We blame poor rural whites (correctly, in my view) for their behavior, but make excuses for poor urban blacks who engage in similar behaviors. To do otherwise is racist. A poor Baltimore black kid with a 1500 SAT is guaranteed admission to multiple ivies - the same is not true of the poor rural white kid. Etc.

I have little sympathy for either group feel they are largely responsible for their own problems. But it's silly to ignore this very large cultural distinction in how they are treated. And realistically, it's the cultural distinction rather than economic ones that are driving Trump, Wilders and Le Pen.

Incidentally, people in cities try to push around rural folks all the time - forcing them to bake gay wedding pizzas, taking away their guns, etc. And in fact rural America isn't banning trannies in the ladies room in NYC either - recall that all Trump did was say this wasn't a federal issue. Rural America didn't start your culture war.

I think those are First and Second amendment violations, so I'm not going to defend either thing.

> And in fact rural America isn't banning trannies in the ladies room in NYC either - recall that all Trump did was say this wasn't a federal issue. Rural America didn't start your culture war.

LGBT rights aren't part of a "culture war." They're 14th amendment equal protection issues. States are entitled to vote to create whatever kinds of societies they want (and I agree we often don't respect that enough), but what they cannot do is start making laws that single out certain kinds of people for special treatment. We're a federal republic, but that's one of the things you don't get to do while flying the American flag. And it's something that a big chunk of Americans won't tolerate happening in a place that's flying the American flag.

That doesn't make them any less a part of the culture war.

My legal philosophy skews hard right, so I'm no big fan of penumbras. But LGBT rights are a straightforward, textual application of the 14th amendment:

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

It's there as clear as day: you don't get to single out particular people for special treatment under the law. The legal weaseling needed to avoid the plain text ("well the government is not denying anyone the right to marry someone of the opposite gender, even if they are gay") is right up there with reading the Second Amendment only to apply to militias.

It's also where textualists and originalists have to part ways. The framers of the 14th amendment almost certainly didn't intend to preclude state laws that single out gays, women, etc. But that's irrelevant--they used unquestionably broad language and the text on the page is the only thing that matters. Particularly here, where there is no argument that the words would have meant something different to the framers (which is different from saying that the reading is different than what the framers intended).

Some people prefer to marry men, they can't get singled out. Some prefer to rent a home rather than buy, they do get singled out. Others prefer no health insurance, they also get singled out. Or as it relates to gay marriage, people who prefer to be single get singled out.

The text pretty clearly says you can't pass a law "no voting if you have gay preferences". That's very different from requiring legal privileges for gay relationships.

"Since power over human beings is shown in making them do what they would rather not do, the man who is actuated by love of power is more apt to inflict pain than to permit pleasure. If you ask your boss for leave of absence from the office on some legitimate occasion, his love of power will derive more satisfaction from a refusal than from a consent. If you require a building permit, the petty official concerned will obviously get more pleasure from saying «No» than from saying «Yes». It is this sort of thing which makes the love of power such a dangerous motive."

From: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/...

Eh not really true, schools really push state diversity , so if you are from the Mountain west or rural area and are decent you have a better chance to get in. But when the issue of gay marriage came up and R's wanted a federal ammendment to ban it in the mid 2000's that wasn't a state issue

Neither of these is true; the bakery in the gay wedding controversy is in a city. City folks are telling other city folks that you can't refuse to serve customers only because they are gay.

And no one is taking anyone's guns away.

I'm white, as are most residents of "big, square states".

https://www.cir-usa.org/Images/mich_index.gif

Do you have any data suggesting that other universities give even remotely as much weight to underrepresented state as they do to race?

See here for UMich's 16 year old explanation of this scale:

https://diversity.umich.edu/admissions/archivedocs/uapolicy....

Do you have any data suggesting anything of the sort is still in use?

Unless public colleges are secretly flying in the face of a Supreme Court ruling, your assertion that "being black is worth +1.0 on GPA, whereas underrepresented state is +0.1 and underrepresented county in Michigan is +0.3," is unproven by the evidence you provided.

Had you said "was," and explained that you don't believe things have changed, that would have been far more intellectually honest.

As someone from Kansas I can say that many people in that state have wanted and pursued legal/social action against LGBT people for as long as I can remember. Whether you want to admit it or not there's a strong undercurrent of anti-LGBT still alive and well in parts of the country, especially in the rural areas. The only time these folks "tolerate" LGBT people is when we toe the line of what is deemed "normal." So, if you're an effeminate gay man well it sucks to be you in rural (and most of south central) Kansas. If you're transgender (like me) it's double that. Basically, if you're not presenting straight (aka "normal") then you're boned.

>Incidentally, people in cities try to push around rural folks all the time - forcing them to bake gay wedding pizzas...

And all that talk about forcing people to cater gay weddings, well that's part of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment as one other commentor pointed out. If we throw out that law then that means I can open any public facing business like a bakery and refuse to hire or serve Christians. Let's see how long before this country goes back to the days of the Thirty Years War where we're even asking people if they're a Catholic or not before transacting business. Seriously, think about the consequences of this before asserting that anyone's force to do anything because as long as you got a society you got compromises and more so if you got government with relatively uniform laws. Those compromises ensure sectarianism is kept to a minimum. Now which do you want if you're a rural Christian American, sectarianism where you got an equal chance of being the victim of it or possibly having to cater gay weddings once in a while but getting paid well? BTW, catering in this instance isn't celebrating sin either nor does any part of the Bible say you can't economically benefit from transactions that are not in themselves sinful (ex. you can still sell guns to people whether or not one of them happens to be plotting murder for which you have no foreknowledge of).

Let's see how long before this country goes back to the days of the Thirty Years War where we're even asking people if they're a Catholic or not before transacting business.

We're already there - just ask Brendan Eich, Curtis Yarvin or Donald Sterling. Companies do check social media to make sure people haven't expressed views outside the overton window, e.g. being anti-gay or anti-fat.

See also my reply to Rayiner which asks the question why people who prefer not to buy health insurance (as opposed to people who prefer sex with men) don't also get equal protection under the law. Personally I quite enjoy sectarianism - I like the transactional society, where even a Nazi can peacefully purchase a Pepe-as-Hitler cake without getting sucker punched by a cowardly masked thug. (I have no strong opinion on forcing someone to sell it to him, though I support cultural norms that would encourage it.) But most of the people I see pushing a culture war - and I admit, I've never been to Kansas - are opposed to that.

As someone who was born/raised and lived in Kansas until three years ago I can say that Kansas evangelicals have regularly tried to browbeat leftists and moderates in other states and cities.

>We're already there - just ask Brendan Eich, Curtis Yarvin or Donald Sterling.

Are any of these people unable to find work, pray as they wish, or life safely without threats or acts of violence? If the answer is no then their public faux pas aren't equivalent to being actually ARRESTED and KILLED as many folks (even German Princes) were during the Thirty Years War. The fact you want to dilute the impact of religious sectarianism shows your inherent dishonesty on these matters.

>Companies do check social media to make sure people haven't expressed views outside the overton window, e.g. being anti-gay or anti-fat.

That's called capitalism. Don't like capitalism then abolish it. Because the moment you become a professional or an entrepreneur under capitalism you become private property of the board of directors and anyone else who has legal authority to hire/fire you.

>See also my reply to Rayiner which asks the question why people who prefer not to buy health insurance (as opposed to people who prefer sex with men) don't also get equal protection under the law.

Well I prefer not to have to wear pants at work but that doesn't mean I should have the liberty to lounge around in my pajamas like some lazy ass college student. We do things like insurance mandates as a compromise between having a sprawling public bureaucracy versus a series of small and possibly more efficient private bureaucracies (as this point I'm not convinced of this benefit myself). Like it or not, that's the way our system works. Want to live in the US then you get health insurance (for now). Want to drive a car then you get car insurance, too. All this libertopia nonsense doesn't work especially in the US where private businesses are effectively the second federal government.

>Personally I quite enjoy sectarianism - I like the transactional society, where even a Nazi can peacefully purchase a Pepe-as-Hitler cake without getting sucker punched by a cowardly masked thug.

I'm sure you'd love it in Mugabe's Zimbabwe or 1990s Balkan states then where if you don't toe the line you're dead. Because that's where sectarianism leads. It's not many little enclaves that live in peace, it's many little enclaves that shoot at each other literally. And those Nazis do deserve a swift kick in the breeches since their ideology by definition seeks to abolish all democracy. You can't co-exist with someone who wants to disenfranchise you. It's either their way or the highway (which usually ends at a death camp). And they have no qualms with using violence to ensure their way is accomplished.

Your previous goalpost was "asking people if they're a Catholic or not before transacting business."

Moving the goalposts isn't "inherent dishonesty"?

We do things like insurance mandates as a compromise between having a sprawling public bureaucracy versus a series of small and possibly more efficient private bureaucracies (as this point I'm not convinced of this benefit myself).

And similarly, we could ban gay sex because it spreads AIDS. Don't like it? Move.

Notice how your argument can be applied to defend any law apart from laws against emigration?

Me misspeaking: Personally I quite enjoy sectarianism - I like the transactional society, where even a Nazi can peacefully purchase a Pepe-as-Hitler cake without getting sucker punched by a cowardly masked thug.

...Because that's where sectarianism leads...And those Nazis do deserve a swift kick...

Entertaining how you simultaneously criticize me for (accidentally - I meant to say "enjoy the absence of sectarianism") saying I support sectarianism, then engage in it a couple of sentences later.

What I stated was an example and there's no historical trend as it stands towards there being anti-Catholicism resurgence (for now). But as an example none of your examples apply even in Eich's case considering he's head of new business venture in browser micro-payment systems. And he's still a major contributor to various JS standards. So, pardon me if I don't buy your bullshit when it comes do your fantasy of anti-Christian sentiment being some sort of thing here in the States (hint: it's not).

>And similarly, we could ban gay sex because it spreads AIDS. Don't like it? Move.

Not comparable because everyone benefits from sharing the costs of health insurance. It's why roads aren't wholly private anywhere in western-style countries. The cost of infrastructure isn't easily serviced by isolated bureaucracies or revenue streams. As for gay sex spreading AIDS I gotta burst your bubble but sharing needles among heroin addicts has a similar to GREATER transmission rate. Also, having sex unprotected whether it's homosexual or heterosexual produces exactly the same results. So, you're deflecting by trying another dishonest comparison. I suggest you retract it.

>Notice how your argument can be applied to defend any law apart from laws against emigration?

Nope, because you're trying to find an absolutist position where none was stated. I think you need to read what I wrote again then actually address my points and not your imagined version of them.

>Entertaining how you simultaneously criticize me for (accidentally - I meant to say "enjoy the absence of sectarianism") saying I support sectarianism, then engage in it a couple of sentences later.

There's nothing sectarian about excluding those who support state violence as a means to destroy democratic processes and free association of various ethnic and religious groups. Nazism is by definition incompatible with a free and (classically) liberal society. You can either have Nazism or you can have liberalism. You cannot have both. They're matter/anti-matter in terms of analogies (most apt IMO).

A simple glance at the CDC stats suggests that gay sex is actually far more dangerous than heterosexual sex. Receptive anal sex is about 2x as dangerous as sharing needles.

https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/statistics/overview/ataglance.html https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/estimates/riskbehaviors.html

I'll speculate that knowing the truth does not change your views at all, right?

There's nothing sectarian about excluding those who support state violence as a means to destroy democratic processes and free association of various ethnic and religious groups. Nazism is by definition incompatible with a free and (classically) liberal society. You can either have Nazism or you can have liberalism. You cannot have both. They're matter/anti-matter in terms of analogies (most apt IMO).

The same was said of papists and is currently said of Muslims. But I guess sectarianism against groups that you dislike is good, while all the other kinds are bad.

Due to the fact that I don't identify as a man in any capacity (I'm transgender here obviously). So when (not so much if anymore) I transition if I ever go back home to Kansas it's not likely I'll find work there in any capacity outside of maybe working remotely. So, saying I should conform to social expectations of values which aren't economically significant in themselves or even professionally significant (programmers and developers in general aren't exactly pastors at a church when they're conducting their profession) is kind of silly. Me being transgender isn't an option, it's called gender dysphoria and it's in the DSM for a good reason (as in there's no curing it and honestly I don't see why I should have it "cured"). So, not to be too mean asking me to not be openly transgender (because I'm here in my mid-30s wrestling with this so that means the window of having hormone replacement therapy do wonders on my face is closed) is akin to asking me not to have blue eyes. Both are part of who I am, both are not chosen by me. And both are basically neutral onto themselves. I shouldn't have to write a paragraph about this to you or anyone but it seems folks like yourself still are invested in the social ideology that "them silly little queers" should either not exist or you think our lives are purely optional. To which my question for you is this: if my life is optional then how is yours not optional? I hope you understand what I mean by optional.

Now we spend a huge amount on infrastructure, yet if you actually go to rural America you will feel a large lack of hope. There is no place for these people in where America is going. They know the infrastructure funding is temporary. Do you think these people don't know robots are coming? THEY DO!!! So they feel like their entire lives are being threatened and they want to adapt. They really do. But what solutions are being offered? Are we actively trying to level the educational playing field between cities and rural America? Are we trying to enable high tech companies to pop up in smaller states? I don't see it.

'That's an entirely self-inflicted problem. Nobody would be talking about transgender bathroom rights if people (disproportionately people in rural America) weren't being assholes about what bathroom people use.'

You clearly have never been to rural America. That is a very ignorant statement. There are many people in rural America that respect all types of people.

Put yourself in the shoes of an American that had had a farmer for a dad that was uneducated making less than 40k. You don't even know the concept of Google being a real thing. You've never met a facebook employee or google employee. Or hell, even an Exxon employee. You're local dirt sales company is one of the hottest companies in your town. Your parents don't know how to help you get into college. What are you doing to help this person?

I've travelled to several places in rural Illinois, Georgia, and Virginia. And my wife grew up in a small town in Northwestern Iowa. I've found people in rural America to be very warm and friendly.

That said, Steve King is the House representative for the town where my wife grew up. Rural people are disproportionately behind the sorts of laws that make it necessary to have conversations about transgender bathroom rights (something that people would otherwise have no reason or desire to talk about).

My hunch is that many would be more receptive if the messaging was more educational about the hardships trans people experienced (and that led them and their doctors to believe an incredibly invasive, expensive, and irreversible surgery was their best chance at happiness). Could be wrong.

(That and there just isn't a need for bathroom legislation going either direction - total waste of time - neither side ought be making a big deal about that sort of ineffectual legislation which is nothing but pandering one way or the other)

Yes, we are. But the cities remain very far behind and there's an enormous amount of work to do.

Seriously: what are you on about here? Almost everything you're saying is just plain wrong. Urban incomes are lower than rural ones in this country. Urban crime rates are higher. Urban hunger rates are higher. Urban drug addiction rates are higher. Urban suicide rates (c.f. this very discussion) are higher. Pick your social ill. The cities have it worse. The cities have always had it worse, since literally the invention of the city.

You've invented this idea that "cities" are inhabited only by college-educated liberals who hate you. Well... they aren't. And the people that actually do live there kinda need your help (and, ahem, empathy) too.

I know many people in cities that have 0 empathy for rural America and issues such as the heroin epidemic facing America. I know many people that go out and passionately fight for black lives matter. It's actually kind of a trendy thing nowadays. Where is rural lives matter? Where are the people fighting for the girl I knew who was raised in a house that was filled with cigarette smoke that had her parents laugh at her when she talked about applying for college. I know these issues exist in cities, but there is empathy for them. But the 40% of America that has serious issues is completely ignored right now.

It's the very definition of lack of empathy.

What does empathy look like? What makes you say rural America has it for urban America but not vice versa?

Odd, because I know several just within my own extended family. And I'd say last November 8th provides a pretty good existence proof that you're wrong about this bit too.

There's no shortage of assholes in this country. Don't you dare pretend that you get to decide who they are.

also for your second graph how does that compare to the south side of chicago and balitmore, will the poor in cities be spared the automation? what solutions have they gotten? How many people from those parts go to good colleges vs rural people?

I know many people in cities that have 0 empathy for rural America and issues such as the heroin epidemic facing America.

You literally said it yourself, "That's an entirely self-inflicted problem.". Go to rural America. Talk to them. Then come back and tell me if you think its self inflicted. Do you really think you are so amazing that you would have been impervious to the cultural impact your environment has on you and never touched those type of drugs?

I mean people talking about transgender bathroom rights instead of rural poverty (to the extent that's true--which it largely isn't) is a self-inflicted problem.

It's lack of visibility into the thriving economy America has.