APP - Red v. Blue Mashup

cawacko said:
That depends where you are. City's like Detroit are dying. Very little economic activity.

I'm not sure what the liberal vs. conservative thing has to do with opportunity (though I'm sure a partisan will inform me) but look back at the '50's and '60's with white flight to the suburbs. That's where most of the money was. Now you have rich people moving back in to the (some) cities and poor and middle class people being forced out. Is that because of opportunity of based on where people want to live?
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Excellent question.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
really?....do conservatives lead in low HS graduation rates?.....who do statistics show drops out of school more frequently......what are the typical voting patterns of the groups that make up that statistic?......can we have some honesty in this debate, please.....

are drop out rates higher in urban schools or suburban?.....
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Rural actually.
 
cawacko said:
you know what, i'm not even going to go there. Forget I brought it up.
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No, that's a very legitimate question about race. Particularly in conservative southern states where many economic policies implemented have been done so specifically to disadvantage blacks. I've seen first hand in southern states like South Carolina how they cut off their noses to spite their faces with the specific intent to keep blacks from receiving a quality public education.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
No actually the recent trend in the USA has been a shift away from urban centers towards suburban, thus the problem with sprawl.
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the suburbs are merely an extension of the metropolitan area....people commute to the city where work is available.....if the work wasn't there, the people wouldn't be....Detroit is an example of that.....
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Then how comes most of the major economic expansion in this country has occurred under liberal administrations? How comes most of our economic recessions and depressions occurred during conservative administrations?
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it hasn't.....I recall the Carter years.....I also know that the economic expansion that liberals loved Clinton for were built upon the dot.com and housing bubble expansions that collapsed and gave us the mess we are still dealing with today.....
 
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PostmodernProphet said:
it hasn't.....I recall the Carter years.....I also know that the economic expansion that liberals loved Clinton for were built upon the dot.com and housing bubble expansions that collapsed and gave us the mess we are still dealing with today.....
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Both claims false. It was Carter's man Rueben who solved the problem of stagflation in the 70s which was a direct result of the Nixon administration policies. Ford did an admirable job in growing the economy after Nixon but did not do much to curb the problem of unemployment and inflation. Carter made the hard decisions to do that and he paid dearly politically for it. Then you also convienantly forget the explosion in the 90's of the technology boom which caused the greatest peace time expansion in the US economy in our history of which the Dot Com bubble was just a blip, so spare us the lies of the Fox News talking points and try to stay in the land of reality.
 
Fish said:
My post is pretty red and those aren't great categories to be leading the way in.

Any opinions on why conservative leaning states have a greater problem with poverty?
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IMO, at its most core level, the retardation of the the pro-american parts of america - aka the bible belt- , relative to the anti-american parts of america (blue states) comes down to two fundamental differences.


Racism and Christianity. The conservatives states and the bible belt are, and always have been, burdened with instututionalized racism and fundamentalist christianity.

There's nothing like ignorance, hostility to science, and the social tension associated with widespread and ingrained irrational hate and prejudice, to retard the progress of any society.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
No, that's a very legitimate question about race. Particularly in conservative southern states where many economic policies implemented have been done so specifically to disadvantage blacks. I've seen first hand in southern states like South Carolina how they cut off their noses to spite their faces with the specific intent to keep blacks from receiving a quality public education.
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Then how do you explain cities like Oakland and Los Angeles (among many other examples), liberal cities in more liberal states, that have horrific graduation rates?
 
Mott the Hoople said:
It was Carter's man Rueben who solved the problem of stagflation in the 70s which was a direct result of the Nixon administration policies.
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It should be easy for you to prove it then....what did he do, when did he do it and when did the miraculous results occur....

the Carter administration was what converted me from being a Democrat to being a Republican...do a good job and you might be able to win me back....
 
cawacko said:
Then how do you explain cities like Oakland and Los Angeles (among many other examples), liberal cities in more liberal states, that have horrific graduation rates?
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I think there are some policy issues that contribute to high dropout rates. Mostly though I believe the problem is not political in nature more so cultural. In many urban African American communities and in many border cities with high Tijano populations I'm appalled at the peer pressure against education. The peer pressure by black males against higher education is a problem. I don't know how many times I've seen bright young African American males mercilessly razed by their peers for being poindextures and orioles when they demonstrated academic success. How thugs and gangsters are idolized over those who seek success in the traditional professions and trades that require an education. I've also seen that in Mexican communities where the value for education is simply not emphasized. "That's for you gringo" is an all to often heard refrain. It also places Mexicans at odds with most of the rest of latin America where there's a huge value placed on education.

Having said that, I saw how conservatives in South Carolina and Arkansas gutted their states public education systems (which weren't all that hot to begin with). When Brown vs Board of education was passed and was supposed to end "seperate but equal" the nebulous phrase, "with all due speed" was inserted. This was interpreted very loosely by southern conservatives as "When were damned good and ready too". The end results was the enforced desegregation of schools in the south during the 70's via busing. When this occurred southern white conservatives withdrew their children from South Carolina public schools in hordes and enrolled them in private schools not accessible to black students while at the same time undermining the tax base for public education in the state with the intent of undermining public education for blacks in the state. No dumber, short sighted and unsustainable policy could have been implemented. In the long term it hurt white children as badly as black as South Carolina is stuck with superanuated school buildings and underpaid, underskilled educators in a broken down public education systems that will cost them a fortune to fix. North Carolina and Virigina though equally hostile towards enforced integration via bussing took a much wiser approach and decided that though opposed, they must obey the rule of law. Those two states have benefited tremendously there by while many other southern states have paid serious consequences for their short sightedness.

I would not live in Arkansas or South Carolina if I had to send my kids to their awful public schools (Thank the good lord I received a good public education in Ohio and one of the best high school educations available in the world in Iowa.).

But one must recognize that the educational problems in the south are not just purely politics. Again cultural values play a huge roll. I don't know how many times in the rural south I've heard comments along the line of "What the hell does that boy need an education for to chop cotton?". There counter part in rural Ohio would have said "I don't care if I got to mortgage the whole damned farm, that boy is going to college!".

So yes, your point is a good one. It's not all politics. Cultural values play a huge roll.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I think there are some policy issues that contribute to high dropout rates. Mostly though I believe the problem is not political in nature more so cultural. In many urban African American communities and in many border cities with high Tijano populations I'm appalled at the peer pressure against education. The peer pressure by black males against higher education is a problem. I don't know how many times I've seen bright young African American males mercilessly razed by their peers for being poindextures and orioles when they demonstrated academic success. How thugs and gangsters are idolized over those who seek success in the traditional professions and trades that require an education. I've also seen that in Mexican communities where the value for education is simply not emphasized. "That's for you gringo" is an all to often heard refrain. It also places Mexicans at odds with most of the rest of latin America where there's a huge value placed on education.

Having said that, I saw how conservatives in South Carolina and Arkansas gutted their states public education systems (which weren't all that hot to begin with). When Brown vs Board of education was passed and was supposed to end "seperate but equal" the nebulous phrase, "with all due speed" was inserted. This was interpreted very loosely by southern conservatives as "When were damned good and ready too". The end results was the enforced desegregation of schools in the south during the 70's via busing. When this occurred southern white conservatives withdrew their children from South Carolina public schools in hordes and enrolled them in private schools not accessible to black students while at the same time undermining the tax base for public education in the state with the intent of undermining public education for blacks in the state. No dumber, short sighted and unsustainable policy could have been implemented. In the long term it hurt white children as badly as black as South Carolina is stuck with superanuated school buildings and underpaid, underskilled educators in a broken down public education systems that will cost them a fortune to fix. North Carolina and Virigina though equally hostile towards enforced integration via bussing took a much wiser approach and decided that though opposed, they must obey the rule of law. Those two states have benefited tremendously there by while many other southern states have paid serious consequences for their short sightedness.

I would not live in Arkansas or South Carolina if I had to send my kids to their awful public schools (Thank the good lord I received a good public education in Ohio and one of the best high school educations available in the world in Iowa.).

But one must recognize that the educational problems in the south are not just purely politics. Again cultural values play a huge roll. I don't know how many times in the rural south I've heard comments along the line of "What the hell does that boy need an education for to chop cotton?". There counter part in rural Ohio would have said "I don't care if I got to mortgage the whole damned farm, that boy is going to college!".

So yes, your point is a good one. It's not all politics. Cultural values play a huge roll.
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You are right there many ingredients involved involved in the failure of education. But even the simple 'blue' vs. 'red' state is too facial an answer in my opinon. This works both ways but there are states that vote 'red' in the Persidential election but will have a 'blue' Govenor or 'blue' state legislature for example. You reference Arkansas which is currently a 'red' state but its where the Clinton's are from and where Bill was a Governor. Even a state as 'Blue' as California has a 'Red' Governor. Massachettes is a very 'blue' state but have had 'Red' Governors.

Again just my opinion but if you are really loooking at an issue other than just trying to score points on a chat board this 'red' vs. 'blue' stuff does not come nearly close to addressing the issues.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
It should be easy for you to prove it then....what did he do, when did he do it and when did the miraculous results occur....

the Carter administration was what converted me from being a Democrat to being a Republican...do a good job and you might be able to win me back....
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I can't say that. I was to young to vote when Carter was President his first term but his political ineptitude (though he was a good administrator, Carter honestly can't be blamed for the stagflation period of the 70's and did a lot to solve the problem for which he does not get credit) and his gang from Georgia politically alienated just about everyone. So to make a long story short, I started out as a Republican. It's been the Republican party's gradual descent into right wing extremism and incompetence, as exemplified by Dubya, that converted me to a Democrat. The immoral invasion of Iraq was the straw that broke the camels back for me.

You know what's interesting. It was the Carter/Reagan Presidential debate, which Reagan clearly won, that first convinced me to become a Republican. But now, all these years later, if you go to You Tube and watch the debates again, with nearly 30 years of hindsight, even though Reagan clearly won that debate, it's self evident that Carter was right on nearly every issue they discussed and Reagan was ether wrong or uninformed. It's very interesting.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
ah, my chiropractor is on the board at Palmer....we talk about it whenever I go in.....
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Great school Palmer. I spent a year there before I decided that I didn't want to follow my fathers footsteps. I learned more there in one year then I did in all my undergraduate studies at Wright State and my masters program at Findlay College (a nationally recognized graduate program no less) combined. Palmer college is one hard ball buster of a school and their graduates certainly have earned their reputation as being the best Chiropractors.
 
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cawacko said:
You are right there many ingredients involved involved in the failure of education. But even the simple 'blue' vs. 'red' state is too facial an answer in my opinon. This works both ways but there are states that vote 'red' in the Persidential election but will have a 'blue' Govenor or 'blue' state legislature for example. You reference Arkansas which is currently a 'red' state but its where the Clinton's are from and where Bill was a Governor. Even a state as 'Blue' as California has a 'Red' Governor. Massachettes is a very 'blue' state but have had 'Red' Governors.

Again just my opinion but if you are really loooking at an issue other than just trying to score points on a chat board this 'red' vs. 'blue' stuff does not come nearly close to addressing the issues.
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Yea I agree in general. There are no such things as Blue States and Red States there are only "These United States". The rest is Orwellian politics used to manipulate and divide us on issues. That's why I refuse to consider myself either a conservative or a liberal.

Right now I'm pretty harsh towards the right wing of the Republican party as I believe they have descended into extremism by the dominance of social and religious reactionaries within the party. But if you can turn the clock back 30 years it was the Democrats who were dominated by extremist from a coalition of social welfare state liberals who didn't have much respect for those in the population who produce wealth and a badly corrupted labor union lobby.
 
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