Trifecta of opioids, alcohol and suicide are blamed for the drop in U.S. life expectancy

[KILL KILL]

But rural communities are fucked either way, democrat or republican doesn't matter. Jobs are always going to leave them, causing various economic and social problems.

Urban communities are more politically malleable. There are fewer excuses for an urban city to be more violent than rural cities, as they have a lot of things (both economically and socially) stacked in their favour vs. rural communities.

I would disagree. Poverty is the driving factor in crime. There happens to be poverty in both cities and rural areas, but cities are so much more densely populated. When people are not only living on top of each other, but poor as fuck too, it's a recipe for disaster.

 

[helltoupee]

Correct. Who are the politicians that duped them? Free trade open border elitists from both parties. And when a guy comes along that talks like them and says "what do you have to lose"? They all said good point.

No I am saying east coast liberal what I term the petit bourgeoisie use all the resources to pay for stuff they want like Affirmative action programs and global warming initiatives. All the while white rural people get left behind. So they are now mad and supporting Trump.

Sorry Alan, you are contradicting yourself here.

You hate affirmative action, but you are also a closed border proponent? I've got news for you, closing the borders is a form of affirmative action.

How do you get 'best man for the job' if you are artificially limiting the talent pool to a stagnant population?

 

[HIMBOB]

The entire argument can be boiled down to, "People in rural America do drugs and support Trump because liberals."

It's easily the silliest argument I've ever seen in this sub, which is saying a lot.

But Trump triggers those lefties and clearly that's a net win.

 

[Lord Coke]

Sorry Alan, you are contradicting yourself here.

You hate affirmative action, but you are also a closed border proponent? I've got news for you, closing the borders is a form of affirmative action.

How do you get 'best man for the job' if you are artificially limiting the talent pool to a stagnant population?

Sure but we as a society have a obligation to place American citizens over other people.
Let's say the Department of Labor creates 1000 IT jobs. Do you want those jobs going to U.S. citizens or Chinese citizens regardless of whether the Chinese IT guys are better at IT. If you hire the 1000 Chinese guys that is 1000 Americans that don't get a job.

 

[AFCrookie]

Good thing Trump is right on top of that opiate/heroin epidemic.

 

[computer fogie]

"Let's say the Department of Labor creates 1000 IT jobs. Do you want those jobs going to U.S. citizens or Chinese citizens regardless of whether the Chinese IT guys are better at IT. If you hire the 1000 Chinese guys that is 1000 Americans that don't get a job.

You say you hate affirmative action, then you want affirmative action. Hiring the people best qualified for the job is what matters, not nationalistic favoritism.

 

[Higus]

I don't know how we can have a decent conversation about the opioid epidemic without discussing the state of healthcare in this country.
But sure, go ahead and blame SJWs on social media.

 

[KILL KILL]

Sorry Alan, you are contradicting yourself here.

You hate affirmative action, but you are also a closed border proponent? I've got news for you, closing the borders is a form of affirmative action.

How do you get 'best man for the job' if you are artificially limiting the talent pool to a stagnant population?

I never looked at immigration like that. Interesting perspective.

 

[snakedafunky]

To be fair, they are also incredibly stupid voting against their own interest. Because of Muh guns and Jesus.
I mean Trump said he was going to repeal Obamacare and all the poor white working class thought not only that was a good idea.
Half of them didn't even know they relied on it because it had a different name. Or they are celebrating tax cut for the rich.

There is only so much a person of that intellect can achieve. No wonder they get left behind by other demographics.

 

[panamaican]

But rural communities are fucked either way, democrat or republican doesn't matter. Jobs are always going to leave them, causing various economic and social problems.

Urban communities are more politically malleable. There are fewer excuses for an urban city to be more violent than rural cities, as they have a lot of things (both economically and socially) stacked in their favour vs. rural communities.

Well, that's not true. You're discussing urban communities as if the allocation of jobs, transportation, etc. is uniform across those areas. Yet we know with certainty that urban areas were intentionally bifurcated when the National Highway System came through.

Parts of urban America are identical to rural America when we're discussing economic abandonment. They even suffered for the same reasons - the loss of low skill factory jobs. That loss is what destroyed large parts of cities like Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, etc.

And so it's not surprising that rural America and inner city America suffer from the exact same problems (excepting those problems that arise from population density where inner cities obviously have more of those issues). One of the great failings of modern America is the inability to see the absolute parallels between inner city America and rural America. They are nigh identical except for racial demographics and so people who deny policy that would help inner city America are dooming rural America to the economic death and vice versa.

 

[Cake4Breakfast]

Got it, when black, native, and latino people turn to illegal drugs and alcohol, and don't go to college, it is never society's fault, it is simply an issue of personality responsibility (and a strong suggestion of some racial diathesis to lacking will power and a culture that undermines personality responsibilty), but when it comes to white people, it is society's fault lead by the "petite bourgeois."

 

[panamaican]

Sure but we as a society have a obligation to place American citizens over other people.
Let's say the Department of Labor creates 1000 IT jobs. Do you want those jobs going to U.S. citizens or Chinese citizens regardless of whether the Chinese IT guys are better at IT. If you hire the 1000 Chinese guys that is 1000 Americans that don't get a job.

Then you're not a believer in the best man for the job anymore. You can choose the 1000 Americans because they're American and not Chinese but it is a tacit admission that merit isn't the driving factor. That makes it a little weird to then turn to Affirmative Action programs and demand merit there.

What you're suggesting is "Merit when I think I'm better than the other guy. Protectionism when I'm worried that I'm worse than the other guy."

 

[Lord Coke]

You say you hate affirmative action, then you want affirmative action. Hiring the people best qualified for the job is what matters, not nationalistic favoritism.

It is incredibly bad public policy to put foreigners on equal footing as citizens. We have a obligation to people that have paid into society their whole lives to put them ahead of foreigners. More to the point, a unemployed citizen is living here unemployed. That is not the case for a foreigner. As far as I can tell if there was one job and we could give it to one American or one slightly more qualified Chinese guy you would give it to the Chinese guy even if the American guy is going to be unemployed now. I hope you see the problem with that reasoning.

 

[Lord Coke]

Then you're not a believer in the best man for the job anymore. You can choose the 1000 Americans because they're American and not Chinese but it is a tacit admission that merit isn't the driving factor. That makes it a little weird to then turn to Affirmative Action programs and demand merit there.

What you're suggesting is "Merit when I think I'm better than the other guy. Protectionism when I'm worried that I'm worse than the other guy."

I believe the American government should make policies that put American workers first. That should not be a controversial statement. Then once we are within that set of people we treat all American workers equally. So you are right I believe that the best American worker should get the job but I am not arguing the best person anywhere in the world should get the job.

 

[panamaican]

I believe the American government should make policies that put American workers first. That should not be a controversial statement. Then once we are within that set of people we treat all American workers equally. So you are right I believe that the best American worker should get the job but I am not arguing the best person anywhere in the world should get the job.

I didn't say it was controversial. I said it's a tacit admission that merit isn't the driving factor when allocating jobs/opportunities.

The U.S. government isn't doing the hiring (at least not all of it). Private corporations are and policy that limits their ability to hire the best person is policy that puts merit on a lower level than identity politics.

It's an indefensible position to say "Merit is what matters...except when I think something else is more important than merit."

And please note that I'm not challenging what you think is more important than merit or why you think it is more important than merit. I'm highlighting that you don't think merit trumps everything in decision making.

 

[Lord Coke]

I didn't say it was controversial. I said it's a tacit admission that merit isn't the driving factor when allocating jobs/opportunities.

The U.S. government isn't doing the hiring (at least not all of it). Private corporations are and policy that limits their ability to hire the best person is policy that puts merit on a lower level than identity politics.

It's an indefensible position to say "Merit is what matters...except when I think something else is more important than merit."

And please note that I'm not challenging what you think is more important than merit or why you think it is more important than merit. I'm highlighting that you don't think merit trumps everything in decision making.

I don't think that it is a indefensible position to say that American workers should be treated equally among themselves while we should give our own citizens preference over the citizens of other nations.

Let me put it like this. Let's say the world ends or a large portion of the war room are thrown 60 thousand years into the past. Now we have tribe sherdog. The tribe finds a large caribous and kills it. Its enough to feed the entire war room. All of a sudden Fogie sees Tribe 4chan and they aren't doing to well. He says shouldn't we help out that other tribe? I don't think it is a indefensible position to say no 4chan can fend for itself while at the same time saying we need to divide the meat equally among our tribe.

 

[panamaican]

I don't think that it is a indefensible position to say that American workers should be treated equally among themselves while we should give our own citizens preference over the citizens of other nations.

Let me put it like this. Let's say the world ends or a large portion of the war room are thrown 60 thousand years into the past. Now we have tribe sherdog. The tribe finds a large caribous and kills it. Its enough to feed the entire war room. All of a sudden Fogie sees Tribe 4chan and they aren't doing to well. He says shouldn't we help out that other tribe? I don't think it is a indefensible position to say no 4chan can fend for itself while at the same time saying we need to divide the meat equally among our tribe.

None of which addresses my very simple point - there are times where you think certain things are more important than merit.

Or to put it differently - merit is not always the most important thing, right?

 

[Lord Coke]

None of which addresses my very simple point - there are times where you think certain things are more important than merit.

Or to put it differently - merit is not always the most important thing, right?

I agreed with you. Yes I am not arguing that merit always comes first. I never argued that. I am arguing that within our country we should treat people equally.

Let's take this to business. Say a factory in China pays its works 30 cents a day. Does it make good public policy to let them compete equally with a U.S. factory? If you are there to make sure business owner make the most money then maybe but if you are there to help the worker then you set up a tariff.

 

[panamaican]

I agreed with you. Yes I am not arguing that merit always comes first. I never argued that.

Just wanted to be clear. And if it's okay for you to believe that merit doesn't always come first - is it okay for other people to also believe that some things come before merit?

 

[Lord Coke]

Just wanted to be clear. And if it's okay for you to believe that merit doesn't always come first - is it okay for other people to also believe that some things come before merit?

Obviously people have a right to believe whatever they want to believe. If you are asking if it makes for good public policy my answer is it depends.

Are legacy hires or enrollment a good idea?

If you are there to maintain who is in the upper and upper middle class at a generational level then yes. Maybe having a static society has merit. I don't think so but there is a argument for that.

My overall point is don't get mad that working class rural America picked some guy you think is crazy when society has put in place policies which are literally killing them off.