The Moral Arc

[Kidlicious]

I said that black people deserve special treatment because of the sustained and systematic (and usually open) attacks they receive.

Making criminal laws and sentencing so that one group, that has been historically attacked, continues to be attacked is a prime example of the problem that needs to be fixed by special laws/classes/etc. Criminal laws and sentencing is how governments attack groups.

JM

The government hasn't attacked black people. It is enforcing the law against drug possession and other crimes such as murder. Do you not know that the homicide rate is significantly higher in low income black neighborhoods than it is in mostly white neighborhoods? Probably has something to do with the fact that white people aren't in criminal gangs. Do you expect the police to profile little old Asian women?

[Kidlicious]

I'm for criminal law reform but you just can't claim that the government has attacked a group of people because more of those people are in prison. Do you understand how ridiculous that is?

[Kidlicious]

Actually since group equality is only a liberal goal (only you insist that all races be equal in groups), I should clarify that I don't support reform that tries to meet that goal. I see no reason not to put black people in prison for possessing drugs. I am however in favor of rehab.

[Elok]

For further context: Remember what I said about living in Trump country? There used to be Trump signs in every fourth yard here, scarcely a Hillary sign in sight. Customers routinely assume that I--a bespectacled, transparently bookish white guy who looks like Trotsky--am looking forward to the President smashing Obamacare. Yet gay people are not hiding at all. At least, not all gay people. Lesbians in particular are quite prominent, I've stopped being at all surprised by women who walk up and casually say they're picking things up for their wives or girlfriends. A few months ago, shortly before the election, I had an unusually trashy pair engage in PDA in the middle of the bloody store in a way I've never seen a straight couple do. I suspect that this confidence is due to their not belonging to Blue. I don't think these women are Trump fans, but they're frequently on public healthcare and don't talk or act like the upper middle class. People here know they can be as queer as they like, and most of the good old boys around here won't much care, as long as they don't give any sign of being class enemies.

[Berzerker]

the "problem" is that police go into low income neighbor hoods (assuming to fight other crimes besides drug possession). So the government is not attacking black people, not even the police. More crime takes place in black neighborhoods, so the police are there. Naturally they are going to make more drug busts there.

Nixon began his war on drugs to target blacks for opposing his political agenda. Most drug laws began as an attack on people based on ethnicity.

The government hasn't attacked black people. It is enforcing the law against drug possession and other crimes such as murder. Do you not know that the homicide rate is significantly higher in low income black neighborhoods than it is in mostly white neighborhoods? Probably has something to do with the fact that white people aren't in criminal gangs. Do you expect the police to profile little old Asian women?

What was the homicide rate in poor black neighborhoods over the 20 years following WWII (or the 20 years before it, like under alcohol prohibition)? What was the level of gang activity? Were the jails filled with younger black people? The drug war brought us more murder, more gangs, and more crime.

[Kidlicious]

Nixon began his war on drugs to target blacks for opposing his political agenda.

I don't believe because...
1) It's an incredible claim demanding much evidence
2) The person who said that they heard that from someone said it after it couldn't be confirmed.

[Ben Kenobi]

Strawman. No one is claiming that homosexuals were oppressed more/less than any other group. The nature of the oppression of homosexuals is historical fact, and we all know it happened.

Which raises the question as to the last person actually charged under the sodomy laws.

The question in this thread is whether or not homosexuals and women really have a right to be scared about what Trump means for their future. It's quite obvious they are right to be scared ... because of who Trump has said he would nominate to SCOTUS, that Trump will get to nominate 1 Justice, and the possibility that Trump could nominate 2, 3, or even 4 Justices given the ages of current Justices.

Women made a big part of Trump's coalition. I'm curious as to exactly how Trump is supposed to be a threat to women.

[Aeson]

I would argue that you are arguing the straw man. You are saying that it is an extreme danger to have one person being in a position to make law who supports allowing others, if they choose, to use the government to attack homosexuals.

That isn't a strawman, and it's not my argument. So it's a strawman on your part. I have already explicitly stated that 1 seat (Scalia's) doesn't matter. I have several times mentioned how many seats are required, and why Trump getting a chance to fill them is not as unlikely as you are making it out to be.

If there was a great interest from the government (I mean police, state judges, federal judges) to do this, and their was other support on the Supreme Court (you mention Scalia, but he is dead) for this, I might agree. But there isn't. It is likely that he would have the same effect as my grandfather's neighbour when he voted for Bush. None.

You keep trying to defend Trump's stated purpose by pretending only the most horrible outcome is a concern. The reality is that there are many possible ways that homosexuals can be harmed. Look at what Republicans have done in state legislatures regarding women's health. Look at how they plan to attack ACA. They don't take it head-on, but rather nibble and claw around the edges eroding them indirectly. Same with black voters. Rather than outright institute Jim Crow, it's voter IDs and closing polling places and other roundabout ways to the same end.

Most red states would love to deny homosexuals marriages and adoptions again. There have already been attempts at roundabout ways to do so, and it's likely there will be more. At least some of them want to have sodomy laws, and were enforcing them until SCOTUS forced them to stop in 2003.

Trump has stated Scalia is his model for a nominee, promised to put Scalia types on the court. Trump has put Pryor on his list, who supports states' rights to have sodomy laws. (Others on his list may or may not as they haven't taken explicit stances, but at least some others on the list are against gay marriage/adoption.) RBG is 83, Kennedy is 80, and Breyer is 78. It is unlikely all 3 will last through Trump's presidency. All 3 were/are votes against sodomy laws and for homosexual marriage/adoption. Trump has also promised to get Roe v Wade overturned, which although a separate issue is ideologically linked, and will be at least as difficult, if not moreso, than Lawrence even. So he's going to have to fill all the seats he can get with Scalia types or worse (from a homosexuals rights perspective), and he is likely to get 2 or 3 (total), with 1 being assured and 4 being possible.

He needs 3 to get it all done. But 2 gets some of the way there. And with Republicans in the House and Senate and Presidency, who know's what degenerative (from a homosexual rights perspective) laws they are going to pass. Roberts may not want to overturn a decision of his own court (but then again, he might ... he authored the dissent in Obergfell) ... but on a new law to set new precident, he'd probably go against homosexual rights.

So the probability is minuscule and the damage is a lot smaller than other groups (the nightmare scenario is 1% damage, and as Elok said in that scenario other groups would be experiencing 10-100% damage).

Women's reproductive rights are really the only other issue threatened by Trump in regards to SCOTUS and his potential nominees. (Muslims via a registry might be something Trump tries, but I don't know if anyone on SCOTUS or even Trump's list of nominees would actually allow such a thing. Scalia almost certainly wouldn't have. So it's unlikely.)

The "nightmare scenario" is a Strawman being used to distract from the actual fear. "You don't have to worry about being thrown from rooftops, so stop whining!" when no one was whining about being thrown from rooftops ...

It is relatively unimportant, it is taking too much of the liberal speech space and that is one of the reasons why many people who voted for Obama didn't vote for Clinton v2.

I am not the one deriding other people for being afraid. It is unimportant to you, you don't think it's likely that they will be harmed, so you deride people for caring about it. That is actually the analog. Too many progressives derided white working class for being worried about their own economic struggles, pretending they weren't really struggling, alienating them.

I am doing what Democrats should have done. Care about the concerns of a group who I am not part of, but who's rights are important, and who are natural allies of my own positions.

[Aeson]

Which raises the question as to the last person actually charged under the sodomy laws.

Lawrence in 2003 (though there were probably others in the interim between the trials). Thus Lawrence v Texas. Which ended state sodomy laws.

Women made a big part of Trump's coalition. I'm curious as to exactly how Trump is supposed to be a threat to women.

Trump's stated goal for SCOTUS is to overturn Roe v Wade. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree whether it should be overturned or not, it is obviously an issue which affects women.

[Aeson]

Aeson, again: gays are not a cohesive cultural group. It's biologically impossible to extirpate them. It is only possible to be vicious to individuals--and going back to jailing them for sodomy is extremely implausible, while Russian-style repression would require the entire culture of the country to shift radically. As of 2004, most of the anti-sodomy laws on the books were almost never enforced anyway, which is how they remained on the books in the first place.

They were enforce in Texas against Lawrence. Which is why Lawrence v Texas went to SCOTUS.

You keep focusing on the worst case/least likely ... however the most damage is likely to come from eroding other homosexual rights, since the odds of it happening are higher. Marriage and adoption were 5:4, and Trump has a very good chance of nominating another after filling Scalia's seat, which would swing that around.

As I said to JM ... look at the Republican tactics in regards to women's reproductive rights and to target black voters. They are very devious about how to go around the ends of current laws (or sometimes just obfuscate how they are going through them) and indirectly achieve their purpose. Even if you trust in Roberts (who authored the dissent in Obergfell) to be some bastion of not-want-to-destroy-my-legacy-so-going-against-my-beliefs-in-constitutionality (however absurd that is) ... there will likely be plenty of opportunities to put a stamp on new ways to whittle down homosexual rights for a court which gets an anti-gay majority.

[Aeson]

If one half of the country starts symbolic sanctions against gays, the other half will basically treat them as interstate refugees, and the division of America will continue apace--which is a far greater threat to peace and stability in the long run.

Yet another good reason to be worried about Trump's SCOTUS nominee(s).

[Aeson]

For further context: Remember what I said about living in Trump country? There used to be Trump signs in every fourth yard here, scarcely a Hillary sign in sight. Customers routinely assume that I--a bespectacled, transparently bookish white guy who looks like Trotsky--am looking forward to the President smashing Obamacare. Yet gay people are not hiding at all. At least, not all gay people. Lesbians in particular are quite prominent, I've stopped being at all surprised by women who walk up and casually say they're picking things up for their wives or girlfriends. A few months ago, shortly before the election, I had an unusually trashy pair engage in PDA in the middle of the bloody store in a way I've never seen a straight couple do. I suspect that this confidence is due to their not belonging to Blue. I don't think these women are Trump fans, but they're frequently on public healthcare and don't talk or act like the upper middle class. People here know they can be as queer as they like, and most of the good old boys around here won't much care, as long as they don't give any sign of being class enemies.

They have legal protection now. Of course they are happy to have it. Of course even those who are homophobic have to let them live their lives. It wasn't that long ago that homosexuals were afraid (even in liberal places) to even tell anyone they were homosexual. Trump's stated and implied SCOTUS goals threaten that legal protection. We shouldn't even consider allowing the slightest possibility of regression on that regards.

[Elok]

What? No, they don't have to let them do anything. My neighborhood is not exactly sparkly-clean. There's a trailer park a short distance from my work that gets visited by cops several times a month. We're not talking bloods and crips, but if these people were doing anything that really offended the prevailing values, they'd have good cause to keep it quiet. They do not, which strongly indicates to me that nobody really cares whom they schtup. The left likes to focus a lot on the religious right since they've largely forgotten how to fight anybody else, but Trump represents the post-religious right. He's a filthy lying gambling magnate who can't be bothered to even pretend Christianity properly. He may throw his religious constituents a bone now and then, but only the most utterly delusional seriously think he's going to make their interests a priority.

He'll rescind Obama's transgender school stuff for sure, and . . . well, gay marriage might get rescinded, which would push it back to the states, half of whom would suddenly absorb a certain number of marriage-minded gay people. I'd say "a lot" of marriage-minded gay people, but let's get serious, there ain't that many of them all together, and if you whittle it down to those who are actually interested in getting married in the near future that puts their numbers somewhat too low to be noticed against the background noise of population growth.

[Berzerker]

I don't believe because...
1) It's an incredible claim demanding much evidence
2) The person who said that they heard that from someone said it after it couldn't be confirmed.

You mean this guy?

http://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/

So you think he's lying... are the results lying too?

[Kidlicious]

You mean this guy?

http://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/

So you think he's lying... are the results lying too?

Like I said before, that heroine that was taken off the street sometimes prevents new addicts. That junky that get's busted again sometimes gets clean finally even in jail.