The General Political Thread

[Riddlez]

The US isn't the only country with checks and balances.... every country's system can be worked around to be abused and gain a fuckton of individual power.
Turkey has a Constitutional Court...

Erdogan became a dictator in spite of the system in place in Turkey. If you manage, even from a limited government, to make the people completely loyal to you by spreading bullshit stories (which truly isn't that hard, look at Erdogan, Hitler, Stalin and, to a lesser extent Trump), you can eventually and if you're smart and cunning anough exploit that to make the people 'choose' for you to have more control. Erdogan did that in the last referendum. Sure, he cheated, but it still goes to show yuo can abuse the system if yopu do it right. You just have to want to threaten people and eliminate political opponents.

[junedragon]

The problem becomes how do you deal with a judiciary that disregards the constitution and twists a convoluted path obfuscating toward their pre-determined,  partisan/ideological "decision"

[Riddlez]

Become an army general and stage a coup

[Edwin]

Has it? Like how slavery and institutionalized racism went away all by itself over the last two centuries in the USA?

I'd like to see you sit down with an Asian American student and explain that he's going to have to work twice as hard as an African American student to get a good SAT result, but it's OK because institutionalized racism has gone away thanks to government introduced affirmative action.

[BabyJesus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9Q72qYWxKQ&feature=youtu.be

[StevenChilton]

lmao, thanks for that

[Karth]

Has it? Like how slavery and institutionalized racism went away all by itself over the last two centuries in the USA?

I'd like to see you sit down with an Asian American student and explain that he's going to have to work twice as hard as an African American student to get a good SAT result, but it's OK because institutionalized racism has gone away thanks to government introduced affirmative action.

Yea affirmative action is pretty much a joke.

[Riddlez]

Still interesting how the United States is so rich, so powerful and still the only country that can't seem to fix the vast array of racial and violence problems.
There is literally no other country in the Western world that comes even close to the problems the U.S. has.

I would personally blame the political system, but I'm interested in the hypothesis.

[Theodin]

I think other Western countries have violence problems, too. It's also helpful to consider population density as a factor leading to crime.
Obviously there's a history of racism, but the clear majority of crimes committed against minorities are dohe by minorities.

[Karth]

Yes, considering minorities commit the most crimes against other minorities (African Americans), that in itself is its own problem. Politics is apart of that but not the solution nor will it ever effect anything really.  It's the lack of education and upbringing in mostly dense populated areas such as inner cities that leads to a violent life.  Not denying we still have racists, but the bigger issue is clearly black on black inner city crime.

[Riddlez]

Really the U.S. has a violence problem.
I don't really know the exact figures, but it was a chart considering the amount of murders per year per 100.000 people... The U.S. was at a murder rate Europe (on average) had back i nthe 1500's and  the report's conclusion was that, going from those numbers, the U.S. has a pre-civil society. That's a bit of a shortcut in my opinion but it does illustrate.
There are a few minor exceptions but the deats in most of Western Europe (comparable in culture to the U.S.) there, for the by far largest part, are caused by two reasons: People who severe mental disabilities, where you see usc tragic cases that  father murders his entire family) and criminal liquidations, about which the police in general doesn't really give a fuck about.

This is not at all the case in the U.S.

Considering population density in this regard doesn't exactly prove your point as Europe is more densely populated than the U.S.

Even if you would only consider city density the U.S. would lose. As a small example, take a pretty generic city in the U.S., for example Cincinnatti, Ohio.
A city with roughly 298.000 people.
Now take a pretty generic German city like Bonn, Westphalia, with roughly 318.000 people - slightly larger, but comparable.

The area of Cincinnatti is about 206.1 sq/Km
The area of Bonn is about 140

There are some really obious explanations to this, though.

[Theodin]

Going slightly off topic - anyone been following the situation in the Phillipines?

[ClaSh]

Going slightly off topic - anyone been following the situation in the Phillipines?

They're dreading terrorist attacks

[William]

Yes, considering minorities commit the most crimes against other minorities (African Americans), that in itself is its own problem. Politics is apart of that but not the solution nor will it ever effect anything really.  It's the lack of education and upbringing in mostly dense populated areas such as inner cities that leads to a violent life.  Not denying we still have racists, but the bigger issue is clearly black on black inner city crime.

Yep. A nice example is how black people fear the police to death but the bottom line is that there's a huge chance they'll be killed by other black people rather then the police.

I don't really know how we can fix this but our inner cities are definitely in their worse state with the single motherhood rate, dropout rate, abortion rate, and rampant gang activity. I personally think we should just build a ton of covered basketball courts so the kids can hoop instead of shooting dope. 

[Jakester]

Spoiler

I think other Western countries have violence problems, too. It's also helpful to consider population density as a factor leading to crime.
Obviously there's a history of racism, but the clear majority of crimes committed against minorities are dohe by minorities.

Yes, considering minorities commit the most crimes against other minorities (African Americans), that in itself is its own problem. Politics is apart of that but not the solution nor will it ever effect anything really.  It's the lack of education and upbringing in mostly dense populated areas such as inner cities that leads to a violent life.  Not denying we still have racists, but the bigger issue is clearly black on black inner city crime.

Yes, considering minorities commit the most crimes against other minorities (African Americans), that in itself is its own problem. Politics is apart of that but not the solution nor will it ever effect anything really.  It's the lack of education and upbringing in mostly dense populated areas such as inner cities that leads to a violent life.  Not denying we still have racists, but the bigger issue is clearly black on black inner city crime.

Yep. A nice example is how black people fear the police to death but the bottom line is that there's a huge chance they'll be killed by other black people rather then the police.

I don't really know how we can fix this but our inner cities are definitely in their worse state with the single motherhood rate, dropout rate, abortion rate, and rampant gang activity. I personally think we should just build a ton of covered basketball courts so the kids can hoop instead of shooting dope. 

[close]

All of this is true, and when people try to shift the blame of these violent attacks to our police officers having weapons, and how "police brutality is on the rise" is just nonsense. Sure the US has problems, but it's with minorities a huge part of the time. +1 to all the posts I quoted.
When it comes to fixing inner cities, I always thought the best solution would to just not have inner cities and move people, but obviously nothing is ever that black and white, but if you can get these people with poor education and big problems out of the problem areas so that they're in good environments or just bring education and support to them, but again, nothing is that clear.