Who's your money on?Follow

Nate Silver notes that, at this point in the cycle in 2008, Obama led Clinton by 100 elected delegates. After last night, Clinton will lead Sanders by 325 elected (not super) delegates. Especially with the Democratic proportional rules (no winner takes all Dem states), there's really no path for Sanders to overtake that lead.

Supposedly Trump is leading in 7-of-8 MO congressional districts. Cruz's support must have been pretty centralized. MO awards by district so even winning by a couple thousand votes can net him a sizable delegate prize.

Funny how the different rules work out. Last I saw, Missouri would award either 42-10 or 47-5 (Trump/Cruz) depending on how one of the districts shakes out. But, on the Democratic side, it'll be a difference of two or three delegates despite the same margin of victory.

In 2008, Republicans complained that the short primary cycle let McCain win too early before a "real conservative" could get going so they extended the calendar. In 2012, Republicans complained that the lengthy calendar kept the primary race running too long and crippled Romney. So they rejiggered the states to this "winner takes all/most" style stuff that's now benefiting Trump. Onward to the 2016 primary calendar; they'll find the perfect blend of awards one of these days.

No it's not if the concern is whether or not the person is being called racist. If I said that your actions stem from racism, am I calling you a racist? That's the question.

"Are you saying" is a question for clarification, not a statement. Read above.

Sure. But that wasn't the question I was given. I was merely trying to get someone to acknowledge that you can't just look at one event and assume intent with regard to the outcome. A random act can result in unequal outcomes. Most often do, in fact.



You'd think so. But I think that when it comes to certain politically sensitive subjects, people's ability to do this seem to get tossed out the window.



Yup. But here's the thing. There are more factors that could result in a long term skewed set of outcomes than intent. My issue is with people assuming that the cause of unequal outcomes for black people in the US must be racism on the part of the person immediately involved in the action that caused the outcome itself (so police in the cases we've discussed here). But that's like claiming the guy reading the result of a coin toss is lying about it in order to make one side lose more often, instead of accepting that maybe he's reading the coin result correctly and fairly, but the coin itself is weighted unfairly.

Which is how I see police involvement in these cases. The cops are showing up and dealing with the person and situation immediately in front of them. To assume that each individual cop is acting on some broad and consistent racist motivation rather than just the specifics of that situation is innately unfair. And what's interesting is that when we do look just at the details of each individual cops actions, we very very rarely find racial discrimination (extremely rarely, in fact). But when we look at the statistical outcome, we see unequal results. Which, again, should make one look at other environmental factors causing that inequality, and not the cops. But "racist cops" is a much more effective and powerful rallying cry. It mobilizes people against an "enemy" they can see. And every time a white cop shoots a black person, it's an easy narrative to paint. Worse, once you've rallied people to that idea, when the cop is exonerated (rightly), this results, not in a re-examination of the base assumptions about the cause of the unequal outcomes, but a rage against a system that is seen as unjust to the racism that people have been taught is the culprit.

And then we get riots.

This is why it's important to look at the actions themselves and ask if they really represent an act of racial discrimination, or if we're just assuming so because the outcomes from a set of such actions are unequal along racial lines. It's wrong to assume from the latter that the former must be true, but that's what is happening in far too many cases. We see cops shooting blacks at a higher relative rate than whites, conclude this must be because of racism on the part of the cops, and thus any time a cop shoots a black person, that cop must be a racist. Um... But that's not necessarily true at all. But until we challenge that assumption, we can't even begin to look at what other factors may cause those statistically unequal outcomes. And until we do that, we have no hope of fixing the actual problem.

No. I'm saying don't assume racism on the part of the players involved in an action just because the statistical outcomes of the whole set of similar actions results in an unequal outcome aligned with race. I thought I was quite clear about this.

That's not the question at all. If you call someone a racist, then you are calling that person a racist. Again, the question is if you call someone a racist does that actually make them a racist. To which the correct answer is "no". But when Demea called the cops racists, you responded by saying they were "admitted racists". Which is not merely an acceptance of the claim, but a giant leap past it.

No one questioned whether Demea called the cops racists. I questioned your claim that the cops were admitted racists.



Uh. You're kidding right? Tell you what. Go read up on the logical fallacy called Complex Question. Then get back to me. I'll give you a hint. That's what you were doing. I called you out on it. It's not the question that is at issue, but the assumption you inserted into the question. The only correct response to a complex question fallacy is to do exactly what I did: Challenge the assumption.




That's not an answer to the question. Either the NYC cops have admitted to being racists, or they have not. Which is it?

You can theorize all you want about the possible motivations of various actions, but that's your own theory. This is about facts. Either the NYC cops have admitted to being racists, or they have not.

Edited, Mar 16th 2016 6:20pm by gbaji

Yes, we know you like to pretend that racism does not exist.

I'm not sure how you justify that ideology with "I look at facts and come to logical conclusions" but frankly I really don't want to know what goes on in your skull.

Edited, Mar 16th 2016 7:33pm by Bijou

I did not say that. Why is it 100% one way or the other here? So because I don't think that calling the cop a racist because the statistical result of all cops actions result in blacks suffering a disproportionately higher rate of negative outcomes means that I don't think racism exists at all? That's a massive leap.

I'm merely saying that we should judge the actions of that one cop right there based solely on the actions of that one cop right there and not within the context of a narrative that automatically assumes that if he's white and the person he interacted with is black, then if anything negative happened to the black person, he must be a racist. I just think that's an incredibly wrong and counter productive assumption to make.



Um... Because "I look at facts and come to logical conclusions" is exactly what my ideology is. I'm not going to defend the straw man you are creating. How about responding to what I'm actually saying instead of inventing a more convenient thing to attack?


Alma claimed that the disparate outcome of stop and frisk policies in NYC were the result of racial discrimination on the part of the police. I said that that disparate outcome could be explained by a host of other factors having nothing to do with racial discrimination on the part of the police themselves. What's amazing is that this part has been almost entirely ignored in favor of these bizarre straw man arguments I keep running up against. Which is kinda what I'm talking about. No one wants to examine the social factors that lead to blacks being more likely to be in the situation where a cop will stop and search them than white people. Because that's a "hard" social issue to tackle. Much much easier to just blame the cops for being racist and moving on.

But "easy" doesn't solve the problem. It just makes it worse over time. We've been doing the easy thing for decades now. How's that working out?

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

I don't care at all about any other thing you've argued about in this thread

That's the problem. You are literally ignoring the conversation and creating a false argument for me to defend. Not until you admit that I did not call the cops admitted racists, that I was clarifying Demea's contradicting comments of calling the police racists, will I entertain your tangent.

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

Yes. So what? I don't care about your position vs Demea's position at all. Boy are you confused! All I'm saying is that you are wrong to label the cops "admitted racists".

That's it. Really. I don't give a freaking fig about whether you or Demea are right with regard to whether racist cops can also want to help the people in those neighborhoods. That's totally not the issue.

It's the entire issue. See above.

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

The actual text where you and only you applied the label "admitted racists" to the NYC cops. WTF?

The actual text of me saying that the police actions could be coincidental, but not the outcome.

If the police were admitted racists, then their disproportional behavior towards the black community would be out of racism, right? So if I Know the police is acting out of racism, then I wouldn't have said that their actions were possibly coincidental. If you want to argue that my text was poorly written, then fine. However, once I tell you what it meant, with supportive text, you should accept that. I'm not going to try to defend something that I never said.

Is keeping calm and letting the blue states do the talking. Bernie may very well just win this. It's a shame that the lower-educated deep south runs so early in our election cycle because they set the tone for our politics more often than not.

Moral victories are great to get your base motivated, but eventually you're kind of gonna need real victories to get things done.