Ketanji Brown Jackson to be first Black woman to sit on Supreme Court - Jordan Peterson has something to say - is he right or is he in the wrong?

[J.C.MacSwell]

You guys bring up "butt hurt" (usually old) white men a lot.

Like that's where the opposition to racializing the political process...in an obvious attempt for political gain...lies.

I couldn't give a hoot for any white male justices losing there shot at the SCOTUS to KJB, nor do I suspect anyone here does.

What else could possibly be objected to? If the Dems could possibly figure that out between now and the midterms...along with equally obvious answers to obvious questions...maybe they could just let the GOP...Trump et al...sink themselves.

But of course...they won't...any more than those here will spouting the same crap.

In the mean time I find myself hoping the Dems get there ass kicked in the mid terms and finally "get it" (though they are more likely to lament the "racist bigots" that voted GOP) or double down and allow a reasonable Independent to go up the middle.

The alternative is Trump 2.0, and you guys deserve better.

There's 8 billion people that need better.

[MigL]

10 hours ago, Peterkin said:

BTW One court appointment, or one cabinet appointment, doesn't constitute discrimination against all those who were not appointed.

The appointment of KBJ is not discriminatory; announcing beforehand that he would choose a back female does fit your crteria for discrimination.
Quote : "If only one group is considered, it's certainly discrimination."

3 hours ago, iNow said:

You think Biden made a great choice. You think she’ll be an excellent justice. You are glad the bench now better represents the American people. You acknowledge nearly all of the last several presidents have pre-announced a desire for a specific demographic group to get nominated. You acknowledge Biden acted in accordance with historical precedent. 

But you also think it was bad form because America is in a weird place right now and some people are upset thinking he wasn’t acting fairly and that “the left” have their heads in the sand and feel white men should feel sorry for history… despite the long standing precedent, and despite it being a good choice, and despite evidence she’ll be a thoughtful and cautious justice on the bench. 

Exactly ! 
Good job sharpening that pencil.

There are millions of immigrants in the US and Canada.
My parents came to Canada in 1968; my dad worked two jobs and my mother worked nights, so that they could own a home and put my brother and I through school ( my sister chose to become a hairdresser; yes, I have great looking hair ).
And we had it very good compared to Italian immigrants to the US and Canada from the turn of the century.
Those 'dagos' were certainly disadvantaged, yet they crawled up through the mud and garbage to become valuable members of current society. 
The same is true of other nationalities, like the Irish, Polish, and other European white males.
I don't think these people were in any way privileged, and I don't think they should feel any shame for what a group of your Southern Americans did a couple of hundred years ago ( and some still continue to do ).

I wonder, INow, next year, will you be telling the Ukrainian refugees who have come to the US and Canada how privileged they are to be white males ?

Edited April 19, 2022 by MigL

[CharonY]

It seems a bit like a style over substance argument. Having 100 white men is fine as long as one makes the appearance of not discriminating. Rectifying the situation in a targeted way is bad even if the outcome is fine.  Or it could be an argument of equality vs equity. It is fine to give everyone 100$ (equality) but only given poor folks 100$ in order to lessen the difference (equity) is bad, because it discriminates. What is missed in this argument is that the system under which everything operates (i.e. context) results in differential outcomes even with equal input. 

With regard to the privilege argument, it is not about that life is not hard for e.g. white folks (or whichever group or class are considered privileged). It means that for the exact same person in the exact same situation, swapping out a factor such as skin colour would result in a bit different outcome. You might get a couple of more rejections, if you are black, for example. Or in certain areas you might have a harder time getting an apartment. You might not get into certain school districts.

In my case, the schools tried very hard to discourage my parents to put me on a track that would allow me to get university, despite being first in class (Germany has weird tracks which only allow certain pupils to attend university and luckily when I was a school kid recommendations were not binding).

As my parents (also immigrants) told me, as an immigrant you have to be perfect to be perceived as adequate. However, a big issue is that come second or third generation, certain folks are more accepted into a given population than others, often because they are less visually distinct (I do feel that this specifically is a bigger issue in Europe than in North America). The culmination of all these factors that could result in a somewhat different and typically worse track is what the term "privilege" tries to convey.

No one is asking for shame, but folks are starting to ask to take a look at the system. One crude, but in the long run potentially effective system is to have more diversity in places of power. It is certainly not perfect and will not work everywhere. However, for example in medical sciences, having women on higher boards has helped to highlight the lack of in issues that are not found in men. In the past having male cohorts were considered easier and often standard. Likewise having cohorts with disproportionately non-white individuals could get thrown out by reviewers as non-representative. Now, a higher diversity in the boards has made researchers to think harder in justifying a given cohort. The situation has not really caught up, but at the very least we start to see movement into the right direction. But we still have massive knowledge gaps in even some basic aspects of female biology (especially, but not exclusively when it comes to the endocrine system). 

 

 

[iNow]

1 hour ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

In the mean time I find myself hoping the Dems get there ass kicked in the mid terms and finally "get it"

Interestingly, they win more votes, but lose due to redistricting. Your premise is flawed since they’re more popular, but it’s off-topic here. 

35 minutes ago, MigL said:

I wonder, INow, next year, will you be telling the Ukrainian refugees who have come to the US and Canada how privileged they are to be white males ?

Why must you keep trying to make it personal? I’m not the caricature of me you seem to have in your head. 

[Peterkin]

34 minutes ago, MigL said:

The appointment of KBJ is not discriminatory; announcing beforehand that he would choose a back female does fit your crteria for discrimination.

Unless you read the rest of the post, maybe....
I

Quote

 

If  the makeup of the body as a whole does not closely reflect the proportions in the general population, there can be many reasons, and these can be discovered with due diligence; a fair judgment can be brought, and possibly suggestion for improving the balance can be suggested.

Like, say: "Why not appoint a Black Woman to the Supreme Court?" "All right, if the judiciary committee agrees, I will." Something like that could happen.

 

It did.

[J.C.MacSwell]

5 minutes ago, iNow said:

Interestingly, they win more votes, but lose due to redistricting. Your premise is flawed since they’re more popular, but it’s off-topic here. 

Right. Forgot about that. Carry on then.

Edited April 19, 2022 by J.C.MacSwell

[iNow]

Happy to explain why in another thread, unless of course you’d prefer to keep sniping at me instead of having a mature discussion together. 

[MigL]

Always a pleasure discussing things with you CharonY.

16 minutes ago, CharonY said:

It seems a bit like a style over substance argument.

That is essentially correct.
Unfortunately, in today's society, 'style' is what is perceived, not 'substance'.
The President should be mindful of people's perception.

 

5 minutes ago, iNow said:

Why must you keep trying to make it personal?

My apologies.
Like you, I sometimes get carried away, trying to make a point.

3 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Unless you read the rest of the post, maybe....

I did quote you ...

" if only one group is considered ( that being black females ), it's certainly discrimination."
Did you not say that ?
 

[J.C.MacSwell]

4 minutes ago, iNow said:

Happy to explain why in another thread, unless of course you’d prefer to keep sniping at me instead of having a mature discussion together. 

If you want a mature discussion stop telling people what motivates their opinions.

Apologies for being blunt.

[Peterkin]

23 minutes ago, MigL said:

Did you not say that ?

No, i did not say that. 

That, minus the gratuitous bracketed bit, is a fragment of what i did say. And there you have the whole problem of optics as produced by partisan kaleidoscopes. 

Going around a twenty-seventh time won't make it any different.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Peterkin

[CharonY]

11 hours ago, MigL said:

That is essentially correct.
Unfortunately, in today's society, 'style' is what is perceived, not 'substance'.
The President should be mindful of people's perception.

In that case it seems he is simply just communicating to someone else than you think he should. Basically he is telling progressive as well as black voters that he is fulfilling his campaign promise to them. As all politicians it is an overture to gain their continued support. In the polarized atmosphere I doubt that folks that have an issue with perception would have voted for him in the first place.

[Endy0816]

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

In that case it seems he is simply just communicating to someone else than you think he should. Basically he is telling progressive as well as big black voters that he is fulfilling his campaign promise to them. As all politicians it is an overture to gain their continued support. In the polarized atmosphere I doubt that folks that have an issue with perception would have voted for him in the first place.

For sure. Happy to see a promise fulfilled, a rarity in this day and age.

Republicans did remove their own ability to 'object' via filibuster, but that is certainly not Biden's fault. Pretty much everyone knew this scenario would inevitably occur as a result.

...and only a nomination at the end of the day. He could nominate the first person he sees if he wanted. Senators are the ones who actually decide.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Endy0816

[Intoscience]

17 hours ago, iNow said:

Yeah, god forbid we risk insulting the oversensitive delicate egos of white males who have unjustly benefited from the legacy system since basically forever and who feel butthurt that their previous position of privilege is finally eroding. 

https://www.boredpanda.com/lesson-about-privilege-awareness/

I couldn't give a rats ass about over sensitive people in general, especially the "white privileged males". I was actually pointing to the possibility that the "pre-selection" could and has been perceived as discrimination in a bad way, since it was based on colour and gender, which is exactly why (so it appears) the selection was made in the first place - To show that the previously wrong acts of discrimination throughout history by suppressing certain groups needs to end. 

So in an act of ending colour and gender discrimination, he pre-announces that he will choose a person based on their skin colour and gender.  All sounds rather hypercritical wouldn't you say?

So, just to reiterate again, I support, welcome and applaud the appointment of KBJ. However, (in my humble opinion) the act of pre announcing that the next Judge is going to be... "a person of a certain gender and of a certain colour" is the very discrimination tactic that modern western society is trying to eliminate.  

[swansont]

7 hours ago, MigL said:

Quote : "If only one group is considered, it's certainly discrimination."

And nobody has shown that only one group was considered. One can reach this conclusion (some because it's the conclusion they want to reach) by assuming that this was the beginning of the process, rather than the middle of the process. 

Anybody not applying tunnel vision (i.e. excluding easily-discovered truths) can see that it wasn't the beginning of the process.

3 hours ago, Intoscience said:

So in an act of ending colour and gender discrimination, he pre-announces that he will choose a person based on their skin colour and gender.  

Based IN PART on skin color and gender, because of the perspectives and experiences such a person would have. But meeting other criteria one applies to selecting for such a position.

 

What is a pre-announcement? It's just an announcement, right?

[Intoscience]

14 minutes ago, swansont said:

And nobody has shown that only one group was considered. One can reach this conclusion (some because it's the conclusion they want to reach) by assuming that this was the beginning of the process, rather than the middle of the process. 

Does it matter?

Any decision made that appears pre-determined before the final process based on criteria which is biased towards gender and/or colour can be considered wrongly discriminative, whether you want to consider it positive or negative.    

Maybe it was that there were other candidates equally as qualified to do the job and KBJ was chosen at that point because she happened to be a female black lady, or maybe she was just the best person for the job. If either was the case then why did Biden not just say this? It would be quite simple to have done so.       

32 minutes ago, swansont said:

What is a pre-announcement? It's just an announcement, right?

Yeah, but was there a need to do it? What was the purpose of the announcement other than for political gains? 

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Intoscience said:

Yeah, but was there a need to do it? What was the purpose of the announcement other than for political gains? 

Gosh, you'd think that he was campaigning for office or something

Quote

Maybe it was that there were other candidates equally as qualified to do the job and KBJ was chosen at that point because she happened to be a female black lady, or maybe she was just the best person for the job. If either was the case then why did Biden not just say this? It would be quite simple to have done so.  

Maybe he just overestimated the reasoning ability and intelligence of the voters, and DGAF about what the haters would say.

To clarify: the GOP's actions are largely "Biden (or any democrat) is wrong about everything, and we will find or manufacture a reason to be outraged" so it really doesn't matter what he said as far as the reaction from the punditry on the right goes. People are acting as if it would have mattered, regarding the reaction, and I don't see the basis for that position.

 

[iNow]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

To clarify: the GOP's actions are largely "Biden (or any democrat) is wrong about everything, and we will find or manufacture a reason to be outraged" so it really doesn't matter what he said as far as the reaction from the punditry on the right goes. People are acting as if it would have mattered, regarding the reaction, and I don't see the basis for that position.

Precisely. If he’d been silent and not said this, their fangs would simply bite into other meats. Doesn’t matter much what he does or how he does it. That it would’ve mattered “had he only done it differently” is a badly false premise, especially since they equally attacked her as defending pedophiles and nazis. I.e. more bad faith…

[TheVat]

Just curious, when Amy Barrett was appointed, was there a long thread here with much wringing of hands over the "optics" of TFG "pre-announcing" ( @swansont neatly deflated this term) that he would select SCOTUS candidates that were conservative Christians who would throw out Roe v Wade?  And he pre-announced this to an electorate that by a considerable majority supports Roe and a woman's reproductive rights and the idea of SCOTUS as an impartial body.  

Maybe instead of worrying about optics, we should worry about a voting system and districting system that seems to promote minority rule even when we get displays of optics from a former POTUS that sear the retina.  

[MSC]

13 hours ago, MigL said:

The President should be mindful of people's perception

Who's perceptions matter more here though? The majority of the country or a small few? 

Ultimately no matter what we do, there will be some who perceive it to be good, and some who perceive it to be bad and some who just don't really give a shit either way. If you're like me, and believe in moral objectivism and context relativism, objections can be understandable when you factor in the person's perspective, but objections being understandable, is not the same as them having the merit of the truth. 

If Biden did the right thing, why should it matter if there are negative perceptions when those perceptions may not be reasonable, fair, accurate or complete?

I don't know, I guess to me, being explicit about characteristic criteria for KBJ seems like Bidens way of giving racists the big ol middle finger fuck you. 

One thing I feel we are glossing over, is that at the end of it all, Biden has the same rights as everyone else. There has to be some room for his freedom of expression and first ammendment rights. It's not like he nominated Kim Kardashian for the spot because he heard she was trying to pass the bar in California. 

I mean; it would be ideal if we lived in a world where we don't have to worry about race or racism. It would be ideal if it wasn't pretty historical moment for a black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. But unfortunately, racists exist, bigots exist and sometimes we have to engage in direct speech-acts in our battle against those sorts of ideologies. 

We also have to consider recent events and how they have contributed to the position Biden found himself in. The US was living under Trump, racists were emboldened, black people like George Floyd were being murdered by police, denied their rights and felt the brunt of Trumps covert policy war against them trying to essentially rob them of their ability to vote as American Citizens.

For every strong attempt to disenfranchise some group of people, there is a counter reaction to re-enfranchise them, to try to rebalance the scales or just get them balanced for the first time. 

I know MigL that you are arguing in good faith here. Which I respect. I need to ask though, what would it take to convince you that there was nothing wrong with Biden making it clear what sort of person he wanted to pick? Other than the wrongness of a society that made him feel like he needed to make and take a stand and say that black women matter of course. 

I suppose what I am ultimately trying to ask, is don't you think your expectations of Biden are a little too idealistic and not realistic enough when we factor in the full context of the United States?

 

 

 

Edited April 19, 2022 by MSC

[swansont]

4 minutes ago, MSC said:

Who's perceptions matter more here though? The majority of the country or a small few? 

And also, whose perceptions matter more to a candidate: people who might vote for you, and people who aren't going to vote for you no matter what you say?

[MSC]

15 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

You guys bring up "butt hurt" (usually old) white men a lot.

Like that's where the opposition to racializing the political process...in an obvious attempt for political gain...lies.

I couldn't give a hoot for any white male justices losing there shot at the SCOTUS to KJB, nor do I suspect anyone here does.

Actually when I brought it up, it was only to point out the distinct lack of them amongst eligible judges. I've heard none of these arguments coming from the people in the best position to be making the arguments that they specifically lost out here. Ted Cruz certainly wasn't up for the nomination, thank God.

10 hours ago, Intoscience said:

I couldn't give a rats ass about over sensitive people in general, especially the "white privileged males". I was actually pointing to the possibility that the "pre-selection" could and has been perceived as discrimination in a bad way, since it was based on colour and gender, which is exactly why (so it appears) the selection was made in the first place - To show that the previously wrong acts of discrimination throughout history by suppressing certain groups needs to end. 

That's just it though, a perception is not the same as the truth and there was nothing suppressive about this act! Preaching to the choir, but I just wanted to contribute toward your point.

 

17 minutes ago, swansont said:

And also, whose perceptions matter more to a candidate: people who might vote for you, and people who aren't going to vote for you no matter what you say?

Yup. Voters gotta vote and a politicians gotta politician. It's a sucky situation sure but it's either that or a dictatorship and I know which I prefer.

[Peterkin]

10 minutes ago, MSC said:

It's a sucky situation sure but it's either that or a dictatorship and I know which I prefer.

They're not mutually exclusive. Dictators hold elections all the time. Their elections are rigged. That could never, ever happen in the United States of America, could it? So it's okay for the judiciary to be political, right?  

[MSC]

40 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

So it's okay for the judiciary to be political, right

No and I never said it was. I was referring to Biden. 

41 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

They're not mutually exclusive. Dictators hold elections all the time. Their elections are rigged. That could never, ever happen in the United States of America, could it?

I never said they were mutually exclusive? Of course it could happen. Almost did happen, still at threat of happening in 2024. 

[Peterkin]

 

 

 

7 minutes ago, MSC said:

No and I never said it was. I was referring to Biden. 

Sorry! Forgot to put in irony brackets.

[MigL]

8 hours ago, swansont said:

15 hours ago, MigL said:

Quote : "If only one group is considered, it's certainly discrimination."

And nobody has shown that only one group was considered. One can reach this conclusion (some because it's the conclusion they want to reach) by assuming that this was the beginning of the process, rather than the middle of the process. 

Anybody not applying tunnel vision (i.e. excluding easily-discovered truths) can see that it wasn't the beginning of the process.

Just in case anyone wants to know where that quote came from, because Peterkin seems to be in denial, and wants to go around 28 times ...

On 4/18/2022 at 12:29 PM, Peterkin said:

If only one group is considered, it's certainly discrimination.

I find it amusing that people are saying how refreshing it is to have a President who does what he said he was going to do, yet you claim that when he said he would "pick a black female" for SCJ, that wasn't really true, and all sorts of other criteria were considered.

 

14 hours ago, CharonY said:

n that case it seems he is simply just communicating to someone else than you think he should. Basically he is telling progressive as well as black voters that he is fulfilling his campaign promise to them. As all politicians it is an overture to gain their continued support. In the polarized atmosphere I doubt that folks that have an issue with perception would have voted for him in the first place.

Could he not have told them that with his actual selection, instead of announcing he would "pick a black female" beforehand, and alienating the other half of voters ?

Edited April 19, 2022 by MigL