Comments by "Laurence Fraser" (@laurencefraser) on "Why Are Identity Politics So Intense in the U.S.?" video.

@dannylive3000 'one of', yes. Also probably the most resistant to necessary reform, which is Really showing its effects at this point. But i'd aruge that it's less a matter of strong ideals uniting people, and more a matter of scale and inertia (not to mention a political and economic system actively designed to suppress the ability of all but the wealthiest citizens from actually having any meaningful effect not in line with what the wealthy elite already want, at least in any but the most extreme circumstances) making any change, positive or negative, very difficult.
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The melting pot can absolutely work, it has many times in the past. The problem in the modern western world is the attempt to arrest the process half way through and call that 'success', when it is in fact failure. The various elements must, in fact, Melt, and thus Mix, in order for it to work. The ideal of multiculturalism as an end goal (rather than the healthy natural expression of the ongoing and desirably assimilation process) prevents this just as much as the oppresive practice of forcing those of other cultures into being an underclass, a type of 'other' used to divide the lower classes into factions that are more easily exploited, favoured by the more malicious parts of the right of the political spectrum.
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@AITreeBranches Oh, it's far from that tidy or universal, but I continued to be baffled by an American woman I know complaining that Frozen, a movie set in medieval fantasy scandanavia and in which to save on budget (and not highlight how out of scale most of the ships are) absolutely no ships crew or dock workers are ever shown... no black people appear. This was somehow oppressive and racist and ruined the entire movie for this white american woman. She was of the opionion that somehow the fact that the movie was animated meant there was no excuse for not including black people (... I guess because they didn't need to actually hire any ACTUAL black people in order to include them, or something?!) I can't think of any other culture that would produce this result normally. Oh, sure, plenty would complain that there weren't enough movies About black people, or the local equivalent, but complaining there were no black people in a movie about Medievan Fantasy Scandanavia?! That's an american thing. And that's before getting into 'black washing' and various other culturally destructive practices that just foster resentment rather than actually improving anything.
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@n0madtv Freedo of the Press, incidentally, is 'lack of government prevention of access to the means of publication' (an issue common in Europe when the USA was founded), NOT 'unrestrained access to information and freedom from consequences on the part of journalists and reporters'. A lot of people get confused by that one. Also, Journalists and reporters, when doing their Job Correctly, are functionally spies acting on behalf of the general public in the name of the public good. When they do it poorly, they're nothing more than propaganda mouthpieces, at best for the owner of their publication, at worst for whichever entity dropped a press release that day. (bias in favour of reality is ideal, bias in favour of a specific ideology can be compensated for, bias in favour of whoever is talking at the time (while hiding who that even Is, often enough) renders them so unreliable as to be completely useless.)
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@RobinHerzig ... it wouldn't be so bad a motto if it wasn't so blatantly a lie.
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@ohar94 Isn't that the same idiots who try to claim that Mathmatics is 'white imperialism'? The American far right is maliciously psychotic, and goes into politics. The American far left is maliciously psychotic (just often delusional about it) and goes into accademics. The Amerian moderate left basically doesn't exist as an entity thanks to decades of radicalising propaganda. The American moderate right has to do the job of the moderate right and moderate left while also pandering to the far left on the least harmful looking issues (they're regularly wrong about those) just to keep the American far right in check, because the american far right keeps actively sabotaging the instiutions the American nation-state requires in order to Function. Hence the disasterous mess that is US poltics.
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@flowersinawasteland to be fair, the 'woke SJW' ideology does Nothing to help those people, and most of those people are too busy dealing with their imediate real world problems to worry about the nonsense peddled by that ideology (including any of them who are actually part of any of the minorities it pretends to help).
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doesn't help that some of the most prominant supposedly pro-trans propaganda is seemingly designed from the ground up to 'other' trans people while also stoking paranoia and fear of non-trans people among them. (yes, I'm talking about the whole pronoun thing. The arguments in favour of it are nonsensical and require that those arguing in favour of it see no distinction between sex and gender... which is a fairly obvious flaw...) Then again, attempts to force linguistic change as part of an ideological campaign are always a contradictory mess that just make things worse for everyone. If your ideology is successful, the language will change naturally to align with it. If you have to force langauge change First, it's because your strategy for bringing about actually Meaningful change isn't working. Of course, that's just one of Many factors of that sort. Radicalisation of the political right is another major factor.
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It's foundation was questionably built to begin with, being built primarily around the wealthy of the day seeking to avoid taxation and making sure no one else was in a postion to change that.
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Not disagreeing with any of that. You're entirely correct, to my way of thinking. On the other hand, at least in the USA, the political right aren't arguing for equality At All. They just argue that any attempt at improving things for those how are mistreated is somehow an attack on those who are not. (this is, of course, made somewhat easier by the 'SJWs' on the left. For clarity, the difference between an SJW and an activist is that an activist will see a person in a wheel chair struggling to navigate the steps to a public library and, perhaps help in that individual case, perhaps not, but start an awareness campaign so the general public realise this is even a problem, and actively seek to have wheelchair ramps installed so that the library is accessable. An SJW will see the same thing and start a hate campaign against non disabled people and make life miserable for everyone until the steps are removed from the library, as steps are discriminitory against disabled people. They will consider the removal of the steps a win and move on.)
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@BlapwardKrunkle The democrats used to blame 'rural conservatives' for everything wrong with the USA in the same way... it's why rural conservatives overwhelmingly vote for Republicans pretty much every time despite the Republicans actively making this worse for rural conservatives pretty much every time they get in.
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@markallenbialik That happens when Americans have spent decades telling everyone how great and free they are and everyone else should be like them... meanwhile everyone else has either been sorting out their shit or being given more and more reason to resent the USA... and we keep gettting more and more evidence that living in most of the USA sucks Arse for most people who aren't rich and your political system Doesn't Work.
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Mmmm. And how well did that go?
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Well, save that one should generally seek not to so aggrivate the feelings of another that it drives them to taking actions detrimental to one's goals or well being, anyway.
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... you realise that gerrymandering is endemic to the system and engaged in fully by both parties because your political system is Corrupt as Shit right? There's a REASON no other funtional democracy that I'm aware of let's any political party, be they currently in power or NOT, have ANYTHING to do with drawing up electoral boundaries. Or if they do, it's a commity of members from ALL such parties who must unanimously agree to the results that they derive in accordance with much stricter rules. Also, for reference, those clames of electoral fraud? Actual investigation carried out produced this result in the presidential election trump recently lost: Statistically insiginificant (as in, inevitable counting error would affect the outcome more (and neither would be enough to change the outcome, or even force an additional recount to make sure of that), and most of the invalid votes were marked in support of Trump. Your system is fundamentally broken. It has Always been fundamentally broken, to the expicit interest of the Plutocratic class at the expense of everyone else. You fought a war to get out from under a functioning democracy specificially so that corrupt class could instate the corrupt system you now have. The difference between the Democrats and the republicans is very limited, and very simple: The democracts want to have a functioning nationstate to rule after they're done. The Republicans don't. In all other matters they both do whatever the wealthy lobbiest throw money at them to do, or what is profitable for themselves individually (and thus the plutocratric class to which they belong), making only occasional minor consessions to others to keep things ticking along. All else is meaningless hot air.
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Which would work much better were the bourgeoisie ever actually unified on anything save by incidental cominality of circumstances*, and the proletariat ever unified by anything other than malicious (or sometimes, admittedly, just incompitent) actors peddling delusions. *any person, given the same data under the same circumstances, is very likely to make the same decisions, baring Personal (not group) factors rendering them irrational on the matter. They will also, generally, act in what Appears to be their own self interest, from their position at the time. The trick is to cause their self interest, and the interest of the populous as a whole, to align, by elimiating inscentives to act against the common good in the process of persuing the personal good
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@mitonaarea5856 Well, that and the founding principle of the USA is actualy 'We refuse to pay any taxes, ever, to anyone, for any purpose, and will send other people to their deaths to enforce this'. Those responsible got what they wanted, too. They wrote a new law code that had everyone else paying taxes far in excess of what the British did (because they were no longer being heavily subsidized by the taxpayers of Britain), while creating so many loopholes and exceptions and ways for the government to pay Them for things that in practice they never paid a cent in tax that wasn't for propaganda purposes, denied most of their tax payers (never mind the women and slaves) the right to vote... and things have barely changed since.
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it also tends to avoid acknowledging the part the system, and straight up Luck, play in success, too. Simply put, if you don't put in the work to achieve success (for whatever definition of success we're talking about)? You will fail. If you don't have the necessary external support? You will fail. If you are not lucky enough (that bar varying a lot depending on preciselly what we're talking about at the time, from almost irrelivant to utterly overwhelming), you will fail. Most ideologies find it convenient to ignore at Least one of these.
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which is then Exported, agrivatingly.
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There's been a few analysises(sp) of the demographics of the USA for various reasons... Take away the overarching political ideology and you have, Roughly, the west coast (dominated by California) as one entity, Texus (and maybe its' immediate neighbours) as another, the south-east as another (though that one might fragment a bit, depending), the north east, I think Utah tends to end up as its own thing, a chunk in the north of the 'mid west' that's a coin flip if it becomes its own thing, joins the central planes, or ends up joining Canada in the long term (though it would be almost as distinct as Quebec if it Did join Canada), and then a sort of 'central planes' bit. Oh, and Alaska... which either ends up joining Canada, joining California, or staying seperate but forming very close ties with both, due to matters of finance, infrastructure, and defence. The edges don't strictly line up with state lines, either, though in most cases it's more a matter of a few 'border towns' being on the wrong side of the line on the map.
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@paigetomkinson1137 Well, at least ONE varety attempts to argue that Basic Addition is a product of white imperailism that shouldn't be forced on black children... Which is to say that it is a blatantly racist campaign aimed at sabotaging the education and prospects of black children wrapped up in popular leftist buzzwords. Hence Black politicians in the UK resisting attempts to export it there. perhaps there are other varieties that are not so odious.
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before the modern therapist was a thing, at least in the west, the role still existed. In fact, it was often a large part of the role of the local priest. Of course, the resultant quality of care varied a lot (though, to be fair, that hasn't changed, some therapists are good at their job, some are flat out scammers).
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@Charles-pf7zy And at least one variety of it argues that black children should not be taught basic mathmatics because that is and oppressive and 'white imperialist' concept, and thus to their detriment. It actively seeks to sabotage their education, and thus prospects and chances of prosparity, on the basis of their RACE. Which should be reprehensible enough to discredit that line of thought entirely and seriously damage the entire ideololgy... but they wrapped it up in popular leftist buzzwords about how everyone who isn't a white male isn't and can't possibly be oppressed (regardless of reality) and everyone else is by default (regardless of reality) so it slid on through.
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This is true almost universally... of course, equally (or perhaps more) true is the fact that humans simply do not work like that. Rather your actions can change which groups they see you as belonging to or not belonging to. (part of the reason marriages are such a big deal, incidentally, they (usually) realign some of the most core and fundamental groups for the individuals involved, and their relatives).
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@AshPooh frankly, if you let society become overly individualistic, it ceases to function meaningfully and you lose the benefits of having a society and government. The USA and to a lesser extent much of the English speaking west, is running into this issue to a degree. There is no ability to just tell the malicious idiots to go jump in a lake and stop ruining everything for the rest of us (and, often enough, for themselves in the long term), just to start with, which rappidly leads to the undermining and destruction of infrastructure and institutions necessary for the common good. Which is to say, it actively gets in the way of the ideals of liberalism. On the other hand, if you permit (or force) society become overly collectivist, if the society as a whole, and it's structures, don't account for and act on behalf of the individuals that make up that society... well, history is rife with examples of That failure state and its consequences. Necessary reform becomes impossible, for one. Fundamentally, trying to push for one to the exclusion of the other will lead to failure. One must balance them against each other in every instance of every matter that arrises. A single inflexible rule will always lead to forced bad decisions. Mind you, I'm not sure a perfect balance is ever possible. Things change constantly, after all.
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The USA is not the first melting pot, and it's absolutely worked in the past, and in other places. The important part is that the metals must be allowed to melt, and alloy, (forming a new, singlular identity consisting of the best parts of the contributing elements) for it to be of any benefit. Both leftist obsession with multicultralism as an end goal (when it is in fact the natural expression of a healthy and ongoing process of assimilation) and promoting individual minority groups as independant things not to be subsummed by the whole (prone to causing enclaves that become indistinguishable from ghettos), and the rightist obession with dividing and suppressing minorities and lowerclasses so as to more easily oprress and exploit them (often just flat out Intentionally creating ghettos) prevent this process from actually occuring properly (as it naturally does in the absense of those factors), and thus all benefit is lost.
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@PhilosophicalZombieHunter I present to you... American political parties. No one ever said it was rational or useful.
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To say that class is the Only difference to ever matter is ... frankly, it's a lie. However, it's certainly a large difference indeed, perhaps even the largest, and it's certainly true that other issues (ranging from the real and moderately significant, through the real but trivial at best, all the way to the utterly fabricated) are often used to distract from it.
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"American Identity" before the war of independence was 'British'. The only reason a distinction came up is because the same sort of rich plutocratic arseholes (though, to be fair, not yet having any political power, they weren't technically plutocrats yet at the time) who keep screwing everything up Now decided they didn't want to pay a one time levy to cover the part of the expenses incured directly by defending Them during a globe spanning war with a peer power that was Started by a group of those same overly wealthy arseholes raiding neighbouring French colonies (without any permission or authority to do so, for their own personal gain, I might add)! And the British government of the day was sufficiently broke that following standard practice of the era and putting down the rebellion (because that's what organized refusal to pay taxes when you have the ability to do so IS) by force of arms was seen as undesirable when they could just institue a much more collectible import tax and meet the costs that way. Incidentally, representation doesn't come up At All, untill a party of rebel colonists realised that their attempt to get their imovible negotiation position of 'no taxes, of any sort, at all, ever' through parliament when said parliment was having Financial Issues was never going to work if they didn't have their own representative In parliament 'playing the game'. ... the shooting war in the colonies started before this idea could even get back to them, and 'no taxation without represenation' later showed up as Recruitment Propaganda. In the mean time, loyalist colonists were murdered in large numbers, frequently had their homes and business burned down, and largely ended up fleeing to Canada. And the actual rebels made up less than half of the Remaining population after that. Keep in mind, after the war ended, with the British taxpayer no longer shouldering the complete cost of administration and defence, taxes in the now ex colonies went UP for everyone (they had, previously, been paying essentialy the lowest taxes in the western world, even with the 'oppressive' stamp tax), while only particularly wealth men (including those responsible for the war, who were now in control of the goverrnment and writing a tax code that meant that in practice most of them paid little or nothing in the way of taxes) actualy got representation for a Long time after that.
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