this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025
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One person blocking improvement the other does something bad is both sides bad. Using all caps doesn't change that.
There is a difference between pumping oil from existing wells and wrecking new natural habitats for more oil.
Johnson, Democrat 1963. Too long ago to be relevant which is why I mentioned something newer.
??? Stopping crime is right wing?
We went from rivers so polluted that they caught fire and acid rain dissolving all public art to mostly clean rivers and air. If it was a ratchet we would have continued to go backwards. We would have gone from no gay marriage to criminalized. We would have gone from one river on fire to most rivers on fire. We would have gone from BLM back to segregation. The Ratchet Meme is a lie.
If you don't even know about the racist crime bills of the 80s and 90s then I shouldn't continue this conversation. There are clearly large gaps in your knowledge regarding recent American history. It's not my place to fill those gaps, but I also shouldn't be berating you for them. Good luck.
You are directing the conversation to anything other than the argument that the ratchet meme is a lie.
You picked Nixon earlier. If it was non stop right wing movement from 1974 with Democrats doing nothing we'd be back at segregation and rivers on fire.
American voters put the right wing in power in all branches of the government. They are the ones turning back the progress that Democrats achieved. The knob is going back and forth. It's not a ratchet.
I have given you multiple examples of the Ratchet Effect in American politics, but you lack the basic background to engage with them properly. You should start by looking into the Crime Bills of 1984 and 1994. Good luck.
Give an example from either of those crime bills that is specifically right wing.
Because I don't see lynchings happening anymore. Nor do I see lynchings written into either of those crime bills. I don't even see in the bills where it says minorities are to be arrested in greater numbers than whites.
That minorities are over represented in prison isn't written into the crime bills. That's a problem of systematic poverty in minority communities.
It is. It created disproportionate mandatory minimum sentencing surrounding powdered and crack cocaine, and since crack cocaine was affecting the black community at much higher rates than the white community, this led to a huge increase in the incarceration of black Americans. To be blunt, this is common knowledge, and you should be embarrassed to be missing it.
Black communities asked for the bill. It was written by Black leaders.
"Rep. Bass is right. According to a 1994 Gallup survey, 58% of African Americans supported the crime bill, compared to 49% of white Americans. Most Black mayors, who were grappling with a record wave of violent crime, did so as well. As he joined a delegation of mayors lobbying Congress to back the bill, Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said, “We’re trying very hard to explain to Congress that this is a matter that needs bipartisan support.”"
"In a recent interview Rep. James Clyburn, a member of the House leadership and one of the most powerful African American elected officials, reflected on the reasons for his vote in favor of the bill. “Crack cocaine was a scourge in the Black community,” he recalled. “They wanted it out of those communities, and they had gotten very tough on drugs. And that’s why yours truly, and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, voted for that 1994 crime bill.”"
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/did-the-1994-crime-bill-cause-mass-incarceration/
Should have kept reading:
Do you see how this demonstrates the Ratchet Effect yet? Conservatives (and Joe Biden) pass a piece of legislation during the Reagan years that causes mass incarceration of black men. Clinton doesn't move us back to the left, but passes legislation that reinforces the conservative legislation. The closest the Democrats get to, "turning the dial to the left," is when Obama gets legislation passed that makes the problem 18 times worse for the black community instead of 100 times worse for the black community, and only after the bulk of the damage is already done. Do you see how even, even when the Democrats, "move us to the left," things are still worse than where they started? That's the Ratchet Effect.
A policy demanded by Black leaders having unintended consequences is not a Ratchet effect.
Yeah, I'm not really interested in your thoughts on the legislation you just learned about from me a few hours ago, but thanks anyway.
I actually lived through it instead of learning "Biden bad facts" from Russian trolls a year ago.
Funny how you are only now not interested in my thoughts after I proved your claim to be wrong.