We here in Australia welcome you all with open arms. Even our spiders and snakes are friendlier. Offering my couch to the needy exiles! (Seriously, this is awful and I feel so sorry for you all.)
I don't know what to do. My husband and I live in NC, which only started recognizing and performing same-sex marriages because of the SCOTUS ruling before Ogberfel-Hodges. One of the decisions They've pledged to overturn. Given the debacle that recently went down in our state, it won't take long before they try to annul it and our marriage. We can technically move to one of a few locations, but I don't know where among them we'd be protected, and I work in a pharmacy call centre so I don't know how well I'd be able to get a new job in another country.
I know that there are quite a few people here who are LGBT and are afraid that their rights are going to be taken away because the American people voted for a Republican majority (and elected a Vice President with a history of bigotry). Someone with more knowledge of the judicial process can speak up on this, but I don't believe that, simply because the Republican Party controls the Federal Government, the right for same-sex marriage will be taken away. Marriage is an institution of the States, and Congress cannot pass a bill that limits their rights. There would have to be a Constitutional Amendment, or for the Supreme Court to overturn their previous ruling; that would require yet another same-sex marriage case to make it through the judicial circuit. Again however, this is slightly outside of my area of expertise, so I hope someone more knowledgeable can chime in with better information.
Now, on the topic of the election... If we take a step back and look at what the voters decided, it's incredibly telling. America, especially those in the Heartland, voted against the poster child of "The Establishment". An establishment that, over the course of many decades, has created a globally interconnected world that benefits their interests over those of the Common Person. Wages have stagnated. Most of the wealth has gone to the richest 1%. People are feeling high-and-dry, and that makes them incredibly angry.
It's telling how well a Leftist candidate like Sanders did against Clinton in the Primaries. Even without the DNC mucking around with the Primaries, I don't know if Sanders would have won the nomination. But he would have at least made Clinton move farther to the Left than she did. After it was revealed how much corrupt DNC leaders did to sabotage Sanders' chances at winning, I'm not at all surprised that voters took out their frustration by voting for the other candidate. The Democratic Party has effectively lost all of the good will they've accumulated from the Bush presidency, and it will be difficult for them to gain it back. Only time will tell how they do it. And Trump, despite the tapes showing how he sexually harassed women, despite all of the racist rhetoric that he spewed forth about Central and South Americans, despite being alienated from many of the leaders of the Party he was representing, still won. I think that's pretty telling about what people think of The Establishment, having voted in a man with a deplorable history like that.
Finally, it's also worth pointing out the ballot measures that passed. Yes, the death penalty did well this election, but too so did the minimum wage and marijuana usage; both of which are causes that many Progressives champion. And while it wasn't on the ballot anywhere, feelings towards same-sex marriage and LGBT people has move positively over the past decade or so. Is there still bigotry being thrown against them? Absolutely, and it should be stopped wherever it happens. But the citizens of this country are much more accepting towards LGBT people than they were even a few years ago. There's still a long way to go, but we're making progress, and that's a Good Thing.
Anyway, here's to a Kanye West 2020 presidential run.
the overturning of obergefel would allow states to return to banning same sex marraige if they wanted, as nc was before. If those laws were still on the books (they are in nc, i think), they would then immediatly come back into effect, but existing marriages should not be annuled in the process.
so yes, control of the federal government does mean that the right to same sex marriage can be taken away. Theres some other misinformation, but thats the main thing. i can chat more about it in pms, not really a good topic for here.
Edit: aka. if you want to get married, do it now. itll take time to appoint a 9th justice and push a test case to the sc
Raleigh-Durham. And the amendment to the NC constitution defining marriage as one-man-one-woman is still on the books but unenforceable under the Obergefel decision.
Right. So you should be good, as the law of the land when you got married supported you. if push came to shove you might need a lawyer, but youd probably need to be singled out in a suit somehow, in my not-a-lawyer opinion. They shouldnt blanket annul marriages. its treated like you had gotten married in a different state.
All of today has been a walking nightmare. My store, normally happy and full of laughing and music and general tomfoolery, was just...quiet. None of us had anything to say. Even our one Trumper saw it and gave us the courtesy of keeping everything to himself. I got jeered at with the 'F' word while I was riding my bike to work ('Nice purse, @#$%^&') and when I stopped in to Walgreens on the way home there were older people loudly celebrating and talking the cashier's ear off when she looked very uncomfortable and was trying to get them to leave. It's been only one day...
Right. So you should be good, as the law of the land when you got married supported you. if push came to shove you might need a lawyer, but youd probably need to be singled out in a suit somehow, in my not-a-lawyer opinion. They shouldnt blanket annul marriages. its treated like you had gotten married in a different state.
The issue comes in that I don't think NC ever recognized out-of-state same-sex marriages, and I don't have the money to spare to afford a lawyer to defend my tax deductions. It's not like he and I were going to get a divorce or anything like that, and I work for a company at which that sort of nonsense won't affect his insurance thank God, but our financial situation is in a very, VERY awkward position as it is.
EDIT for TL;DR: I'm a cynic, I don't trust the state government to make sane decisions as it stands, and we just elected into a controlling interest in the running of our country politicians who don't see me as people.
All of today has been a walking nightmare. My store, normally happy and full of laughing and music and general tomfoolery, was just...quiet. None of us had anything to say. Even our one Trumper saw it and gave us the courtesy of keeping everything to himself. I got jeered at with the 'F' word while I was riding my bike to work ('Nice purse, @#$%^&') and when I stopped in to Walgreens on the way home there were older people loudly celebrating and talking the cashier's ear off when she looked very uncomfortable and was trying to get them to leave. It's been only one day...
Hopefully it's only their cheeriness that empowers them right now, and hopefully it will normalise in a few days or weeks. Hopefully.
3
SylandraJoin Queue for Mafia GamesThe Last Mafia Game
I allowed students to skip class today. Shockingly, most came. I tried to talk about the uses of anger in our writing to channel the post-election shock but everyone seemed dead-eyed, listless. No one listened. I spent the end of class answering a series of questions I had answered a week ago. A third of the students just started leaving in the middle of class, which I don't even know why, when they knew in advance the class was optional today. I know teachers whose students have cried today. Mine seemed unable to feel anything anymore.
"Oh yeah, you're a naughty mayor, aren't you? Misfile that Form MA631-D. Comptroller Shevat's got a nice gemstone disc for you, but yer gonna have to beg for it."
I get why some of you did it. You felt threatened by the notion of corruption, by the lack of integrity the DNC displayed during the primary. You allowed a con man to trick you into believing he had the answers. You allowed a businessman with a history of bilking his employees to convince you that he can get you paid a fair wage for a day's work. You allowed a rich man to sell you the idea that letting rich men have more money will improve the lots of the rest of us. You believed him when he said he'd respect you in the morning, and that you matter to him. You bought his justifications and agreed with his rhetoric because of course the alternative was crooked Hillary and her dirty dealings, and never mind MY dirty dealings with the very countries I just said we need to stop being nice to. You willfully chose to ignore the meddling in our politics because you only thought it fair that someone was doing it to HER. You were outraged that she disrespected the candidate you didn't respect, and when she was cordial and professional during the debates where your baboon was clearly faltering you took it as a sign of her weakness and his predatory power.
You bought his lies, and now we all get to pay your debt.
One of my friends needs a place to crash, and asked me about my place. I have plenty of room and told them that but...
I really need them to have an exit plan for leaving my place before I can commit to more than a medium sized visit. I also need them to have (or work with me to create) a mental health plan for what happens when I'm in class (that I cannot miss any more of) and they're at my house alone breaking down before I can in good conscience have them staying at my place. Both of these things are for both my wellbeing AND their wellbeing and safety, but it feels bad needing to put requirements on the situation like that. I 100% am offering shelter when they need it and have in the past, but I don't want living with me to be the final solution for them (as it won't work out longterm for reasons) and I really really want them to be safe. Yep: feelsbadman
I've debated this post for a while. I've decided that I think it's important. Not going to feel good, but important. It's long, and some of you are probably going to dislike some of it. That's your fair warning.
I should preface this by saying that my sole political affiliation is the ACLU. I did not vote for Trump. This probably tells you everything you need to know about my positions on everything. I was born in a rural environment, and I have spent time living in cities. In the interest of full disclosure, I am white, and more specifically I am an ethnic Jew. I am also straight, but strongly oriented towards power exchange and sadism. Which is explicitly illegal in many states (although usually not actively enforced unless people complain) and the sort of thing that makes you lose jobs when you get outed. There was even a recent ruling in a federal court(Doe v. George Mason University) that the constitutional rulings that prohibit sodomy laws don't apply to BDSM. Even though the case wasn't actually about that. I'm bitter. So while I can't say that I'm personally impacted by his strongly anti-gay stance, I'm somewhat familiar with orientation-based legal problems in general.
Let's take a moment to talk about understanding people with different positions. Introspection is hard. Empathy is hard. People aren't built to understand radically different cultures. That's evolution's fault, and it takes a lot of effort to move past it. And it's not the sort of effort that people usually make, because doing the opposite feels right. It's what humans developed to do. We can move beyond it, but it's hard, and it never really becomes a habit. Try for a minute. Understand that most people make decisions based on the same algorithms, but they start with hugely different inputs.
Trump and Hillary drew their voters from vastly different cultural groups. Look at a map of the votes at the county level. The state map is too broad to be useful here. If you look at blue states, you'll find that most of the rural counties are still in red. If you look a red states, you'll find that most of the cities are blue. Rural and urban cultures are different. And they don't get along. I don't just mean in cultural norms, either. Economically speaking, they rely on very different things. A lot of rural people look at the modern media, and they see themselves getting ignored, except for when they get mocked. When they look at governments and budgets, they see themselves getting taxed as much as everyone else, and then they see all the money going to the cities. They see themselves getting mocked for being backwards hillbillies while everyone goes on about how great and cultured cities are. To some extent, it's even happening in this thread.
Neither side gets an accurate picture of the other. A lot of racism comes from that. Look, I'm from a rural area. You know how many black people I met before I graduated from high school? Two. How many from Asia? Three. One hispanic guy that I knew by name, a bunch of migrant workers passing through. They don't meet many of them in person, but you know what they do see? They see them on the news. But the news only talks about riots and thefts, so that's the impression that they come away with. It's not accurate, but city people have the same problem with the countryside.
Look, this is getting long, and David Wong is far more eloquent than I am. Read his article. Read it all the way through, and try not to feel anything when you do it. Use reason, not instinct. Maybe compare the posted title on that article to the one in the URL (that's the original) to see how the problem works.
My point is this. Most people feel persecuted by the other group, because nature is terrible. Everyone has grievances. It's easy to give in to rage, and to blame the other (whatever that othered group may be) for problems, and to think of them as evil or unenlightened. But that's intellectually dishonest, and it perpetuates the problem. It's easy to assume that you understand the other group's motivations, but it's rare for that to be anything more than an educated guess. Trump is likely to try to force people to adhere to his preferred set of social norms, and he's likely to persecute people who prefer a different set of norms. But most humans instinctively do that, and the people who voted for Trump were afraid of the other candidates for the same reason that other people are terrified of him.
In the interest of linking this to the thread topic, I'm dissatisfied with people making assumptions and demonizing each other.
Any sufficiently advanced pun is indistinguishable from comedy.
I've debated this post for a while. I've decided that I think it's important. Not going to feel good, but important. It's long, and some of you are probably going to dislike some of it. That's your fair warning.
I should preface this by saying that my sole political affiliation is the ACLU. I did not vote for Trump. This probably tells you everything you need to know about my positions on everything. I was born in a rural environment, and I have spent time living in cities. In the interest of full disclosure, I am white, and more specifically I am an ethnic Jew. I am also straight, but strongly oriented towards power exchange and sadism. Which is explicitly illegal in many states (although usually not actively enforced unless people complain) and the sort of thing that makes you lose jobs when you get outed. There was even a recent ruling in a federal court(Doe v. George Mason University) that the constitutional rulings that prohibit sodomy laws don't apply to BDSM. Even though the case wasn't actually about that. I'm bitter. So while I can't say that I'm personally impacted by his strongly anti-gay stance, I'm somewhat familiar with orientation-based legal problems in general.
Let's take a moment to talk about understanding people with different positions. Introspection is hard. Empathy is hard. People aren't built to understand radically different cultures. That's evolution's fault, and it takes a lot of effort to move past it. And it's not the sort of effort that people usually make, because doing the opposite feels right. It's what humans developed to do. We can move beyond it, but it's hard, and it never really becomes a habit. Try for a minute. Understand that most people make decisions based on the same algorithms, but they start with hugely different inputs.
Trump and Hillary drew their voters from vastly different cultural groups. Look at a map of the votes at the county level. The state map is too broad to be useful here. If you look at blue states, you'll find that most of the rural counties are still in red. If you look a red states, you'll find that most of the cities are blue. Rural and urban cultures are different. And they don't get along. I don't just mean in cultural norms, either. Economically speaking, they rely on very different things. A lot of rural people look at the modern media, and they see themselves getting ignored, except for when they get mocked. When they look at governments and budgets, they see themselves getting taxed as much as everyone else, and then they see all the money going to the cities. They see themselves getting mocked for being backwards hillbillies while everyone goes on about how great and cultured cities are. To some extent, it's even happening in this thread.
Neither side gets an accurate picture of the other. A lot of racism comes from that. Look, I'm from a rural area. You know how many black people I met before I graduated from high school? Two. How many from Asia? Three. One hispanic guy that I knew by name, a bunch of migrant workers passing through. They don't meet many of them in person, but you know what they do see? They see them on the news. But the news only talks about riots and thefts, so that's the impression that they come away with. It's not accurate, but city people have the same problem with the countryside.
Look, this is getting long, and David Wong is far more eloquent than I am. Read his article. Read it all the way through, and try not to feel anything when you do it. Use reason, not instinct. Maybe compare the posted title on that article to the one in the URL (that's the original) to see how the problem works.
My point is this. Most people feel persecuted by the other group, because nature is terrible. Everyone has grievances. It's easy to give in to rage, and to blame the other (whatever that othered group may be) for problems, and to think of them as evil or unenlightened. But that's intellectually dishonest, and it perpetuates the problem. It's easy to assume that you understand the other group's motivations, but it's rare for that to be anything more than an educated guess. Trump is likely to try to force people to adhere to his preferred set of social norms, and he's likely to persecute people who prefer a different set of norms. But most humans instinctively do that, and the people who voted for Trump were afraid of the other candidates for the same reason that other people are terrified of him.
In the interest of linking this to the thread topic, I'm dissatisfied with people making assumptions and demonizing each other.
I grew up poor, white, and in an area of the country that has lost its manufacturing. I'm from the only county in MA that regularly votes Republican. I know people who voted for Trump because of these fears. They're still ignorant and incredibly terrified and decided that their fears are more important than trying to reach out. There is also a big difference between the two sides. I can't defend people who voted for the idea that not everyone deserves a place at the table because they might lose some of their pie. If we're coming just from a social view that was the difference. The Democrats argued that everyone deserves to be at the table and this scares a lot of people because they might lose something. The Republicans argued that not everyone belongs. That was a huge part of Trump's campaign. Not everyone belongs and they are stealing from you and we're going to kick them out and get you back what you deserve. Trying to balance those two out and equalize them is disingenuous. I 100% agree that they made a decision out of fear but that's not a defendable decision. That fear has a reasonable chance of hurting people badly.
Edit: I'll add that those jobs that are gone are not coming back. We're not a manufacturing country anymore. That version of America is not coming back. So not only did they vote because they're scared but they voted because they're unwilling to change when we need to. We don't have a choice. And again, a lot of people just said that those things are more important than letting everyone in this country be equal.
I don't mean to say that the outcomes are the same; I'm sorry if it sounded that way. I think it's foolish to cling to a past that can't ever come back, and I'm too far in favor of liberty to endorse any of Trump's doctrines. But I do think it's important to understand why people would support him. You can get two different outcomes from the same process by starting with two different inputs. Those outcomes won't be interchangeable. One can be better than the other.
Any sufficiently advanced pun is indistinguishable from comedy.
Sure, I think you're missing something if you don't understand this decision was made from fear. A lot of our political decisions are made from fear. But I don't think we're going to find any enlightenment from that fact. It just feels like we're legitimizing it. "Oh, they want to take personhood from you because they're afraid you're going to have food and money and they won't. Yeah they have a lot of advantages but don't you get it, they're afraid". Outreach is the best answer but the other side needs to be willing to accept outreach and it doesn't feel like that's going to happen.
It's not just fear, though. That's certainly a large part of it, but it isn't the whole picture. A lot of it comes down to feelings of disenfranchisement. They're not just worried that their way of life is dying. They're worried that people hold them in contempt and ignore them and their needs. From that point, they work like any other population group that is feels like it's being marginalized. They start to prioritize group identity. Things that seem unrelated to the core issue, or completely insignificant, become important because people identify with them. They get a set of social norms, just like any other subculture. And then they try to defend and spread those norms. Processes matter. I have a hard time thinking of anyone as an enemy if I know that they reached their position in the same way that I reached mine. They can be opponents, and we can come into conflict. That's natural, when our conclusions are incompatible and we can't simply separate. But an opponent and an enemy are not the same thing.
I don't think it's correct that they think of minorities as being less than people, generally speaking. Some certainly do, but I doubt that's a common belief. They're just outside the group, and people outside the group are hostile.
If you understand why people feel that way, you can start to address it. Simply acknowledging that they exist in a non-hostile way is a good start. People aren't going to be open to working through problems if you're yelling at them for being racist or ignorant. They won't always be open to if if you offer calm and reasoned opposition either, but it's more likely. Once you realize that they're being portrayed in a way that offends them, you can try not to do that. I can't complain about people stereotyping me while doing the same to them. More importantly, it can break people out of the idea that one side is good and one is evil. Once you do that, and once you start looking at the other side as people who are trying to do what they thing is right and necessary, you can actually discuss problems and solutions. Outreach and understanding resolve conflicts, but it's not a matter of one group reaching out to another and handing down truth. It's about both parties working in good faith to understand the other.
Any sufficiently advanced pun is indistinguishable from comedy.
On the other hand, I just told my literal family off for post-election gloating after being sick of listening to them spout 'crooked Hillary', '4 poisoned skittles', 'keep men out of the girl's room' and 'Obama is a Muslim Kenyan illegal here to take our guns, give our jobs to Syria, let welfare queens live off the state, and kill every cop.' for the last 4 years.
Ok, but those feelings of disenfranchisement have been answered by electing someone who has said time and time again that a large part of this country doesn't belong here and doesn't deserve to sit at the table. This argument also puts the burden of outreach on the group who's being told they don't belong. And on a national political level that argument that certain groups don't belong is only going one way. The Democratic Party has never said that they don't belong. They've said that things need to change, that the old America is not coming back, but they've tried to provide everyone with ways to move forward. The Republican party and the man who was elected ran on the idea that not everyone belongs and that not everyone can be successful. Any place you look that's part of their plan. It's part of their economic plans, it's part of their social plans, it's part of the isolationist foreign policy they pushed.
I don't think you're wrong, I think your argument is sound and right. It just ignores the fact that almost half the country said that people who don't look and act like them deserve less.
Trump basically did better with all the groups everyone thought he'd do badly with, he got much higher support from the suburbs, women, hispanics, black and asians than the polls said he would. I mean he still didn't go as good as Clinton did but well he did better with minority groups than the past few republican candidates in fact.
I just got a call from my former flatmates with whom I lived from last September till this February in intermediate rent. Apparently, we have to pay 1200€ as subsequent payment for last year's gas which is quite a LOT. At first, I wondered but then I realised that it was probably because one of my flatmates couldn't be bothered to get her heater fixed so she always put mine on the highest setting and opened my door to heat the whole appartment while I was away. I allowed her to do that since I felt sorry for her and didn't want her to be cold (as a result, my plants died due to the tropical climate and I often had to ventilate the room for a while until it was bearable enter). However, I didn't expect her to ALWAYS keep it that high like when I was away for a whole weekend. And she also could have gotten her own heater fixed but after she missed the mechanic once because she was sleeping, she didn't bother to do anything again and instead kept using mine.
So here I am, having to pay 200€ which is like two months worth of food. Basically, they decided to divide the amount through three and then split the part of the girl, whose room I lived in, into two. All my friends are saying that I should protest and insist on paying less since it was not my fault (said overheating flatmate was also fond of long baths - also heatd by gas - with her boyfriend, effectively blocking the bathroom and the toilet for an hour from time to time) but I do not want to part with them on bad terms and feel sorry for them for having to pay that much even though it's probably easier for them than for me.
Sorry for the long rant...I do not usually rant or vent but I just had to get it off my chest. I already had my colleagues take the Nutella glass away from be because I wouldn't stop eating while ranting (and involuntarily entertaining the whole corridor...now, they have something to add to my stupid-things-she-did-list).
Comments
Tonight amidst the mountaintops
And endless starless night
Singing how the wind was lost
Before an earthly flight
Now, on the topic of the election... If we take a step back and look at what the voters decided, it's incredibly telling. America, especially those in the Heartland, voted against the poster child of "The Establishment". An establishment that, over the course of many decades, has created a globally interconnected world that benefits their interests over those of the Common Person. Wages have stagnated. Most of the wealth has gone to the richest 1%. People are feeling high-and-dry, and that makes them incredibly angry.
It's telling how well a Leftist candidate like Sanders did against Clinton in the Primaries. Even without the DNC mucking around with the Primaries, I don't know if Sanders would have won the nomination. But he would have at least made Clinton move farther to the Left than she did. After it was revealed how much corrupt DNC leaders did to sabotage Sanders' chances at winning, I'm not at all surprised that voters took out their frustration by voting for the other candidate. The Democratic Party has effectively lost all of the good will they've accumulated from the Bush presidency, and it will be difficult for them to gain it back. Only time will tell how they do it. And Trump, despite the tapes showing how he sexually harassed women, despite all of the racist rhetoric that he spewed forth about Central and South Americans, despite being alienated from many of the leaders of the Party he was representing, still won. I think that's pretty telling about what people think of The Establishment, having voted in a man with a deplorable history like that.
Finally, it's also worth pointing out the ballot measures that passed. Yes, the death penalty did well this election, but too so did the minimum wage and marijuana usage; both of which are causes that many Progressives champion. And while it wasn't on the ballot anywhere, feelings towards same-sex marriage and LGBT people has move positively over the past decade or so. Is there still bigotry being thrown against them? Absolutely, and it should be stopped wherever it happens. But the citizens of this country are much more accepting towards LGBT people than they were even a few years ago. There's still a long way to go, but we're making progress, and that's a Good Thing.
Anyway, here's to a Kanye West 2020 presidential run.
so yes, control of the federal government does mean that the right to same sex marriage can be taken away. Theres some other misinformation, but thats the main thing. i can chat more about it in pms, not really a good topic for here.
Edit: aka. if you want to get married, do it now. itll take time to appoint a 9th justice and push a test case to the sc
Unrelated, where in nc? i live in WNC
Ixion tells you, "// I don't think anyone else had a clue, amazing form."
EDIT for TL;DR: I'm a cynic, I don't trust the state government to make sane decisions as it stands, and we just elected into a controlling interest in the running of our country politicians who don't see me as people.
I get why some of you did it. You felt threatened by the notion of corruption, by the lack of integrity the DNC displayed during the primary. You allowed a con man to trick you into believing he had the answers. You allowed a businessman with a history of bilking his employees to convince you that he can get you paid a fair wage for a day's work. You allowed a rich man to sell you the idea that letting rich men have more money will improve the lots of the rest of us. You believed him when he said he'd respect you in the morning, and that you matter to him. You bought his justifications and agreed with his rhetoric because of course the alternative was crooked Hillary and her dirty dealings, and never mind MY dirty dealings with the very countries I just said we need to stop being nice to. You willfully chose to ignore the meddling in our politics because you only thought it fair that someone was doing it to HER. You were outraged that she disrespected the candidate you didn't respect, and when she was cordial and professional during the debates where your baboon was clearly faltering you took it as a sign of her weakness and his predatory power.
You bought his lies, and now we all get to pay your debt.
I really need them to have an exit plan for leaving my place before I can commit to more than a medium sized visit. I also need them to have (or work with me to create) a mental health plan for what happens when I'm in class (that I cannot miss any more of) and they're at my house alone breaking down before I can in good conscience have them staying at my place. Both of these things are for both my wellbeing AND their wellbeing and safety, but it feels bad needing to put requirements on the situation like that. I 100% am offering shelter when they need it and have in the past, but I don't want living with me to be the final solution for them (as it won't work out longterm for reasons) and I really really want them to be safe. Yep: feelsbadman
I should preface this by saying that my sole political affiliation is the ACLU. I did not vote for Trump. This probably tells you everything you need to know about my positions on everything. I was born in a rural environment, and I have spent time living in cities. In the interest of full disclosure, I am white, and more specifically I am an ethnic Jew. I am also straight, but strongly oriented towards power exchange and sadism. Which is explicitly illegal in many states (although usually not actively enforced unless people complain) and the sort of thing that makes you lose jobs when you get outed. There was even a recent ruling in a federal court(Doe v. George Mason University) that the constitutional rulings that prohibit sodomy laws don't apply to BDSM. Even though the case wasn't actually about that. I'm bitter. So while I can't say that I'm personally impacted by his strongly anti-gay stance, I'm somewhat familiar with orientation-based legal problems in general.
Let's take a moment to talk about understanding people with different positions. Introspection is hard. Empathy is hard. People aren't built to understand radically different cultures. That's evolution's fault, and it takes a lot of effort to move past it. And it's not the sort of effort that people usually make, because doing the opposite feels right. It's what humans developed to do. We can move beyond it, but it's hard, and it never really becomes a habit. Try for a minute. Understand that most people make decisions based on the same algorithms, but they start with hugely different inputs.
Trump and Hillary drew their voters from vastly different cultural groups. Look at a map of the votes at the county level. The state map is too broad to be useful here. If you look at blue states, you'll find that most of the rural counties are still in red. If you look a red states, you'll find that most of the cities are blue. Rural and urban cultures are different. And they don't get along. I don't just mean in cultural norms, either. Economically speaking, they rely on very different things. A lot of rural people look at the modern media, and they see themselves getting ignored, except for when they get mocked. When they look at governments and budgets, they see themselves getting taxed as much as everyone else, and then they see all the money going to the cities. They see themselves getting mocked for being backwards hillbillies while everyone goes on about how great and cultured cities are. To some extent, it's even happening in this thread.
Neither side gets an accurate picture of the other. A lot of racism comes from that. Look, I'm from a rural area. You know how many black people I met before I graduated from high school? Two. How many from Asia? Three. One hispanic guy that I knew by name, a bunch of migrant workers passing through. They don't meet many of them in person, but you know what they do see? They see them on the news. But the news only talks about riots and thefts, so that's the impression that they come away with. It's not accurate, but city people have the same problem with the countryside.
Look, this is getting long, and David Wong is far more eloquent than I am. Read his article. Read it all the way through, and try not to feel anything when you do it. Use reason, not instinct. Maybe compare the posted title on that article to the one in the URL (that's the original) to see how the problem works.
My point is this. Most people feel persecuted by the other group, because nature is terrible. Everyone has grievances. It's easy to give in to rage, and to blame the other (whatever that othered group may be) for problems, and to think of them as evil or unenlightened. But that's intellectually dishonest, and it perpetuates the problem. It's easy to assume that you understand the other group's motivations, but it's rare for that to be anything more than an educated guess. Trump is likely to try to force people to adhere to his preferred set of social norms, and he's likely to persecute people who prefer a different set of norms. But most humans instinctively do that, and the people who voted for Trump were afraid of the other candidates for the same reason that other people are terrified of him.
In the interest of linking this to the thread topic, I'm dissatisfied with people making assumptions and demonizing each other.
Edit: I'll add that those jobs that are gone are not coming back. We're not a manufacturing country anymore. That version of America is not coming back. So not only did they vote because they're scared but they voted because they're unwilling to change when we need to. We don't have a choice. And again, a lot of people just said that those things are more important than letting everyone in this country be equal.
I don't think it's correct that they think of minorities as being less than people, generally speaking. Some certainly do, but I doubt that's a common belief. They're just outside the group, and people outside the group are hostile.
If you understand why people feel that way, you can start to address it. Simply acknowledging that they exist in a non-hostile way is a good start. People aren't going to be open to working through problems if you're yelling at them for being racist or ignorant. They won't always be open to if if you offer calm and reasoned opposition either, but it's more likely. Once you realize that they're being portrayed in a way that offends them, you can try not to do that. I can't complain about people stereotyping me while doing the same to them. More importantly, it can break people out of the idea that one side is good and one is evil. Once you do that, and once you start looking at the other side as people who are trying to do what they thing is right and necessary, you can actually discuss problems and solutions. Outreach and understanding resolve conflicts, but it's not a matter of one group reaching out to another and handing down truth. It's about both parties working in good faith to understand the other.
I don't think you're wrong, I think your argument is sound and right. It just ignores the fact that almost half the country said that people who don't look and act like them deserve less.
The break downs kind of interesting: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37922587
So here I am, having to pay 200€ which is like two months worth of food. Basically, they decided to divide the amount through three and then split the part of the girl, whose room I lived in, into two. All my friends are saying that I should protest and insist on paying less since it was not my fault (said overheating flatmate was also fond of long baths - also heatd by gas - with her boyfriend, effectively blocking the bathroom and the toilet for an hour from time to time) but I do not want to part with them on bad terms and feel sorry for them for having to pay that much even though it's probably easier for them than for me.
Sorry for the long rant...I do not usually rant or vent but I just had to get it off my chest. I already had my colleagues take the Nutella glass away from be because I wouldn't stop eating while ranting (and involuntarily entertaining the whole corridor...now, they have something to add to my stupid-things-she-did-list).