Political YouTube Clips Thread

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I think the video makes an excellent point personally. There's a clear double standard here.

 

Now we get down to it. After trashing auto workers and teachers, college students are next. Why? Because they vote, and sometimes "liberal." Since they don't know how "to reason" yet, let's take away their vote. Right? These attempts are mostly at the state level. While I'm not really a fan of affiramtive action [really more the way it is applied], some of us know what all this is really about and it's NOT affirmative action.

You can play this game with any number of people and religious, cultural conservatives are sitting ducks for this kind of ambush "journalism."

 

That's probably what it appeared to be. Politcal operatives hang out in all kinds of places. I'm sure the good answers to these loaded questions are in a trash bin somewhere. For me this isn't about affiramtive action. That's hardly a hot button issue these days. But it seems to turn up on college campus. Why not speak with the officials? When I worked on the campus newspaper we had almost full access to these types of questions from the people who crafted them. And we often had guest STUDENT writers, real students, who wanted to pubish on a particular topic, for students on campus.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs...blicans-wrong-to-attack-college-sudent-voting

http://act.mtv.com/posts/proposed-laws-threaten-college-students-right-to-vote/

 

What this guy's motivations were are largely not relevant to me. And of course, like any report where a person has absolute control over what is and is not shown, you have to take it with a grain of salt.

But there is a nugget of truth in this video that absolutely does relate to affirmative action, which is the double standard in sports.

I might agree that there's a difference between academics and the other categories. In professional sports the rules applied to any business should apply there. At the end of the day, all pro sports teams are are another form of business. They provide enteratainment and turn a profit. So the question of why in this business only the most talented get chosen but in other businesses a more talented person might be dismissed in favor of a less talented/capable worker demonstrates a double-standard. Either do away with affirmative action in a business context, or apply it equally.

In "academic sports" the rules applied to universities should be applied in selecting teams. If we're going to make concessions for who gets to come into a school and study academic topics, the same concessions should be made for those who go to a university to pursue athletics. It makes for a level playing field to train up in hopes of getting that job as a professional athlete. The alternative, do away with affirmative action here also, or again, apply it equally.

 

There are other considerations as well here when comparing say an IBM(Standard Business) to the Lakers(Sports). IBM employs how many people? Thousands, I'm sure. The Lakers employ how many players? 12-20. The athelte's performance in most cases will have a MUCH greater impact on the business than say a para-legal, a computer engineer or an administrative assitant will at IBM. The athelete is as impactual to a sports team as a CEO, CFO or COO is to an IBM. You can't just pick anyone for those positions, you need to pick the best, regardless of race, color or origin. Business practices need to be in a positive interest of a company to be a "justified" practice. Affirmative action is not a "black and white" scenario, but has many grey areas as well. It is and should be applied differently to each situation.

 

You raise a good point, but also a problem. With all the gray areas, contextual interpretations and so forth what you end up with is a big arse cluster %$^%.

 

But is that not true of any law? Or at least, most? And also is that not why we have a legal system, to review the laws and to adjust/amend the law when it's application does not treat each situation fairly? I believe Affirmative Action ito be a very slippery slope and needs to be closely monitiored by our legal entities to make sure it's application is adminstered justly. Which means we needs clauses and amendments that fit all scenarios.

 

My problem with affirmative action is that is applied by the use of quotas, which is largely unfair and counter-productive in my opinion. But BoV raises the valid and very good point that it can't be applied exactly the same way to every situation.

 

Perhaps. On the upside, it sounds like this sucker is the source of numerous jobs created in order to manage it... properly.

 

That's the thing though - as far as I'm aware, basketball is the ONLY sport where the vast majority of scholarship athletes are African American. It's not like only 10% of athletes receiving scholarships at our universities are white. I'm sure if you look at the hockey and lacrosse teams, they are almost entirely white - and they are getting scholarships too. The baseball teams are also mostly white (there's a huge Latino population in baseball at the pro level, but most of them didn't play college ball). Football is a mixed bag of different races.

So I really think we should look at ALL the athletic programs. Just like you shouldn't say we need more black athletes based on the composition of the hockey team, you shouldn't say we need more white athletes based on the composition of the basketball team.

 

I am developing such a man crush on this guy.

 

So he basically wants people to get along and start acting like adults?

I think you'd need to close them in without any media coverage altogether - no reporters, no blackberry access, no wi-fi, nothing. Food and drinks are optional*...
Otherwise, too many people will be too busy propping their ratings. Oh, and ideally, making elections a matter that lasts 2-3 weeks once every few years, not half year every other year, with more time for the presidential.

*Ok, we don't want them dehydrated, and I guess some sandwitches could be arranged in the interests of not having to call in an ambulance and risking an escape.

 

OK I'm testing something out here. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCDoBvG1HoI

Now I'm trying it with the youtube tags



Not sure if this'll work. Please pardon my ignorance.

I love this song!

What did I do wrong?

 

You need to put the "rCDoBvG1HoI" of the URL between the Youtube tags, not the whole URL.

 

I'll fix it when I get access to a desktop.

 

This has been making the rounds of the right wing blogs/emails. It shows why our society is in a lot of trouble.

 

This is awesome. I always liked him on Wheel of Fortune.



this one while not awesome I found amusing

 

Noam Chomsky is probably one of my favorite political commentators: