MSC

Here here! Not to mention this was the fulfillment of a campaign promise, a campaign Biden won. Apparently we are now expected to believe that being true to your word, is wrong. What a Topsy turvy world we live in.

In what dictionary?! Prae Judicium means to judge beforehand. While it is the etymological root word of the modern prejudice, they don't mean the same thing. Pre-judge is the modern exact equivalent of prae judicium. - Cambridge dictionary Maybe you could explain for me this modern dictionary definition says you're full of shit? I don't think it matters P. As soon as he said black woman, the right lost their minds. So you admit you were strawmanning? @MigLignoring this are we? No she wasn't used for political purposes. I've yet to see any proof of this.

I don't rant; I write a lot because reality is complex and it's a requirement to being truly understood. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work for those with an such an aversion to reading, that they can only call anything substantive, a rant. Oh I don't know, reciprocity and the ability to logically counter other people's arguments effectively? It's not my fault you haven't convinced me to care more about the opinions of racists than I do everyone else. Another reason I'd appreciate (but not expect) it, is to show that you have actually read what others have been saying (not just myself), and haven't just been arguing in bad faith. I'm sure you haven't though, but if you addressed people's contributions to this discussion thoroughly; you'd convince me and others of that more than whatever it is you're currently doing, which clearly isn't convincing enough. Maybe if you try all caps and act like you're shouting it all, that might work! 😆 I was just stating the fact that most of the people in this discussion, don't agree. For me to have made a logical fallacy, I'd have to have said "the majority cannot be wrong." Which I did not do nor do I believe that. If 99% of the people planet believed the earth was flat, 99% of the people on this planet would just be wrong. In regards to the "No objective sense of right/wrong" part, that's not something I believe. I said earlier I'm a moral objectivist. The argument for why Biden committed no crime by stating he would nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court, is solid. There is no legal basis for it. I've yet to be convinced that it was morally wrong either. Those two measures are pretty much the only two I care about. I could give less of a shit about the political perspective because that's not my area of expertise. Ethics is. Since political perspectives supervene on ethical and moral values, I care more about the latter than the former. The former is just what happens when people weaponise the latter. Nope, just confident that I've been a valuable contributer toward this discussion, I have been sticking to my guns and I haven't lied to you by saying I agree with you when I just don't. I'm as flawed and imperfect as everyone else here is. If I'm full of anything right now, it's gas. I just ate a bunch of cheese. What was it you were saying earlier? About advertising a rental apartment/house as for white males only and as president saying you're going to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court being exactly the same? Have you come up with an argument yet, as to why they are both illegal acts made in violation of the fair housing act of 1968? I believe that was an LBJ Era policy if that helps you look it up. I'm not trying to prove he is infallible. Show me where I have said this? Just so it's clearly stated; I don't think Biden is infallible, I don't think he is above criticism. I quite simply, think this particular criticism is baseless and you haven't convinced me it isn't. Yes, to some people, people who are ignorant of the full context, legal and ethical, it looks bad. Doesn't mean it was really a mistake. Whether or not I understand your point of view, I still don't have to agree, even if I understand. Well you are being needlessly vitriolic. Losing your temper and devolving the thread to name calling because people aren't agreeing with you is the last straw for me. Where is the prejudice? Whom was treated unjustly? And why shouldn't we be concerned about your motivations? I'll say it again, if you talk, walk and think like a racist... at least saying you might just be a racist is an objective thing; other than a totally loaded insult like butt-hurt snowflake which ultimately means nothing.

There are about 12 pages you are welcome to reread at any time. As for the "not reading to understand" accusation. That's a projection. Neither of you are writing particularly lengthy responses that address every single one of my responses and a few of Swansonts questions have been ignored also. Neither of you are particularly difficult to understand, but clearly the more nuanced and effortful responses from myself and others here are not being understood. If there is something you don't understand, then ask the right questions.

I think you got your point across to most of us. Most of us just didn't agree. Sorry. Seems more like a steelman to me. Out of curiosity, how would you have handled it?

Are you not a part of everybody? I care. But open up a new thread, give us more info on said thread. We'd appreciate that.

Bad example. Vowel either way nor is it a noun. First I'll read it as it sounds, then I'll remember what it stands for. Not the other way around. Doesn't matter if you abbreviated it to SC. A Supreme Court seat An SC seat. Yes we mean the same thing either way, but saying SC and Supreme Court don't sound the same, the former phonetically starts with an E. Everytime I used a , did you think period or comma as you read it or did you just pause? @zapatosnever mind! You're right! SC is not an initialism! Carry on as if I never said anything people. Lesson learned 😆 Changed from -1 to +1 for you Z. I was wrong. Sorry @MigLthat was my bad. Your grammar was fine.

Doesn't matter. I am correct. Whether a piece is intended to just be read and not spoken out loud, the barometer for its grammatically correctness lies in how it is said out loud. The writer is supposed to read it aloud before publishing to validate its correctness in English. Doesn't matter if the abbreviation isnt "official" either. All that matters in the grammatical sense is how something sounds.

Grammatical sidebar: this is only a small thing, but the mistakes been made a few times. Is incorrect. An SC seat, is the correct way. To explain why, here are three examples of the abbreviation rule in play. An FBI agent. A CIA agent. A KGB agent. Whether or not a or an is used, depends on the phonetic sound made when you say it. F = Eff, so vowel start, meaning we use 'an'. C = Cee, so it starts with a consonant, so we use 'a'. K = Kay, also a consonant. Not meaning this as a dig it's literally just something about English not a lot of people know.

Exactly. Because promoting a black woman and invading Ukraine are clearly the same thing. Again, giving someone a promotion isn't mean behavior and literally the only thing that got us onto the topic of whether or not bad behavior has been done by Biden, was me using "flipped off" in a truly figurative and metaphorical sense. If I have to say it again, that nobody is being literally flipped off, I'm just going to leave this conversation. It's not even funny anymore, it's just desperate and insults ALL of our intelligence. Charles Manson for example. @MigL Sorry, the quote selection button wasn't working for some reason, so I had to do it like this. As for my response to the above; when were white people enslaved and forced to be segregated from the rest of society in the USA? How is an apartment exactly the same as a Supreme Court seat? Another major difference is that people can come to concrete harm by being given less fair housing options than another, based on race. Here, the harm is done to your rights to fair and equal treatment under the constitution, as soon as you see the advertisement. It would also violate the fair housing act of 1968. Appointing KBJ to the Supreme Court, is not a violation of the fair housing act..

Although, before anyone bothers trying to jump down my throat and claim that I'm saying we should be nasty; I refer you back to the facts of the situation as I put them earlier. I'm sorry but only racists are of the opinion that giving a black woman a promotion is an example of "mean" behavior. This is reaching the point where someone just has to say it, if it walks, talks and thinks like a racist; it's a racist. If the only legit criticism yall have is "well to some people it looks bad" and that is the hill you're choosing to make a stand on, then I need to point out that you can't make fortifications around a molehill. If your biggest issue with Biden, is that he isn't perfect, then I don't really know what to say to you. Nobody is perfect. Does anyone else find it ironic that as a the younger member of this discussion, I'm preaching realism over idealism? My how the tables have turned 😆 nomatter where you stand, that shit is funny.

Especially when "being nice" or considerate, generous etc, gets you called do-gooder or some variation of in a pejorative way. - Donald J Trump

That's a lot of strawmen I see before me. Nobody said any of those things. This escalation is becoming nonsensical. All that happened was Biden nominated a black woman to the Supreme Court. Nobody is going to the gas chambers and nobody is being sent to a gulag... although if one was opened in the USA, it would probably be in either Florida or under the Yankees stadium. Again, modeling anti-racist behavior, such as nominating the first black woman to an SC seat, to a mostly white male court, with a long history of white male courts, is what you do. Ultimately it's a free world and some people will choose to remain ignorant and reject all suggestions you put at them to fix it, because they think there is nothing wrong with that ideology and that they are superior. Have you ever had anyone spit at you and call you an n-word lover? Because I have. How do I convince someone like that of anything? Even exposure therapy works slow, especially for life long, raised to be racist, individuals. Again I need to ask, don't you think your expectations of Biden are too idealistic and not in line with reality? What sort of political miracles do you think he should be capable of within the framework of the 3 branch governmental system and the constitution, within his first two years,, after inheriting the presidency in the middle of a global pandemic and 4 years of governmental incompetence and political mudslinging? We can agree to disagree on whether or not the way he went about it was problematic or not, what we cannot disagree on however, is that what is done is done. He said what he said, did what he did and when SCOTUS reconvenes on its next term, Breyer will be retired and KBJ will be in his seat. Yknow, assuming some right wing nut jobs doesn't try to kill or kidnap her or some Trump mob threatens to storm the capital to hang her. Which yknow, five years ago I would have said was being overly dramatic, but after the behavior of Trump supporters basically trying to do both of those things with other officials (even their own VP Mike Pence), I'd be a fool to rule them out. In conclusion, Biden did what he thought was right, I can respect that and I agree with it being the right thing to do. Even if the "optics" looked bad to certain people, people that clearly have no axe to grind at all! (Last line was sarcasm)

Last I checked, being a racist isn't a protected characteristic. Standing up to racists, is a good thing. Taking an addicts heroin away could be perceived by them to be "flipping" them off, but it's better than enablement. It doesn't matter if they feel flipped off, in reality, they weren't! In fact, they were done a service. By not capitulating to racist ideologies, we set a boundary that it isn't tolerated anywhere; no matter who is on the receiving end of it, white, black etc. Biden is the leader of the executive branch of government, he isn't a therapist to racists nor is he their parent. You mean pointing out he was sticking to a campaign promise and being transparent? You tell me how that isn't a good thing? You cannot please everyone. Why should he try to please racists more than the people that voted for him? Voted for him knowing he made that promise I might add?Political mandate knocking! Is something only good if 100% of people recognize it as such? Because by that standard, everything is bad.

No, Which Biden hasn't literally done. But since racists aren't the majority, the optics of metaphorically giving them the finger wins over others. Black conservatives for example. To be clear, bidens not actually flipping anyone off. Don't know why I'm having to argue that. That's a bottom of the barrel type argument dude. Did you really not understand that I was being metaphorical or are you just grasping at straws? In what world is the first woman whom is black to be on the Supreme Court not social progress? In upside-down land? This is getting comical. Are you just doing satire?

Wonder how it polled among black Republicans. You just need to look at how Collins, Murkowski, Romney, McConnell and Cheney are being treated by the rest of the GOP right now, to know this currently rings true. Or Manchin on the democrats side. I don't think any of them could win a presidential election tbh.

By modeling good behavior and saying it's about damn time there was some more diversity on the court. Republicans got to have their picks, they were white, yippee for white people, we had the last turn. Time for someone else.

It's a projection. His only fall claim to wrong doing at this point has been dialed back to "but it looks bad to some people." You're definitely not the one obsessed with optics so don't worry about it. I think this thread has probably just run its course.

No. It's not even that similar of a scenario. Need to revisit this. I would hug all people. That does not mean I can hug all people at once. What do you want Biden to do? Put multiple people onto one chair? Where does this cater to everyone all at once or not at all mentality come from? It's one seat on a court where white people are already represented. Why are people so offended at being told directly and transparently It's time for someone else to have a turn. This is basic kid stuff man. If there is one slice of cake left and one person hasn't yet had any, why oh why would it be wrong to give them the cake?

That is what Biden has been trying to do the entire time and he campaigned on unity and harmony! How is trying to appoint the first black woman to the Supreme Court not changing things? And how exactly is he meant to change things quickly within one year and a slim majority in the senate? This system wasn't built from the ground up, overnight yesterday with Biden at the helm. You don't think every politician sets out to change things and struggles to do a thing because of all the red tape? Keep in mind exactly what Biden inherited, leadership of a country where a sizeable fraction of it is in a personality cult centered around Donald Trump. Cult member adherence to a narrative is one of the HARDEST things to break. Do me a favor, think back to the year 2014, and who you were then, if Obama had done this then, and a black woman was going to be confirmed to the Supreme Court then, and Obama had stated so before, would you have spoken up then? Would you have shouted discrimination? I read your posts, but noticed a distinct lack of answers to pretty much every question I've put to you. I read the posts, they just didn't convince me that you had reasonably countered any of my points and a lot remain ignored. It's not my opinion that for it to be a breach of the law in the eyes of a court, the bar is set at proof of concrete harm. Where is the proof of concrete harm? That's what would be required if the discrimination takes place in employment, Healthcare, education etc so why would it be any different for the top level of the court itself? Is there some high crime and misdemeanor I don't know about?

Haven't we already been over this? Positive and negative discrimination, affirmative action, concrete harm, holistic review. I went over all of these. So why are you still implying that all forms of discrimination are wrong? Would you hold it against me if I didn't want to date a 78 year old woman as a married 28 year old man? Isn't that discriminatory? What If I don't want to sleep with black men because I'm heterosexual? Does that make me a homophobic bigot? What if I say I prefer hanging out with my African friends over my Scottish ones? Am I not being discriminatory? Like seriously, Biden shared a preference for an important job, a preference which favored a group of people normally left out, nobody was hurt, the preference isn't going to now be strictly enforced everytime and I'm supposed to buy that it was somehow a mistake or wrong of him to do so? Because a few people have an opinion about it? One that cannot really be backed up with anecdotal evidence of he said she said. What could even be done about it if the opinion had any merit? A civil suit for hurt feelings because a black woman got a promotion? Can you see why I'm having such a hard time with understanding this?

Biden was/is already alienated from nearly the other half of voting districts (but not voters.) due to this ever escalating hyperpartisan politics of the past few decades. He wasn't going to win fans amongst the Trump/q-anon wing of the Republican party, no-matter what he did in regards to this nomination. I mean a few of them believe he's a reptilian, cannibalistic pedophile... even though there is major fucking logic break between reptilian and cannibal by eating humans? A reptile isn't a cannibal if it eats a human dummies! At least get your weird conspiracy theories somewhat logically coherent! That's obviously not directed at you MigL. I know you don't believe that nonsense. Putting my angry tangent aside, my point, is just that this Supreme Court nomination was not even close to some fantastic olive branch that would have effectively nurtured non-partisan unity with voters and the districts. It was for black people, who identify very much so with their race by majority and consider it an important part of who they are. I mean, I don't feel the same way about my whiteness sure, maybe a little about my nationality I guess, my socioeconomic class is more important to me than both, but ultimately I'm pretty cosmopolitan in nature. Which drives me to ultimately just be happy for KBJs achievement and a win for a group of people long trodden on or ignored. I can dig the spirit of that completely. For me it's people first over politics any day, and nobody came to any real harm because of how Biden went about it. Without real harm, I just don't feel the need to be overly critical for the sake of being tough on Biden.

No and I never said it was. I was referring to Biden. I never said they were mutually exclusive? Of course it could happen. Almost did happen, still at threat of happening in 2024.

Actually when I brought it up, it was only to point out the distinct lack of them amongst eligible judges. I've heard none of these arguments coming from the people in the best position to be making the arguments that they specifically lost out here. Ted Cruz certainly wasn't up for the nomination, thank God. That's just it though, a perception is not the same as the truth and there was nothing suppressive about this act! Preaching to the choir, but I just wanted to contribute toward your point. Yup. Voters gotta vote and a politicians gotta politician. It's a sucky situation sure but it's either that or a dictatorship and I know which I prefer.

Who's perceptions matter more here though? The majority of the country or a small few? Ultimately no matter what we do, there will be some who perceive it to be good, and some who perceive it to be bad and some who just don't really give a shit either way. If you're like me, and believe in moral objectivism and context relativism, objections can be understandable when you factor in the person's perspective, but objections being understandable, is not the same as them having the merit of the truth. If Biden did the right thing, why should it matter if there are negative perceptions when those perceptions may not be reasonable, fair, accurate or complete? I don't know, I guess to me, being explicit about characteristic criteria for KBJ seems like Bidens way of giving racists the big ol middle finger fuck you. One thing I feel we are glossing over, is that at the end of it all, Biden has the same rights as everyone else. There has to be some room for his freedom of expression and first ammendment rights. It's not like he nominated Kim Kardashian for the spot because he heard she was trying to pass the bar in California. I mean; it would be ideal if we lived in a world where we don't have to worry about race or racism. It would be ideal if it wasn't pretty historical moment for a black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. But unfortunately, racists exist, bigots exist and sometimes we have to engage in direct speech-acts in our battle against those sorts of ideologies. We also have to consider recent events and how they have contributed to the position Biden found himself in. The US was living under Trump, racists were emboldened, black people like George Floyd were being murdered by police, denied their rights and felt the brunt of Trumps covert policy war against them trying to essentially rob them of their ability to vote as American Citizens. For every strong attempt to disenfranchise some group of people, there is a counter reaction to re-enfranchise them, to try to rebalance the scales or just get them balanced for the first time. I know MigL that you are arguing in good faith here. Which I respect. I need to ask though, what would it take to convince you that there was nothing wrong with Biden making it clear what sort of person he wanted to pick? Other than the wrongness of a society that made him feel like he needed to make and take a stand and say that black women matter of course. I suppose what I am ultimately trying to ask, is don't you think your expectations of Biden are a little too idealistic and not realistic enough when we factor in the full context of the United States?