Dems respect diversity but how deeply?

Trump is merely remaking the Republican Party, the same way that FDR remade the Democratic Party. Think of Trump as another FDR.

It'll be up to moderate Democrats to purge their party of extremists. And once they get tired of spending decades out of power, they will do so.

To the extent that white feminism was/is a response to (reaction against) white male paternalism, it really can't help but be a mirror image of the kind of subjugating attitude that it resents from paternalistic/male dominant culture.

Those bossy feminists want to do it in a more empathetic way, and they want to build consensus in the process and not just explicitly dominate, and they see themselves as fundamentally/radically different than traditional top-down power mongers, but because they have developed that ideology that women are criticized as 'bitches' when they act like men, they also feel they have the right to act just like male pigs and not be called 'bitches/pigs' for doing so. Sorry this paragraph sounds terribly stereotyping and reductive and of course I recognize that there are many different perspectives and attitudes among different feminists.


Yes, but those ideologically liberal white middle class women see themselves as champions of anti-patriarchy, which they believe is a structure of oppression that will ultimately give way like a dam breaking, which will liberate all the minorities from subjugation to white male dominance. So in that sense they see themselves as championing the cause of oppressed minorities, even as they insist that they would never dare speak for others besides themselves, etc.

There's a whole lot of behavioral/attitudinal prescriptions that amount to a culture of hyper political-correctness. They are walking a narrow line they've created from themselves and dare not question because they are afraid to be labeled as taking sides against the oppressed.


That's what I've been trying to point out about the power dynamic of using diversity to coral votes and money. It doesn't matter if you whip people directly into obedience or tell them they have to side with you against an enemy, who is the abusive oppressor. Either way you end up with obedient collectivism. It is how unions work, i.e. by telling you management is out to keep you down if you don't join the union and submit to their organizational structures and representation.


Yes, that's what democracy and freedom of speech/thought are supposed to be. You are supposed to be able to think independently of factional peer-pressure and formulate independent opinions that may well be rejected or criticized by your peers.


They don't see it as dissent they are hostile to. They see themselves as warriors against injustice. If you dissent from anything they feel they have established, they justify attacking your dissent as assent to injustice.


It doesn't matter because it's not about comparing parties, or at least it shouldn't be. It's about liberating individuals to think and participate independently in democracy.

Some people want you to believe that your vote and your money are the most valuable contributions you make to democratic discourse, but it is actually your thinking, speech, and behavior/actions, i.e. how you think and live.

We already do. The question is, why won't you? The fight is real, Max, whether you see it or don't care enough to look beyond your limited scope.

U.S. Women's Soccer Gender Discrimination Lawsuit
March 10, 20195:23 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered

NPR's Michel Martin speaks with USA Today sports columnist Christine Brennan about a gender discrimination lawsuit the U.S. women's soccer team has filed against U.S. Soccer.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The U.S. women's national soccer team is ranked number one in the world. The team won the women's World Cup three times, and the U.S. women are four-time Olympic champions. The U.S. men's soccer team - not so much. They've never won World Cup or the Olympics. They didn't even qualify for the 2018 World Cup. But the women players are paid less than the men. And that's why the U.S. women's national team filed suit against the U.S. Soccer Federation in federal court on Friday - Women's Day - charging gender discrimination. USA Today sports columnist Christine Brennan has been following the story, and she's with us now.

Christine Brennan, thank you so much for talking to us.

CHRISTINE BRENNAN: Oh, Michel, my pleasure. Always good to talk with you - especially about a topic like this.

MARTIN: Well, the lawsuit points out that for their success in winning the 2015 Women's World Cup, the U.S. women were paid less than a third of what the U.S. men were paid for losing in the round of '16. And I think a lot of people might look at that and say, how is that possible? So how is that possible?

BRENNAN: Well, soccer is - has an old boys' network to the max, Michel. And actually, the U.S. Soccer Federation is doing a better job than most federations around the world. It truly - the sexism and the anti-women feelings are incredibly strong in the sport of soccer worldwide. And so what we're seeing here is the U.S. women's national team - I believe it's the most famous women's team on the planet in any sport, and certainly role models for so many other women's sports and charging away, leading the charge, so to speak, on these kinds of issues. They've just said enough is enough.

And here we are, three months away from the next Women's World Cup, which is coming up in France in June. And they have just - with the confidence that they've been given from years of playing sports in our country, Title IX now 46, almost 47 years old - they just are not going to deal with this anymore. And that's why they did this now. And it really is quite a statement about where women are, not just in sports, but in our culture in 2019.

MARTIN: Tell me about the history of this suit. As I understand it, this started with a complaint that the women filed to the EEOC back in 2016. Is that right?

BRENNAN: That is correct. And they didn't - that hasn't gotten anywhere - and five players back then, including Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and a couple of others. But frankly, there have been skirmishes, Michel, going all the way back to the year 2000, when the players actually struck and missed a - one tournament going into the Sydney Olympics.

And it's interesting because I'm sure many of your listeners remember where they were when they watched Brandi Chastain kick that penalty kick almost 20 years ago now - July 10, 1999. So 1999 was really a watershed moment because they saw the huge stadiums, they saw the popularity, the only story in history, as far as I know, to ever be on the covers of Time, Newsweek, People and Sports Illustrated the same week. That was the U.S. women's soccer team - the nation falling in love with what it's created with Title IX.

And so with that, I think that gave them the boost to know they needed to do more. And that has been in their DNA in terms of fighting for equal rights for women and, as I said, leading the charge for all kinds of female athletes around the globe, not just in the U.S. So from '99 onward, there have been these skirmishes about equal pay. This is really just dropping the mike.

MARTIN: Well, OK. Let me just dig in a little bit deeper. Can direct comparisons of the compensation between the men and women - can those direct comparisons be made? I mean, the New York Times reports that each team has its own collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Soccer and that the men - they say that the men receive higher bonuses when they play for the United States, but they're paid only when they make the team whereas the women receive guaranteed salaries supplemented by smaller matched bonuses. So...

BRENNAN: You're right. You're bringing up a great point. And there is an apples to oranges kind of quality to this. Why is that? Because the men's teams are - men's - members the men's team are employed by professional clubs around the world, and they receive compensation that way because the men's game is so much more advanced than the women's game, aside from - especially maybe entirely the United States. The women, the top female players, are under contract with U.S. Soccer, not individual teams.

So that is a little bit of why the comparison is - can be difficult. But the differences in bonuses for the two teams - 2014 World Cup, the men's World Cup, U.S. Soccer, they lost in the round of '16, the U.S. men did. They were paid - the bonuses were paid out of a total of 5.375 million - OK, 5.375 million for the men who lost in the round of '16. A year later, 2015, in, Canada the U.S. women win the World Cup, and they're paid out of a pool of 1.725 million.

MARTIN: Who makes that decision? I mean, who decides how much bonus money and how it's divided?

BRENNAN: That's U.S. Soccer. And you bring up a very interesting point because these are the national governing bodies for the sport. All these sports that you see in the Olympics have a national governing body. They are - they're not for profit. And their goal simply is to promote the game, the athletes and the sport. So, for example, U.S. Figure Skating years ago decided to pay the men equal to the women on things like bonuses. It's a little different because it's not a team, it's individual athletes. But figure skating made sure to pay the men equally because they wanted to hold that carrot out there to boys and men to become figure skaters because the women are the stars in figure skating. Same with swimming - Katie Ledecky gets the exact same amount of money and a bonus that Michael Phelps did. So those are the comparisons, and that's why U.S. Soccer doesn't look obviously so good.

MARTIN: Except that you're telling us that, say, in figure skating, the governing body figured out that - without having to be sued - that they should pay the male athletes the same even though the women are the stars. What I think I hear you saying is that U.S. Soccer could have done the same and has chosen not to.

BRENNAN: Absolutely. U.S. Soccer could have headed this off at the pass. They have known since the year of 1999, since that World Cup, that things were changing. That was a watershed moment. And when those football stadiums were full for women's soccer, literally packed to capacity, the Rose Bowl, Soldier Field in Chicago, all around the country these things were happening that summer, that they - someone should have said this is a sea change and we need to start noticing it. They think they did OK by raising them when prodded or when having these disputes. They did do more, they didn't do enough.

MARTIN: That was sports columnist Christine Brennan of USA Today. Christine, thank you so much for talking with us.

BRENNAN: Michel, my pleasure. Thanks again.

I think I see the problem here, you and I seem to have different ideas on what the phrase "diversity of opinion" means.

I take this this term to mean that a variety of different opinions should be accepted with in the party, and that people should be allowed to question the ideological narrative.

I also take it to mean building a coalition that reaches out to White working class people at the same time it works to address gender equality.

Diversity means you can address the issues important to one group of Americans without attacking or demonizing another group.

Obama understood this. Clinton didn't. Today's Democratic party is going in the wrong direction.

If you drive away voters to push an ideological narrative, you make it that much more difficult to win an election.

In regard to being pro-life, the GOP has that covered. What other party is going to push for pro-choice? In regard to pro-Second Amendment, that's a vague term that can mean different things to different people, and has to be defined. I see myself as "pro-Second Amendment" that includes more firearms restrictions than there are now. One thing is to question the MeToo movement, another thing is to be opposed to it entirely. The GOP is closer to that position.

You want the Democratic Party to shift its positions just for you? It ain't gonna happen.

How about simply applying Strict Scrutiny to the right, just as it is applied to all of our other fundamental rights?

You aren't listening. The problem is that a narrow ideology is monopolizing the Democratic party and shutting down any other points of view. This alienates voters and hurts electoral chances.

I am not asking for the Democratic party to shift positions. However if the Democrats lose the presidential election in 2020 (as Oralloy predicts) that might be what happens.

I would be happy if they were just more accepting of diverse viewpoints.

As there are in the Republican Party?

Take reproductive rights. Most of the Democratic constituency supports sex ed in schools, access to birth control, and the right to terminate a pregnancy. How do we make that "more diverse"? No one is forcing women to use birth control or have abortions. Compare that with the GOP's constituency that wants to outlaw abortion, promote "abstinence", and deny teens access to contraception.

Nor is the Democratic Party asking you to shift positions. There's no real center of control in the party headquarters where demographers study voting rolls and try to calculate how many potential voters they can "shame" or permanently alienate. As I said a few pages ago:

What does "accepting of diverse viewpoints" mean, exactly? This is as nebulous as "pro-Second Amendment."

So the Democratic party should be honest and stop marketing itself in terms of inclusivity and diversity, because those are just distractions from the forms of exclusion and conformity that they in fact expect.

In order to be included in the Democratic party, which is a party that discriminates in favor of its due-paying members, like a union; you have to tow the line of pro-choice, anti-inequality, socialized or at least subsidized jobs, health-care, education, etc. and you have to eschew austerity and the idea that people should aspire to greater self-sufficiency and independence instead of pushing for more money and more economic access to gain greater equality with the most dependent socioeconomic classes.

If you suggest that the best way for poor people to improve their lives is to achieve moral nobility and greater self-sufficiency despite lower income, you are spit on as an apologist for economic inequality, even though you are sincerely interested in improving quality of life for the poor.

You don't need to pay dues to support Democrats at the polls.

No. you're not "spit on". We've all heard this line so often, usually spouted by self-righteous libertarians (the worst kind), that all we can do is roll our eyes. Expectoration would be over-reacting.

If someone actually had a plan to provide useful jobs for unemployed people with the chance to learn new skills or study for a diploma, left-wing Democrats would support it — minus the "moral nobility" conceit. The trouble is that currently the government offers no direct path to employment as hiring occurs strictly in the private sector. Remember FDR's CCC? We could definitely pursue something like that now.

You didn't understand my post. I wasn't talking about paying actual monetary dues. I was talking about paying dues ideologically by towing the line of pro-choice, pro- health insurance mandates, etc. By supporting these ideologies, you are paying dues by promoting policies and social-economic patterns that fund and procure liberal-socialism.

If you promote policies that disrupt liberal-socialist economic patterns, you become an enemy of the party and its socialist agenda.


It's not about providing jobs and money, though. It's about people doing labor at the household level so that they are working for themselves instead of for pay. If you cook a meal for yourself, for example, you pay for the ingredients instead of paying a business to prepare those ingredients for you. You substitute your own labor and management for the labor and management you would buy from others. So, in effect, you are giving yourself a job and paying yourself, only you don't actually have to pay yourself, which saves you money.

Saving money by working for yourself is the cornerstone of fiscal conservatism. Humans are dependent on economic goods and services, so the more of those you can provide for yourself instead of relying on economic exchanges, the more money you can save for the future.

Democrats don't get this and, what's worse, they don't want to get it because they would rather have everyone spending as much as possible to create as many paying jobs as possible. In short, they want more interdependency instead of less. They refuse to acknowledge that people depending on their own labor is the most direct way for the poor to live well. You can't make other people do things for you without slavery/money, but you can make yourself do things for yourself.

No you're not. You're provided with a selection and you make a choice.

How are people supposed to generate income by working for themselves?

Where do you get the money to buy the food in the first place? Running a counterfeiting operation? Oh, don't tell me — raise all your own vegetables, right?

Household economics has its place, but not as a model for a complex, inter-dependent, global economy in a world threatened by the results of our own technological success.

When you support ACA and mandatory health insurance, you are supporting a law that gives people a choice between paying an insurance company premiums or paying a fine to the IRS. It's a fiscal-transfer mandate, which funds socialism because that's what socialism is.


By doing things for yourself, you eliminate the need for some income. E.g. if a sandwich costs $2 and you spend $1 on the ingredients and make it yourself, you eliminated the need for the other dollar. Every time you find a way to achieve something yourself and save money, you reduce your spending.

Some things you can't do for yourself so you need money for those. That's why you have to provide some labor for those things that people spend money on, i.e. so you can get money for the things you can't do for yourself.

The problem with Democrats/socialists is that they want to increase interdependency instead of reducing it. It's better to reduce your dependency on expenditures and save more money, so that you are not as vulnerable to financial problems and poverty.


I try to grow vegetables but bugs always eat the plants before they bear fruit. So I agree with you that you need some money, but the challenge is reducing your expenses so you can live better with less money and thus demand less from the economy/government.


In any micro-economic situation, you can look for ways to replace outsourced expenditures with insourced, in-house self-reliance. This can occur at the level of households as well as businesses. It is how you save money and strengthen in-house capacity. It is also how fiscal conservatism is achieved at any level, which puts pressure on supply-chains to also make do with less income/revenue.

I'm glad you know what socialism is. Maybe you can explain it to the rest of us?

THE 2016 DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM



The following link has the entire text of 2016 Democratic platform:

https://democrats.org/about/party-platform/

It's very difficult, because a lot of socialism passes as 'business as usual' in the contemporary US and wherever else socialism/communism/Marxism are traditionally disdained as negative economic prospects.

Basically, if you have people who are smart at marketing, they can sell socialism in a way that denies that its socialism, and that has happened in mixed economies throughout the last century or so.

So things like insurance, corporate business, Keynesian governance, global trade, etc. all have socialist economic functions but they are nonetheless promoted in terms of capitalist free market enterprise.

Still, we should take a critical look at everything to assess exactly what socialism is and what is socialism and what isn't. Ultimately, I think we'll find that some level of socialism is beneficial, but not for the sake of bolstering economic growth and global trade a a whole; only to ensure basic needs are met for those who would otherwise go hungry, homeless, jobless, etc.

Big ticket socialist projects like reducing inequality overall, providing everyone with more consumerist purchasing power to buy/drive cars, travel, etc. are excessive and harmful to the environment/climate. Hopefully those who make the most money in capitalism will also voluntarily modify their lifestyles to benefit the climate future, but we certainly shouldn't be stimulating the economy to expand a middle class that does more harm than good with regards to sustainability.

Hallelujah, kinda.

InfraBlue had posed this question to you Max, in an earlier post. Maybe you didn't see the question. Maybe you just didn't want to answer. I don't know. Obviously you are under no obligation to answer the question, but I do hope you answer. Here is the question again:

In regard to being pro-life, the GOP has that covered. What other party is going to push for pro-choice?

The Democratic party should be able to support a pro-choice without attacking Americans who disagree. I have no problem with the party, or with the candidates supporting a pro-life position.

The divisive extremism is the problem...

- The specific exclusion from Americans who agree on everything else but disagree on abortion. The Woman's March wouldn't let woman's pro-life woman's groups join them. This ridiculous attitude pervades the Democratic party and is both counterproductive and politically foolish.

- The mischaracterization of the opposition position. The claim that everyone who opposes abortion is against "woman's health care" is ridiculous. There isn't a discussion or even the acknowledgement that this is a difficult issue. The narrative that everyone (including women) who disagree with us "hates women" is ridiculous, and damaging to the country.

- The failure to see that there are more than just the two extreme positions. People have a great number of different opinions on this issue. Even the terms "pro-life" and "pro-choice" don't tell us very much about a person.

A party that reflects diversity can have a position on important topics. Diversity means that they are respectful and open to other points of view. Diversity means that they don't attack people based on a single issue. Diversity means that they work to build a coalition and to find common ground even with people who disagree.

The problem with today's Democratic party is the extremism. This isn't about a single policy issue.