Look north up here to Canada. Section 718.2(e) of our criminal code:
all available sanctions other than imprisonment that are reasonable in the circumstances should be considered for all offenders, with particular attention to the circumstances of aboriginal offenders.

Call it my white male privilege but I don't accept the SJW definitions of racism and instead go by the dictionary definition:
a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.

That is to say, differential treatment based solely on race is racist. In Canada, we still have racist laws as part of our legal code. The fact it's purpose is try and help a minority doesn't change the fact it is still a racist law. Personally, I hold to this crazy notion that racism is still wrong. In theory this specific law was meant to offset the disproportionate imprisonment of aboriginal people in our justice system. In practice though, violent crimes are most often not random and are inflicted on people known to the assailant. So, in practice this has meant less prison time for aboriginal defenders, but it's also meant that aboriginal victims see their attackers typically getting lighter sentencing as well.

Racism is wrong, but you are mistaken to say that the far left doesn't itself indulge in it's own forms of racism. You don't have to google long to find far left SJW's declaring that only white people can be racist and only males can be sexist...

So, a woman or weaker man can just punch and scratch you in the face all day, and you'll do nothing and never fear for your safety?
I doubt it.
Get repeatedly physically attacked by a crazy, violent, race baiting, but smaller woman (or smaller man) then judge.
If it were a man exactly her size that hit him twice and hurled racial slurs, would you still think his reaction wrong? If not, you're just being sexist, if so, please explain.

That's so sexist.

So they're saying just by virtue of the fact that someone is a female she can't possible be as good as any random man at creating semen? Pshaw.

Suddenly accuracy and detail become popular, and all it took was for the worst developed world leadership candidate in modern history to win the presidency of the US.

Do the words horse, stable and bolted mean anything to anyone?

We're about 10 years into post truth politics by now, and it seems a strange thing to me to start the fight-back here, on individual comments made by people beholden to themselves. Rather than opinion-shaping mass media printing literal lies.

Let he who did not engage in hyperbole during Trump's campaign cast the first stone. Everyone's suddenly twice the pedantic nerd I ever am when the phrase "post truth" becomes en vogue.

I don't want to be a dick or anything, but look at the backlash to all this policing of PC language. People were happy to give a potential president of the US the leeway to be sexist and xenophobic because of political correctness fatigue. Do you really want to do the same thing but with FACTS? Because that's where this ends...

2024 -- "Oh you can't say anything these days without being sure you're 100% correct and accurate and can't be misconstrued! So what if the president's opinion on climate change doesn't involve facts? It's about time someone spoke their mind without the fact-checking police getting involved!"

I genuinely don't want to be a dick about it. But if I am one, I'm pretty sure I do also have a good point.

There's two ways to look at this election. One is a dispassionate exploration of why did it happen. Another way is a moral argument on who people should have voted for. What you wrote is a great description of why Trump was elected.

Her reaction to the election is a great moral reaction to people who voted for Trump.

I'm sorry, but she's right.

A "fuck you" "no confidence" vote for Trump is a temper tantrum vote, and I say this as someone who isn't really a big Hillary Clinton fan. Voters shouldn't act like five year olds. How about be adults and do what you've had to do frequently in your adult lives, take the punch in the gut, and fucking do the right thing.

I REALLY REALLY want to go to Europe next year. I saved up the money, I had everything planned out, and I was ready to go. And then my dog got sick and had a thousand dollar surprise vet bill, and then my heat pump died.

I could act like a five year old and go anyway even though I don't have the money as a fuck you to god, the universe, or whatever I think gives a damn, or I could be a grown up and do the right thing - postpone the trip and go later.

I acted like a adult, and did the right thing. Europe can wait.

I wouldn't say this to an Obama, Romney, McCain, George W. Bush, Kerry, or Gore voter, and I could keep going back in history. This wasn't an election where you're picking between equally deadly gruesome poisons. One was a typical politicians, who you may rightfully hate, and the other was a sexist racist completely inexperienced baffoon who bragged about sexual assualt, bragged about how big his dick was in a presidential primary debate, a complete serial liar the likes we haven't seen in politics in the modern era, and I could go on and on and on.

Be a fucking grown up and vote for the only responsible adult in this election, who is admittedly completely unlikeable. It's really not hard, but never put anything past the American voter.

I

I think, for more than a few Trump voters, they agree it was all disqualifying, that they're not racist, or sexist. They believe it's all "deplorable".

That just made it a better "fuck you".

I feel that's where the democrats went wrong. They thought the third party candidates were "protest votes", not realising that, in fact, Trump was the biggest protest vote of all.

*promote

i would like to say a few things.

first,
i would personally like to welcome my anti-war democrats back to the party.it appears it only took voting in the worlds most successful used car salesmen and professional internet troll to get you fuckers to get off the bench.

saved a seat for ya!../pats seat

second,
while i can admire this woman's passion and self righteous indignation,i refuse to accept her moral condescension,because for all her flowery and bombastic condemnation of anyone who voted for trump was a vote for:racism,sexism,bigotry and hatred,and implies she has deep understanding the motivations for voting trump.

i submit that she does not.
i submit that she is a hypocrite.

i submit that while she decries her anger and outrage at the moral ineptitude of her fellow americans for failing to rebuke an obviously unqualified candidate,who openly used racist and sexist rhetoric to appeal to our most base fears and anxieties.

she was missing the main point.the main reason.

so while she stood upon her ivory tower aghast at the horror unfolding in front of her on election night,she STILL did not get it.

she watched in horror as her fellow americans ignored trumps obvious racism.
ignored the sexism.
ignored the proto-fascist verbiage.
ignored the narcissism and petty tantrums.
ignored pretty much everything leading an election night into the surreal and absurd.

because she didn't get it,and obviously STILL doesn't get it.

because voting trump was not a vote for:racism,sexism,bigotry or hatred.
a vote for trump was a "fuck you" vote.
a trump vote was a "no confidence" vote.

now of course there are those who are racists,and sexist and are most certainly bigots and hateful fuckheads..of course.

and there are those who are diehard rightwing republicans...of course.

but the majority of those who voted trump are NOT those people.the majority of americans have..for forty fucking years..tried to utilize a system to counter correct the political establishment only to get fucked in the ass by the very same system they were trying to correct.

you can go look for yourselves.it looks like a clock pendulum.swinging dem and then back to repub and then back again.

and what did the american people get?
nothing.
nada.
zip.
zilch.

they got:
expanding wars.
stagnant wages and jobs.
higher taxes.
higher living costs.
drone strikes and secret prisons.
a two tiered justice system.
private prisons.
debt peonage.

and a government bought and paid for by:big banks,wall street,military industrial complex and multi-national corporations.

all this while the american middle class fell off the map into poverty and working poor.

so while those who voted trump may be politically unsophisticated,they are most certainly not dumb.

they got it.
and they finally understood that the system that they had been raised to believe was "by the people,for the people" no longer functioned at that capacity.

so the very same people who voted for obama and his "hope and change" campaign.
voted trump.
the people who had become politically engaged by the message that sanders brought to the table,either stayed home,or voted trump.

this was a protest vote.
plain and simple.

your fellow americans just nuked the system.
because it was the SYSTEM that was corrupt and no longer was functioning.

i find their choice just as terrifying as you do,but i have to admire the audacity to just nuke the entire system.

but can you really blame them?
they tried for decades to course correct,but the two party dictatorship had a stranglehold,and they served not 'we the people" but money and power.so our fellow americans utilized their one power given to them by the constitution.

and the hypocrisy here is that when bush was in office the left was losing their shit,and rightly so,but when obama was in office all we heard was crickets....and a disturbing silence from the left.(i realize this is an over generalization.there of course was some noise coming from the left).

and this woman is so out of touch that she is convinced that voting trump was a social issue matter?

i am sorry sweetheart,but some things are just not that simple,and condescending from your ivory tower,prattling on about social constructs as if you have been given some moral authority to judge others,only serves to solidify your own tiny and secluded echo chamber.where everybody can smell their own farts and pat themselves on the back for how clever they are,without ever having to critically examine ones own position.

which just means that she will never..ever..get it.

that is my .02 anyways.
take it for what it is worth.

Understand, I'm not saying that you CAN'T be a racist, sexist asshole (within legal limits obviously, no assaulting people, etc).

But I am saying that we don't need to discuss or "engage" with those people.

I'm sorry, but there are some things that just aren't up for discussion.

If you want to discuss healthcare or taxes or foreign policy or corruption or infrastructure or any one of a hundred different issues... that's fine. We had those debates in the last few elections and sometimes there were outcomes I agreed with, sometimes not.

But on topics like racism, sexism and homophobia, liberals HAVE won the culture war AND WE SHOULD STOP FUCKING APOLOGISING FOR IT.

And that's the problem with Trump. You can't have a discussion with him or his supporters because you can't get past the fundamental problems outlined above. There is a minimum level of decency and knowledge required for a discussion, and Trump fails to meet that.

"Not everyone who voted for Trump is a racist or a sexist"... so fucking what? Who gives a shit if they are or aren't? They put one in the goddamn Whitehouse.

"Not everyone who voted for Trump is a sexist or a racist (...) but I can't say things like that to my friends because I'd get lynched."



Quality Pie.

Her's the problem that so many people have failed to consider. Why did Clinton lose? That is an answer that can't be so easily answered as one would think. Up to this point, the news medias all said the exact same things and focused only on the negatives for Trump and all the positives for Hillary even though one can easily argue how both of them were bad choices.

Trump said alot of terrible things, no denying that. But the thing however, is that Hillary Clinton isn't the most honest person either. It is because of how secretive she was and how it all felt as though this was all being "gift wrapped" for her that got people who voted for Trump.

The Racists, The Bigots, The Sexists and all other nutjobs that we have seen on the news medias and social medias are not the majority that voted in Trump. They are a percentage, but not the majority. To say that is the case would bring to question of how Obama won so easily in states that Trump took just as easily.

If you are struggling to tell your kids anything... Tell them this: Be honest and Trustworthy. Someone that others can rely on. Tell them that when they grow up, they will become better people than Trump and all other politicians in Washington D.C. and raise them as such.

This is why I struggle between watching this video. The things Trump has said should not be emulated in anyway, but the reason why Trump won was far away from the idea of how "Grabbing pussy" "building a wall" "Insulting races and the mentally ill" and all other nonsense we had to put up with this year being key factors of why Trump won.

Trump won because the people lost their confidence in those in DC right now and decided to gamble on Trump to make America Greater than it already is. Screw "Make America Great again!" this is about making our country even better and even greater than we stand now, and people believe that if there is a person who can do it, it is Donald Trump.

Just remember: Repubicans hate the guy as much as anyone else, and they will not hesitate to impeach the man the moment he f***s up.

One thing I am looking forward to are good polemics as part of the election's post-mortem. In terms of video footage, both Cenk and Kyle over at TYT and Secular Talk respectively went off the rails quite nicely. But the good stuff, the really good stuff, will trickle in, and exclusively in written form.

Lambert over at NC makes a decent start, given his lack of sleep:

The Democrat establishment was warned about their weak candidate, and they were presented with a popular and well-funded alternative: Bernie Sanders. Instead, as the Podesta emails show in lavish detail, they used their control of the party machinery and their service providers in our famously free press to rig the primary in their favor at every turn. When their candidate was nominated, the Democrat establishment tacked right, and proceeded to explain to Sanders voters that their votes were not needed or even desired because, as #BernieBros, they were racist and sexist. Sanders supporters have every right to say #WeWereRight and #WeToldYouSo.

If this were Japan, we’d be seeing Democrat Party leaders committing seppuku, or cutting off their little fingers or — supposing them not to be gangsters — ritually and tearfully bowing to the people they betrayed. This being America, and these being Democrats, they are feverishly deploying the Blame Cannons at racist and sexist #BernieBros, Johnson, Stein, and the dogs who wouldn’t eat the dog food. These assclowns will only leave office if they’re whipped out with scorpions. So get to it, Sanders supporters. This is your time.

I think it's not so much not being able to tell them apart but not being willing to investigate them beyond their labels. I spend some time in other online communities with people from the US and the sense I get is Clinton is generally seen as corrupt and criminal and Trump as perhaps sexist / racist but a good businessman. I would argue both labels are to some extent misleading and false.

I don't see much discussion that goes beyond those labels. In both cases from the snippets I've seen of US TV and of some online tabloids, that's about as deep as the discussion goes. To really understand the problem with both candidates you need to read good editorial work from more reputable / long form media (weekly publications, newspapers that aren't tabloids) and frankly I think very few have been willing to do that.

Much of it comes down to politics being treated as entertainment and reading long written articles simply isn't entertaining. Unfortunately it's going the same way here in Australia. Everyone is obsessed about opinion polls. We might have short periods of formal election campaigning (unlike the epic US election process), but because of only 3 years between elections for our Prime Minister (and the fact that he or she can and does get replaced within those 3 years by Parliament, unlike the US President), we have constant personal political battles and recrimination rather than deliberation over policy.

I mean right now, we have a prime minister (Turnbull, re-elected earlier this year), who unseated a previously elected prime minister (Abbott, in the previous term) by a vote of no confidence. Abbott himself (several parliamentary terms before) had successfully unseated Turnbull as minority leader (when another party held the prime minister-ship). Now there are rumors that Abbott wants to challenge Turnbull. And that's just one of our political parties.

Sometimes I feel like I live on a different planet to other people. People keep telling me 'that's what men do' but I'm a man and that's not what I've ever done. But I'm not going to bang on and on about Trump, it's all been said before.

Because I'm so used to the kind of trash Trump comes out with, what shocked me from this video is that Oliver would suggest Clinton is the end point of a century old quest for female equality. She is from a powerful, rich family with connections and funding from some of the shadiest, rapacious industries/organisations in the world. Her victory wouldn't be a triumph for women, it would be a triumph for money and the elite ruling classes.

A triumph for women would be a rise to status based on merit and hard work, battling oppression every step of the way to change opinions and break new ground for anyone who follows. The success of Hillary's career mirrored Bill's and as his power and wealth increased so did her's.

What does this say? Work hard and you can overcome the prejudices of a male dominated society? No - it says if you're from the right family and know the right people, you can be president. Called Bush or Clinton? You're in with a shot. Hillary winning doesn't change the game, it doesn't pioneer a new path for females.

It is bullshit and it riles me because it's a manipulation of virtue. Hey everyone, vote for our FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT, what an amazing and equal country we are, you're sexist if you don't want it! This has been a centuries long struggle but finally a strong enough woman has achieved what no other woman could do, it's time to recognise her strength of character! FUCK OFF. There have been millions of women more qualified and appropriate than her who never got even a sniff of a chance because they didn't anchor themselves to the right man, they weren't born into a particular family and spent childhood holidays with the sons and daughters of fossil fuel barons, investment companies, etc. The system is biased and wrong and Hillary winning only confirms that.

It was actually better than the Obama one. That's about as surprising as a racist, sexist, unhinged jerk being within striking distance of winning the Presidency with less than two months to go!