Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[megaplayboy]

The concern, from the Democratic perspective, is that Republicans have opted, in the face of demographic changes coming in the electorate, not to adjust their message and substantive policy to be more broadly appealing, but to essentially game the system or even rig the game to maintain minority control of state governance(and of Congress) by any available or necessary means, including gerrymandering via computer, using a citizenship question to suppress Latinx reporting on the Census survey, using "voter id cards" which are not particularly easy to obtain for people of limited means, playing games with voting machines/hours etc to effectively suppress votes in Democratic precincts, in order to preserve and maintain a hold on power for as long as possible.  The tyranny of minority rule, so to speak, or at least that's the Democratic case against these measures.  

[Iuz the Evil]

4 minutes ago, megaplayboy said:

The concern, from the Democratic perspective, is that Republicans have opted, in the face of demographic changes coming in the electorate, not to adjust their message and substantive policy to be more broadly appealing, but to essentially game the system or even rig the game to maintain minority control of state governance(and of Congress) by any available or necessary means, including gerrymandering via computer, using a citizenship question to suppress Latinx reporting on the Census survey, using "voter id cards" which are not particularly easy to obtain for people of limited means, playing games with voting machines/hours etc to effectively suppress votes in Democratic precincts, in order to preserve and maintain a hold on power for as long as possible.  The tyranny of minority rule, so to speak, or at least that's the Democratic case against these measures.  

I agree with this reasoning, I just have very significant concerns that the legal basis used by the Court to reach the opinion can be broadly applied to other controversial administrative action. 

 

Get ready for a hail of filings in conservatively favorable venues the next time the White House flips. I don't like the option of it going through, but it'll be something to watch.

[Pattern Ghost]

3 hours ago, megaplayboy said:

Latinx

This is doubleplusungood. "Latinx" is not a word.

[Old Man]

Perhaps not, but it’s in the Oxford English Dictionary, so...

[Cygnia]

Latinx

[Pariah]

It's a word that allows us to focus on a person's ancestry without also focusing on their gender.

[Pattern Ghost]

18 minutes ago, Pariah said:

It's a word that allows us to focus on a person's ancestry without also focusing on their gender.

 

And that's a fundamental misunderstanding of the language.

[Pattern Ghost]

6 hours ago, Old Man said:

Perhaps not, but it’s in the Oxford English Dictionary, so...

 

Orwell was also English, so . . .

[Pattern Ghost]

I haven't watched the debates, but looking at the highlights, it seems like Kamala Harris made the best showing between the two nights. She certainly seems like she could go toe to toe with Trump in a presidential debate. She's got some fire.

[Pattern Ghost]

This bit (just the song, rest of the monologue is meh) from Fallon was pretty good:

 

 

[Dr.Device]

11 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

This is doubleplusungood. "Latinx" is not a word.

 

Language evolves.

 

Existing words weren't serving a needed purpose, so a new one was created. 

 

It happens all the time.

[Old Man]

Younger members of my fam yeet language all the time. It’s lit. 

[Pattern Ghost]

57 minutes ago, Dr.Device said:

Language evolves. 

 

The Latinx nonsense isn't evolution of language. Evolution's a natural process.

[Dr.Device]

21 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

The Latinx nonsense isn't evolution of language. Evolution's a natural process.

 

You seem emotionally invested in this. What is it exactly about "Latinx" that bothers you? Do you have a better word for talking about a mixed gender group of Latin-American descent? Or talking about non-binary folk of Latin-American descent?

[Hermit]

1 hour ago, Pattern Ghost said:

I haven't watched the debates, but looking at the highlights, it seems like Kamala Harris made the best showing between the two nights. She certainly seems like she could go toe to toe with Trump in a presidential debate. She's got some fire.

 

Regarding last night's Debate?

While i am not crazy about Harris compared to some others, there's no doubt in my mind that she excelled, her skills as a prosecutor and energy served her well. I actually LIKED Mayor Pete owning up to the troubles in his city but I think he took a hit. Biden was probably expecting a punch from Bernie, instead Harris gave an uppercut and then others joined in a jab or two. Our book author Williamson was a joy to watch, I don't want her as president, but she just freaked the reporters out "With love".  That is worth the price of admission right there Poor Yang got cheated of time. A shame, because he had good points about automation.

 

Bernie was Bernie, and stuck to being Bernie, which I'm good with, but it was his comment on the supreme court that was the only real surprise. I just hope Trump doesn't go "hey, can I do that?" and rotate out folks himself.

 

After the two nights, I think my preferred Candidate to get the nom is Warren

Bernie a close second

which is the flipped view I had a month ago.

But the ones who gained the most from the Debates were Booker, Castro and Warren from the first night and Harris on the second, all IMO

[Pattern Ghost]

29 minutes ago, Dr.Device said:

 

You seem emotionally invested in this. What is it exactly about "Latinx" that bothers you? Do you have a better word for talking about a mixed gender group of Latin-American descent? Or talking about non-binary folk of Latin-American descent? 

 

The word for talking about a mixed-gender or unknown gender group of people of Latin-American descent already exists, it's "Latino." It comes from Spanish. In Spanish, words that are male or neuter/unknown gender generally take an "o" ending, and words that have a female gender take an "a" ending. These are long-standing grammatical rules. When we borrow the word for use in English, there's no real need to change the word. "Latino" does not refer only to male individuals, though it can do so if describing someone who's known to be male.

 

Granted, non-binary folk are something not covered in the usage of the word as a singular adjective. Then again, the population of non-binary folk is relatively small, and it's an easy enough problem to work around, should it become necessary to avoid giving offense. I've never seen "Latinx" used other than in the context of describing the group, but we already have a word for that.

 

I'm generally opposed to using language manipulation as a political weapon, regardless of which side is using it. I don't think females and non-binary folk benefit from the shenanigans. I don't believe either group is being discriminated against by using referring to the group of people of Latin American origin as "Latino." The "Latinx" thing is pure political posturing, and if you used the term to most Latin Americans they'd simply stare at you blankly.

 

Now, some may make the argument that Spanish, as a gendered language, promotes gender inequality. There have been studies suggesting that countries with gendered languages have more gender inequality than those that don't. And that might be a fair sociological point. If we take that at face value, do you have any idea how many other words will have to be changed to fix the issue? I was trained as a Latin American Spanish linguist by the Army. The number is staggering. There are probably more effective and efficient ways to promote gender equality (and tolerance and understanding of non-binary or other gender alignments), than tossing around a meaningless and useless political buzzword. It's noise that doesn't accomplish much, IMO, other than to make the people making the noise feel better because they're "doing something." We need much more actual doing than that, if we want to effect any change. Which, as you should know by now, I am in favor of. I just find this type of thing absurd and self-serving more than useful.

 

 

[Pattern Ghost]

Speaking of Spanish and speaking of the Democratic debates, Beto and Booker's attempts at Spanish were face-palm material of the first order. On night 2, Mayor Pete made a much better showing of it. I think he wins the pandering for the Latinx* vote award.

 

I'm not sure who I favor at this point, as this whole letting in anyone who polls at 1% thing is annoying. I'm going to treat it like American Idol and just wait until it's down to the final three or whatever. I'm liking Mayor Pete (sorry, not looking up his last name spelling, almost bed time for me) the best so far. Maybe. We'll see what they all have to say once the crowd is thinned some.

[Hermit]

2 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

Speaking of Spanish and speaking of the Democratic debates, Beto and Booker's attempts at Spanish were face-palm material of the first order. On night 2, Mayor Pete made a much better showing of it. I think he wins the pandering for the Latinx* vote award.

 

I'm not sure who I favor at this point, as this whole letting in anyone who polls at 1% thing is annoying. I'm going to treat it like American Idol and just wait until it's down to the final three or whatever. I'm liking Mayor Pete (sorry, not looking up his last name spelling, almost bed time for me) the best so far. Maybe. We'll see what they all have to say once the crowd is thinned some.

I think Telemundo (sp) being there was the big factor to encourage that.

 

And while Mayor Pete isn't in my top two, he might be in my top five. He's more centrist than I am looking for, but the fact he called the Republicans out on their religious hypocrisy while asserting that folks on the left can have or not have (choice is kind of the point) their own faiths too does endear him to me greatly. I don't want him preaching fire from a pulpit, but I do admire him calling tripe when tripe by the "religious right" is served.

 

 

[Dr.Device]

13 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

The word for talking about a mixed-gender or unknown gender group of people of Latin-American descent already exists, it's "Latino." It comes from Spanish. In Spanish, words that are male or neuter/unknown gender generally take an "o" ending, and words that have a female gender take an "a" ending. These are long-standing grammatical rules. When we borrow the word for use in English, there's no real need to change the word. "Latino" does not refer only to male individuals, though it can do so if describing someone who's known to be male.

 

Granted, non-binary folk are something not covered in the usage of the word as a singular adjective. Then again, the population of non-binary folk is relatively small, and it's an easy enough problem to work around, should it become necessary to avoid giving offense. I've never seen "Latinx" used other than in the context of describing the group, but we already have a word for that.

 

 

Thanks for the detailed answer.

 

I can see where you're coming from, but there is even less reason to be bound by the rules of a language that we are borrowing a word from then there is to be bound by outdated rules in our own language. I sizable group of Latin individuals adopted that term because they felt using Latino to describe them all was insufficient. No one is pretending it's a panacea, but it is a small step toward moving away from the masculine as a default. And as for the non-binary folks, why find some other work around when we already have this one?

 

This reminds me strongly of the resistance to the singular "they".

 

 

[Pattern Ghost]

Here's a pretty good article (watch out for the huge animated gifs if you're seizure-prone, not kidding) about the history of the terms Hispanic, Latino and Latinx.

 

Here's an article of what the Real Academia Española thinks about the term "Latinx." (They're more of the prescriptive than descriptive bent, apparently. The OED has been depressingly descriptive of late.)

[Pattern Ghost]

8 minutes ago, Dr.Device said:

 

This reminds me strongly of the resistance to the singular "they".

 

Resistance to the singular "they" is silly. It's been used singularly for a very, very long time, with sufficient documentation.

 

And I admit that I'm a bit of a language snob, so oversensitive to this kind of thing.

[Dr.Device]

4 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Resistance to the singular "they" is silly. It's been used singularly for a very, very long time, with sufficient documentation.

 

And I admit that I'm a bit of a language snob, so oversensitive to this kind of thing.

 

I get it.

 

I went from very prescriptivist when I was younger to pretty much totally descriptivist these days. If people are using it, it's a word. And if enough  people are using it wrong, well, they're using it right, now.

 

(But occasionally the prescriptivist in me rears up and screams when someone uses "flaunt" for "flout".)

[megaplayboy]

I think Harris would annihilate Trump in a debate.  She can put him off balance and off his game with ease, just by tweaking his ego here and there,  walking him into traps.

[Old Man]

Trump was annihilated in three general election debates in 2016.  It didn't matter.

[Pariah]

But...but...but Donald Trump won all of those debates! I know he did, because he told us all so! Over and over again! So much winning!

 

Or maybe I'm confused....