Ten oz

Not even full percent of Muslims are terrorists. In 2016 81% of voters who identify as conservative and 90% of those who are registered Republicans voted for Trump. If 81% of all Muslims were terrorists (81% of the total world Muslim pop is 1.2 billion people) I guarantee you the overwhelming majority of the world would concede being Muslim was a bad thing. Your comparison is silly. Say Conservatives supported and continue to support Trump (context being U.S. conservatives) is spot on dead accurate. https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/groups-voted-2016/ In U.S. politics "conservative" is a title which people self identify under. Being a conservative in the U.S. doesn't mean what if means to be a conservative in Canada and everyone who follow politics understands that. Your complaint is akin to arguing that I can't speak negatively about the state of Georgia because it insults the country Georgia via generalizing all who potentially call themselves Georgians. Same name different group group of people. .

Perhaps you should take exception to those in the U.S. who self identify as Conservatives then because they overwhelming supported and continue to support Donald Trump.

Context is U.S. politics as the discussion is about the U.S. President. A conservative party member in Canada would be considered liberal by U.S. standards. Context matters.

Conservatives often challange those who disagree with them to prove negatives. In the absence of evidence the imply the best imaginable scenario and argue that it can't be or hasn't been proven wrong. Then they proceed to do everything possible to prevent the collection of evidence. They do this when discussing climate, god, taxes, guns, sexual preference, abortion, and on and on. They argue that there is no proof of collusion with Russia and then demand investigations into collusion stop. For some time they have argued that behind closed doors Trump is more methodical and prepared than he seems to be in public and social media. People come out of private meeting saying they were surprised by how smart he was and how it has put then at ease. Obviously with no media in those private dealings no one can prove it wasn't so.......at least until now. The transcript proves a few things Trump's opponents have been saying all along. For starters the PM of Australia had to walk Trump through the policy agreement regarding refugees because Trump clearly didn't understand the matter. It was also disturbing to read Trump disrespecting his predecessor is a one of one conversation with a foriegn world leader. Trump also shaded Germany and France, U.S. allies, while complimenting Putin as being more pleasant to talk to. None of that is an exaggeration it is actually what went down. As for his conversation with the President of Mexico Trump basically acknowledged the wall he spent a year campaigning to build was just a political prop. Trump basically said what he needed from Mexico was for them to just not speak out against it too strongly so that the U.S. media won't give him (Trump) a hard time. Also in the conversation Trump threw Canada under the bus. Also disturbing was the way Trump rambled off topic and both leaders had to repeatedly bring Trump back to on topic. In defense of these transcripts people will challange us to prove negatives. They will imply that all politicians do this and ask how we know Obama, Clinton, or whomever didn't have similar conversations. In the absence of proof they can claim this might be the status qou. Meanwhile Trump is doing everything he can to limit how much is known about anything that happens. He refused to release his taxes, cameras have been blocked off and on from press breifings, he threatens officials who release if to the press, he demagogues the press, bold face lies about seemingly everthing when interviewed, and etc. The situation is as bad or worse than most all of us believe it is.

Hardly just Trump's hypocrisy though. Republicans politicians voted to repeal the ACA over 50 times, argued the Obama acted like a dictator, wasn't transparent enough, was weak on Russia, was a big city elitist, and etc in addition to complaining about how often he played golf. Turns out all they and the people who vote for them care about is sport. They supported the worst damn liar American politics has ever seen on rhetoric that somehow Clinton lied too much. It is all one gaint contradiction and they do not care. Same crowd has quickly shift from arguing that the love immigrant but just want them to do it legally to arguing that we need to limit legal immigration. Every position from anti climate science to immmigration and healthcare is a total fraud. It is disgusting.

Thank you for another terrific response. 1 - It isn't about unconscious and conscious. It is about conscious or not. For the sake of this discussion I feel unconscious and conscious are basically the same difference in that both are types of consciousness. Once we, those of us in this discussion, say animals have an unconscious or emotions we have already answered the threads question; animals don't operate purely on instinct. What seems to have followed are attempts to quantify the extent or levels of consciousness but that isn't required. 2 - Plants do problem solve and have behaviors however those behaviors appear to be purely reflexive. The grow and move as needed based on where the sun, wind, and water are for example. It is predictable and uniform. It is driven by their chemistry. Ants appear make choices and problem solve beyond reflexive resonses. That isn't to say I believe ants have philosophical thoughts but rather just that they do appear to have thought. Perhaps all an ants every things about is food. 3 - The point of my story was that memory is not reliable. Not mine, my wifes, or anyones. Emotion clearly impacts memory but all memory is unreliable. Our brains maintain a understanding of past events colored by our persceptive. They are not recordings. It is one of the reasons why in science such detailed notes are taken. Memory simple isn't sufficient to store things. Most people understand this which is why we set ourselves reminders, write things down, take picture, make recordings, and etc. From dangerous happenings to borig stuff memory is not accurate.

That isn't how AA works.

Yes, this is a hard conversation. Has been since long before Trump. "Right past wrongs", as to imply the wrongs have end or are no longer impactful enough for acknowledgement? That is one of the issues. Good ole boy networks and discrimination are still real problems in my opinion as the study I previously linked highlights. As such it isn't accurate to say combat the effects of racism with racism. Rather it is an attempt to ensure there isn't structural discrimination in place by attempting to promote diversity.

I was also considering thoughts from your initial post in my response. It wasn't being adversarial in any event. Rather pointing out that even with affirmative action in place there doesn't seem to be any measurable harm to whites being done. While CharonY posted 1% may have their admissions impacted (not sure if that is accurate) rates of whites obtaining education, pay, and etc isn't measurable impacted at all. What the proportion should be is a bit of a loaded question. There isn't yet any agreement there should be any proactive step.

"6,500 randomly selected professors from 259 American universities. Each email was from a (fictional) prospective out-of-town student whom the professor did not know, expressing interest in the professor’s Ph.D. program and seeking guidance. These emails were identical and written in impeccable English, varying only in the name of the student sender. The messages came from students with names like Meredith Roberts, Lamar Washington, Juanita Martinez, Raj Singh and Chang Huang, names that earlier research participants consistently perceived as belonging to either a white, black, Hispanic, Indian or Chinese student. In total, we used 20 different names in 10 different race-gender categories (e.g. white male, Hispanic female)." "Professors were more responsive to white male students than to female, black, Hispanic, Indian or Chinese students in almost every discipline and across all types of universities. We found the most severe bias in disciplines paying higher faculty salaries and at private universities. In a perverse twist of academic fate, our own discipline of business showed the most bias, with 87 percent of white males receiving a response compared with just 62 percent of all females and minorities combined." https://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/opinion/sunday/professors-are-prejudiced-too.html There are built is advantages to being white it seems. Hard to quantify because they are not writing policy yet detectable when studied. The researched linked above is not an apparition. I am sure you are familiar with many of similar studies. We know poorer communities have worse grade schools and are more likely to be communities of color. Worst schools generally means worse higher education options. Additionally these trends re long standing. Just 60 years ago we still had legal segregated communities where purposefully disadvantaging entire group of people was standard practice. What evidence is that that affirmative action has negatively impacted white communities. Are rates of higher education obtainment down, average income down, or some other messurable standard?

No doubt!! However they're real feelings that whites are disenfranchised. Some of those feelings are responsible for several things happening in U.S. politics currently. So it is worth a real discussion.

Both, the action seems to be a step toward throttling back affirmative action. So the discussion is about whether or not it is useful.

You bridge analogy is better suited for the other consciousness thread I previously linked that deals with the conscious and unconscious mind I think. As the analogy relates to instinct, not everyone would step away. People fall to their deaths accidentally because they weren't paying attention all the time. Everything from falling down stairs to falling off hiking trails. People also commonly misjudge the load capacity of structures and collaspe roofs, balconies, and so on. I don't believe there is a instinctive ability or response humans have regarding this. Your wet dog example was interesting. I had a dog for nearly a decade. Her and I would regularly hike and she regularly would jump into ponds and creeks during our hikes. She knew better than to shake herself off near people. When she would come out of the water she would trot off several feet away from people and shake off. If there were a lot of people she wouldn't shake off at all and instead walk along side me and complain via whimpering. She clearly appeared to have conscious control over the choice. Whether something she did to please me other because she had some concept of empathy I do not know but if shaking off was instinctive she would have done it everytime reflexively.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing to redirect resources of the Justice Department’s civil rights division toward investigating and suing universities over affirmative action admissions policies deemed to discriminate against white applicants, according to a document obtained by The New York Times. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/us/politics/trump-affirmative-action-universities.html?referer=http://www.google.com/ This is a sensitive issue but one that isn't being ignored by Universities, businesses, or political institutions. So what do you all think? I will start with that simple question rather than jump straight into stats and studies. There is a lot of propaganda out there, as with all political issues, so please ensure anything being treated as fact to support a position is legitimate and used in its context.

I am the worst. I make many typing errors. It is something I do try to pay attention to but often come up short.

@ Area54, people with Aperger's can receive Soc Sec disability pay and parents of child with it can receive a disability tax credit. You seem to have a specific definition for disability you're using. I am not sure what that definition is and don't think it is relevant to this discussion. Aperger's syndrome is a recognized as a disability by various groups. Whether or not it should be is a separate discussion for another thread.

America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. - George W. Bush discussion Iraq

@ Area54, Reagan's admin assisted Pakistand and Israel with there Nuclear programs. So while he did reduce the comical the U.S. had he also proliferated. More of a very mixed bag than something clearly positive.

@ iNow, it seems to me like humans have upped the ante through out history without every once taking a full step back. I believe it can change, will eventually have to change, but sadly I don't expect that change to happen peacefully. Having the right worldwide leadership is important to postponing the precipice of the worlds perpetual arms race but that seems to be the best we can currently hope for.

Can someone provide an example of a preemptively being wage war and it not being considered a bad ideal in hindsight?

Not relevant in context to the point of the post. Whether we label it a disease, disorder, disability, or anything else those with it lack the social interaction skills posters were arguing come via instinct. My post wasn't seeking to classify it.

Laws and policy change over time. Many things done in the past would be crimes if done today. In addition to whats qouted below other policies worth reading are the "Seabed Arms Control Treaty", Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty", "outer Space Treaty", and the "Biological Weapons Convention". "The War Powers Resolution (also known as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 or the War Powers Act) (50 U.S.C. 1541–1548)[1] is a federal law intended to check the president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. The Resolution was adopted in the form of a United States Congress joint resolution. It provides that the U.S. President can send U.S. Armed Forces into action abroad only by declaration of war by Congress, "statutory authorization," or in case of "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." "The War Crimes Act of 1996 is a law that defines a war crime to include a "grave breach of the Geneva Conventions", specifically noting that "grave breach" should have the meaning defined in any convention (related to the laws of war) to which the United States is a party. The definition of "grave breach" in some of the Geneva Conventions have text that extend additional protections, but all the Conventions share the following text in common: "... committed against persons or property protected by the Convention: willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health." The law applies if either the victim or the perpetrator is a national of the United States or a member of the U.S. Armed Forces. The penalty may be life imprisonment or death. The death penalty is only invoked if the conduct resulted in the death of one or more victims. The act was passed with overwhelming majorities by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton."

Defending oneself and ones allies after being attacked is very different than preemptively killing thousands and choas billions in damge. The U.S. should not, in my opinion, go around preemptively attacking everyone we feel maay eventually do something bad. Lets be honest; we are only discussing preemptive attack because the asssumption is it would be easy. The U.S. would never casually consider preemptively attack China or Russia. Per the Budapest Memorandum we (U.S.) is suppose to have Ukraine's back vs Russia yet when push came to shove in crimea we deployed sanctions and not bombers. I don't recall anyone arguing we need to bomb Russia to ensure Kiev would be safe. Per the Taiwan Relations Act the U.S. is suppose to have Tiawan's back against China yet push come to shove we don't denouce China's One-China policy. No one argues we should bomb China to protect Taipei. The assumption is that we (U.S.) could easily beat North Korea and remove Kim with little loss of American life our treasure. Such foolish thinking played a role in Iraq as well and the result have cost several times more lives and treasure than anticipated. War is a big step that always comes with great risk and produces down hill challanges hard to imagine in advance. The assumed ease at which we'd (U.S.) would defeat North Korea shouldn't in itself be a reason to launch an attack.

McCain derserves some credit but he isn't the only Republican that voted against it and I think many more wanted to but ultimately didn't need to because only 51 votes were needed. It is getting hung on McCain but it was a team effort which is why Trump is the entire GOP establishment for it. Sadly this issue won't be going away anytime soon. I suspect there will be more votes in the coming weeks. Healthcare currently has nothing to do with healthcare and everything to do with 2018's budget. The Trump and the GOP want tax cuts. To pay for them they need to end healthcare subsidizes and cut medicare. There simply isn't enough discretionary spending to be cut. Completely eliminating NASA, EPA, and etc doesn't free up enough money for tax cuts. The budget cannot move forward until healthcare is resolved.

His vote provided cover for many other Republicans that wanted it to fail but didn't want to be singled out by FoxNews and other right wing media for voting against it. Every Republican Senator up for re-election in 2018 voted yes.