trump is a loose cannon, it's very possible that we manage to keep him under control and that he doesn't start WW3.
But as of right now, there is nothing stopping the ultra conservative GOP Congress/House from influencing domestic policy that makes life much harder for a lot of people. I really need people who aren't directly affected by all of those consequences to stop acting as if it's a silly concern to have.
I get what you're saying, for humanity at large, Trump is obviously the bigger issue. For a straight man living in Canada, obviously Trump is the bigger problem.
[...]
While I understand what you mean about Trump and nukes, and that is obviously a massive concern--that he has Pence as his running mate and that he's putting someone else who is blatantly against LGBT rights as the head of his domestic policy is terrifying to people. Because while Trump is a loose cannon, it's very possible that we manage to keep him under control and that he doesn't start WW3.
Let me first say that your suggestion that I'm not sensitive to those issues because I'm straight and white is pretty obnoxious from where I sit, but I'll leave that aside because I get that not everyone shares my view on the inherently toxic nature of identity politics. Instead, I'll just note that I'm definitely alive to those problems, and absolutely aware of suicides that will certainly result from these policies. It's horrific. And I'm not necessarily talking about WW3, there are a number of ways he can really screw us up just by not knowing what the hell he's doing and not being smart enough to be careful.
There is just no conceivable version of the world where Trump as president doesn't lead to a number of deaths and probably quite a bit of avoidable suffering for innocent people, and not just Americans. I think that the only likely scenario for "keeping Trump under control" (as you put it) to make sure he doesn't do broader, more catastrophic damage than rolling back civil rights for gays and women might actually be Mike Pence and his ilk. That would look like a more-right-wing-than-usual Republican administration, which would be bad, but not the end of life as we know it. I'm more concerned about a world where worries about not having ready access to health care or the ability to marry the person you love seems like a quaint and fond memory.
It has nothing to do with who's a bigger risk for me, it's about who's a bigger risk to the progress of humanity more broadly. My sense is that Pence exercising control leads to more certainty and less downside risk, and though the results of that are bound to be pretty awful, they're nothing compared to the potential ruination of society. So far no one's really been able to convince me that the likelihood of that outcome is insignificant, even though it seems far fetched intuitively.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Let me first say that your suggestion that I'm not sensitive to those issues because I'm straight and white is pretty obnoxious from where I sit, but I'll leave that aside because I get that not everyone shares my view on the inherently toxic nature of identity politics. Instead, I'll just note that I'm definitely alive to those problems, and absolutely aware of suicides that will certainly result from these policies. It's horrific. And I'm not necessarily talking about WW3, there are a number of ways he can really screw us up just by not knowing what the hell he's doing and not being smart enough to be careful.
There is just no conceivable version of the world where Trump as president doesn't lead to a number of deaths and probably quite a bit of avoidable suffering for innocent people, and not just Americans. I think that the only likely scenario for "keeping Trump under control" (as you put it) to make sure he doesn't do broader, more catastrophic damage than rolling back civil rights for gays and women might actually be Mike Pence and his ilk. That would look like a more-right-wing-than-usual Republican administration, which would be bad, but not the end of life as we know it. I'm more concerned about a world where worries about not having ready access to health care or the ability to marry the person you love seems like a quaint and fond memory.
It has nothing to do with who's a bigger risk for me, it's about who's a bigger risk to the progress of humanity more broadly. My sense is that Pence exercising control leads to more certainty and less downside risk, and though the results of that are bound to be pretty awful, they're nothing compared to the potential ruination of society. So far no one's really been able to convince me that the likelihood of that outcome is insignificant, even though it seems far fetched intuitively.
But that's the thing, these aren't my identity politics. I'm incredibly fortunate and privileged, even despite this disaster of an election, my world doesn't change. I'm a straight woman, I can marry whomever I choose if I decide to do so. I make more than the same men in my company because I work harder. I have a boss who loudly and proudly protects my rights as a woman and will continue to do so. I am protected from all of these things.
But there are millions of Americans who are not so lucky. There are people who can be discriminated against for housing, for jobs, if Pence and his ilk have their way. It will change life as they know it. I really am just asking you to stop acting as if these are minor concerns because they are not. For millions of people, their safety is at stake. Their livelihood is at stake. Their access to medical care is at stake. These are huge issues that are much more imminent than are all of the other problems that Trump brings with him. These are problems that would have happened regardless of what Republican candidate had won office. If somehow Trump is impeached and all of those other issues you're bringing to the table are mitigated, the threat to these groups still remains, because they are not inherent to Trump, they are inherent to the Republican Party, which runs all three branches of government at this point in time.
I'm not saying that Trump isn't a major threat to mankind's safety and nothing you're saying with regards to that is wrong, but to write off a blatantly anti-LGBT man to a major post on his cabinet that is absolutely certain to have negative effects on those communities is infuriating, and to treat it as basic "identity politics" is belittling and demeaning to the people who are facing those incredibly real threats long before Trump is even inaugurated.
But there are millions of Americans who are not so lucky. There are people who can be discriminated against for housing, for jobs, if Pence and his ilk have their way. It will change life as they know it. I really am just asking you to stop acting as if these are minor concerns because they are not.
First, I'm not making any comment about your social standing or circumstances (or "privilege" or whatever you want to call it), because I don't know you and I would never presume to make those kinds of judgments. I'm talking about your ideas as you've expressed them and as I'm understanding them from reading them, and it's clear that your view of the world is guided by identity politics, as you've expressed. I strongly reject that mode of thinking, and as corporatejay said earlier in the thread (although a bit tongue-in-cheek), "that's going to cost you a second term". But that's more of an annoyance than anything, I don't want to be taken as dismissing the substance of your concerns because of my dislike of the way you express them or the lens you view them through.
I really want to stress that I'm not acting as if they're minor concerns. I'm not "writing them off" at all. They are huge concerns. Human suffering of any kind, particularly to disadvantaged groups, is something under normal circumstances that we should go to almost any lengths to oppose. These are not normal circumstances. I think the problem is that I'm not getting across how insanely bad the other alternative can, quite conceivably, be. It's not that the terrible things you're describing are being put on one side of the scales and not weighing heavily for me, it's that what's on the other side of the scales still manages to dwarf those terrible things. It's hard to fathom, so I hope I can be cut a little slack if I'm not effectively communicating here.
I don't remember who said it right after the election, but it was someone speaking in the context of environmental issues, talking about sheer scale of the potential ramifications from Trump's environmental policies and his general view that climate change is a Chinese hoax. It was, "you can't get an abortion underwater". That's the kind of stakes we're talking about here.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Actually I have worked with a gang task force unit, but that's entirely beside the substance of the matter.
It's equally surprising that you would, first, conduct yourself in this way, and second, dismiss Nawaz and everything he had to say there because it doesn't align with your myopic world view. Really, nothing particularly shocking or interesting about anything you've posted in quite a while in here.
Of course you did, it would be foolish to think you haven't
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Actually I have worked with a gang task force unit, but that's entirely beside the substance of the matter.
Actually, that is the substance of the matter. You were the one who said the SPLC was a non-reputable source of information, claiming that they have "ruined their reputation in recent years," and I just pointed out your error. I pointed out that the SPLC is still one of the go-to sources of information for tracking hate groups, organized crime with a focus on hate, gangs and militias. Your proof of such a claim is an article by one of your anti-Islam heroes (Nawaz) who has fallen into one of the classification groups used by these interests, not just the SPLC. His negative view of the SPLC has given you the idea their reputation is questionable, which is complete bunk, especially in law enforcement and the intelligence community.
You claim you have worked on a gang task force, and I am not going to deny that claim, but I will ask a very simple question. Where did your gang task force get its intel on various groups being monitored? What was the root source of tracking the spread and movements of these organized elements?
Quote:
It's equally surprising that you would, first, conduct yourself in this way, and second, dismiss Nawaz and everything he had to say there because it doesn't align with your myopic world view. Really, nothing particularly shocking or interesting about anything you've posted in quite a while in here.
A myopic view of the world? Seriously counselor? You who judge everyone on whether their particular perspective aligns with yours, and the sources you use, has the audacity to claim someone is myopic? I mean, just look at your engagement with wittynickname. She's explaining her perspective, as a woman, and you charge her with using identity politics? Pot, meet kettle.
I dismiss what Nawaz has to say on this because he's being a whiny little bitch (to steal a Bill Maher term). He is a self-professed activist. He takes a radical view of a religion, which makes him a target, and he embraces that as a badge of honor. When you do that, you get noticed and you get identified as a possible risk. Nawaz should recognize and understand that. He has taken an extreme, controversial and dangerous view on the Islam religion (I am not debating whether he is right or wrong) which is going to draw a similar yet counter element to any event he speaks at. For this reason he finds himself on these lists, and this is something he should not complain about as it was his own doing.
What you seem to lack here is the understanding of the function of the SPLC and how their intel is used. A lot of these groups are dangerous actors. Some of them are not. Some are tracked because of the rhetoric they use and because of the elements they will attract to counter their message. When the rhetoric is amped up to the point where it is considered hate speech, and is done so in an organized fashion, an individual will be tracked. For someone like Nawaz who does so in a very public way, it is beneficial for those in law enforcement to be aware of his movements and especially his engagements. where Nawaz speaks, there is potential for bad things to happen - not by him, but by elements who find his message as being blasphemous. He is tracked for the protection of the community at large, sort of in the same way Westboro Baptist Church is. Nawaz is on a list because there is a risk/threat associated with his message. You would know that differentiation in definition if you read the SPLC reports instead of taking the word or one guy who has an axe to grind with the organization.
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