Is this how it ends? (in Debates)

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/19/arizona-official-threatens-cut-los-angeles-power-payback-boycott/

Looks pretty grim if we start seeing cities fighting with other cities on such a large scale like this. Is this how our great nation ends? I sure don't like the looks of this. Anyone have any insight as to why we have cities, counties and even states willing to play petty politics with the lives of their constituents?

Or is this normal everyday occurrence in our country and we should just let it play out?

Is this any different than the federal government cutting State spending for roads and schools if they don't follow certain laws? No it's not good, but it's been going on for ages. I'm not sure what else they should do though. I'll have to think some more.

The guy who made the threat also used the term "doggone it" to the media. It's nothing more than bluster.

You know it will never happen. Personally, I would like to see them cut off LA somehow. Here you have a city that decides to call a boycott on an entire state because it does not agree with one of their laws that has yet to be enacted. Talk about trying to force your will on others. As I see it, California (and most of its major cities by proxy) with its rampant unemployment and massive budget deficits should be the last ones to tell others how to run their state. Have your policies how you want them. Let others have theirs, and stop trying to preach your ultra-PC "everything is racist until proven innocent" dogma to others.

I actually tried my "immigration laws are anti-free market" argument on a dear friend today. Needless to say even the most libertarian minded folks still aren't quite on board with my crazy ideas of worker migration as an aspect of the market. Apparently forcing wages up with immigration controls is ok, but a minimum wage is not, go figure. The political posturing going on in Arizona (which is what this law is) and LA (are there more California municipalities trying this?) is indeed classical, old hat pandering to both sides of a ugly emotional issue. Neither side is really helping, and we're still in the midst of a collapse of a funny money system nearing it's hundredth birthday.

The whole thing is just sad.

If only people would read the actual law and see that racial profiling is prohibited in the law, things may be much better. Certainly there may be a few bad cops that do racial profile, but I am sure a few lawsuits from the ACLU will quickly end such abuses.

But when our own Attorney General, President of the United States and the Head of Homeland Security cannot even read a 14 page law in the 2+ weeks since it has been out, but feel free to comment negatively on it, I have a suspicion no rational discussion is good enough for them. And the crazy stupid cities of LA, SF etc.. that are voting to boycott AZ.

This is race baiting in its highest form. Something liberals do very well. Pandering to Hispanics hoping to get their vote.

Unbelievable there are quite a few people in the Obama administration who are open borders advocates. Unfortunately that is not the current federal law which for years has been neglected in its enforcement.

Back to your OP, as long as there are people who want to make brownie points with certain groups of people, things like this will continue. If LA wants to boycott Arizona, fine. I just hope AZ has the balls to cut off the power LA gets from them. No threat, just cut it off and see if they still have the convictions to keep up the boycott. I suspect they will crawl back to the crap pit they came from.

Already with the Obama bashing, Ranger? Do you even know how to have a political discussion without attacking either him or progressives in general?

Ranger states:

This is race baiting in its highest form. Something liberals politicians do very well. Pandering to Hispanics hoping to get their vote.

Fixed that for you. That is, unless you can prove your original assertion with real statistics (anecdotes and your anticipated "obvious to everyone" comments do not count). Because if you can't prove it, you're being a troll, plain and simple. That's not debate, and you should be fined.

Liberal politician race bait.

Conservative ones state you're unamerican if you disagree with them.

I would that thought that was intuitively obvious to the most casual observer.

This is a clear case of race baiting. In fact I would like to have you fined Sut for trolling. That is entering a debate with no facts and trying to start a fight.


When Obama and liberals in general talk at length about a law that they have not even read, yes, I will slam him. Just like the idiots in LA, SF and the other cities that are boycotting Arizona.

Facts? I must have missed a part of your post, then -- where are the links saying "here are what liberals always do" and "here is what conservatives always do"?

You don't have any facts, and while I am fairly certain you made your "casual observer" line to stick it back to me, you ended up just proving my point -- you don't have any facts.

I don't need any further facts, because I didn't assert anything other than that you are using troll tactics (labeling with only anecdotal evidence as support) in what is supposed to be a real debate. (and that's a fact until you can prove your assertions).

In simpler terms, don't take a shot if you aren't sure you can make it. That's what trolls do.

This:


is simply laughable. This is really your pithy rejoinder? Basically just, "Nyah nyah, no YOU should be fined!"

Should we just start a recursive "Am not!", "Yes you are!" rant and be done with it? I would have thought those eight years of extra schooling had provided you with better debate skills.

Sut,

Google Liberal Race Baiting and see all the links you can ever want and read.

The problem about trying to "prove" it is the following:

Liberals will never admit to race baiting. Therefore most of the links calling out these people are from conservative sites. Sites which you will give the standard reply that they are conservative sites. And if it is not on a liberal site it must therefore not be true.

But here is one large example. The day Obamacare passed in the House Pelosi and a few others walked through the tea partiers gathered in Washington. They then accused the tea party of shouting racial slurs. Even though there were numerous cameras and videos of the incidents, not one captured a racial epitaph. A 100k reward was even offered if someone would prove it with a video. To this date, that reward remains unclaimed.

The last line of the libs playbook is use racebaiting.

The last line of the conservative playbook is use Un-American.

I would have thought again it was very obvious to someone who states to be well informed as yourself.

But here are a few links for you:

http://www.thehotjoints.com/2010/05/10/video-olbermann-tries-race-baiting-arizona-diamondbacks-and-gets-eviscerated/

http://www.theinsidestraight.net/tag/liberal-race-baiting/

http://libertyfeatures.com/?p=3739

But back to the OP, what is your opinion of people making statements about the Arizona law without even reading it?

Or people like Holder saying he got his information from the TV about the law and then talking negative about it.

This whole city fighting is just another line of racial baiting by liberals designed to pander to the Hispanics for their vote. While people can have the thought that the new law may possible could in the future lead to racial profiling, the law (and yes I have read it) prohibits this exact thing. And if there are a few bad cops, as I stated before, the ACLU will quickly take care of them.

Personally I think that these boycotts are very ill advised. Imagine the Bible Belt boycotting San Fran for some of their ultra liberal laws concerning gays, the homeless, and illegals? But they have not knowing the country is best when we are whole and not fragmented. So they accept other states rights. Something cities like LA and SF cannot do.

But if they want to start with Arizona, Arizona has every reason to fight back. And I hope they do.

I hope you don't mean that you hope the power is shut off to millions of people. It obviously won't happen (even the federal gov't would intervene on such an event), but if so, that's one hell of a statement. I assume you really mean you want them to fight back with something less draconian, which is perfectly fine.

Ranger,

All of your links and examples are anecdotal. They aren't facts. You yourself even state your assertions cannot be proven.

So I am left wondering why the simple way around all of that remains elusive to you: Don't make those kinds of statements in a debate.

A debate isn't here so that you can spout "wisdom" that you consider common or conventional. There was no reason, debate-related or otherwise, to make your liberal comment (and you only started defending it with an equally anecdotal conservative label once I took you to task for it).

Don't make stereotypical, pointless statements in a clean debate. Can I be any clearer on how a real debate is supposed to be run?


It isn't obvious, and I never said I was well informed (provide a link for that if you think I did). Please don't put words in my mouth, as that is very inappropriate debate behavior, too.

Why isn't it obvious to me? Because I try not to lump groups together and assume it's all true. It's why I also try to avoid superlatives like "never", "always", "everyone", and "no one". It's why whenever I make a bullet list of choices for someone, I try to consciously force myself to add "...or something else entirely, add detail if you need to..." so that I am not building a false di- tri-, quad, Nth- chotomy for someone.

If there is one thing in my attitude and perception I fight against tooth and nail it is stereotypes and label-based generalizations. They do absolutely no good when it comes to trying to reach common ground with people. In fact, stereotypes can skew perceptions to the point of making them entirely IMperceptive (or worse, inaccurately perceptive). If you are inclined to do some Googling yourself, go Google "attribution theory." You probably won't even need to put it in quotes.

If LA really wants to boycott Arizona, then LA should request the power from Arizona to be cut off.

Otherwise it is just a political stunt of which most American see through and laughs at. At least the 60% who fully support the new law.

Arizona should not shut off the power unless LA asks. They just called LA on the hypocrisy of their "boycott".

I was going to attend a conference in San Fran this August. Of course I changed it and now will attending one in Scottsdale. Showing my support for this new law and the contempt for race baiting politics.

Assuming this was directed toward me:


I have no opinion. I haven't even looked at the article. I didn't have a chance to do any real digging on the topic yet because I was too busy cleaning up the meta-issue you'd already injected into this debate (use of stereotypes and pointless generalizations) such that I have been unable to get to the actual issue. Because there's no point talking about the issue if the "talking" itself is broken.

So, when you really do want to talk, and when you realize this is not the time or place for labeling and polarization, I might read the article and comment on it.

That's a good point.

I remember that grinding my Dad's gears when the states were liable to lose funding if they didn't all standardize on the 21-year drinking age. Thought he was going to blow a gasket. *smile*

Sut,

I will never be able to proven, beyond any reasonable doubt that the liberals use Race Baiting as a form of debate. At least not well enough for you to accept. However, I will state it is true. At least it is true as I see things. You may look at things through a different coloured lens and that is fine. You are entitled to your opinion.

But now, about this law, why does Obama, Holder, etc... state it is discriminatory without even reading it? That alone seems to be race baiting in its highest form from our highest elected official. I understand there are concerns about profiling but the law carefully addresses these. And mirrors federal law.

Of course it is!!!

There is no comparison.

There are federal laws that states have to follow. The Arizona law is a mirror of federal law. Also, the FEDERAL government can withhold funds. It is not for CITY or STATE governments to withhold funds. Of course they can boycott but that is much different from the example given above.

Ranger,


And you are entitled to your opinion. I take no issue with that.

However, until you can tell me how that part of your opinion (the liberal label and stereotypical statement about said liberals) relates to the debate at hand, I'm not going to take part in the debate with you. Alternately, you can retract the statement (not deny that you believe it, but retract it in that it has nothing to do with fruitful debate in this context) and try not to let it happen again. I don't expect perfection, seeing as how inexhaustibly imperfect I am.

The whole point of the OP is that cities are fighting each other. The motives of the fighting all come from supposed racism in the Arizona law. Of which there is none. Unless you want to classify federal law as racist since the AZ law mirrors it.

But cities like San Fran, LA and other very liberal cities are using this are race baiting to try to energize the Hispanic population towards the Democratic party.

Funny as you do not see cities like Omaha, St. Louis, Austin, Dallas, etc. boycotting Arizona. As they are more moderate--> Conservative cities that do not use the racial baiting technique.

It was a stupid comment by an official with no power to do so. It was then misconstrued into a huge argument over nothing. They have no way of making this happen.

Denying utilities is far different from boycotting, and nowhere near equivalent, and there was no intention to do so.

The point of the comment was to express the ridiculousness of the boycott in the first place with something even more ridiculous.

Cool it. Pointless debate.

did you just say that austin, texas is more moderate to conservative? have you ever been to austin?

Yes. The whole point of the OP is that the cities are fighting. YOU are the one who supplied the motives, and supplied them in one-sided fashion, slamming liberals for race-baiting (though the article says nothing related to that). I'll repeat, you only brought up a dig on conservatives (one I can't say I even agree with, by-and-large) after I pointed that out. So, you explicitly singled out liberals concerning motives where the original article supplied no such supporting data (and from Fox news, so I don't think you can say the article has a liberal slant).

I'm curious, why didn't you apply your generalization techniques (that you continue to defend) to pick on the Arizona/conservative side of things? For example, this quote from the article:

"Doggone it -- if you're going to boycott this candy store ... then don't come in for any of it," Pierce told FoxNews.com. [sutekh note: Pierce is a Republican]

I'll go ahead and analyze that line using the same stereotypical labeling you used for liberals:

Simple, red-neck Arizona conservatives, playing the beleaguered "good ol' boy" card by using "doggone it" and imagery of a candy store to appeal to rural, conservative hicks and conservative. Those conservatives. They always do that. I guess that makes them wrong.

(See how pointless that was?)

Was it good that I joined the debate with that? Good that we left pointless generalizations on the table as a debate tactic? My above assessment has every bit as much anecdotal evidence as yours.

Now what?

Cube, I'm inclined to agree. The folks going back and forth on this (both sides) exemplify the more inane nature of the "talking head."

I think I know how this thread is going to end!

Not to stir up the pot anymore, but..

Might I add that the funniest part of this whole ordeal is that LA is part owner of the power plants in question. Talk about an empty threat.

Heh, a veritable, "we're all in this together, but I'm better than you!" chest-pound, eh?

Humans. Stupid apes.